Many companies –including those with high-profile call centers -- have taken steps to improve employee engagement, and while they may have made small differences, few companies have ever managed to completely turn their employees’ attitudes around. It may be because companies don’t actually know what their employees want and are chasing the wrong goals. It may also be because companies are paying lip service to the issue and doing very little except making noise. What companies really need to do is study organizations that do have high employee engagement and determine what those companies are doing right. More often than not, it’s about the whole company culture.
Employee engagement is made of a lot of things: workers who feel appreciated and fairly paid, employees who believe that their employers put value on the work-life balance, managers who hand out rewards and recognition for a job well done, and coworkers who support each other. Together, these things add up to a positive company culture that clearly values employees rather than considering them a necessary evil or simply “labor costs.”
Carmen Medina, writing for the Risk and Compliance Journal, notes that the leader-follower dynamic – the popular corporate structure with leaders at the top and everyone else at the bottom to do their bidding – may be responsible for the record levels of employee disengagement and poor company cultures today.
“Managers who achieve great business results on the backs of their staff can destroy the morale of their employees as well as the reputation of an entire company,” she wrote, citing a Gallup survey. “In its own analysis, Gallup has found that managers account for 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement surveys.”
In other words, employee engagement may be less about the employees themselves and more about the managers managing them. People are often promoted to manager positions as a reward for work well done, or because they have impressive resumes. Too few companies wonder whether these people are capable of leading others in a positive way. Drill sergeants, people who cultivate “favorites” and shut out others aren’t doing the organization any favors, regardless of how well they know the business.
“Too many work teams follow the same tried-but-no-longer-true formula: The person in charge tells her staff what to do, and the staff members execute her orders,” wrote Medina. “Supposedly, this formula worked in the industrial era, and so it maintains a foothold in knowledge and creative work. But at what cost?”
Medina recommends that to eliminate the “top down” dynamic, managers spend more time listening to workers than issuing orders. In the call center, for instance, no one knows the customers better than the agents, yet how often do managers listen to employees’ suggestions? Allowing contact center employees more flexibility (and less reliance on scripting) can also help workers feel like they’re being trusted to solve problems with their own skills, which can lead directly to improved employee engagement. It can also lead to improved customer experiences: no one wants their problem to be handled by a powerless robot.