You probably know it, a heated discussion in the canteen or a harsh tone that is used on social media. Whether it's about flight shame, corona, MeToo, global conspiracies or a theme like 'woke': society, also online, is polarizing. This often leads to hardening, as a result of which employees who work for the public good need security. This polarization is not new, by the way, but it comes and goes wave movements.

Add to this the fact that consumers want to be helped faster and better and also have an opinion more quickly, also about service and the service employee ('even though I know you can't help it'). For customer contact professionals, working from home may reduce the opportunity to blow off steam after a conversation with an aggressive customer. There is no one sitting next to you (or walking around) who has noticed that you have been in the customer contact trenches for a while.

What is the impact on the employee?

Attention to the well-being of employees is a matter of enlightened self-interest on the part of the employer. That employer has been legally obliged for years to carry out a Risk Inventory and Evaluation (RI&E) and to keep it up to date. Such an RI&E is the place where policy belongs on matters such as the risks of aggression and violence (including transgressive behavior and that does not have to come from your colleagues alone). But modern employers look beyond that RI&E and also have an eye for good onboarding, employee satisfaction surveys, coaching and listening sessions, performance interviews, assessment interviews and exit interviews. In the customer contact sector, Great Place to Work programs are sometimes idolized, of which I wonder whether they contribute in all cases to, for example, a longer job retention time.

Unsatisfied customers lead to dissatisfied employees

'Satisfied employees make for satisfied customers': this is often a wish rather than reality. But it's also a bit crooked. Because how can you be satisfied as an employee if your employer is only concerned with steering on output? Why should the employee have to compensate for the negative impact on customer experience of limited opening hours, malfunctioning chatbots, difficult to find telephone numbers, long waiting times and user-unfriendly software (all management decisions)?

Satisfied employees ensure satisfied customers: you can also turn that around. Dissatisfied customers lead to dissatisfied employees. This reversal has also been presented as 'the cost of poor service'. Not only your customers, your employees and managers will also drop out if you don't get customer service under control.

Stay talk

A few months ago, the FD wrote a piece about so-called 'stay talks', the counterpart of the exit interview. In such a stay conversation, employees can clarify what motivates them. It's a bit like 'applying the other way around', something that comes with the KSF HR Congress passed by. With stay interviews, the employer keeps a finger on the pulse: how do I keep everyone on board? Things that bother employees should then lead to change. In other words: with regular stay interviews, organizations keep talent in-house. I would – certainly in the facilities sector, where the collective labor agreement negotiators do not seem to understand their own problem – link it to a retention bonus. (Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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