Are Your Employees Happy With the Support You Provide? You won't know unless you ask them!
By Saurabh Kumar Edited by Heather Wilkerson
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Companies keep customers at the center of all their activities, no matter the industry. As a result, they implement extensive customer support practices to redress grievances and improve services provided to the public. And that's all great. But when was the last time you asked your employees if they were happy with the support you provided to them?
Employees are the building blocks of an organization, and their contributions to a company's growth are invaluable. Just like you cater to your customers by providing them with personalized customer support, it is equally important to understand the needs of your employees and resolve their issues. Ensure you are always there for your employees whenever they need you and provide them with a friendly workplace. Employee engagement and productivity are directly connected to the support you provide to them.
To leverage employee support, you need to understand the pulse of your employees. Conduct surveys and ask the right questions to know how your employees feel about working in your organization. Their answers will tell you what you've been doing well and what could use some work.
Related: If You Want to Improve Employee Satisfaction, Try This Controversial Practice
Does conducting employee satisfaction surveys matter?
Yes, it does. And here are some of the reasons why an organization needs to conduct regular employee satisfaction surveys:
Making unsatisfied workers productive
Employee satisfaction surveys help you identify the employees who are not satisfied working in your organization. Once they are identified, managers can understand their issues, resolve them, and increase their productivity while ensuring they are more engaged.Preventing a toxic environment
Taking regular surveys and working on the findings prevents a toxic environment. Disgruntled employees lead to increased turnover and reduced productivity.Increasing employee retention
Without conducting employee satisfaction surveys, you will not understand how your employees genuinely feel about working in your organization. And if you don't know how they feel, chances are they will leave before you have an opportunity to work on the issues.Improved customer relations
You don't want your front-line staff taking their work frustrations out on your customers. You'll end up losing both of them. But, on the other hand, when employees are engaged and motivated, they build healthy and lasting relationships with your customers.
Essential questions to include in employee satisfaction surveys
The questions you ask your employees play a significant role in the results and insights you obtain. Here are some of the most important questions that you should include in your employee satisfaction surveys to reach conclusive findings:
Do you feel connected to your peers?
Let's start with a simple question. It is essential to know if your employees feel connected to their peers. Workers spend a large part of their day interacting with each other. If they do not feel connected to their peers, it will affect their overall work experience.Do you like the company's culture?
Every company has a culture that is unique to its employees. Therefore, your employees must be in tune with your company's culture. If they have issues with your culture, talk about it with them and work to find a solution.
Do you think the organization is open to change?
In the age of digitization, organizations need to be dynamic and implement flexible approaches to work. If your employees feel the company follows stringent rules that curb their free will, it affects their performance. Employees need to know you are open to change.
How seriously do the managers take your feedback?
If managers tend to ignore feedback, employees tend to become indifferent to contributing to the growth of an organization. This question helps you ascertain how well the management responds to the feedback provided by your employees and how valued your employees feel.
Do you feel that your efforts are recognized enough?
Management should acknowledge and show appreciation for efforts put in by employees. If employees feel managers do not value their contributions, productivity and engagement will take a hit.
Do your managers keep you updated about company news on a timely basis?
When your employees are regularly updated about important company news, they feel valued. Conversely, if they feel kept in the dark because of inadequate communication, they may feel like they don't matter.
Related: Employee Experience Matters More Than Ever. Here's How to Elevate It.
Effective ways to keep your employees happy
Here are some of the most critical ways in which you can keep your employees happy with seamless support provided to them:
Implementing Conversational AI
Modern help desks use conversational AI to facilitate seamless interactions between your employees and AI chatbots. Implementing this technology makes it easier for your employees to obtain personalized primary support without relying on support agents every time. All they need to do is log into the help desk and chat with the virtual assistants. These assistants are programmed to understand the context of the issue faced by your employees, scan your knowledge base and return with personalized solutions within a few seconds. Implementation of conversational AI facilitates smooth and automated support provided to your employees, making them happy and satisfied with the management.Automating the ticketing system
One of the biggest challenges while seeking support is creating support tickets. Traditional service desks often make the ticketing process tedious and complicated. By implementing a modern employee service desk, you can automate the entire ticketing system. These platforms allow your employees to create support tickets simply by initiating a chat with virtual assistants. A few simple clicks can help them get their cases routed to the support agents and all relevant details about the issue. Once the agents have a look into the matter and come up with a solution, they communicate the same to the employees through a centralized platform. As the case is resolved, the service desks automatically close the concerned ticket and add the details to your knowledge base for reference purposes. This way, modern employee help desks relieve your employees from spending their time and effort in locating a ticketing platform and creating support tickets.Integrating your employee help desk with a collaborative platform
Over the last two years, more and more organizations have been using online collaborative platforms to facilitate seamless communication and collaboration. You can leverage the support provided to your employees by integrating your help desk with your collaborative platform. Doing so would provide your employees and HR managers with a centralized platform to interact with each other. It is easier when employees seek support on the same platform they use for work. Integrating your help desk with a collaborative platform prevents your team from switching to a different platform whenever they need to resolve their issues. The integration also helps your managers and team leaders to keep track of the support provided to the employees and assess the same to take important decisions.Easy communication of employee benefits
Especially in the case of new hires, employees are often unaware of all the benefits offered. Instead of reaching out to the HR managers to obtain every tiny detail about employee benefits, try automating communication of these benefits. Modern HR help desks allow your employees to get all relevant information about their benefits by chatting with virtual assistants. If you have adequate data within your knowledge base, the chatbots would answer all questions related to employee benefits without the need to approach the HR managers. The exact mechanism can also convey work policies to your employees. Seamless communication helps you improve the overall employee experience within your organization, making them happy with the support provided.
Related: Automated HR Help Desk: A One-Stop Solution for Support Services
The final word
These were some of the most important questions to include in your employee satisfaction surveys and strategies to make your employees happy. Addressing the issues faced by your employees would help you leverage engagement and productivity. First, however, remember that it all starts by asking your employees if they are happy with their support. You'll be surprised by what they are willing to share!
