Every successful voyage benefits significantly from having a dependable, capable, and well-proven guide, particularly one that uses a detailed, user-friendly map with signposts to identify the steps required to achieve the intended target. It is also valid for improving employee experience (EX). 

There is a clear road to increased employee experience maturity and success with employee insights, with a map and signposts to help guide the way.

Four Signposts On The Employee Experience Maturity Path Map

Four unique signposts mark the employee experience maturity route, each bringing firms closer to their goal of optimal employee behavior and value as company assets. 

These signposts, or markers, represent points along the path, or trajectory, of the employee experience as companies, become more mature in a) how they consider employee contribution or the importance they place on it, and b) what role, or roles, employees play in enterprise culture, strategy, and business outcomes.

  • Employee Satisfaction

As firms seek to manage and measure behaviour at a macro level, the enterprise EX improvement and insights journey road frequently begin with essential employee satisfaction. 

It is the starting point for the employee experience maturity trajectory. 

Employee satisfaction often comprises job-related aspects such as remuneration, workload, management and leadership perspectives, flexibility, teamwork, resource availability, and so on.

  • Employee Engagement

The following, and first true, EX journey signpost leads many firms to employee engagement. Employees who are engaged have a stronger feeling of purpose within the firm. The dominating, HR-formed concept here regards workers as costs of conducting business for the corporation, with the overall goal of their fit, utility, and productivity inside the enterprise.

  • Employee Commitment

This signpost represents and acknowledges the arrival on the path to a deeper understanding of what creates and shapes the EX landscape: employee commitment to the organisation, its product and service value proposition, and customers - and a plan to optimise business outcomes and stakeholder value. 

Understanding and mitigating factors that hamper EX's success is part of this more progressive awareness. Employee fit, utility, and productivity are undoubtedly important, but they fall short when improving employee experience and connection to customer value delivery. 

Organisations must have a more current and actionable understanding of what inspires employees, links them to the culture and customers, and drives their behaviour as involved, highly contributing corporate assets.

  • Employee Advocacy

The EX parallel of the flag planted at the summit of a mountain peak is depicted on this signage. Few organisations can reach this fork in the road (although it is certainly within reach, with strategic focus and discipline, for virtually any company). 

However, companies with high rates of employee advocacy and a robust set of business outcomes have entrenched dedication and customer focus into the enterprise DNA, where the culture, operations, and procedures flow via the generation of stakeholder value.

What Impact Does EX Improvement Have on Customer Behavior?

We evaluated data from the last three decades to examine the transition from satisfaction to engagement to commitment and advocacy. 

We found studies that looked at aspects contributing to employee experience and value, such as reward and recognition, job fit, training, career possibilities, work environment, and departmental and management relationships. 

However, the crucial component frequently omitted or minimally addressed in this content is the unambiguous tie and commitment to customers.

"The brand is only a lagging indicator of the company's culture," remarked Tony Hsieh, Zappos's late founder and CEO. A culture and set of processes committed to employee and customer experience must supplement and support the brand image. 

Every time a customer interacts with the company, that brand promise must be delivered. Contributing to the customer experience analysis must also be fully and strategically baked into the organisation and all employees' job descriptions. Consider how frequently your consumers have direct or indirect interaction with your personnel. 

Every employee, whether customer-facing or not, should be an enthusiastic and devoted representation of the brand, whether through a computer screen in a customer care chat, on the phone, or in person. 

Suppose staff happiness and employee engagement are not structured to achieve this critical goal of the customer experience today. In that case, there will almost certainly be a suboptimal downstream effect regarding consumer behaviour.

The Value of Fostering A Commitment Culture

There will be varying degrees of dedication to the employer's brand, the business itself, its value proposition, and its customers in any group of employees, regardless of whether it's a service department, technical and operational division, or a branch office. 

Employees that deliberately work against the objectives and results of the company will be negative to the point where they undermine and even sabotage the value of the customer experience. On the other hand, advocates employees will provide more excellent service and assistance to consumers whether they deal with them directly, indirectly, or not.

The importance of the employee experience must be equal to that of the analysing sentiments for businesses to achieve and maintain higher levels of employee advocacy. In addition, there must be value and a sense of shared purpose for the employee (as well as the business and customer) in the form of recognition, reward (financial and training), and career prospects if employee commitment and advocacy are to grow. 

The advocacy concept can guide and empower organisations to be more stakeholder-centric, adaptable, dynamic, and financially successful when combined with advanced analytics and other employee-related data.