One of the measures taken by companies to survive the recession, cutting internal and external customer service, could cause the most damage - not redundancies. This was the key finding of a survey carried out by the American Society for Quality and Metrus Group and reported in Quality World.
The survey of 2,100 US companies focused on how tactics to survive the recession were affecting employees. Respondents rated the seriousness of the effect such activities had on employee alignment, engagement and capability of meeting customer expectations.
The tactic with the greatest negative impact on employees in the position of providing poorer service lowers engagement and there is an inherent alignment conflict when a company's stated values emphasise service, but its actions undercut those values. "The major finding that cutting customer services has the greatest adverse affect on people equity comes as a surprise" said William Schiemann, co-author of the study and CEO of Metrus Group. "It's a significant finding, given the empirical evidence from this and other studies, that alignment, engagement and capabilities link directly to bottom-line performance.
Other findings included:
Redundancies were felt to have a moderately negative impact on engagement, alignment and employees sense of capabilities.
Pay cuts, pay freezes and reductions in benefits had a moderate negative impact on employee engagement, but no significant impact on alignment or capabilities. Its possible these actions, while not welcomed, are more likely to be viewed as acceptable.
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