Previous research has shown that service workers are the only type of employees that are less engaged today than they were three years ago. Only 12 percent of companies actively solicit ideas from frontline employees, and less than one third set daily or weekly performance goals.To remedy this, organizations can introduce bottom-up collaboration and gamification to improve engagement which is not happening at this moment at the majority of organizations.
The NICE benchmark study –in front-line performance management- results are based on a sample of over 160 respondents from more than 130 different companies, the bulk of which represent the financial services, insurance, and telecommunicationsindustries. A report highlighting the main findings of the NICE Performance Management Benchmark Study can be found here. To me the most interesting finding was the following about supervisors as effective coaches.
In a Customer Contact Council study, 89% of respondents said that the most important supervisor responsibility was coaching and staff development, but the NICE benchmark study shows the following:
The study elaborates:
A good start is freeing them from analysis so they can spend their time coaching. Leading organizations in this area are throwing aside guidelines that require every employee have two coaching sessions per month. Instead, they focus coaching with the second and third quartile performers with the potential to be top performers. Consider how performance management approach can better target people and topics for coaching, to provide supervisors with more focus.
According to the NICE study:
- Eighty-eight percent of companies run contests and competitions to motivate employees
- Contest kick-offs and results are most frequently communicated through email (86 percent) and verbally (49 percent)
- The most common rewards used in contests and competitions are trophies (78 percent) and financial incentives (57 percent)
- Gaming mechanics are used infrequently, with only 31 percent of companies exploring some form of digital rewards.
