Organizations that do not engage with their employees are negatively impacting their bottom line. According to Gallup, disengagement runs companies about a third of their disengaged employees’ salary in lost productivity. Replacing the disengaged employee can run from about half to 2 times their annual salary. As expectations from potential and current employees move higher on what they define as a positive work experience, organizations will have to work harder to prospect for and keep good talent. As top organizations attempt to raise the level of engagement and the overall employee satisfaction, it will challenge those that are lagging in this competitive workforce landscape. It will also improve the customer experience as recent Glassdoor research shows.
To provide insight into ways that organizations can further engage with their employees, here are five ways organizations can use real-time actionable insight to increase employee satisfaction:
Measure your current employee satisfaction
Every day at organizations around the world, employees are having positive and negative experiences. Most of these emotions that employees feel are beyond an organization’s perception. The accumulation of these positive and negative emotions builds the memories of experiences for both the employees and the customers in which they interact with. By measuring the emotions on how employees perceive their work in real-time, their interaction with others and their employer, organizations can find better ways to build a stronger bridge between what they assume to be the experience of their employees to the reality in which they perceive these experiences. By asking and measuring how employees see their daily experiences, organizations move closer to better understanding the positive and negative emotions employees have and how that impacts their work.
Allow for anonymous communication
Employees know that in order to advance and have a positive picture presented to their supervisor and their employer, biting the hand that feeds them is not a solid strategy. By allowing employees a way to provide anonymous feedback, organizations are allowing themselves the ability to gather the true reality of how the employee perceives their work experiences. By allowing just positive feedback, as the employee attempts to not jeopardize their position, an organization hinders the opportunity to make the changes that really impact employees and to move these negative internal emotions to higher levels of employee satisfaction. This benefits the employee to let them have a voice or to vent their frustration. It also benefits the organization to open more spaces of communication. Leaders see critical feedback as valuable insight to transform versus a challenge to their status to themselves or the organization.
Make it easy for your employees to provide feedback
As employees encounter information overload, increased pressure to perform, new technologies, along with higher stress levels, having a way where the employee can provide simple feedback will benefit all stakeholders. By making feedback simple, approachable, and easy to give, it allows the employee to focus on their work and their daily life. For the organization, having a simple and effective way to collect real-time feedback increases communication channels to build better engagement with their employees.
Use the real-time feedback to make quick changes at employee pain points
Allowing a voice for the employee to express their emotions is important for their well being and for better engagement. By using real-time feedback, pain points in the employee experience can be addressed quicker and more efficiently. As employees see that their voice is heard and that their employer listens, it will show that their employer does care. Building a stronger bond within the organization increases employee loyalty and enhances the internal culture. This positive energy gets delivered in the brand that is shared outside the organization. Individuals want a sense of control of their surroundings to bring more certainty. The constant interchange between real-time feedback and positive changes made will address this important need.
Share feedback results and positive successes
As organizations share the results of the real-time feedback collected, it engages the employee to see where the feedback is going. As improvements are made along the pain points of an experience and these results are shared throughout the organization, more trust is built that a voice heard and acted upon. By sharing the positive feedback and results based on the changes made, it also drives a more engaging and positive culture. Developing a community focused approach to the common goal of providing more value to the employee experience brings more cohesion and bottom line results. It will also have a positive long-term effect on the life experiences the employees, the company, their customers, and the community to which they serve.
Wrapping it up
The days of a survey once a year to capture what employees are thinking are fading fast. Employees want engagement and higher employee satisfaction. Organizations that are taking advantage of engaging more with their employees are seeing improvements in positive culture shifts and bottom line results. Measuring and making changes in real-time is moving towards becoming the norm in this changing work culture. When culture and technology changes quickly, so do individual expectations. In a world where employees can instantly share their positive and negative experiences through the internet and social media, organizations are constantly under examination from current employees, potential employees, their customers, and the public. By being proactive in measuring and improving results for the employee by constantly engaging, organizations will stay on top of current and potential employee changing expectations to drive better experiences and be the employer of choice.
About SmileyAnswers
SmileyAnswers provides real-time actionable insight by utilizing the HappyOrNot® Reporting System. With over a 1 billion feedbacks to date from over 100 countries, the four Smiley’s from HappyOrNot® are providing a voice for customers and employees to allow organizations to make the positive changes necessary to improve individual experiences. With easy-to-use data on a secure online reporting dashboard, performances can be easily tracked to make quick changes from the real-time feedback. The results from these positive changes can be shared to all stakeholders through live sharing and other ways to boost morale, reputation, and the bottom line. Visit SmileyAnswers to learn more on we can work together to achieve positive experiences for your customers and employees.
