Employee Engagement is the key driver of customer experience according to BP3 Founder and Chairman Lance Gibbs. Gibbs is the author of the new book, Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys. I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Lance and he made the case for employee engagement.
First we discussed the title of the book. It is a Polish saying that means "not my problem." It speaks to a lack of engagement. According to the site Observation Deck, "Monkeys are 'problems' in Poland, and circuses are where 'problems' come from. If it's not your monkey, and it's not even from your circus, then it's not your problem."
Gibbs shares research from the Temkin Group that points to the impact of engagement. In the 2016 Benchmark Study, leaders in customer experience have 1.5x engaged employees compared to laggards.
How do you tackle the problem to drive employee engagement?
The book shares that the solution is three-fold. You need to address the people, the process and technology to create a transformational customer experience:
- People - Leaders set the tone for the organization. They need to create the environment that allows failure. The leadership has to show vulnerability, empowering employees to push the edges. Leaders set the chairs and then get out of way to let employees figure things out. Takeaway: Create an workplace that encourages, supports and celebrates failure.
- Process - Companies need to design processes that don't trump employees. Compliance and conformity can hamper engagement. Organizations need to allow employees to be creative and not be handcuffed. When the reason behind a rule no longer applies, employees need to be trusted to use their best judgement. Takeaway: Strive for an environment of constructive non-conformity.
- Technology - As consumers we expect everything to be accessible 24/7 in the palm of our hand. Yet, employees deal with back end systems that in many cases are stuck in a time warp. These antiquated systems create cognitive dissonance in the workplace and zap engagement. Takeaway: Get serious about what technology your employees use and how they do their jobs. Make sure your systems on the back end are as good as what the customer see.
Gibbs believes that, "Change is a matter of will." There is nothing fancy about what it takes to improve employee engagement. You simply have to be interested in asking the following question to your employees, "What would make your life easier and what can we do to help you do the best you can for our customers?"
Final Word: Putting employees first is not a new concept. Vineet Nayar wrote a fantastic book called, Employees First, Customers Second which underscores the importance. Nayar talks about the idea of the "value zone." All value created by a company occurs in the vital short distance between the customer and the employee. You simply can't have happy customers without happy engaged employees. In the words of David Skomo of UnitedHealth Group, "If we don't offer a really good employee experience, then might as well hang it up. Because employee experience is probably the number one contributing factor of a good customer experience."
