Today, as organisations confront the challenges of COVID-19, more agents than ever before are working remotely. Keeping them engaged is critical. On the one hand triggering healthy competition between team members while on the other building camaraderie – even if they’re no longer working side by side in an omnichannel contact centre.

Yet, there’s still some way to go. Temkin Group suggests only 33% of staff feel highly engaged, while Gartner found 56% of service leaders in 2020 said they faced difficulty retaining high-quality agents.

So, what’s the secret sauce for an effective employee engagement strategy? And how can technology help?

How you start determines how you finish

Planning is everything. The first step is to understand what engagement means so you can design the right experience for your agents. Don’t make it task based. Think instead about the things that really trigger their passion and commitment to perform and go above and beyond.

The organisations that seem to be getting employee engagement right have set about building a strong culture of value and trust. Common features in their models include ensuring:

  • Transparent and unbiased work distribution
  • Honest performance feedback supported by recorded facts
  • Greater coaching and development self-control
  • Fair reward and recognition system
  • Flexibility to trade shifts and holidays
  • Clear career progression path

Consider some of these ideas. And don’t forget the principles of successful change management. Employee engagement programmes run solely by senior managers with little input from employees are unlikely to end well. So, ask your agents what they’d like to see.

Use technology to enable and replicate success

In its Global Human Capital Trends report, Deloitte concluded that having the correct enabling infrastructure was the #1 driver of employee engagement globally. Putting the right tools in place to help agents do their jobs certainly helps keep them motivated.

And that’s hugely important. Imagine constantly toggling between screens, asking the same questions and re-keying data into multiple systems. That’s soul destroying. It’s also a downward spiral to negative customer experience from stressed, burnt-out agents.

That’s why we designed Genesys Cloud for improved workforce optimisation. With open APIs to unify apps, data and workflows with everything managed via a single omnichannel desktop. Breaking down silos so agents get job variety and can move between virtual receptions, helpdesks, sales, marketing, order fulfilment and other roles.

With workforce engagement management now fully embedded in our cloud contact centre software, Genesys Cloud acts like a personal trainer, capturing best practice and empowering agents to collaborate, learn and progress together.

Persevere … it’s worth it

In summary, work out where you’re heading and have a clear route for getting there. The prize that awaits is certainly worth having. Many top performing organisations have seen how high employee engagement multiplies positive customer experiences. And that’s paying back through fewer complaints, less sick absence and savings on recruitment and training.

Our handy guide provides more examples of how technology can support agents while also driving engagement. For more strategic approaches to CX in the contact centre, view the report How to deliver customer experience in the 2020s.