Employee engagement has become a major focus for forward-thinking companies over the last several years. And for good reason. It has a huge impact on productivity and customer experience. Because people are at the heart of any business, focusing on how they feel about their work is essential to driving lasting results. Happier employees are more creative, more productive, and more dedicated to the success of their companies.
WHY IS EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IMPORTANT?
Every day, people make decisions at work that affect not just their work environments and culture, but the quality of the brand experience they provide to their customers. According to Gallup, only 21% of workers worldwide and 33% in the US fall in the “engaged” category. And that low employee engagement alone costs the global economy $7.8 trillion. Several studies have shown that companies focusing on proactive engagement strategies see better results. Here are some of the benefits:
- Lower staff turnover. The financial cost of staff turnover is roughly 1.5-2x a person’s salary, which doesn’t include the more intangible impact on morale, productivity, and loss of experience or knowledge on teams. Having engaged people with a sense of purpose, mastery, and autonomy is a no-brainer.
- Higher productivity & quality of work. When people are engaged and aligned to the mission, vision, and values of the company, they’re more likely to achieve both personal and company goals.
- Better customer satisfaction + higher growth. Engaged staff provide better customer experience, offer more creative solutions, and are more likely to help drive the growth and success of an organization.
This is why we take engagement seriously – not just with our internal Wordbankers but with our in-country resources and partners as well.
OUR PEOPLE-FIRST APPROACH
At Wordbank, we’re human about the way we do business from the inside out and proving that gets better results. For us, being human is centered on our people-first ethos.
Meaningful work is based on connection
With clients, Wordbankers, and resources alike, we aim to create lasting partnerships based on trust and respect.
For Wordbankers, this means a culture focused on the humans behind the work with wellbeing as a key business metric. Our people are the backbone of our business and are critical to our success and our customers’ success. Alignment with our vision and values is key to staff engagement and the Wordbank experience, both internally and for our clients and partners.
For our clients, our focus on partnership means we strive to understand their goals and challenges and work with them to come up with solutions that drive better results. We don’t lock them into one-size-fits-all technology solutions or service models. Instead, we tailor our processes and systems to work best for our clients and their evolving needs. Partnerships based on a mutual commitment to improve efficiency over time via transparency, communication, and aligned expectations deliver lasting results.
For our in-country resources, this means we promote the value of human talent in an industry that has become increasingly commoditized. For marketing and creative content, low-cost translation solutions often come at the cost of quality and consumer engagement. Proactive management & nurturing of creative talent is critical for effective marketing localization. By taking a longevity-based, fair trade human approach and connecting our people with our clients’ brands and goals, better consistency and quality are the natural outcome. And since only 13% of professional translators can survive on their translation work alone, providing economic sustainability (on average we pay 3-5% higher rates) allows translators to truly engage with marketing localization goals and deliver their best work.
Human-centered production models
People are central to quality and creativity, becoming more efficient over time with the tools and support they need to succeed. And technology is only as effective as the people behind it. The cost of human talent does not decrease over time in a model where human talent is valued. Marketing localization is about driving action. In-market creative talent is essential to humans marketing to other humans in an effective and authentic way. In-country marketing and creative expertise are essential to understanding local market trends and ever-evolving cultural nuance, while conveying brand consistency and locally relevant, engaging messaging.
People-first approach to scaling and optimizing production
The localization industry is heavily focused on a technology-first approach to scaling international content delivery. However, technology-first solutions often result in people and processes being manipulated to meet the needs and constraints of software, rather than the other way around. For marketing and creative content (which rely on human talent and creative processes), this can lead to disaster. Our people-first approach enables us to tailor processes and systems to meet current and future needs based on the nature and goals of the content, driving better results while scaling for cost and time efficiency.
PEOPLE-FIRST GETS BETTER RESULTS
We’re proud to have 85% employee engagement (domestically and internationally), which we measure quarterly, and consider a critical element in our success. We’re one of the only companies that measures engagement with our global network. While we’re always striving for improvement, here are some of the results we’re most proud of.
Resource retention
Our unique global resource network, designed specifically for marketing and creative localization, is made up of the best talent in the industry onboarded to our clients’ brands. Our proactive efforts in resource engagement, fair trade translation, and advocacy for human talent mean the average tenure of our in-country resources is 8.9 years, with 66% of those people having worked with us for 5+ years. And 77% of our global freelancers say we are better to work with than other LSPs – and they give us and our clients preferential treatment, leading to higher engagement and better quality.
Quality and ROI
Over the last year, we’ve maintained a 98.85% error-free delivery rate across 100,000+ marketing and creative content deliverables in 118 languages. As well as 54,000 conversion goals achieved across more than 600 global digital campaigns.
Client referrals and longevity
So far this year, 83% of the new clients we’ve onboarded have come to us from client referrals, which is a wonderful endorsement of our human approach to building partnerships and delivering unrivaled customer experience. And our clients choose us for the long haul, too. Our average client lifespan is 4 years, with 37% of our clients having worked with us for 5+ years.
Besides the data, our human approach to employee engagement has a positive impact on our people:
“The belief of people, planet, profit is inspiring, and in most companies, that’s all it is…inspiring words. Wordbank LIVES this belief, and it is felt, and appreciated. I feel safe and supported working here.”
“Wordbank was among the first agencies to trust me when I moved from volunteer to full-time professional work. The relationship helped me grow as a translator, providing interesting opportunities and challenges.”
FINAL THOUGHT
As companies assess potential partners and vendors, engagement metrics are an important measure of the customer experience they are likely to have. And as businesses continue to evolve their employee engagement and staff wellbeing programs, they’ll find they get better results. In the localization industry, this is especially the case. Treating staff and resources fairly is ultimately a win-win situation for everyone, especially clients. And it is possible to scale global creative and marketing content for efficiency without compromising human value.
