Member Article

Employee Appreciation Day: How customer experience tech can improve the worker experience

It’s always great to show your employees you appreciate them, but it shouldn’t be through free avocado smoothies or a once a year occurrence. It should be all year round. Let’s face it, if your employees only feel appreciated once a year, they’re unlikely to contribute productively or stay put. One of the most important things you can do as an employer is to listen to them and show that their feedback is valued. Many companies are still circulating annual, self-serving surveys to their employees, which never garner true staff feedback. As a result, these businesses are no closer to meeting the needs of their staff or solving any underlying issues. Which means the workers go unappreciated. This can be a costly mistake, with the average cost to employers replacing a single member of staff valued at £30,000.

It’s important for businesses concerned with staff retention to conduct surveys that allow open and honest feedback, that isn’t restricted by the questions the employer wants to ask or only happen during the yearly review period. Better than that though, is deploying always-on listening posts which allow employees to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas whenever they want to. This can be done in tandem with triggered feedback requests, for those events where worker feedback is likely or needed; such as a company conference or a procedural change. These regular check-ins go a long way to letting employees know that the company cares.

Further to that, giving staff the autonomy to self-correct with a detailed dashboard containing customer’s feedback and sentiment will allow them to better resolve issues and give compassionate customer service that makes a difference. All the while, having the feedback delivered straight to them in a gamified way, which is ideal for keeping staff happy and motivated to do the job. What really matters is the actions that come from those insights. Little things like this can improve engagement rates in surveys as staff know that the feedback is being acted upon, or they’re able to act themselves. A text message, email or even a voice broadcast from the CEO is just one way to thank employees for their contribution, their ideas as well as keep them updated on progress and overall leading to a happier workforce.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James King .