Author: admin

Bron: happy-or-not.nl
Vertaling: feedbacksmiley.nl

TAMPERE & JAPAN – JULY 2021 – HappyOrNot, the leading customer feedback collection solution trusted by companies such as Elkjøp, Levi’s Stadium, Autogrill and London Heathrow Airport and its Japan-based official partner Hitachi Systems Power Services Ltd. announces its latest airport partnership with Narita International Airport Corporation (NAA).

Using HappyOrNot’s Smiley Terminal™ push button type terminals, Narita International Airport (NRT) will collect substantial amounts of customer feedback, allowing them to monitor their passengers’ security experience at 23 checkpoints across the airport. With this immediately actionable customer experience data, NRT management and staff can identify and immediately correct problems affecting passenger satisfaction. Also, simultaneous improvements can be made based on actual data, rather than unscientific conjecture.

SUZUKI Yoshie, General Manager van de CS Development & Planning Department, Sales & Marketing Division. of Narita International Airport Corporation said, “After a one-year testing period, we chose HappyOrNot as a partner for the next step of our customer feedback collection system. We have installed Smiley Terminals at the security checkpoints in all three terminals – viz: T1, T2, and T3. While we ensure strict security and safety measures, we are undiminished committed to providing high quality service to our passengers.”

Suzuki continues: “The attitude of security staff and the clarity of the screening process are influential factors in passenger satisfaction. We believe that the level of service at security screening directly contributes to the overall travel experience. Therefore, we decided to introduce a tool to quantitatively measure and assess service levels. HappyOrNot provides comprehensive reporting functionality with an easy-to-use admin user interface. The Smiley Terminal meets our security requirements, and installation of a “Local Area Network” is not required.

Moreover, the standard faceplate with antimicrobial buttons and Smiley Link (a QR code-based interface for self-scan feedback) prevent respondent’s covid-19 concerns. We use the HappyOrNot index as one of our KPIs for security service quality. Narita International Airport will continue to pursue optimal customer satisfaction by offering the world’s highest standards of service quality. We expect that the feedback data and insights provided will help us deliver on our commitment.”

FUKUMOTO Takashi, General Manager of the Energy Sales Office at Hitachi Systems Power Services, and official HappyOrNot partner, says: “Our mission is to deliver the right product to the right customer. The Smiley Terminal fits the aviation and airport industry’s transition to the post-covid-19 world. It is a powerful tool to capture passenger emotion at the airport and helps hospitality professionals strike a balance between a touchless travel experience and human-touch hospitality. The four smileys make passengers feel heard and appreciated. We are very excited to help our customers prepare for the new normal.”

Over Narita International Airport Corporation

Narita International Airport Corporation (NAA) is a state-owned company responsible for managing Narita International Airport (NRT). Narita is Japan’s busiest airport in terms of the number of international passengers. It is also the second busiest in terms of aircraft movements. As of 2019, the airport is the ninth busiest air cargo hub in the world.

Over Hitachi Systems Power Services, Ltd.

Hitachi Systems Power Services (HISYS-PS) is part of Hitachi Group and Tokyo Electric Power Company Group, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 2014, it provides advanced ICT services with a focus on the electric power industry.

By: Forbes Magazine
Translation : feedbacksmiley.ae

As one of the most disrupted industries throughout the pandemic, retail companies have worked hard to best serve customers while meeting ever-changing constraints.

Continue reading “The three ways retailers can drive growth in 2021”

By: Happy-Or-Not
Translation: Feedbacksmiley.ae

The driving force behind our continuous innovation is our commitment to offer the most frictionless solution for feedback insights. Collecting feedback from companies and people who want to collect feedback in a way that encourages and inspires trust is our highest priority.

Continue reading “New Smiley Touch™ motion feature offers more choice without touching”

By: Forbes Magazine
Translation : Feedbacksmiley.ae

In a time of unprecedented demand and increased adoption of online ordering, customer experience (CX) data has never played such an important role in increasing customer retention and ensuring businesses remain successful. Statistics from Zendesk’s 2021 CX Trends Report show that 50% of customers switch to a competitor after one bad experience.

Despite this, some retail companies still fail to develop a mindset that promotes the use of customer experience data to drive decision-making within the company. As a result, they are not equipping themselves with the tools they need to grow and meet new challenges. If companies want to successfully navigate the evolving retail landscape in 2021, they must focus their attention on optimizing the customer experience as a means to build and maintain long-term relationships with customers and facilitate continued growth within the organization. This, while at the same time keeping in mind budgetary constraints, balancing both cost and ROI.

In 2020, when many retail businesses were forced to close their doors and go exclusively online, it was quickly realized that it is no longer the case that good customer service equals a good customer experience. If COVID-19 has taught the world one thing, it is that consumer expectations about how retail businesses operate and the way we store both online and in-store have shifted.

As a result, businesses must now take steps to adjust the focus of the organization and make valuing the customer experience a priority. At the same time, organizations must make rapid changes to avoid financial pressures. Only by implementing new operational strategies can transformational companies ensure that they truly meet changing customer needs.

Set goals and invest time

It is no secret that growth is not something that happens overnight but rather is the result of an accumulation of small successes over a long period of time. Typically in retail, there are a number of activities that could be improved if only the company took the time to collect data sets, such as feedback, to help understand the pain points of the business and its customers.

To support a company-wide mindset shift and work toward embracing customer experience as a priority within an organization, retail companies must first set CX goals for employees to work toward. These goals should be in line with what is appropriate in today’s market and with the organization’s overall strategy. Thus, the goals should not be too high, as it will be too expensive to implement them, nor should they be too low, as companies may lose their customer base. Ultimately, goals are determined by strategy. Some companies will prefer lower prices or a wide selection of goods over CX, but each company’s decision will have lasting consequences later.

These goals may include improving net customer value growth (the difference between the number of new customers the company gained in a given period minus the number of customers the company lost in the same period), receiving a certain number of high net promoter scores (how likely is it that a customer would recommend the company to a friend, family member or colleague) or working to increase the number of word-of-mouth referrals as a result of a good customer experience online or in-store.

By creating an environment where it is commonplace to consistently set qualitative customer experience goals, retail company leaders can ensure that CX plays a key role in employee KPIs, motivating staff to consider CX as a crucial part of their work.

Analyze data and stimulate creativity

In changing the mindset of the company and incorporating CX as a foundation from which to drive growth and development, it is important that stakeholders have the opportunity to become involved in the process.

As such, every employee within the company should be regularly given the opportunity and encouraged to review the company data collected (including CX data), especially when it is relevant to their role and the work they do within the company.

Involving the entire company in the analysis of all data, including sets such as basket size, visitor numbers, costs and CX data, whether it is marketing staff at headquarters or employees working in the store, will help employees understand it better and also encourage them to suggest any future changes that may be needed to maintain competitiveness in the marketplace. Another benefit is that it ensures every employee is part of the conversation, helping them understand the many small changes that will ultimately allow the company to reach new heights.

It is also important that companies nurture an environment where employees feel safe to not only propose new ways to improve the company’s profitability and CX, but also not afraid to fail if their ideas don’t pan out as they expected. Many companies have embraced the culture of learning by “failing forward.”

By encouraging employees, no matter how junior they are, to be open to new ideas, staff learn that they have intrinsic value within the company, and even if their ideas don’t work out, it is still useful as a means of learning from mistakes. Also, it helps build a stronger, more resilient workforce that will be able to look at what is not working and improve it until it does.

Today, companies no longer have the luxury of testing out new ideas over a period of many months or even years. During the pandemic, many retailers used their time to implement quick strategies in local stores as a means of testing out new ideas in hopes of keeping their finances afloat without sacrificing the customer experience.

Embracing a rapid testing and evaluation mentality will help retail companies collect massive amounts of data – including CX data – and is even more beneficial in the long run, as these rapid cycles allow companies to regularly try new things and gauge customer reaction, which can be equally effective in helping staff understand what works and what doesn’t, and whether these changes have the potential to be implemented across the company.

Documenting and sharing learning points

Since customer experience data plays a key role in organizational success, retail companies must ensure that documenting lessons learned from testing does not become a burden, but something that staff are willing to actively participate in.

By encouraging employees to record their experiences of mistakes and successes, the company can build a framework for financial success and can benefit greatly from new staff who want to get a jump start.

This can be achieved by creating user-friendly digital channels within the company where tests can be described and lessons learned, or by holding weekly in-person (or perhaps video) meetings to discuss both successful and unsuccessful tests and strategies.

The world of retail is constantly changing, and the pandemic has meant that many companies looking to grow must now embrace a data-driven mindset, set goals, use data and document their learning experiences to truly ensure they are doing what matters most, which is keeping customers happy. Only by truly embracing the customer experience as a vital tool within the business will companies be able to navigate what is expected to be another unprecedented year full of obstacles and challenges.

By: HappyOrNot
Translation : Feedbacksmiley.ae

SPAR, founded in 1932 in the Netherlands, is the largest food store chain in the world. In a highly competitive industry, SPAR is committed to exceeding its customers’ expectations by creating more relevant in-store experiences.

The three stores in Wiltshire, UK, have been equipped with HappyOrNot Smiley Terminals since 2014. Susan Connolly, Sales Director at Connolly SPAR, turned to HappyOrNot to innovate the way they operate, better understand the shopping experience they provide and improve the overall quality of their customer service

Using feedback to keep customers happy

Connolly SPAR stores receive an average of 1,500 customer responses each week through Smiley Terminals and have achieved a very impressive Happy Index score of 96 – well above the industry standard of 87 and placing them in the top 10% within their industry.  The data helps Susan and her executives make quick, informed decisions so they can always exceed their customers’ expectations.

“We must remain relevant to our customers”

Delivering a strong and consistent customer experience is critical for retailers. If they can’t meet demand, and/or if customers don’t feel comfortable shopping somewhere, they will go elsewhere. “We have to stay relevant to our customers – to be relevant is to always be ahead of the competition.”

To secure their competitive advantage for years to come, Susan and her management team were looking for innovative solutions to connect with their customers when they came across HappyOrNot’s solution.

Before engaging HappyOrNot’s Smiley Terminals to collect in-moment customer feedback, Susan admitted that Connolly SPAR did not have an efficient process to collect and process customer feedback.

“As long as we had a product to sell to them, we didn’t put a strong emphasis on customer experience. We cared about it and of course always did our best, but it wasn’t our main focus because we didn’t have a good way to measure it.”

Susan reported that HappyOrNot has become an integral part of the shopping experience. The terminals are located near the exits so it is more convenient for customers to interact with them. As a result, people press it by default when they go out.

At first, Susan didn’t expect HappyOrNot to become such a valuable tool for them. “We hadn’t realized how valuable it would be. It enhances the shopping experience, brings attention to problems in stores and offers ways to solve them. It’s one of those things that just works. In fact, we haven’t changed the questions we ask our customers in seven years, and our customers continue to interact with it.”

Detect and solve problems in real time

Collecting feedback from customers helps Susan and her store managers identify problems that they might not otherwise be able to pinpoint directly.

In one of her stores, for example, “the Happy Index Score dropped to 80, and that was absolutely alarming – what went wrong? We looked into it and it turned out that our refrigerator wasn’t working properly and our milk was warm. When people returned their milk, they pressed the red button on their way out, which indicated that something was wrong.” Because she was alerted in real time, Susan was able to take immediate action and work to fix the problem. Today, store staff regularly check refrigerators to prevent this from happening again.

The Smiley Terminals also help Susan better train and manage her staff. “We had a staff member who was very slow to serve and we saw the number of red buttons increase to an unacceptable level. Again, customer feedback helped us see that they needed more help at that time. We asked a more experienced staff member to switch shifts with this person while they received additional training, and the score went up again.”

“Sometimes you suddenly see a lot of red buttons and panic. But you can easily pinpoint the time on the [HappyOrNot] reporting dashboard, go on CCTV, and see what’s causing it.”

Susan gave another concrete example of how she turned a momentary negative experience for her customers into an opportunity to serve them better. She noticed that stores were getting a lot of negative feedback toward the end of the day, but couldn’t explain why. “We looked at the time of day on our dashboard, looked at the camera footage and realized that the amount of time it took to be served in the evening was creating a lot of frustration for customers,” she said. Susan decided to give staff headsets. “Now they can call for help and cut the queue faster.

A motivational tool for employees

Besides being an instant reward for staff when they see customers pushing the green button when they go out, another benefit of using HappyOrNot is that it creates a healthy competition among Connolly SPAR stores.

On the one hand, collecting customer feedback helps Susan “look at the business” to best serve her customers. On the other hand, it motivates store managers and employees to do their best to achieve the highest Happy Index score. “My store managers always strive to be the best, and we offer our employees a bottle of wine if their location achieves the highest score of the month.”

Susan also reveals that she uses the customer feedback she collects through HappyOrNot as a competitive advantage. “One of my stores recently achieved a Happy Index score of 100. This is information I can use to show that we care about our customers and do things differently than the competition.”

Supporting customers during the pandemic

Like most retail professionals around the world, Susan and her teams had to deal with the unprecedented measures taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Surprisingly, Susan reports that the pandemic had no effect on her customers’ willingness to share their feedback through the HappyOrNot Smiley Terminals. This is confirmed by the feedback data in the reporting service, which shows that response rates have remained at the same level as before the pandemic.

We take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of our customers. We clean the terminals every hour, we make sure our staff and our customers take social distancing measures, and we provide masks and antibacterial solutions.” Susan adds that they “didn’t remove the terminals because they belong there, they live there. Customers keep pushing the buttons when they go out, and they let us know that they don’t like it when the terminals are put in a different place.”

Susan additionally reveals that employees at her stores have made every effort to continue serving customers during the pandemic.

“We started working through the night to replenish stocks, introduced home deliveries […] we bought 25-kg bags of flour and distributed them so our customers could get flour, we rationed eggs, rationed toilet rolls in bags of four so everyone got a few, we distributed food packages to people in need and provided lunches to children from families in need. We didn’t stop.”

Susan’s staff is so dedicated to the task that she had to convince them to take two weeks off to rest So in 2020, Connolly SPAR gave its employees both Christmas Day and Boxing Day off to reward them for their hard work.

“Our customers have been so happy with us during the pandemic. They have often told us they don’t know what they would have done without us. When the larger supermarkets ran out of essential goods, we had everything in stock.”

All in all, Susan finds that “people appreciate us more. It feels like all the community work we normally do is now being recognized during the pandemic.”

Despite all that happened in 2020, the unyielding determination of Susan and her staff, combined with their ability to incorporate customer feedback, strengthened the relationship with their customer base and helped them attract and retain new customers.

For example, Connolly SPAR stores retained as many as 27% of their new customers during the first 2020 close in the UK. This alone shows how crucial it is to heed your customers’ feedback and show them how much you value their shopping experience, especially in times of crisis.

Over SPAR

SPAR is the world’s largest food retail chain. The company began with one Dutch store in 1932 and now has more than 13,300 stores in more than 48 countries on four continents. SPAR’s development rests on a set of values that have guided the organization since its founding more than 85 years ago. At the heart of these core values is the commitment of SPAR stores worldwide to freshness, choice, quality and service.

Bron: Forbes, Heikki Väänänen

Translation: feedbacksmiley.ae

The year 2020 can already be easily summed up by saying that “a lot has happened in a short time. In many ways, the world has undergone cataclysmic change, and almost all businesses have had to adapt quickly and dramatically to stay afloat.

In times of crisis, a customer’s interaction with a company can have an immediate and long-lasting effect on their sense of trust and loyalty. As global efforts to keep the economy’s head above water continue, many companies try to operate with a “business as usual” mentality to return to “normality” as quickly as possible.

However, the unfortunate truth is that many companies are simply not operating in the same way they did before February. In the wake of The CXPA’s CX Day, it has become clear that the customer experience has been turned on its head, with many companies forced to implement new – and sometimes unusual – strategies entirely in the interest of their customers’ safety, including temperature controls on entry, enforcing mask mandates and limiting the number of customers allowed on the premises.

As habits and behaviors continue to change, it will become increasingly important for companies of all sizes to focus on the customer experience. Despite social and economic uncertainty, this will be one of the most important decisions a company can make during the pandemic and beyond.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Data is your friend

When looking at customer experience, companies rely heavily on data. This data can come from many different places and in many different forms, but customer experience data is and will continue to drive positive operational changes within a company.

In contrast, it can sometimes be difficult to determine which facets of the data to respond to. Companies will often make the mistake of collecting a lot of data and making numerous changes in an effort to try to make everyone happy at once. This may work for some companies, but it is an age-old fact that just because you are quick off the mark does not immediately mean you will win the race.

To make customer experience data truly useful, assessments must be made to discover where the biggest pain points are and which areas should be prioritized. Only through intelligent analysis can this data be used to improve the customer experience where it matters and guide business leaders so they can implement strategies that will positively impact the business and, most importantly, the customers, in the long run.

Follow your customer’s journey

Companies that want to make the most of their customer experience must also assess the different ways a customer might shop with them. During the pandemic, for example, digital services have become a basic need for consumers. Simple activities such as a trip to the store or eating out with friends have become increasingly difficult and, in some cases, outlawed altogether.

According to a February 2020 McKinsey study, in China, there has been a 55 percent increase in consumers planning to permanently switch to online shopping and a three to six percent increase in overall e-commerce penetration in the wake of COVID-19. With more consumers favoring online shopping, it is up to retailers to adapt and focus on having an omni-channel view of the business so they can deliver the services customers want, when and, importantly, where they want them.

Customer expectations change every day, and they can still differ significantly between online and in-store. Companies must ensure that regardless of how customers choose to store, the experience is optimal. By having a comprehensive understanding of both the online and in-store shopping experience, companies can gain actionable insight and implement calculated and well-thought-out strategies regardless of whether the customer is looking for online support, doing a competitive price comparison before visiting their local store or making an in-person purchase. Ultimately, this will enable companies to improve existing infrastructures and, most importantly, keep customers happy.

Keep your finger on the pulse

Understanding what does and does not work for customers, from feedback from these same customers, is essential, but it is also important to engage with the shop floor staff who must interact with customers on a daily basis. They can offer concrete internal information about what is and isn’t working – and more than that, they often have the most practical and realistic ideas about what and how to improve.

Customer experience has taken a new shape, and COVID-19 has forced many companies to reassess their knowledge and make decisions at an unprecedented pace. While the whirlwind of pandemic-induced change is unlikely to abate soon, companies must remain focused on what really matters: the customer – if they are to successfully navigate the ever-evolving commercial landscape and weather this crisis.

In addition, we are introducing new product enhancements for greater peace of mind….
Source: HappyOrNot
Translation: Feedbacksmiley.ae

This newsletter consists of two parts, one with market insights and one introducing the new enhancements (including some comments and insights on Smiley Link).

PART 1: MARKET INSIGHTS

There is overwhelming evidence that consumers are still giving feedback in good amounts!
Many of our customers continued to use the HappyOrNot service when the new coronavirus began to spread in the early 2020s. According to our data, it is very encouraging to see an ongoing correlation between the number of visitors and the number of responses. In other words, people continue to leave feedback through our Smiley Terminal and Touch products in good volumes. Still, our ambition is to remain the market leader in providing the most frictionless way to give feedback and ensure maximum response. Therefore, we are introducing some improvements for our products. Before we look at those, let’s look at two examples – one where the customer stayed in touch with customers via HappyOrNot, and one where the customer took a break and then resumed service.

Continued use by standard

A retail chain in the UK kept our products in stores. As you can see, feedback levels remain at a very good level. The slight dip around April was reportedly due to crowd control measures.

Re-launched, after a period of silence

There have also been a number of customers who had paused their HappyOrNot surveys and have since resumed HappyOrNot columns, such as this customer in the EU, whose share of responses relative to total visitors has returned to a healthy level. This example is for restrooms in an airport.

Indeed, the main benefit of these examples is that people are using our Smileys products to leave feedback when they get the chance. This is a valuable insight for those customers who have not yet resumed their services, as well as for future users considering including the HappyOrNot service.

PART 2: PRODUCT IMPROVEMENTS

Increased peace of mind in the new normal

Even though we now know that people continue to provide feedback in good amounts, we want to make sure we continue to provide the best possible solution for collecting feedback out there. That’s why we’re introducing a number of enhancements that support our customers as they stay connected with their customers and employees using HappyOrNot.
Now available: Antimicrobial buttons for Smiley Terminals
Applying the right antimicrobial coating can provide preventive protection against the new coronavirus. For our Smiley Terminal V3 and X3 (Wall) models, we have chosen to implement the HEXIS PURE ZONE® antimicrobial film. This will be applied to the Smileys buttons on new Smiley Terminal products at no additional cost and can also be ordered to be installed on existing Smiley Terminal V3 and X3 products. We will also provide a number of additional items to promote awareness such as stickers and posters/questionnaire templates.

Now available: Hand sanitizer holders for Smiley Terminal and Smiley Touch Stand products:

In many places, such as retail, healthcare facilities and passenger terminals, hand sanitizer products are delivered to customers. Therefore, attaching hand sanitizer holders to Smiley Terminal and Touch Stand products can be a convenient solution for our customers. Not only is it a nice gesture and an extra encouragement for people to give feedback, it can also save a little space. We are now starting production of the first batch and orders can also be placed for both new and existing products. For the Smiley Touch Stand and Smiley Terminal Stand V3 products, versions for both the pipe leg and the branded version of the stand are available. A nice touch is that the stand is height adjustable for different bottle sizes.
Coming soon: Antimicrobial screen for Smiley Touch

Finally, a few words about SmileyLink

We introduced Smiley Link last spring to provide a “touchless” complement to Smiley Terminal and Smiley Touch products with QR codes and short web addresses so people could respond to surveys using their personal devices. It was great to see how many customers deployed this and we learned a lot about what works well.
We’ve seen stand-alone deployments of Smiley Link, where the physical products were replaced, and those where the QR code complemented the Smiley Terminal or Touch product:
What we learned is that customers using only QR codes experienced a fairly low response rate, while customers who kept the products available and supplemented them with QR codes continued to get very healthy feedback. As icing on the cake, Smiley Terminals also started receiving Open Feedback through Smiley Link.
As an example, from March to mid-June, a restaurant chain used “Smiley Link only mode” on the Smiley Touch, but the amount of feedback was much lower than when they switched back to “normal mode” in June (and kept the QR code poster as an additional “touchless” option). In this case, the number of responses relative to the total number of visitors is similar to the levels before the new coronavirus began to spread.

Door HappyOrNot Americas

Vertaling: Feedbacksmiley.ae

Believe it or not, there was a time when there was no such thing as: Human Resources.

And that may be hard to imagine, in a world where we are constantly focused on recruiting, hiring and finding ways to better engage employees. But the first HR department (or something that at least resembled one) didn’t actually come into existence until the early 20th century.

Thus, most believe that the first actual human resources department was not created until 1901, and that was by The National Cash Register Company (NCR) after several employee strikes and lockouts. Although referred to as “personnel” at the time, the role of this new department, as established by NCR leader John H. Patterson, was largely focused on compliance, record keeping, workplace safety, payroll management and handling employee complaints, as well as training for supervisors in relation to new workplace laws and practices.

The evolution of personnel administration

Although the trend of managing “personnel” did not take off immediately, it slowly grew as more and more companies realized they needed to do more to manage their employees. In the 1910s, for example, Tata Steel and the Ford Motor Company introduced an unheard of labor practice, namely: the 8-hour workday.

By the 1920s, Personnel Administration emerged as a clearly defined field in the United States and was primarily concerned with the technical aspects of hiring, evaluating, training and paying employees. Personnel was considered a “staff” function in most organizations, and it did not really focus on how different employment practices affected an organization’s overall performance.

Unions also grew robustly during this period, and the Human Resources Department helped resolve both wage-related issues and other differences between union on the one hand and management on the other.

Two men also stood out in the first half of the 20th century for their contributions to workplace management.

And lo and behold, the “Father of Scientific Management

One was Frederick Taylor, known as the father of scientific management. He played a major role in the development of the human resources department in the early 1900s.

In his book, Shop Management, Taylor advocated the “scientific” selection and training of employees. He is also credited as one of the first to make a business case for better management of employees. Key principles of scientific management include:

• Using the scientific method to determine the most efficient course of action
• Matching workers to a task for which they are suited
• Proactively monitor performance and provide feedback
• Assignment of scheduling tasks to managers so that employees focus on the task at hand

These principles probably sound familiar to anyone in Human Resources today.

Taylor even advised business owners and managers on how to better manage and lead their people, with better results as a goal. You could say he focused on employee engagement long before anyone had put their finger on what that really was.

Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs,” a precursor to engagement

The other major contribution to the 20th-century development of human resources and personnel management was made by Abraham Maslow.

He developed his famous “Hierarchy of Needs,” which helped managers understand how to better motivate, recruit and retain employees.

According to Maslow, all people have needs that must be met.

Maslow then used the well-known pyramid to describe and categorize those needs.

The theory is that the needs at the bottom of the pyramid must be met before the needs at the next level can be addressed.

• Level 1: Psychological Needs (bottom of the pyramid) – People need air, food, water, sleep and other basics to survive. So, how does this relate to employee engagement? Employees need a comfortable work environment.
• Level 2: Safety Needs – People need to feel that not only they, but also their families, property and other personal resources are safe. In the workplace, if employees are concerned about their personal safety (such as being sick or injured at work) or their professional safety (such as losing their job), morale will suffer.
• Level 3: The need to love and belong – Having a strong sense of belonging is key to building an engaged culture. Employees who have good friends at work are more likely to be engaged than those who don’t. And companies with a proven culture of social activities have higher levels of employee engagement than those that do not.
• Level 4: The Need for Recognition – This is an employee’s belief that not only are they doing a good job, but that their contributions are being recognized. People want to feel like they are getting results, and if employees believe they are – and believe (thanks to employee recognition) that others they work with believe in them – they will be more engaged and more productive.
• Level 5: Need for self-actualization (top of the pyramid) – Self-actualization is the belief that a person can maximize their potential at work. Employees want to be the best at what they do, and the job of a good manager is to help them realize that. With self-actualization, employees feel confident and empowered – in other words, they experience control of both their job and their future.

It is easy to see how much of Maslow’s theory guides us in workplace management today. And especially in the development of a strong workplace culture and employee engagement. Indeed, many believe that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is not only built on some of Frederic Taylor’s work, but is also a precursor to our 21st century employee engagement today. Feedback Smiley is proud to play a role in the ongoing development of smart employee engagement. Not only do we embrace the historical underpinnings of Human Resources, but we have the tools and experience to help you stay connected to a high-performing and engaged employee team and understand the Employee Experience.

Contact us soon. As the official representation of HappyOrNot in Benelux, we can let you know immediately how the HappyOrNot service can be of great optimizing value within your organization as well.