The News: Netigate recently launched a new employee engagement solution, Netigate EX Engage. The product captures employee sentiment and allows for more continuous feedback. It also provides analytics and AI-powered recommendations. More information on EX Engage can be found in the Netigate press release.
Netigate Launches EX Engage
Analyst Take: Netigate is a Stockholm-Sweden based experience management provider focusing on customers and employees. The company has over 1,500 customers, which are primarily located in Europe. Netigate recently undertook a rebranding effort to mark its progression from being a survey tool provider to being an experience management company focused on a core purpose of giving every voice value.
I was able to speak with Henrik Ceder, chief growth officer of Netigate, to learn more about the launch of EX Engage and how this fits into the company goal of giving each employee a voice.
Closing the Experience Gap
Similar to CX, there is often a gap between how a company thinks they are doing and the perceptions of their customers and employees.
“This new product is based solely on employee engagement with the goal of closing the experience gap that might be occurring in an employee’s journey. This is done by finding out the specific actions that human resources might want to take, taking those actions and then tracking progress,” says Ceder.
Netigate has always offered an employee feedback tool, but it was based on less frequent questions. EX Engage offers the ability for pulse surveys, meaning less questions more frequently on whatever cadence makes sense to the company. This pulse survey technique is gaining popularity among organizations that are realizing that annual surveys or infrequent feedback opportunities are not giving them a constant view into how their employees are doing and what trends (positive or negative) are brewing.
A More Robust Picture of Employee Sentiment and Appropriate Actions to Take
“We already have a history within the employee experience space, but this product was developed using a more comprehensive model with industry experts. There are eight different drivers and twenty-two sub-drivers that are serving as baselines,” said Ceder.
The goal of the solution is to provide a broader view of employee sentiment while offering recommended actions to address sentiment. The more frequent outreach, in combination with a robust model of drivers, allows AI-driven recommendations to be developed using the expertise that is building in the engine.
“Let’s say that according to the data, employee alignment with corporate goals has gone down. What this solution will do is send an action note, with a recommendation on how to address that. But even more than that, when the action is done, it’s marked in the system and then it’s ingested into the model. So, the next time you see a recommendation, that recommendation will benefit from seeing those actions that have been taken. This fine tuning as the model gets smarter will result in greater impact,” says Ceder.
Managers can, of course, take a recommendation, ignore it, adjust it, or just write their own. All of these will also be fed into the model. The system continuously learns by the actions that team leaders are taking.
Analytics, Closing the Loop, and Setting Up Companies for Success
Managers will be able to see a heat map where they can look at their team compared to other teams. A dashboard view can lay out the activities that have been taken and monthly drivers can be seen and compared against previous time periods. In time, companies will be able to have a better view of what actions are having the biggest impact. The solution also provides support in an area where many of these types of tools fail: losing momentum when they are not used on a consistent basis.
“Where we are hoping to really make a significant difference is in keeping employee engagement top of mind. Often with leaders, they are well intentioned and deeply want to work with their teams on performance and engagement and issues of importance to individuals and employees. But often it gets a bit lost in the day-to-day operations and tasks that need to be completed. Our solution really helps to keep engagement top of mind with these recommendations, nudges, and flow of data. It also helps round out the most important piece of all of this, which is closing the feedback loop. People must know that their voices were heard, and that management is addressing issues that are important to them,” explained Ceder.
To set up customers for success, Netigate works to provide a strong onboarding experience, emphasizing that communication will be key in making progress in employee engagement. Employees need to have information and transparency about how the solution is going to be implemented, why the company is making an investment in it, and what employees can expect to see.
One of the more interesting takeaways from my conversation with Netigate was the momentum the company is seeing in employee experience. Chief human resource officers (CHROs) are still the persona most often driving the investigation and implementation of these types of solutions. However, there is a clear acceleration in interest level, often coming from other C-level executives who are accustomed to seeing data from many groups within the organization but often lack that type of information when it comes to employees. Being able to deliver that view, and to tie employee engagement into other metrics such as KPIs and employee retention will help demonstrate the ROI that stakeholders need.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
