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Company Culture Matters, and Workforce Management Can Help

Call Recording Featured Article

Company Culture Matters, and Workforce Management Can Help

August 21, 2015

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By Tara Seals,
TMCnet Contributor
 


When it comes to running a profitable, successful company, most metrics involve things like productivity, operational efficiency, margins and the like. But here’s something else that matters, which affects all of these metrics and more: Company culture.


Underpinned by effective workforce management, a collaborative, positive environment can translate into real business benefits, especially in contact center environments. Those companies that have invested in collaboration are more innovative, faster at problem solving, and quicker to respond to market shifts and customer demand trends, all of which create a competitive advantage.

There’s hard evidence for this as well. For instance, a recent study by Dale Carnegie found that companies with engaged, enthusiastic teams outperformed others by over 200 percent.

One highly effective way to engage employees is to establish an internal communications plan. Towers Watson research reveals that “companies with highly effective communication practices enjoy 47 percent higher total returns to shareholders compared with the firms that are least effective at communicating."

A solidly positive working culture also translates into improved employee retention, which lowers costs and allows a company to keep and build upon key skill sets. A recent study by CareerBuilder found that 46 percent of employees surveyed were looking for a positive work culture, and these same workers may look elsewhere if the current company culture takes a downturn.

And that can be a real problem considering that companies can expect to spend up to 150 percent of the annual salary to replace mid-level employees. In fact, businesses lose $11 billion a year due to employee turnover, according to Dale Carnegie. Plus, the recruitment effort can take resources away from employee training and other high-value activities.

Further, if team members don’t truly understand how their contributions fit into the big picture, they may feel disconnected and disengaged. And that takes a big toll as well. The National Business Research Institute said that a whopping $370 billion is lost annually due to disengaged employees and resulting poor business outcomes.

And finally, building an engaged culture driven by employees that feel some ownership over the success of the company leads to better customer interactions.

“A great example of a company putting this concept into action is Zappos, which famously offers new hires $2,000 to quit, a way to easily dismiss employees who aren’t a good culture fit,” explained a Business2Community column on workplace culture. “Zappos also gives employees money to order shoes so they get a sense of the customer experience. By making customer service a pillar of its company culture, Zappos has been able to ensure consistent high-quality customer interactions, breeding happy, lifelong customers.”

While all of these things—better collaboration, employee satisfaction and retention, and better customer service—can be enacted through human policies, using an effective workforce management solution can better enable a company culture strategy. Increasing employee engagement starts with focusing on improving communication.

“A team that communicates well is more efficient, and more effective communication means projects get done with fewer snafus, increasing overall productivity,” B2C noted.

Workforce management solutions can be a critical factor in facilitating better communication. It allows companies to manage communication options and specialized functionality like messaging, calendars, alerts and other notifications, customer relationship management software and more. Employee portals can act as an interactive platform for supporting the ongoing collaboration of workers, employers and work teams.

Workforce management also gives companies insight into how knowledge and skills sets are being deployed, and the impact on customer care outcomes. For instance, if employees are being shifted around too much, they’re constantly re-forming relationships and re-learning their roles—to the detriment of collaboration. Conversely, identifying which care teams are the most critical for business results can help companies ensure that these groups are getting the resources and talent necessary to optimize positive outcomes.

A solid workforce management platform also provides real time visibility to time/attendance data, and helps contact center companies track promotions, lateral moves and the relative performance of key personnel—to help companies identify and encourage leadership development, which helps employees feel valued.

“While having a positive company culture may seem like a superfluous concern for managers, it can actually be one of the most critical components to your company’s success,” B2C concluded.




Edited by Rory J. Thompson
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