A few years back, we launched a nationwide study of over 30,000 adults, employed full- or part-time, to better understand employee engagement. We gave participants a list of statements to explore what factors played the most significant role in their engagement at work. The study’s results added depth to our previous work that showed engaged employees are more willing to adapt to change.
What we were surprised to learn was:
When we looked deeper, we found none of these factors had a clear correlation to employee engagement. In fact, employees perceived each of the needs expressed in the statements above as a basic requirement — that their employers failed to deliver. What we discovered is the following three statements demonstrated the strongest correlation to engagement:
We refer to these three statements as the Impact Index because they focus on the employee as an active participant and the power that employees do have.
This is important because when people are inspired to act, understand the needs they are addressing for their customers, and have their role in making an impact clearly communicated, they are ready to make a difference. The participants in our study felt most engaged when they were doing something meaningful with a clear impact on a real human being.
So how can you, as a CX leader, cultivate change resilience with active engagement? The answer is to give employees tools to make a real impact on people’s lives – their customers, colleagues, and communities. And as our research proved, people demonstrate the highest engagement not when their personal needs are met but when they feel empowered to help others.
CX programs are transformational; they require change which is a personal choice for every employee. To successfully execute, your program needs to understand the employee mindset and the behaviors they need to exhibit to deliver your future state experience. This means your efforts must focus on making the desired customer experience personal for each employee.
A top-down and bottom-up approach using co-creation as a platform gives employees personal ownership of the strategy. Co-creation innovation with a representative group of stakeholders is the most effective way to design future brand experiences and define the CX experience vision, values, and promise — creating the story that will drive organizational change.
When you engage employees in co-creation, they are inspired and empowered because they are part of the problem-solving process. As a result, they will be more inclined to take ownership and embrace the new strategy they helped to co-create. Active engagement from employees also gives CX leaders clarity on priority areas, cultivates change resilience, and facilitates stakeholder buy-in across the organization.
At ImprintCX, we believe that understanding relationships is the key to CX transformation success: the bonds between your brand, your employees, and your customers, and the interplay between your business and your employees. Let’s talk about how we can help you solve your challenges in innovative, effective, and exciting ways.
