Having engaged and motivated employees is key to a successful customer experience (CX) programme. But they’re also critical when it comes to change management. We’ve already talked about why it’s important to measure your change management efforts. Now it’s time to focus on why it’s important to measure employee feedback when going through a major change in direction.
Your staff are closer to your customers
They interact with your customers on a daily basis, and are most likely to see in real time how behind the scenes changes impact your customers. Whether it’s changes to process, systems, structure, staffing or workplace culture, your staff are your eyes and ears for learning what’s working and what’s not.
Related content: The 10 Pillars of Employee Experience
Communication needs to circle back to the top
Change management relies on communication to succeed. Getting employee feedback helps you close the loop on your communications and avoid autocratic, top-down communications that can leave staff feeling ignored and not listened to.
Offering a variety of eNPS surveys, employee engagement surveys, pulse surveys, and inviting 360-degree feedback can help businesses identify:
- Where change messaging is clear—and where it is not.
- What aspects are challenging for staff.
- Where further training is needed.
- New problems that need resolving.
Feedback can drive further change
The collective mind is a powerful thing. Providing staff ways to give feedback about your organisational changes can not only help you identify the wins and the friction points, but drive further change as well. They might have a unique insight into a particular problem, or offer a creative solution you hadn’t thought of yet.
Read more: 5 secrets to a successful employee engagement survey
Change takes time and buy-in
Changing an organisation takes commitment and perseverance. Internal roles and responsibilities will likely change, along with changes in team structure, employee interaction and workload. Any of these factors, if introduced to an unmotivated or unengaged employee base, could be enough to derail the change process, or at the very least make it less effective. This is why it’s important to get buy-in and ensure everyone shares a common vision and leverages shared processes and tools. Providing employee feedback opportunities throughout the change management process is integral for this.
From a practical perspective, a strategic CX programme needs the input of multiple groups across the business such as product, channel, brand, operations and analytics, to work across organisational silos. Having open communication lines is not only good for management and productivity, but also good for building stronger working relationships between individuals and teams.
Learn effective strategies to implement change in your business with our free guide.
