Employee engagement is becoming top priority for many employers; in last month’s article we discussed the importance for businesses to understand the level of engagement of its workforce. An engaged workforce is a key driver to increase productivity, innovation and to maintain a competitive advantage. Although regularly measuring employee engagement through surveys is an important component to understand job satisfaction, there is a lot more management can do on a daily basis. The 'Employee Turnover and Retention' study by the CIPD, groups the reasons as to why many employees choose to resign into two distinctive groups:

The 'Pull' Factor: Sometimes it is the attraction of a new job or the prospect of a period outside the workforce which 'pulls' them.

The 'Push' Factor: On other occasions they are 'pushed' (due to dissatisfaction in their present jobs) to seek alternative employment.

Line manager’s who foster a “poor relationship” with employees can be a push factor behind an employee’s decision to leave their job. Often times, a poor relationship with a manager is hard to define, but a thorough exit interview is a step in the right direction in identifying potential issues. A recent study by Henley Business School highlighted factors employees identified as a way a line manager can affect engagement:

1. By fostering a participative, facilitative and empowering management style - not controlling or micro-managing
2. By being approachable, available and open and willing to share thoughts and feelings
3. By giving ongoing, constructive, open, direct and timely feedback
4. By working with honesty, authenticity and competence

Organizations should also examine ways to support line managers in engaging their employee’s. This might include setting engagement-based targets for management which are linked to rewards, team goals and team rewards. According to the same study, a lack of training, development and career opportunities were also major reasons why many employees resigned from their jobs. More companies are now implementing a workforce management approach as part of a strategy to help them identify unutilized skills within the company and the best ways to develop them. A workforce management strategy of fully utilizing skills is of particular importance in the current economy with many businesses running lean.

Organizations that view employee engagement as an ongoing process rather than a once a year survey are sure to see a more productive workforce! Midwest Staffing Group has a team of dedicated HR professionals that are ready to assist your organization in evaluating and implementing a comprehensive workforce management strategy through a variety of programs including line manager training, diagnostic survey’s and a variety of other methods! Contact your local branch office for more information about how we can assist your organization reach your strategic workforce goals.

Does your organization have a concern about the impact that the long recession has had on employee morale and engagement? Are you wondering how your current work force is holding up and if there’s anything you could do to improve the environment? As many organizations may have put off hiring to make up for revenue lost they have also turned to their current workforce to boost productivity, work longer hours and to take on additional responsibility.

In addition to increased workloads, remaining employees might have to deal with additional measures such as salary freezes, furloughs, reduced retirement and health benefits. Many organizations have also conducted layoffs at least once over the course of the recession which also impacts employee morale.

As employers are asking their employee’s to do more with less, it is essential that employer’s understand the level of engagement of their employee’s to ensure top performance. Employee engagement can be measured through various measures, but perhaps one of the more effective ways is through an employee engagement survey. Midwest Staffing group conducts annual engagement survey’s and selects actionable items to improve for the next year. We have an experienced HR team that is dedicated to assisting our client’s measure and improve their employee engagement levels! Feel free to contact our HR department to discover how we might be able to assist your organization.

If you wish to develop your own, Gallop has created 12 basic questions to discover engagement levels. This is a great starting point to help you develop your own survey! http://www.workforce.com

After you have developed your questions, one tool that helps measure morale is a web-based survey application called "Survey Monkey". Organizations can customize the surveys to meet their needs on a variety of topics and use it to supplement the objectives of larger strategic initiatives. Measuring employee engagement levels is a great first step to improving a work environment; just ensure your organization is ready to address what it uncovers!

Buzz Marketing

Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tactic, which can either help or hinder companies. Every visit and encounter between you and your staff with a customer is categorized and ranked by the customer. If the service is good or bad, it will be remembered and most likely be talked about. If the visit is non-eventful run of the mill encounter it is not thought about twice. It seems to me that the majority of my conversations with family, friends, and co-workers lead to places we have just been, places we want to go because we heard good things about it and always leads into places we will never go to again because of the service or quality.

“The average person who has a bad-service experience tells at least nine others about it and l3% of complaints relate their experience to more than 20 other peoples. In comparison, people who receive an excellent service only tell three or four others about it" - Research Institution of America

Triggering a Good Experience

1. Be personable
2. Make connection with customer make them feel like their business matters
3. Listen to your customers
4. Empathize with customers
5. Exceed customer expectations
6. Stay proactive and keep gathering customer service ideas
7. Employee satisfaction directly correlates to quality customer satisfaction

Management at Culvers Connects

I had a memorable experience at St. Albert’s Church bazaar where the Albertville Culver’s catered in a stand. I have always enjoyed Culvers because of their great quality food and friendly service but at the bazaar, their service went above and beyond especially being out of their element with limited supplies on hand. My family and I ordered four corndogs and a pulled pork sandwich. The corn dogs were brought out to our table promptly but too promptly, I bit into mine and found that it was cold. I pondered just eating it but decide to take mine back so Culver’s was aware that their cooking time needed to be tweaked.

I brought it back to the counter where they apologized profusely and said that they would bring one out right away. Shortly after I sat down a Culver’s employee had followed me back and asked about the condition of our other corndogs we informed him that they were all cold but too hungry to wait for new ones. He apologized again and offered to bring out four new ones, which we declined since the other three were already devoured.

Management then made the decision and brought us over not just one but four new-cooked corn dogs. We were all pleasantly surprised by this gesture and commented on how this kind of exemplary service is needed at more places in order to gain customer loyalty. Thanks to Culvers initiative, they retained 5 loyal customers

Importance of Good Customer Service

1. Customer retention
2. Customer referrals
3. Trigger a good experience worth talking about