Increasing employee engagement with positive psychology: This is how you create a customer-oriented organizational culture

Organizations that use positive psychology to increase employee engagement have a strong advantage. Companies with a customer-oriented culture that know how to energize and motivate their employees attract top talent, increase productivity and reduce absenteeism. Various studies show how positive psychology can help to promote loyalty and sustainably increase productivity.

Focus on intrinsic motivation and a healthy corporate culture

Self-confidence and a strong sense of self-esteem are important motivators for employees. They get energy from contributing to a higher purpose and remain loyal to companies that support that. Books such as Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Drive by Daniel Pink support that intrinsic motivation and a healthy corporate culture are essential for engagement and productivity. When employees get into a “flow”, they experience work as meaningful, allowing them to contribute to their tasks with passion and dedication.

Real motivations of employees: More than secondary conditions

Many organizations focus on fringe benefits such as salary and bonuses to motivate employees. While important, research shows that these extrinsic rewards are often less effective than intrinsic motivations for sustained engagement. Daniel Pink’s research shows that higher pay only has an effect on simple work that requires mechanical skills. For tasks that require creative thinking processes, intrinsic motivators such as pleasure, challenge and development are much more powerful and stimulate engagement much better.

Employee engagement in the context of customer focus

Human contact remains the greatest success factor for organizations. A customer-friendly attitude of employees has a direct influence on the customer experience, and this also applies to employees who indirectly contribute to customer processes. That is why it is important to place employee engagement in a broader context. Experience Management offers a holistic perspective on customer focus and corporate culture, where employees, customers and business processes are in balance.

The three pillars of experience management:

• Voice of Employee Encourage employees, strengthen involvement and create a positive working atmosphere.
• Voice of Customer Listen to customers and continuously implement improvements across the organization.
• Voice of Business Focus on hard KPIs and quality management to keep the basics in order.

With these pillars, organizations can effectively increase employee engagement, which directly contributes to a customer-oriented culture and optimal customer experience.