The Missing Link to Employee Engagement

In a world where customers and employees have an ever-growing number of platforms to discuss and rate your company, customer and employee experience must be at the forefront of every successful businesses strategy;

‘Businesses that have an employee, customer-centric approach are three times more profitable than their competitors on average’

A huge factor that affects customer experience, that every company can improve on and will really see the benefits from is employee engagement.

But what does that mean? Engagement comes from employees feeling good in their role, feeling passionate about the company, doing meaningful work and feeling a real sense of identity with the job. From a scientific perspective, this comes down to neurotransmitters and hormones.

Managers in a company can intentionally stimulate the brains of employees to generate dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, helping create positive feelings towards the organisation; dopamine brings the anticipation of reward, serotonin gives workers a feeling of well-being and oxytocin helps them to bond and feel connected to others.

So, how do you engage employees and in turn become a better CX leader in your industry? The key is to ensure all areas and levels of the business buy in to investment in this cultural strategy. It is imperative that not just Customer Service adopts this but that it spreads across all areas of the business; Finance, Sales, HR and Marketing.

Human Resources usually own the employee strategy, but it is really important that, in order to improve, they understand the starting point – which is how, and how often, do you monitor employee engagement within your business? There are many external companies that offer services which measure employee engagement.  There are also a lot of great ideas that have been tried and tested with Customer Experience leaders that can be easily implemented in house. (Keep an eye out for my next article.)

When the starting point is measured you can break down aspects and see which areas need focus. A few examples are: internal employee communications, employee training, on boarding process, performance motivation, awards, celebrations, incentives, listening to employees, manager engagement efforts and, finally, your recruiting and hiring processes.

It is a great idea to measure throughout and beyond the cultural transformation to see how you are faring in each area of employee engagement.  It is imperative that businesses continuously strive for improvement.

The process of successfully engaging an employee begins right at the start of their journey with you – their application not their start date. Candidate experience through the hiring process is vital to getting employee engagement right.

Imagine a recruitment process that is fragmented, disorganised, unreliable, poorly communicated, not communicated, interviews moved, cancelled, forgotten.  You would be surprised at how this is normal for so many companies.  Why would that talented, skilled professional choose to join you if this were their experience?  Yet, I am sure the same company is spending £000’s on fresh fruit baskets, wellbeing discounts, pension and other benefits?

Every company I have dealt with wants to ensure that anyone new joining their business will be committed to their strategies and has the same moral values, yet for many this does not include their recruitment process.

Working in partnership with a recruiter such as Douglas Jackson enables your business to ensure employee engagement is right from the off.  Working with a professional, quality led service provider, as well as our Douglas Jackson Search, digital platform, much improves your candidate experience, is more personable and a far more engaging process than a faceless ATS or automated process.

We can offer job, behavioural profiling and detailed information on a  potential new employer that goes much deeper than a standard job description or company bio. Information and detail that engages potential employees from the start.

If your organisation has identified the link between Customer Experience, Employee and your Candidate Engagement and wants to act upon it to improve, Douglas Jackson Search will be a great option for you.

Please contact me for a no-obligation consultation.

Alternatively, I am really keen to hear success stories on employee and candidate engagement strategies and the ways in which businesses measure this so please do get in touch.