A few months back, I shared an article on using empathy mappings to improve employee engagement. This article was taken from a WordCamp Miami session with Mr. Bartender, which I attended earlier in the year.
The conference also featured a session on creating a support-driven business. Although the topic was primarily about customer service-driven businesses, I could see how the model could be used to create a support-driven company culture. Below is the model I created during the session to create a support-driven business. You can see it for yourself.
This model has a lot to love. It places a lot of emphasis on feedback. Organizations have spent a lot of money over the years to improve feedback mechanisms at all levels of their organization. Although I believe that the original goal of these resources was to replace the traditional performance reviews model, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be used for other purposes. Feedback is good. Use it to create a supportive company culture.
This model is a good model for organizations to use in performance management. Performance management systems are successful because they have excellent processes, feedback channels, and outcomes.
Employee feedback is key to creating a supportive culture in your company. Customer feedback is equally important. We have become a society that values feedback and recommendations. We get it from Amazon reviews and status updates shared by our Facebook friends. We rely on others to share their experiences with the candidate and employees on Glassdoor. We use this information to decide whether or not to accept a job offer.
I can see a supportive environment, increasing employee engagement (because employees feel safe sharing their feedback), decreasing turnover because employees see the company taking action on their feedback, and improving performance (because the employees are invested in the company’s success).
Human resources departments can use this model to maintain relevance in an ever-changing business environment. Our role is to advocate for feedback from employees and managers. We assist the business in analyzing the data and creating a winning solution. We also support the change management process, so the organization grows stronger with each iteration.