How to Enhance EX to Drive Growth

Research in recent years has proven that there is a direct link between the employee and customer experience. Exploring this link, we partnered with Genesys to hold a focus group discussing the pivotal role of EX in shaping the future of work. Specifically, we looked at whether organisations are prioritising EX and how they are integrating it into their business strategies to drive growth.

Before delving into this discussion, our partners shared a few striking statistics to highlight the impact of employee engagement. According to research by Gallup, 67% of employees feel disengaged in the workplace and this disengagement is costing $8.8 trillion in productivity globally.

Our partners at Genesys revealed that organisations who put in the work to keep their employees engaged can see the below CX benefits and business results:

• 81% reduction in employee absenteeism
• 70% of engaged employees have a good understanding of how to meet customer needs
• 10% increase in customer loyalty/engagement
• 18% increase in productivity
• 21% more profitability
• 4x more innovation

These findings paint a clear picture, demonstrating that great employee experience can deliver great customer experience and business results.

HOW MANY ORGANISATIONS PRIORITISE EX OVER CX?

With the above data in mind, one would think that organisations are investing heavily in employee experience. In fact, you might think that leaders are prioritising it over customer experience, considering that happy employees result in happy customers.

However, having polled our focus group members on how they balance the prioritisation between EX and CX, we found that nobody is prioritising EX over CX. Instead, the majority of our focus group members said that the two are equally prioritised, with some admitting that their focus changes based on the demand at the time.

HOW DO WE INTEGRATE EX INTO THE BUSINESS STRATEGY?

33% of respondents also shared that they see EX very effectively integrated into their business strategy. When asked to share some examples of how leaders can link the employee experience to customer engagement, some of the answers we received were:

• Encourage the alignment of employee goals and organisational goals
• Help employees embrace the organisational values to strengthen their connection to the business
• Take your people on the journey with you and ask them for opinions and feedback

THE EX JOURNEY

We often speak about the customer journey, putting all of our focus on what customers do and how they feel about their interactions with our organisations. Yet, we do not think about the employee journey enough. During our discussion, this point was raised and unpacked, with some members sharing tips that can help improve the employee experience.

One member revealed that they analyse the entire employee journey, from the moment they come to an interview to the moment they leave the organisation. They identify the key stages and map the journey in order to find the pain points (with the assistance of their people).

In addition, they send out quarterly ENPS surveys, which work the same way as NPS surveys. Therefore, the questions ask whether they would recommend working at their organisation and why they gave the score that they did. The answers are then studied separately or using software to analyse sentiments and identify key trends. Underlining the importance of discussing these results openly, the participant stated:

“One of the biggest challenges is always to walk the talk, not only talk about EX and how important it is, but actually doing things that might be uncomfortable, addressing those barriers that employees might have to be engaged openly, and trying to improve them.”

SURVEY QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU GAUGE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT LEVELS

Talking about the ENPS prompted a more in-depth exploration of employee engagement surveys and the questions they contain.

Unfortunately, there is a disconnect between what employers think is good EX and how employees feel. This means that leaders can easily miss the signs of disengagement.

To prevent this, internal surveys can help you gauge how your people are feeling and what changes you need to make. The survey questions our participants found effective are:

• Do you feel recognised?
• Has a manager recognised you in the last seven days?
• Do you feel looked after?
• Have you had enough training?
• Did you have all the tools in place to carry out your job?
• Does your manager talk openly and honestly with you?
• Do you receive support and guidance?
• Do you have autonomy to make decisions?
• Do you feel inspired?

The most important thing to remember is that you must discuss the results – whether positive or negative – and make the necessary improvements.

In conclusion, employee experience and customer experience are intrinsically linked. While it is important to balance the prioritisation between the two, organisations need to invest in employee engagement if they want to see tangible benefits like increased productivity, profitability and customer loyalty.

Ultimately, creating a positive employee experience is not only beneficial for your people but also for the organisation's bottom line.

Learn more by reading Genesys and MIT’s Customer Experience and The Future of Work report here.