In business it is very easy to overcomplicate things; when businesses are first set up they often adopt natural intuitive practices, then as they grow they may lose sight of their original motivation. Much can be gained by stripping back and looking at the core essentials of engagement.
Our approach is to present a holistic approach to both the Employee and the Customer Experience and to emphasise the importance of encouraging natural behaviours.
The Employee and Customer Experience has to go hand in hand, if you examine the underlying desires of both groups you will find many similarities:
| Employees | Customers |
| Valued | Valued |
| Trust in Employer | Trust in supplier |
| Supported when making decisions | Supported when making choices |
| Responsiveness | Responsiveness |
| Authenticity | Authenticity |
| Honesty | Honesty |
| Reliability | Reliability |
| Made right decision in joining | Made right decision in purchasing |
| Belief in brand values | Belief in brand values |
If you engage the hearts and minds of your employees, they are more likely to want to help you engage the loyalty of your customers by providing an experience, which is honest, authentic and memorable.
Today’s younger employees are looking for very different patterns of employment, and have a desire for more flexibility, they enjoy the freedom of working for themselves, and they use social media to make connections.
Post-Covid, this desire has spread to many other employees, hybrid working has opened up opportunities for a very different way of working, and when employees have different options, it will be much harder to retain the talent that you need.
As part of our coaching and consulting work and through our research, some very interesting factors have emerged in the ongoing perception from employees about what they need to feel engaged with an organisation.
Here is a sample of some of the comments:
‘Definitely need to feel valued and trusted. It’s not just about what you are paid but also about how you are trusted to do your job and have been given the freedom to make decisions. This goes hand in hand with having a leader that has the ability to manage and motivate a team towards a common goal.’
‘Being part of an effective team is really valuable in terms of getting more from your day than just being paid.’
‘It’s also important to feel that you are being developed, be it coached or having the choice to choose training which all contributes to feeling valued and therefore increases your willingness to engage with an organization to help achieve goals’
‘To be more engaged with an organization I need,
Empowerment
Responsibility
Autonomy
Feeling trusted
Authority
Personal Development
Effective Team Membership’
Respect has to be earned, and as consumers become more discerning, organisations are learning the hard way that they have to be transparent and open in the way they treat their employees and other partners in their supply chain.
Those brands that earn our loyalty, we will seek out, and we will forgive minor errors, because overall they are working hard on our behalf to give us what we need before we know that we need it.
These are the organisations that will engage with their employees and their customers and these are the enduring brands of the future.
The Employee and Customer Experience in Practice
One of the most important facts about the employee experience is that it cannot be viewed in isolation. If you want to be remembered for consistency, responsiveness, and above all quality of service and to enable all employees to achieve their full potential, it is important to clearly identify the common goals, values and aspirations and to share this through the development of organisational excellence. This goes way beyond just focusing on employee engagement; it is an integral part of the DNA of an organization.
Your brand must be authentic and built with integrity so that it becomes your lifeblood, and not just marketing speak. It is from this core that you build your reputation; from the moment you first open your doors for business you start creating an impression in the eyes of your customers, suppliers, potential employees and the local community.
Acting with integrity should be fundamental in the behaviour of all individuals. It is that strength of character that knows what is the right thing to do; but more importantly than that, it is clearly understood that when someone acts with integrity, their actions will be supported by their line manager.
That they know they can act on their own initiative to right a wrong, use their own discretion to create customer satisfaction. That they are intrinsically honest and trustworthy, and know that their own actions can either enhance or destroy their organisation’s reputation, and more importantly care enough to want to enhance rather than destroy.
Fundamentally the employee experience is built upon a number of core aspects of your business, your values, your business practices, your Employer Brand, the level of employee engagement and should be embedded into your business in the most natural way possible and like many terms used in HR and OD, adopted as a practice, but not necessarily named as a process.
At the highest level of this engagement comes a number of outcomes, loyalty, effort, commitment, respect, and a willingness to go beyond just turning up for work, instead there is a real desire to help the business succeed.
It’s also about emotional connectivity, encouraging people to use their initiative, encouraging individuals to take responsibility. It’s about employees not just identifying, but also believing in and sharing the goals of the organisation. It’s about creating a working environment where individuals feel supported and motivated to take direct responsibility for making success happen.
Most organisations will already have good working practices already in place, so one way to start is to identify the key elements of the employee and customer experience and map it against current working practices and their status.
In practice, it means identifying what is working well within your organisation and where you have issues or areas needing improvement. This is your key starting point, from this you can begin to identify the specific areas of action and their priority.
If you are a new organization starting out you also have an opportunity to set in place best practices that will help your organisation grow successfully.
Why not contact us and see how we could help you create the most meaningful Employee and Customer Experience.
If you would like to read more about our approach to employee and customer engagement, please see below: