Engaged employees are not necessarily relentlessly curious employees.
Do you identify who the relentlessly curious employees are in your organization? Perhaps you should.
Because they are key to positive customer experiences. And they fuel customer success and customer retention. Here’s why.
In general, employee engagement focuses on the value of perceived, and measured, employee-centric experiences. Obviously, unengaged employees, those who do not feel purposeful or acknowledged within workplace culture, underperform.
However, do engaged employees, effectively and impactfully, pay employee experiences forward? When engaging with and serving customers?
- First, does employee-focus translate into customer-focus?
- Second, not every employee perceives their relationship with customers the same way.
- Third, not all employees solve problems the same way.
- Fourth, how does an employee experience culture walk the talk, and walk the walk, as a collaborative customer-focused culture?
Creating a culture of relentlessly curious employees catalyzes a collaboration culture.
Ponder whether all – or just some – engaged employees have permission to “not know” the answer to a customer question? Then, what happens next? Do all – or just some – employees act independently? To find the “someone’s” in the organization who do know the right answers? And then, what happens with that knowledge? Is it shared or hoarded?
Are employees with different educational pedigrees “allowed” to work with each other, cross-functionally? To observe and learn how the critical-thinkers in your organization determine the root causes behind issues? And are employees too intimidated by various professional disciplines collaborate: outside of pay grade, employment tier and academic degree?
Throwing people together, on mandatory team assignments, is not collaboration. It is just a bunch of people. And many do not understand what is involved in purposeful, productive and profitable collaboration. However, they could learn.
A relentlessly curious, collaborative workforce is a profitable workforce.
Often, very talented – yet undervalued – employees work in hourly-wage jobs. Simply because they never have the opportunity to observe – and learn – how to solve problems more thoroughly and effectively. These employees, combined with knowledge workers, hold the keys to bridging the collaboration gaps in your organization.
Make Relentless Curiosity a Professional Opportunity, instead of a perceived Risk. And make this Professional Opportunity accessible to everyone.
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Babette Ten Haken catalyzes organizations and associations, like yours, who want to leverage a more profitable workforce to retain the customers you work so hard to win. One Millimeter Mindset™ speaking and storytelling programs are dedicated to: Leveraging Collaborative Business Models and Profitable Workforces to Retain Customers. Babette is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Babette’s Playbook of collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Her professional speaker profile appears on the espeakers platform.
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