Designing our work experience

Bank of America sent a letter to each of its 270,000 employees with the simple message to "Be Nice". This is after woeful customer satisfaction ratings. Is a letter enough? No, according to Customer Experience consultant Colin Shaw of Beyond Philosophy who stresses the need in the story for matching incentives and guidelines for how much time managers spend with customers and in branches. Apparently a more comprehensive plan to address customer satisfaction performance is to follow.

Via https://twitter.com/uxrat who has a pretty steady stream of interesting articles. And yes, he's a mate of mine too.

Listen to the full story at http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/bank-america-its-270000-employees-be-nice#

In our view, too many companies try to raise engagement by launching disconnected initiatives like wellness programs. Such initiatives might improve employee morale slightly and serve other purposes, but they’re detached from customers’ priorities. They lack the specific mechanisms that lift employee engagement the most over a long period and link directly to customer advocacy. ...

Companies that have substantially raised employee engagement act differently. They go beyond the basic prerequisites of employee satisfaction, which include an emotionally safe environment, the right tools to get work done and fair compensation. These trailblazers manage to instill an extraordinary sense of purpose and autonomy, as well as strong affiliation with the company and its offerings. They take a systematic approach, focusing on a few key areas.

Measure employee engagement just like customer engagement and tightly link the two