Time for more science in employee engagement

Heading into 2024 a new year’s resolution for many customer service leaders at utilities will be to finally crack the nut of employee engagement and job satisfaction. But will companies throw sufficient resource and imagination at this goal, linking it to strategic outcomes? Or will efforts remain in the realms of “nice to have” business benevolence?

Speaking with a focus group of senior customer function leaders from a selection of energy and water companies before Christmas, they almost unanimously agreed that employee improving employee engagement and revisiting reward and progression frameworks will be priorities over the next 12 months.

The drivers for this are clear. As energy and water markets change in response to climate change, strained resources, societal mood shifts and technological advances more and more will be expected of service agents. For example, new tariffs and pricing structures designed to influence consumption are expected to drive higher customer contacts and more complex queries.

Even without the need to walk customers through novel propositions, our group of service leaders said agents are already feeling a shift away from transactional interactions with customers, towards a higher proportion of more emotive and involved conversations thanks to the stresses of the cost of living crisis, growing public interest in climate change and the fact that investments in automation and self-serve options have diverted much of the historical high-volume, low value contact center fodder.

All this means that the front line agents will be delivering an increasingly high value role for companies and customers alike, requiring growing levels of empathy and knowledge. And yet, today, the industry still generally sees a high level of churn in contact centres. Rates of 30-35% attrition within six months of joining an organisation are not uncommon.

Clearly this is unhelpful. Without a stable and committed employee base in contact centres, utilities will struggle to support and engage with customers at a pivotal moment. Fresh thinking around on-boarding, training, development and career pathways are solely needed. But for these to be properly resourced and supported by risk averse finance teams, they need to be clearly linked to strategic outcomes. And here we hit a rub.

According to research conducted by Utility Week last year, just under half of utilities are proactively capturing and linking data on employee engagement and customer satisfaction – even though 94% agree in principle that excellent employee experiences should lead to excellent customer experiences.

Commentators in our research report Creating the virtuous circle, agree that there is a woeful lack of science and strategy in the way employee engagement and reward are approached in the utilities sector. Especially in the water sector, some leaders feel this situation is perpetuated by a chronic lack of value being placed on investment in people and skills within the regulatory framework.

Notwithstanding regulation though, if companies really want to develop high value service operations capable of supporting customers through behaviour changes and adoption of new products and services – even as their ability to pay for these becomes increasingly strained – they will need to think harder about whether their proposed employee engagement tactics can be linked to measurable business outcomes. Companies that have already done this report substantial and sustainable improvement in staff retention, job satisfaction and performance against customer satisfaction metrics. Those that do not seem to perpetually struggle to take employee engagement beyond the realm of grudgingly attended team social events and token awards. It’s not enough.