How to improve employee engagement
Brand Identity is the starting point for the SERVICEBRAND approach and a key question following on from this is “How is the organization’s brand identity going to be represented and brought to life?” The employees delivering the service and representing the brand play a fundamental and crucial role. With effective employee engagement in place, there is evidence of decisions being made at all levels of the organization in the interest of the customer and a general understanding of how the whole organization needs to support the representatives who engage directly with customers. There is a widespread misconception that employee engagement is the same as employee satisfaction, but a satisfied employee isn’t necessarily an engaged employee. An engaged employee puts their full heart and mind into their work whereas an employee who is merely satisfied or ‘happy’ may be doing the bare minimum to remain employed.
Representatives v employees
The point about including everybody who represents the organization in employee engagement solutions is important because not all the people who represent a company are full time employees. Sometimes they are employees of the outsourced service partner companies or part-time workers who are employed in line with demand. Significantly, these representatives who are not directly employed full-time employees are often in customer facing roles where their behaviour has a direct influence on the perception of the organization and its brand – the receptionist in a corporate office, the car park attendant, the call centre handler, the delivery person, the IT engineer etc. The SERVICEBRAND approach encourages a ‘one view’ of the organization in its entirety and an appropriate employee engagement response.
We offer a range of employee engagement services from co-creating an effective employee engagement strategy in much the same way as we create a customer experience strategy. We take an employee experience journey approach to improving employee engagement and use the following tools amongst others:
- 31Practices approach – to convert employees into brand ambassadors by bringing to life the organisation’s values every day
- Omotenashi: the practice of heartfelt hospitality – a customer service training programme
- Velocity – a leadership team workshop to agree the SERVICEBRAND plan and specific initiatives
- VALUES.ALIGN – improve the recruitment process effectiveness by using values-based recruitment
- Recognition – when this is done well, we believe it is one of the best returns on investment you can make. We can help to co-create your own tailor made programme
It is also important for the employee engagement activities to be aligned with the brand identity.
“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.” Stephen R. Covey
Endorsement
Alan’s commitment, willingness to engage and sharp insight characterise the tremendous value he has added as a Non Exec on the Board of BQF.
With the simple and practical 31Practices approach he has created, Alan has found a refreshingly different way to make values as inseparable from the modern mission-based business as the double helices of DNA. Both his speaking style and work style have been a pleasure to experience.
31Practices is an excellent method and has played a big part in LifeSearch’s whole company, long term focus on our culture and values. The bespoke nature means the LifeSearch practices we carefully created remind all ‘Searchers every day of what we are about and why, and the behaviours we need to display to protect more families than anyone ever thought possible.
I describe Alan as the most HR savvy operator I have ever met! What’s more he is great fun to work with.
Alan's support has been instrumental in improving levels of engagement and overall performance, personally and with my team. He is a very good listener, gaining a deep understanding before cocreating an improvement plan. He is also very engaging and easy to work with.
Vision, challenge and strategy allowing individuals to stretch their potential. An inspirational leader.
Truly progressive thinking. The pragmatic approach to providing a customer experience achieves measurable return on investment.
An absolute pleasure to work with. Focussed on ambitious results but does what is right and leads in a truly inspiring way.
Rarely do I come across a book which is as complete as this one. Alan and Alison have left me nothing to say. They have put together an encyclopaedia of understanding about what it takes to build the neural pathways of an organisation.
The best thing about the 31Practices approach is how it energises front line employees and gives them confidence to bring the organisational values to life every day. One of the team in New York said "Our 31Practices is like my bible at work. I read it every day and it makes me a better person". Priceless!
The blend of emotional intelligence and commercial acumen is rare! The dedication to customer service is an example to follow.
Alan used the Servicebrand approach and his almost uncanny ability to engage programme stakeholders to provide Dell EMC with accelerated business impact and sustainable performance - at scale.
In the employee engagement survey, we dramatically outperformed the High Performance Norm.
Our Investors in People accreditation review hit our highest score to date and our bottom line profit rose by 25% over two years as well.
Alan spoke about the Values Economy at the 2nd Global Conference on Creating Value . His brilliant talk was convincing and energised the audience.