Employee engagement: the foundation for customer engagement

One out of four people would fire their boss. Wow. According to a new Gallup workplace study, it’s true.

Of course it won’t be news to you that there are both engaged and disengaged employees in the workplace. Or that the resulting effect of these employees can be positive or negative for the companies they work for. In fact, this isn’t the first time Gallup has done research on exactly this issue, or the first time I’ve written about it in this blog. (I’m a big fan of their management book, “First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.” I think of it as a bible for managers. If you haven’t read it, get a copy soon. It will help your business.)

This new survey also reveals that engaged employees have good relationships with their manager and consider that relationship crucial for success. Here is what Gallup found:

Another surprising statistic revealed in the study estimates the loss of productivity from employees who are not engaged is about $382 billion each year (impact on the US economy).

As much as I write about how important it is to communicate effectively and listen to customers, it is also very important to do the same internally with employees. Positive customer or employee word-of-mouth is fabulous and helps your business, and negative word of mouth--customer or employee--spreads fast and can hurt a business.

What can you do? I’d recommend reading “First, Break All the Rules,” and working through the 12 questions posed in the book. Once your employees respond positively to most of these 12 questions, your business will be in good shape. And then you can start focusing on customers again.