Survey of 300 HR Professionals From Large Organizations Was Compared to Study in 2012

Temkin Group, a leading market research and consulting firm that helps organizations transform their customer experience (CX), released a new groundbreaking research report: “Benchmarking HR’s Support of CX and Employee Engagement.”

The study, which is based on a survey of more than 300 HR professionals from North American organizations with at least 1,000 employees, examines how HR professionals are supporting customer experience and employee engagement efforts within their organizations. The results from this survey were compared with a similar study that Temkin Group completed in 2012.

Temkin Group’s research shows that engaging employees is a cornerstone to long-term business results and customer experience success. In the 2016 study, 80% of HR professionals stated that employee engagement is an important area of focus for their organization, a significant increase from 75% in 2012. During that same time period, the HR professionals who give their organizations at least a “good” rating on for employee engagement efforts has grown from 61% to 73%.

“Employee engagement is critical for customer experience success, and it requires active human resources involvement. This should be a strategic calling for all HR professionals,” states Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of Temkin Group.

Other findings from the research include:

• HR organizations that are significantly helping their organizations become more customer-centric have more than doubled from 15% in 2012 to 31% in 2016.
• HR organizations that are considerably involved in their company’s customer experience efforts have grown from 52% in 2012 to 60% in 2016.
• The top obstacle keeping HR professionals from helping their organizations from becoming more customer-centric was the same in both 2012 and 2016: “HR leadership has not defined it as a priority for HR.”
• Companies that measure employee engagement more frequently than once per year grew from 27% in 2012 to 40% in 2016.
• Companies with significantly above average customer experience for their industry (CX Leaders) have HR professionals that more frequently collaborate with their CX peers. For instance, CX Leaders are almost twice as likely as other firms to share responsibility with CX groups for developing employee awards to support good customer-centric behaviors.
• 72% of executive teams in CX Leaders put a high priority on taking action on results from employee engagement studies, compared with 39% of other firms.
• The top obstacle to employee engagement efforts identified by HR professionals within CX Leaders is “limited funding,” while HR professionals at other firms point to “lack of a clear employee engagement strategy.”

This research report “Benchmarking HR’s Support of CX and Employee Engagement” can be accessed from the blog, Customer Experience Matters^®, at ExperienceMatters.wordpress.com or at the Temkin Group’s website, www.TemkinGroup.com.