A vital ingredient to business success is the importance you place on your customer experience. Making sure your customers go away happy is key to the transactions you are doing right now, but also future purchases, building and maintaining brand loyalty, and positive word of mouth feedback to future potential customers. Entire departments are responsible for making sure a brand’s customer experience is paramount – have you ever stopped to think how many designers have been involved in honing the sensory experience of opening an iPhone box? Or what happens with all those pop-up surveys you complete after browsing a web page? It’s no secret that to be a market-leading brand, you need to offer a market-leading experience.
But whilst organisations recognise the importance of investing in their customers in this way, how many see the experience of their internal customers - their employees - with the same level of importance?
In 2014, Virgin Media equated a poor employee value proposition in their recruitment processes to a staggering £4.4 million loss in revenue. Candidates that felt they had a negative experience of the recruitment process actively chose to move away from Virgin as their broadband, TV or phone provider when the opportunity arose - and also told their friends and family of their negative experience which led to them doing the same. The total impact of these potential employees severing ties with the brand equated to millions of pounds of lost revenue. Whilst not every organisation will be able to quantify a negative employee experience in this way, there is undoubtedly a financial impact to all businesses who fail to value their employees in the same way as their customers. Whether it’s a loss of revenue due to a change in spending habits, a negative review on Glassdoor that stops you attracting the best new talent, or a culture that deters longevity of service, can you really afford not to treat your employees in the same way as your customers?
A key time that your actions as an employer can have an impact on an employee’s lasting experience of your organisation is if you have to make the difficult decision to let people go. If employees leave feeling ignored, cast aside or unimportant, this can lead to disruptive departures, negative feedback or reviews of your organisation. It also means a lot of time and resource is required to maintain business as usual, as well as mitigating the impact of the negative noise. On the flip side, if this is handled well, despite the potential shock and disappointment, employees leave as continuing brand ambassadors and advocates of your business. Your brand identity can even be strengthened in these interactions if employees feel they continue to be well looked after on their way out of the company and retained colleagues can see that that your business truly values them and their contributions.
When partnering with NFP, your employees will be assured they will receive a market-leading outplacement service, helping them move on positively. We pride ourselves on offering premium outplacement support to every single person we work with, whether they are leaving in isolation or as part of a larger group. Every person we work with receives a personal conversation with our experienced engagement team, so that we can find out what’s important to them and where they see their career going next. We then use this information to match them to the ideal consultant for their needs, based on the skills, experience and sector knowledge of the consultant, but also just as importantly the personality and style match of that person. This helps your people feel truly understood and looked after during what can be a difficult time and builds the foundations for a successful relationship.
Once someone is matched with their consultant, the support they receive is on an ‘as long as it takes’ basis, meaning that their consultant will be there to support the individual with bespoke, tailored, 1:1 support for as long as it takes them to secure their next opportunity. This might be a matter of weeks but could also for a variety of reasons end up being months. We never tell someone that their time is up, or there’s nothing more we can do to support them, so every single person we work with goes away having achieved the right result for them.
Because everyone receives the same calibre of support regardless of whether they are leaving a CEO role or just starting out in their career, you can be assured that your employees feel valued by us and by you. People leave feeling that they have been offered relevant and timely support rather than being processed through a tick box exercise. They are treated as a unique individual and feel appreciated in the same way that you clearly value your customers. In fact, 98% of the people that receive our outplacement support have told us that working with an NFP consultant improved or significantly improved their experience of career transition.
To find out more how we can help you, visit our outplacement services.