Workforce engagement management (WEM) is a set of technology, tools, and business practices focused on employee engagement and satisfaction being at the center of productivity, customer service interactions, and business success. If you’re new to the world of workforce, you’ve likely seen a variety of acronyms in your research, training, or other findings. WEM is an employee-focused iteration of methods and processes used to promote productivity and efficient management across contact centers.
Workforce engagement follows in the footsteps of workforce optimization (WFO) and workforce management (WFM) as popular practices in contact centers. While WFO emphasized streamlining quality management processes to promote productivity at reduced cost, WFM added an additional layer of scheduling and forecasting for optimal staffing. WEM is about ensuring employees are happy to in turn, keep your customers happy.
The importance of employee engagement
Engaged and happy employees are directly tied to better business performance, especially in contact centers. According to Gallup, engaged employees are more likely to create better relationships with customers, promoting a 20% increase in sales. Disengaged employees are also attributed to around $1.9 trillion in lost productivity annually.
In short: sufficient WEM solutions help businesses, their employees, and the customers they serve.
When boosting productivity, WEM solutions also improve employee retention and cost savings. Investing in employee engagement tools that promote better work-life balance, performance feedback, and goal recognition will save companies in the long run. Gallup estimates that 51% of US employees are seeking new employment. To replace leaders and managers it costs around 200% of their salary, technical and professionals roles cost about 80% of their salary, and 40% of a frontline employees' salary.
How do we enhance workforce engagement?
Enhancing workforce engagement starts with building a company culture that values each employee. Gone are the days of “what can you do for me?” as an employer. Today, we need to reframe this workplace question as “what can we do to help each other?” This question should be asked at all levels of the organization to foster a cohesive work culture that encourages employee engagement and satisfaction.
Contact centers and other customer service organizations can utilize WEM software like Aspect WorkforceOS™ to enhance engagement efforts with:
- Clear communication and personalized feedback
- Cohesive goal setting and performance tracking
- Employee recognition and rewards
- Balanced schedules promoting work-life balance
- Coaching and learning opportunities
Focusing on performance management and quality management, in addition to employee needs, creates a better experience for your team and the customers they assist.
Communication is key in employee engagement
Clear and thoughtful communication is essential to effective workforce management. Leadership must develop communication practices across all levels of business to ensure cohesion among teams. Enhanced communication practices are exceptionally important in an era where remote and hybrid work are more popular than ever.
Effective communication helps employees understand individual and company goals, performance evaluation, service expectations, and organizational changes. Not only does this help teams stay on track during their day-to-day workflow, but clear communication instills trust between managers and employees.
WEM platforms typically include communication tools to facilitate relationships among contact center teams. WorkforceOS™ includes communication tools throughout the product suite, including various channels to manage employee scheduling changes, performance feedback, and goal tracking to ensure alignment between managers and employees.
Create a continuous feedback loop in with performance management
It’s difficult for employees to strengthen skills and work processes without feedback from management. A continuous feedback loop between leaders and employees is important throughout the workday and communication process.
Tools like dashboards with real-time performance metrics, evaluation screenings of customer interactions, and role-based learning systems all play a key role in effective workforce engagement. WEM solutions open the lines of communication for immediate feedback to adjust employee performance as quickly as possible, shifting customer service interactions as they occur.
Utilize analytics to promote data-driven engagement
Numbers talk, particularly when making important business decisions. Workforce engagement management solutions provide relevant data for companies to make informed choices.
Real-time analytics can provide insights for businesses to identify performance gaps and enable employees to improve. For example, an automotive company’s contact center needed to change their coaching methods, planning to shift towards a proactive method rather than a reactive method. The automotive company used Aspect’s WEM solutions to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) in real time, adjusting coaching strategies as needed to enhance the customer experience.
How to measure and monitor engagement levels
Employee engagement can be measured by several KPIs. The most important KPIs will depend on your business and its overall goals. Workforce software with robust reporting capabilities can provide insights into common contact center KPIs like:
- Calls per hour
- Sales per hour
- Average handle time (AHT)
- First contact resolution (FCR)
- Abandon rate
- Service level
Monitoring these performance metrics can help a business determine where to focus coaching and incentivize efforts for employee improvement.
Additional KPIs that can be measured to determine employee engagement and satisfaction include:
- Absenteeism
- Employee turnover rate
- Employee net promoter score (eNPS)
Tracking these metrics and taking a proactive approach to boosting employee satisfaction will reduce attrition and keep your contact center team staffed with engaged, talented, and hardworking people.
Reward employees for a job well done
Recognizing and rewarding team members is a cornerstone of employee engagement. Everyone wants to feel appreciated when they’ve done hard work, especially in the customer service space where maintaining good relationships is critical to business success.
Building a culture of acknowledgment and appreciation starts with establishing and tracking business goals. Workforce engagement tools help provide transparent goal tracking for employees to monitor their progress, as well as manager views to offer clear insights into work productivity. These rewards can include points to put towards company merchandise, additional paid time-off, vacation packages, or any other customization suited to your business.
Gamification solutions can boost employee engagement with healthy competition, team leaderboards, and integrated rewards options based on your company's unique needs. Aspect League™, part of the Workforce Enterprise product suite, is a gamification solution that turns work into play and fosters a culture of achieving higher goals and rewarding employees accordingly.
Value employee wellbeing and work-life balance
A key differentiator between WEM and its predecessors WFO and WFM includes the added component of prioritizing employee work-life balance. A Gallup study found that "Engagement & Culture” and "Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance" were two of the most common themes for people leaving a job. When an employee feels overworked, underappreciated, and overlooked by management, engagement and satisfaction will drop, causing customer service interactions to suffer.
According to a 2023 Deloitte Digital report , around 63% of contact center leaders expressed having a staffing shortage. Eventually, an employee experiencing burnout is more likely to leave, increasing turnover rates.
Effective workforce engagement practices and tools can improve work-life balance and decrease employee attrition. Give your employees agency over their schedules with workforce tools that enhance self-service options. Self-service scheduling options give employees the opportunity to adjust their work as needed, putting personal lives first with occurrences that matter most.
Further career development and learning opportunities
Lack of advancement and career growth opportunities are among the top reasons people leave a job. If there isn’t space to grow or learn in an organization, why stay long-term? Career growth is determined by your business structure, but WEM can help inform choices around development.
Workforce engagement tools can give businesses clear insights into building learning management systems aimed to enhance skills. WEM tools can also offer insights into performance metrics crucial to determining advancement opportunities for high-preforming employees.
Tools like Aspect Workforce™ can give employees clear views into set performance goals and KPIs that will determine eligibility for company advancement. Having a transparent view into leadership expectations surrounding professional development gives employees something to strive toward, improving engagement and satisfaction.
Workforce engagement helps shape workplace culture
We’ve discussed how workforce tools can enhance engagement at contact centers and customer service organizations, but that's not where it stops. Workforce engagement can shape company culture, developing an environment where employees feel seen and prioritized.
Changing workplace culture through engagement can be done with:
- Acknowledging, discussing, and finding solutions for employee stressors.
- Having meaningful conversations about employee performance, including recognition of positive work and constructive feedback where improvements can be made.
- Transparent communication about company goals, mission, and purpose, which includes how employees contribute to each factor.
- Shifting leadership approaches to coaching strategies rather than traditional methods, across all levels of business.
Shaping a strong workplace culture is more important than ever before with the shift towards hybrid and remote work. Keep your employees informed with clear, frequent communication about their individual work, as well as company goals and changes.
So, what are the WEM takeaways here?
Workforce engagement management is an effective way to keep your employees satisfied, customers happy, business productive, and workplace culture thriving. WEM tools and processes that bolster clear communication, performance tracking, employee recognition, work-life balance, and coaching from leadership can make vital differences in your workforce. These practices and tools are essential in contact centers but can also be utilized in customer services organizations and across diverse industries
Aspect is your partner in creating a workplace culture built on employee engagement, empowerment, and satisfaction. Choose the right innovative workforce tools to continually help your team have the best workday experience while providing excellent customer service.
