In today’s digital economy, customers are demanding a more unique and personalised experience that’s accessible and functional. Failing to provide a customer-friendly mentality can mean a hit to the bottom line.
To create efficient customer experiences businesses must prioritise how they manage and treat their internal staff. Recent research conducted by Forrester in partnership with Appirio found business leaders in broad agreement that engaged employees are far more likely to be productive and provide customers with a best-in-class experience.
But who is responsible for monitoring the worker experience in a business and ensuring employees are kept motivated?
The same research report uncovered vast disconnects when it comes to ownership of managing the worker experience. 48 percent of respondents said that direct line managers were responsible, while only 11 percent said it was HR’s role. The truth is, worker experience spend still remains firmly under HR and the C-suite’s remit.
Coupled with this is the view that because executive management, HR and IT aren’t responsible for worker experience, planning and investment for these programmes falls short. This current disconnect calls for the creation of a new role, the Chief WX Officer (CWXO), dedicated to the responsibility of managing the worker experience.
Currently, businesses rely on disjointed funding and project schemes to improve worker experience (WX). Only 26 percent of companies surveyed have a formal WX programme in place, while the remainder fund these efforts on an ad-hoc basis.
It’s not surprising that WX isn’t a formal budgeting item, given that cross-organisational leaders do not take responsibility for it. What this decentralised approach tends to do is limit investments in the types of programmes that would best benefit workers.
Where do we go from here?
If companies don’t address and formalise how they invest in and coordinate WX programmes, their businesses will suffer. Managers recognise this, as seventy percent or more of business leaders believe not improving the worker experience would negatively affect their ability to attract and retain the best talent, ensure worker productivity, and, ultimately, deliver good customer experiences.
The CWXO’s role can help tap into what motivates engaged employees. Ultimately, the cornerstone of any WX programme that aims to retain staff, should be a robust measurement programme that includes techniques like surveys, employee interviews, and professional training offerings.
A CWXO can also ensure that any technology introduced supports the needs of the worker. For example, if a software company rolls out a new cloud offering, product managers must decide what types of support services it offers to ensure clients get the most value out of the product. Customer and employee journey mapping can prove useful here – allowing the business to lay out parallel client and worker journeys to see what each side needs to be successful.
The responsibility for the changes and investment needed to ensure a positive worker experience lies with the executive leadership. Establishing a dedicated CWXO to manage and set up a programme can have direct implications on all parts of the business, down to the bottom line. Because a positive worker experience means engaged employees and positive experiences for customers.
