Page 14 - FCW, November/December 2019

Customer Experience
Employees:
The linchpin of agency success
Improving customer satisfaction and mission outcomes starts by focusing on the employee experience
Carmen Krueger
Senior Vice President of North American Enterprise Sales, Qualtrics
are many opportunities to engage with and learn from employees. Again, agencies should go beyond an annual survey by identifying meaningful moments in the employee life cycle or the agency’s mission delivery and then check in with employees at those points.
4. Be bold. We often fear feedback from customers and employees, and some of us have the perception that we only hear from those who have had negative experiences. That can be a self-fulfilling prophecy if engagement is not tied to the employee life
THERE IS AN inextricable connection between the employee experience and an agency’s ability to deliver on its mission. Federal employees are so central to mission delivery that agencies must always consider the employee experience when considering the experience of other constituents.
By understanding and improving
the employee experience, agencies can positively affect important workforce metrics, such as talent retention, while also having a material impact on agency operations.
To monitor and improve the employee experience, agencies should begin by measuring that experience in a meaningful way. An annual survey is simply not enough. Instead, agencies should tie that exploration to the moments that matter in the employee life cycle.
In addition, they should link employee feedback to constituent feedback because
of the way the two experiences are woven together. For example, if a constituent has
a poor experience, the answer to resolving
the issue may lie with the organization’s employees. Building a meaningful engagement with employees helps improve processes while also creating a virtuous cycle for constituents — or a chain of positive events that reinforces itself.
How to engage with employees
There are four simple activities that agencies should undertake to improve the employee experience (if they aren’t already doing them):
1. Analyze feedback and take action.
Information without action is fruitless. In
fact, it degrades the employee experience. When you ask employees for input and feedback, have a plan for using that information and, most importantly, showing employees the action you took.
2. Make employee experience part of the agency’s operational rhythm. An employee feedback cycle should not stand alone
but instead should be incorporated into the agency’s larger goals for improving processes, creating new services or responding to policy changes.
3. Engage with employees often. There
davooda/Shutterstock/FCW Staff
S-12 SPONSORED CONTENT