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The Contribution Of Employee Engagement To The Bottom Line

The Contribution Of Employee Engagement To The Bottom Line
by Paul Shoker

Employee engagement programs separate great companies from the rest of the pack. When properly designed, implemented and managed, these programs can increase revenue, align employee behaviors with company goals, reduce a myriad of business costs and create a happy workplace that will in turn create happy customers.

When employees are aligned with their company’s mission and values, it's easier for them to understand their own impact and how their contributions increase the capacity of their company to succeed. As a result employees view themselves as stakeholders and with that assume responsibilities and ownership of service delivery that delight and resonate with customers.

A recent study by Aberdeen Group on employee engagement revealed that companies with a formal engagement program have a 233% greater likelihood to retain customers. In addition, they experience a 26% increase in annual revenue, and are seven times more likely to attribute performance to the customer experience by identifying what competency skills affect employee performance. Aberdeen also found that employee engagement drives customer loyalty by over 7% with repeat business at 7% year over year.

For customer loyalty to exist, companies need to understand how their employees impact customer satisfaction. Empowering employees with the right training, knowledge and technology to give and get feedback, contribute ideas and collaborate are imperative for superior service delivery.

Successful businesses use employee and customer feedback to determine which skills and competencies are contributing to employee and customer satisfaction and loyalty, then create profiles of each employee to identify common behaviors between high-performer profiles.

These identified behaviors can then be used to help other employees who may need more skills development, along with setting expectations when hiring new employees.

They can also be used to build a formalized program for recognition and rewards based on insights into which form of reward best fits recognition for desired behaviors.

Read full article on CEO.