Workforce Management Featured Article
Tools and Approaches to Help Workers Feel More Valued and Boost Employee Engagement
Many companies today believe that the way to build morale among the workforce is to pay them more. While certainly an employee is unlikely to be able to cultivate a positive attitude toward work if he or she is underpaid, there is evidence that money is only a very small part of the picture.
Still more companies believe that the magic approach is offering perks to workers. Silicon Valley is famous for these perks, which are added to help improve the employees’ work-life balances. Companies also bank on these perks to keep workers from getting sick, which can have a strong impact on attendance and performance, according to a recent blog post by Dan Schwartz writing for the Association for Talent Development.
“More and more companies in today’s business environment are advocating for employee wellness and even creating resources for employees to take advantage of such as on-site fitness center and lunch and learn programs,” wrote Schwartz. “Organizations do this in order to keep their employees healthy, which will improve their performance levels and lead to overall company success.”
While it’s another great step toward helping employees feel valued, there is evidence that what really keeps employees satisfied in their jobs is great managers who offer support, guidance and opportunity; kind coworkers who don’t try to undermine other employees for the sake of competition; and a feeling that the worker’s efforts are contributing to the company’s success. Put simply, workers who feel they are working under an autocratic manger with hostile coworkers and performing work that simply doesn’t make much of a difference to anyone will not be happy, engaged workers. These workers are often highly stressed, and are therefore more likely to leave.
“In a study cited in Forbes.com of more than 22,000 employees in 12 global countries, there is a positive correlation between high stress and low employee engagement,” wrote Schwartz. “In fact, only one out of 10 employees with low stress levels claimed that they were disengaged in the workplace. In addition, the study cited that highly stressed employees took nearly twice as many sick days as low-stress employees, thus having a negative effect on productivity.”
One of the greatest determinants of employee work-life balance is a work schedule that is designed to be fair and flexible. In the contact center, where sticking to the schedule is more critical than in nearly any other industry, a certain amount of workers with the right skills need to be staffing the various communications channels at all times. Workers simply can’t “step away” for an unplanned break when they need it, or take a day off when their child becomes sick, or they have a dentist appointment. Using a robust contact center workforce management solution, however, managers can more easily make the small adjustments (rearranging lunches, for example, or swapping shifts with other workers) that help workers feel they aren’t tied to their jobs with barbed wire.
With many modern workforce management solutions, workers who need days off (or part of a day off) can submit the request to the solution, and the software can determine whether it’s possible to make the changes. (The worker who needs an afternoon off, for example, can put in a request, and a worker who would like to pick up a little overtime can respond to the request.) In this way, the manager may not even need to be bothered, as long as the schedule is covered with the right skills.
Work-life balance and feeling valued by an organization are the biggest determinants of employee engagement. Using the right tools, companies can insure that the call center feels like less of a prison and more likely a family.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi