Workforce Management Featured Article
A Set of Strategies to Increase Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is critical for all businesses, but it’s particularly important for companies with high turnover. The call center industry, which has some of the highest turnover of any employment sector, struggles with employee engagement. While you won’t be able to reduce turnover to single digit numbers, some efforts to improve employee engagement will pay off in the form of improved productivity and efficiency, customer retention, lower HR costs and higher profits. Simply put, engaged employees are happier, both at work and in their lives.
What Are Some Ways to Boost Employee Engagement?
There are a variety of methods that can be used to improve employee engagement. Some are simple, and some get quite complex.
Basic surveys. If you don’t know what your employees’ complaints and peeves are, you can’t address them. Once or twice a year, consider circulating an anonymous survey to gain feedback. While you won’t be able to promise you’ll fix all the problems employees have, you can identify their top irritants – and they’re more likely to air them if you do it anonymously -- and take steps to make changes. Employees will see you’re making an effort, which is important.
Be transparent. Employees will become discouraged if they believe they’re working for a management-heavy organization will arcane rules and mysterious decision-making processes they don’t understand. Consider having more open-door policies, and include input from front-line call center workers on important decisions. Employees are more likely to be content to work to rules and policies if they had a hand in crafting them.
Go high-tech. By talking to employees, you can capture the issues effecting engagement that they’re aware of, but there is evidence that there are deeper issues that may be visible only to a deep analysis driven by artificial intelligence, or AI.
One issue with surveys is “they only capture a part of the information, and that’s the part that the employee is willing to release,” KeenCorp co-founder Viktor Mirovic told the tech development publication Dice. When surveyed, respondents often hold back information, he explained, leaving “unsaid” data that has an effect similar to “unheard” data.
Going forward, the future of work might include performance management systems that use AI to uncover worker grievances before employees even know they have them. To learn more about the Future of Work and how AI will drive the workplace forward into the twenty-first century on employee engagement and other topics, plan on attending the Future of Work Expo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from February 12 to 14, 2020. For more information and to register, visit www.futureofworkexpo.com.
Edited by Maurice Nagle
