Apply Voice-of-the-Customer Best Practices to

Voice-of-the-Employee Initiatives
Published: 25 April 2017 ID: G00326286

Analyst(s): Ron Hanscome, Jim Davies, Helen Poitevin

Within the digital workplace, the voice-of-the-employee concept is gaining

traction as a way to consolidate worker feedback and take action. Here, we
identify key voice-of-the-customer best practices that application leaders
transforming human capital management should apply to VoE initiatives.

Key Challenges
■ Most organizations rely on a formal engagement survey conducted every one to three years as
the primary means of gathering feedback from employees. This makes it difficult to track and
respond to the impact of quarterly, monthly or even weekly changes in perception, as
employees react to organizational changes and events.
■ Some organizations have begun to augment formal engagement surveys with more real-time
techniques for gathering direct and indirect employee feedback, but fragmented approaches
and immature tools hamper their ability to gain valid and accurate insights.
■ Most organizations find it hard to develop specific action plans for affected roles (such as
managers and executives) based on employee feedback. Lack of visible action often increases
employee cynicism and reduces responsiveness to subsequent feedback initiatives.

Recommendations
Application leaders tasked with transforming human capital management (HCM) should help HR
and business leaders analyze existing VoC best practices and apply them to VoE initiatives. In doing
so, they should:

■ Build a VoE strategy that includes metrics and measurement rationale, as well as expected
HCM and broader business outcomes.
■ Determine the right data sources, collection and measurement methods, and enabling
technology options.
■ Make VoE initiatives actionable by equipping stakeholders to respond quickly to the insights
coming from VoE data.
 Table of Contents

Strategic Planning Assumption............................................................................................................... 2

Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 3
Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 4
Build a VoE Strategy That Includes Metrics and Measurement Rationale, as Well as Expected HCM
and Broader Business Outcomes..................................................................................................... 4
Build the Business Case............................................................................................................. 4
Develop the Initiative Infrastructure..............................................................................................5
Define Scope Within the Organization's Broader Engagement Strategy...................................... 6
Learn From Others..................................................................................................................... 6
Educate Stakeholders Early and Often........................................................................................7
Determine the Right Data Sources, Collection and Measurement Methods, and Enabling Technology
Options............................................................................................................................................ 7
Audit Existing Activities and Apply Best Practices....................................................................... 9
Engage a Consultancy as Needed............................................................................................ 10
Embrace a Multiphase Strategy................................................................................................ 11
Pilot the Most Promising Feedback Technologies......................................................................11
Determine the Best-Fit Solution Architecture and Data Model................................................... 12
Make the VoE Initiative Actionable by Equipping Stakeholders to Respond Quickly to VoE Data
Insights...........................................................................................................................................13
"Close the Loop" by Creating a Mechanism for Insight and Action Distribution..........................13
Develop Metrics and Measure the Impact of the Initiative Over Time......................................... 14
Gartner Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................... 14

List of Figures

Figure 1. Primary Employee Experience Components.............................................................................4

Figure 2. Primary Employee Feedback Types..........................................................................................9

Strategic Planning Assumption

By 2022, 35% of organizations with more than 5,000 employees will augment their annual employee
engagement surveys with pulse, indirect and inferred feedback to build a more complete view of the
employee experience.

Page 2 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 Introduction
A consistent theme in recent Gartner inquiry is that clients are struggling to respond to the rapid
pace of change (both internal and external) and the associated effects on their employees. Because
most organizations rely on a formal engagement survey conducted every one to three years as the
primary means of gathering feedback from employees, they have difficulty tracking and responding
to the impact of quarterly, monthly or even weekly changes in perception as their employees react
to organizational changes and external market events.

In response, some organizations have begun to augment formal engagement surveys with more
real-time techniques for gathering direct and indirect feedback from employees. However,
fragmented approaches and tools hamper their ability to gain valid and accurate insights. In
addition, most organizations find it hard to develop specific action plans for affected roles (such as
managers and executives) based on employee feedback; lack of visible action often increases
employee cynicism and reduces responsiveness to subsequent feedback initiatives.

The concept of voice of the employee (VoE) is emerging as a more comprehensive way to gather
better information on employee perceptions, consolidate feedback and deliver valid insights with
actionable guidance, based on a much wider set of employee experience inputs (see Figure 1). The
traditional and somewhat rigid approach of the annual engagement survey is still important, but can
be augmented by other forms of feedback collection, capture and measurement of employee
perceptions, feelings, opinions and ideas. IT and business leaders tasked with transforming HCM
are looking for better outcomes such as improved retention, earlier problem identification, better
idea management, deeper feedback for managers on team perceptions and performance, and
better data for longitudinal analysis. They should now look to other enterprise disciplines with
greater maturity in gathering feedback and generating actionable insights to see how to accelerate
their adoption of best practices. One primary domain to examine is that of customer engagement,
and in particular voice of the customer (VoC).

VoC solutions are offered by a range of organizations with varying levels of breadth, focus and
capabilities. A comprehensive VoC solution integrates collection, analysis, distribution and action
into a single interconnected platform to understand customer experience and sentiment. Although
far from being a mature discipline, VoC best practices can still be applied to other enterprise
domains such as IT service desks (see "Voice of the Customer Amplifies End-User Sentiment of the
IT Service Desk") and field service management (see "How to Manage Feedback in Field Service").

The purpose of this research is to identify relevant VoC best practices that may be suitable for VoE,
and to describe where similarities and differences between customer and employee populations
may affect the application of these best practices as HCM leaders increasingly pursue more of a
marketing approach to understanding, designing and delivering a great employee experience.

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 3 of 16

 Figure 1. Primary Employee Experience Components

Source: Gartner (April 2017)

Analysis
Build a VoE Strategy That Includes Metrics and Measurement Rationale, as Well as
Expected HCM and Broader Business Outcomes
Building a VoE strategy includes the following steps.

Build the Business Case

Lessons from VoC: This step is essential in the majority of VoC initiatives to secure funding and win
over skeptics, who may be plentiful. The main exception to the need for a formal business case is
when the organization faces a PR crisis, and potential humiliating damage to the organization's

Page 4 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 reputation instills in senior executives an urgent need to make changes. The business case should
focus on the tangible benefits of listening to and acting on a more holistic view of feedback
provided by customers. It should highlight the potential impact on core customer metrics and how
this in turn will drive operational performance. Successful VoC business cases also highlight the
incremental benefits associated with centralizing siloed data collection and analysis activities. The
VoC business case should be positioned at both enterprise and departmental levels to reinforce the
benefits of willing, rather than enforced, participation.

Applicability to VoE: A VoE initiative is also likely to have its share of skeptics that require a formal
outline of how a consolidated approach to gather employee feedback will deliver tangible HCM and
business outcomes to secure funding. In fact, the level of internal skepticism may be even higher for
VoE than for VoC, given its more recent emergence in the marketplace and the relative immaturity of
enabling technologies.

Similar to VoC, PR issues may cause senior leaders to "fast track" a VoE business case to mitigate
potential damage to the organization and its reputation. While VoC may engender faster senior
management action due to the broad scope of customer feedback expressed via various direct and
indirect channels (such as Facebook, Twitter and many social product quality sites), the potential
reach of potentially damaging employee feedback has become almost as widespread. This is due to
social access to stories of HR-related litigation, diversity and inclusion issues, and the ability for
employees to post anonymous feedback on sites like Glassdoor.

In the same manner as VoC, a robust business case for VoE will highlight the tangible benefits of
listening to and acting on a set of consolidated metrics, but with a focus on employee feedback and
engagement and how improvements will drive operational performance. VoE initiatives will also
benefit from willing (versus forced) participation at all levels of the organization.

Develop the Initiative Infrastructure

Lessons from VoC: Because a VoC initiative captures customer feedback and delivers action-
oriented insights across the organization, ownership should ideally be granted to a centralized role
reporting to the operating committee. However, some success has been reported in multibusiness
unit organizations composed of multiple customer-facing roles. In this decentralized approach,
passion and belief are important attributes of the leader of the council, so choosing a senior
individual with strong cross-enterprise experience and a track record of VoC advocacy is a critical
success factor. Regardless of the approach, top-down commitment and ongoing senior leadership
support for VoC are essential to its long-term prosperity, as not all units may initially buy in to VoC
potential benefits until the initiative begins to show demonstrable business results.

Applicability to VoE: Like VoC, a VoE initiative should ideally be owned by a centralized role that
reports to an HCM operating committee composed of senior HR and operations leaders across the
organization. The project team should include functional HR leads from employee engagement and
talent management disciplines, as well as representation from HR generalists/business partners,
operations leads, employees and managers. Those organizations with represented worker
populations (such as bargaining units and works councils) should ensure that they are also
represented within the project team — at a minimum by an adjunct or consultative role to gain buy-

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 5 of 16

 in. This will help reduce the chances of some or all of the VoE initiative being delayed by formal
objections to any new data collection, analysis or action item methodologies. After launch, some
project team participants will form a VoE team to support and evolve the initiative. In large
organizations, the team might consist of two or three full-time employees, and several more with
part-time or dotted-line responsibility from other departments.

In contrast to VoC, there has been little reported success of VoE initiatives driven by a primarily
decentralized approach. However, there is some evidence of organizations choosing to "pilot" a VoE
initiative in a subset of the organization (often a business unit that already embraces the concept) in
order to gain lessons before an enterprisewide deployment.

Similar to VoC, VoE initiatives benefit from both strong, multiyear senior management support and
experienced, passionate leadership to overcome initial resistance to change.

Define Scope Within the Organization's Broader Engagement Strategy

Lessons from VoC: Successful deployments of VoC see it as only one (albeit important) dimension
of a much broader customer engagement strategy that oversees all aspects of the organization's
customer experience. Evaluating and continuously improving the customer experience can directly
affect aggregate Net Promoter Score (NPS), leading to more and easier sales. In addition, a better
customer experience often leads to improved retention, which flows directly to the bottom line.

Applicability to VoE: In the same way, VoE needs to become a key component of the organization's
broader employee engagement and HCM strategies, as deriving an accurate picture of employee
feedback and perceptions is likely to affect most (if not all) HCM processes and enabling
technologies. The reason for this is that the data gathered from VoE processes and systems may
highlight issues with organization or job design, fundamental aspects of employee pay and/or
benefits, process bottlenecks, or a suboptimal user experience in administrative HR, talent
management, workforce management or HR service delivery applications. Research conducted by
Gallup, IBM, Aon Hewitt and CEB (among others) has demonstrated a link between employee
engagement and retention as well as productivity, thus engagement will become one of the top 10
areas of focus for CEOs over the next few years. Properly designed and implemented, VoE
becomes the "eyes and ears" of HR and business leaders, feeding them with timely and relevant
insights to help fuel the systematic improvement of the employee experience.

Beyond the domain of HR, VoE can also support digital workplace leaders as they work with HR,
business leaders and other IT leaders on improving the overall employee experience. VoE should
not be limited to the domain of employee engagement and HR processes; rather, it should extend to
a more holistic view of workers in their work environment. VoE practice leaders can build on HR's
experience to take on worker input on questions related to process, IT system and physical
workspace improvements.

Learn From Others

Lessons from VoC: As VoC implementations have become more mainstream, more software
vendors, service providers, conferences, webinars and white papers have been made available to
support the next wave of deployments.

Page 6 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 Applicability to VoE: The same emergence is now beginning to take place for VoE initiatives.
Actively seeking out information from these sources can help build an appreciation of the benefits of
VoE, and provide some customer-specific best practices that can be leveraged. It can help increase
organizational confidence that VoE is a valid approach, and add external data points to complement
and reinforce the business case.

A key observation here is that organizations do not need to worry much about industry alignment.
VoE best practices usually transcend industries, so organizations do not need to seek out this
information only from industry peers. The exceptions tend to be in geographies with strong
represented worker populations and/or complex employee legislation that dictates how employees
can be engaged to provide feedback, what information is gathered, and what controls are in place
to ensure that the information is only used for the stated purpose. For example, VoE initiatives in
Germany would very likely require a codetermination process with the work councils.

Educate Stakeholders Early and Often

Lessons from VoC: A successful VoC initiative dedicates substantial resources to communicating
with and educating customers on its major components, what data is collected and why, and what's
in it for the customer.

Applicability to VoE: In a very similar manner, a VoE program will undoubtedly increase the level of
data collected from employees on an ongoing basis. Thus, it is important to raise awareness of why
this activity is being undertaken and what the upside is for the employee. Organizations considering
a VoE initiative are usually trying to develop a more open culture that encourages honest and regular
feedback from employees, instead of perpetuating behind-the-scenes grumblings that exist within
many organizations whose workers may live with the fear of reprisal (overt or covert) for speaking
out.

Because addressing these issues and changing deep-seated behaviors can take time, a
comprehensive employee communication plan should be developed during initial project planning.
This should be executed throughout the initiative via multiple channels such as portal pages,
employee communities of interest/practice, webinars, and face-to-face meetings.

In addition, packaging initial communications and updates as e-learning events delivered to existing
employees as well as new hires (via the onboarding process and technology) can also be an
effective alternative. Regardless of the communication channel, every effort should be made to
provide opportunities for feedback (on the VoE initiative itself and the associated communications),
as this represents a prime opportunity to model what the VoE initiative is all about.

Determine the Right Data Sources, Collection and Measurement Methods, and
Enabling Technology Options
Lessons from VoC: Gartner's definition for multichannel VoC platforms has two important criteria.
First, the solution must provide tools that convert customer feedback into actionable insight; for
example, dashboards, alerts, customer journey maps, workflows for service recovery, and
capabilities to drive actions.

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 7 of 16

 Second, the solution must collect and analyze all three types of VoC data:

■ Direct feedback — Feedback that consumers intend to provide to the organization, typically in
the form of a survey, complaint, market research or a forum/panel.
■ Indirect feedback — Feedback derived from instances when the customer is speaking about an
organization without specifically intending to furnish feedback to the organization. This includes
collecting insight from review sites, social networks and customer care interactions via phone,
email and chat sessions.
■ Inferred feedback — Operational and transactional data associated with a customer experience
or "journey," such as a website's clickstream data, purchase history or contact center
operational data.

Applicability to VoE: In contrast, Gartner's VoE model includes four main types of employee
feedback to gather, consolidate and analyze in order to present a complete voice of the employee
(see Figure 2).

Page 8 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 Figure 2. Primary Employee Feedback Types

Source: Gartner (April 2017)

Use the following best practices learned from VoC initiatives.

Audit Existing Activities and Apply Best Practices

Lessons from VoC: The majority of successful VoC initiatives have depended on organization
leaders first understanding the full scope of VoC-related processes that were already being
conducted across the organization. They then streamlined these processes to gain some
incremental benefit while concurrently developing the complete integrated solution.

Applied to VoE: Those contemplating a VoE initiative should seriously consider this approach, as
every organization has some form of VoE-related process in place — for example, surveys on

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 9 of 16

 annual engagement and HR services satisfaction, or analysis of feedback from public review sites.
However, these processes are almost always siloed.

In many organizations, the associated technologies are often duplicated, creating huge
inefficiencies. By documenting the technologies that are in place, which employees they touch,
what the purpose of the feedback activity is, and who owns/uses the outputs, a clear picture of the
current VoE technology backdrop can be obtained. This audit can be used to justify streamlining
current technologies, and it can highlight gaps in feedback collection techniques that can ultimately
be addressed by the integrated VoE solution.

In addition, much can be done to improve an organization's overall employee feedback mechanism
by simply applying best practices to its existing tools (siloed or otherwise). For example, Gartner
estimates that more than 90% of survey tools are not deployed optimally. The data is often of low
relevance and the analysis seldom results in any meaningful action, fueling employee cynicism and
lethargy when completing subsequent surveys. By systematically assessing each tool and refining
the associated processes, notable improvements can be achieved, even before a holistic VoE
approach is adopted.

Engage a Consultancy as Needed

Lessons from VoC: Many organizations have begun their VoC initiative with the intention of staffing
the project completely with internal resources, only to discover that project team members are
usually expected to perform project tasks on top of their "day jobs" and sometimes lack needed
skills (such as data analysis acumen, knowledge of leading practices or project management). This
has often led to missed deadlines, reduced scope and less-than-optimal outcomes. Many have
ended up hiring a consultancy to augment internal resources and, in some cases, to fundamentally
drive the initial project phases to completion.

Applied to VoE: As VoE becomes more strategic, seeking guidance from a specialized consultancy
has become an important option. Not every organization will need this level of support, but for
many, the guidance these providers can offer via their hands-on experience with similar initiatives
can help ensure the VoE program is executed as optimally as possible. These consultancies deliver
a broad range of services that include:

■ Survey design and analysis

■ Employee journey mapping
■ Identifying key moments where feedback collection is essential to help with change
management
■ Recommendations for team staffing and organizational structures
■ Setting up new incentives and compensation programs
■ Facilitating the change management process

Consultancies can help with project management in areas such as building the VoE business case,
managing the project team, motivating individuals, and helping to ensure the VoE program is

Page 10 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 delivered on time and on budget. They can also provide VoE analysis of collected data if the
organization does not have the tools, time or expertise to do so.

There are many different types of providers and organizations need to be aware that their strengths
and weaknesses vary significantly by category. In addition to the Tier 1 global system integrators,
organizations can now approach various boutique consultancies and even some VoE software
vendors, all of which are ramping up their professional services capabilities to include needs
assessment, strategy development and process definition.

As your VoE initiative begins to take shape, it's important to conduct an evaluation of the need for
external assistance and "best fit" provider. Care should be taken to verify if VoE-focused providers
are able to go beyond employee engagement survey support to support broader capabilities across
employee experience.

Embrace a Multiphase Strategy

Lessons from VoC: A comprehensive strategy is behind every successful VoC initiative, one that
outlines a series of achievable steps over a multiyear plan to reach the ultimate goal of an integrated
VoC solution.

Applied to VoE: Similarly, organizations planning a VoE initiative need to start small, but think big. It
will take several years for a holistic, cross-enterprise VoE solution to be up and running. Focus on a
number of smaller projects, each with a clear business benefit that ties back to the big picture of the
VoE strategy, and in line with the overarching employee engagement program. This approach will
help ensure that the CFO will provide ongoing financial support and prevent the proliferation of
siloed feedback technology deployments across the organization.

Pilot the Most Promising Feedback Technologies

Lessons from VoC: Many organizations developing VoC solutions initially were not certain which of
the many potential sources of customer feedback would prove to be of most value to the enterprise;
neither did they know which tools would provide the best data or most accurate analysis. As a
result, they evaluated a range of tools and conducted pilot projects using what they thought were
the tools with the greatest potential to add value.

Applied to VoE: Although the domain is different, VoE initiatives have the same problem. It is
unlikely that every possible VoE feedback mechanism has already been deployed. Some tools (such
as speech analytics for sentiment analysis, text mining, natural-language processing [NLP] or social
media monitoring) may tap into a wealth of useful feedback, but their purchase may be difficult to
justify due to their unknown ROI.

An initial assessment is required to determine the likelihood that a channel either provides a useful
amount of feedback that is different from what could be obtained through existing channels, or
would be useful to reinforce existing results. After this, the degree to which employees are likely to
say something of interest needs to be assessed. The key is to balance volume with value, and
prioritize channels based on that. Pilots can then be undertaken for the most promising channels,

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 11 of 16

 the results of which can be used to justify a more strategic investment, if the initial insights deem it
worthy. Those leading VoE projects should use pilots as part of an agile approach to solution
configuration, testing and deployment, as every organization will have a different view of what VoE
means.

Don't be afraid to more rapidly "fail" with pilots — that is, take the results and crowdsourced
feedback from employees on how to make the next iteration better.

Determine the Best-Fit Solution Architecture and Data Model

Lessons from VoC: Due to maturation of VoC, there are now many approaches for collecting and
storing a holistic set of VoC data, ranging from VoC hub solution providers (see "Market Guide for
Voice-of-the-Customer Solutions") to integrating multiple, best-of-breed VoC data collection tools
with proven data marts from the likes of IBM, EMC and Oracle.

Over the past few years, numerous vendors have emerged that specialize in various areas of VoC
(such as text mining or surveying) and have positioned themselves as VoC hubs, enabling
organizations to import other VoC data sources into their environments. The sophistication of their
data marts varies enormously and, because they do not support all VoC collection techniques, they
still rely on point-based integrations that enable access when it is needed for holistic analysis.
However, because some raw data has not naturally lent itself to being easily uploaded into a central
hub (such as a call recording), a hybrid environment is likely to be a common reality. The specialist
nature of some datasets has required the analysis of data in isolation via specialist tools, with the
associated metadata then uploaded into the hub. Some broader, full-suite vendors are emerging,
but their market maturity is low.

Applied to VoE: A number of solutions (software, services and combined) already exist in the
market:

■ Measure employee engagement — Many survey vendors exist on the market. More traditional
vendors grew up out of the consulting space and have very well-established practices around
measuring engagement through standard surveys, often complementing annual surveys with
pulse surveys. Vendors include IBM, Mercer, Hay, Willis Towers Watson, Aon Hewitt, Sirota and
Gallup. A new generation of vendors is also emerging in this space, where the survey platforms
are analytics-driven, built for usability and mobile. Vendors include Glint, Culture Amp, Ultimate
Software (UltiPro Perception, rebrand of Kanjoya acquisition in September 2016) and Peakon.
■ Collect feedback — A wide variety of survey tools exist to collect feedback. Survey Monkey,
Google Forms and other tools help collect information on a more ad hoc, informal basis. More
enterprise-ready tools such as Qualtrics, Medallia and Questback have built on success in the
VoC market to support both engagement surveys and other forms of surveys that an enterprise
may wish to administer to given users. In addition, more AI-driven tools have emerged where
techniques such as NLP are applied to understand employee feedback on open-ended
questions (Workometry), in a more "focus group" or "town hall" meeting style (Remesh), or as
part of anonymous check-ins during the workday (Zeal).
■ Monitor sentiment — Social analytics tools (see "Market Guide for Social Analytics
Applications") can be used to look at indirect feedback on external platforms (for example,

Page 12 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Glassdoor is another example for gathering sentiment from a
public data source. In addition, Gartner client inquiry has also revealed cases where internal
data science teams have used internal blogs, communities and collaboration tools as a data
source to track sentiment. They may also use social network analytics tools as a source of
information (see "Market Guide for Social Network Analysis").
■ Infer employee preferences, opinions and well-being — Gartner has encountered a few leading
customers exploring how to leverage various datasets to gather inputs about worker activities,
behaviors and interactions. Technologies in this space are quite recent and are generally
focused on one particular topic or data source. Wearables may be used to track and monitor
well-being (see "How Wearables Can Improve Human Capital Management"). Performetric uses
keyboard and mouse usage to detect fatigue. Humanyze is based on data collected from
badges (including audio). Sapience uses communications and worker behaviors on computers
to detect work patterns. IT infrastructure and security monitoring tools may also be used for
more employee behavior detection (suicide or burn-out risk, harassment, wrongdoing in
regulated industries). For more, see "Workplace Analytics Needs Digital Ethics." IT leaders
focused on HR transformation should watch this space for more emerging technologies and
opportunities, but should be aware of the ethical implications of monitoring workers in this way.

Again like VoC, the associated scale and complexity of a VoE program require IT to perform a long-
term assessment of the most appropriate data architecture before undertaking an enterprisewide
deployment. Once the long-term data architecture vision is in place, all future investments can align
to that. Otherwise, it is quite common for scope creep to occur, as best-of-breed investments begin
to feed in other data sources in an attempt to fulfill a more strategic role. This can result in the
organization having multiple potential hubs, no clear vision and elevated costs.

Make the VoE Initiative Actionable by Equipping Stakeholders to Respond Quickly to

VoE Data Insights
Action planning, follow-up and regular tracking of the impact of VoE initiatives are critical for VoE
program success. The following VoC best practices can be applied.

"Close the Loop" by Creating a Mechanism for Insight and Action Distribution
Learning from VoC: Successful VoC initiatives have focused on putting action-oriented insight into
the hands of the right person in the organization at the right time to positively affect customer
outcomes.

Applied to VoE: The same holds true in the VoE realm, and this is certainly a complex undertaking
— VoE has implications across the entire HCM function, and for all of the organization's supervisors,
managers and executives. Success relies on a few key components:

■ An action-planning tool that can either recommend specific actions in an automated way or
collect information about specific actions that are planned.
■ A workflow engine to drive the action to its rightful owner(s), and to ensure the action is carried
out.

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 13 of 16

 ■ An understanding of who the most appropriate owner(s) should be.

Some VoE applications contain an action-planning toolset, especially those focused on engagement
surveys. In order to recommend and assign particular tasks to appropriate individuals, these VoE
applications should be tightly integrated with the core HR system containing general employee and
organizational data.

Develop Metrics and Measure the Impact of the Initiative Over Time
Lessons from VoC: VoC initiatives have been deemed successful when they have been delivered
with a robust and relevant set of granular, mid-level and strategic measurements.

Applied to VoE: As with VoC, all three levels are needed to increase the chances of VoE initiative
success. High-level employee experience metrics, such as those for measuring employee
engagement, loyalty and advocacy, are useful as the top-level objectives, but they are not what
managers, executives and HR administrators focus on day to day. All stakeholders need metrics
that they can affect through their daily activities.

At the same time, the positive impact VoE is having on the employee experience program and high-
level business outcomes also needs to be tracked. To do so, project teams should set up a
hierarchy of VoE metrics that spans from low-level operational measures (such as survey response
rates and the number of manager check-ins with employees) to employee satisfaction with HR
processes (such as onboarding, performance appraisal or career planning) and high-level strategic
metrics (highlighted above) that articulate the improvement in, for example, employee advocacy —
one result of the VoE program and all the actions undertaken. Because VoE initiatives aim for a more
holistic view on employee experience, VoE metrics need to be embedded within each department
and across all employee levels. These metrics help ensure that insights and recommended actions
receive serious consideration by stakeholders. They should become an integral part of the
performance management process for all affected roles.

One interesting challenge to overcome is managing the disparate feedback that each employee
provides. For example, a call center employee might score 9 out of 10 in an NPS relationship survey
on Monday, and then appear unhappy in a chat session with a customer on Wednesday, tweet a
negative comment on Thursday about the brand, but then be quite positive in a customer support
call on Friday. The combination of VoE tools (survey, web, text and speech analytics) that could be
applied would reveal different perspectives on the state of the employee's relationship with both
customer and employer. Reconciling this based on known events, where available, and factoring in
the time scale (Is a three-week-old survey less relevant than a 10-day-old tweet?) and channel (Is
the tweet less relevant than the survey?) require some careful modelling, as the resultant actions
could be very different depending on the weighting applied. Developing this model requires time
and extensive fine-tuning, but it is important to ensure the right employee decisions are made.

Gartner Recommended Reading

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

Page 14 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286

 "Measuring Employee Engagement: Past, Present, Future"

"As Employee Performance and Engagement Converge, a Comprehensive IT and HR Strategy Is

Needed"

"Market Guide for Voice-of-the-Customer Solutions"

"Market Guide for Social Analytics Applications"

"Market Guide for Social Network Analysis"

"How Wearables Can Improve Human Capital Management"

"Workplace Analytics Needs Digital Ethics"

"Voice of the Customer Amplifies End-User Sentiment of the IT Service Desk"

"How to Manage Feedback in Field Service"

Evidence
Gartner client inquiry, January 2015 through March 2017.

More on This Topic

This is part of an in-depth collection of research. See the collection:

■ Future of Experience: A Gartner Theme Insight Report

Gartner, Inc. | G00326286 Page 15 of 16

 GARTNER HEADQUARTERS

Corporate Headquarters
56 Top Gallant Road
Stamford, CT 06902-7700
USA
+1 203 964 0096

Regional Headquarters
AUSTRALIA
BRAZIL
JAPAN
UNITED KINGDOM

For a complete list of worldwide locations,

visit http://www.gartner.com/technology/about.jsp

© 2017 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This
publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission. If you are authorized to access
this publication, your use of it is subject to the Usage Guidelines for Gartner Services posted on gartner.com. The information contained
in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy,
completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This
publication consists of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions
expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues,
Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company,
and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of
Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization
without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner
research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity.”

Page 16 of 16 Gartner, Inc. | G00326286