Valuing Employees' Input Leads to Better Employee Engagement

To many companies, the idea of whether their workers are happy or not isn’t a big issue. After all … who IS completely happy with their jobs? Workers don’t actually need to be happy to do their jobs … right?

‘Employee engagement’, the modern term for worker happiness that leads to better productivity, is being increasingly recognized as a critical factor for a company’s success. According to a recent article by Bourree Lam writing for The Atlantic, worker happiness has been linked to 12 percent more productivity in some research, and companies with highly engaged employees perform better (3.8 percent better) than their competitors in the stock market. With only one in five American workers reporting that they feel valued at work, many employers have realized the scope of the problem. Every year, employee disengagement costs American employees $350 billion annually in lost productivity.

While companies may not be interested in keeping their employees happy simply to be nice, lost productivity is translating to action. More forward-thinking companies are adding perks to keep employees happy: free gym memberships, dry cleaning, food and meals, game rooms and more.

“One startup is looking to help companies fight employee unhappiness with better data,” wrote The Atlantic’s Lam. “TINYpulse uses anonymity and simplicity to zero in on company problems: Weekly, a one-question survey is sent out to assess how workers feel about anything from compensation to the condition of the bathrooms.”

Perks may help, but it’s also probably not enough. Workers are looking for personal recognition for the hard work they do. They’re also looking for affirmation that their employers value their opinions. The idea of surveys is a good one, and may do more than help workers feel that their opinions count. Employees, after all, spend their time on the front lines (unlike executives) and may yield valuable insight into improving operations.

In the contact center, turnover is already high, and a lack of employee engagement can directly affect the quality of customer support being offered. Companies put a lot of money into recruiting, hiring and training front-line contact center employees, and losing them once they’ve gained the knowledge necessary to become good workers can seriously damage the company.

According to workforce optimization solutions provider NICE, there are ways contact centers can foster better employee engagement. By providing better transparency into operations and performance metrics, companies can raise the perception of fairness among employees. Other techniques include tying employee performance to organizational success in a very tangible way, so employees can see how their own success is inexorably linked to that of the company.

Increasingly, companies will discover that they simply can’t afford not to take steps to boost employee engagement. Disgruntled employees are more than just the subject of newspaper comic strips: they may be costing companies billions each year.