Genesys, a leader in cloud customer experience orchestration, and Thrive, the behaviour change technology company founded by Arianna Huffington, are partnering to help organizations transform their relationship with employees. The best customer experiences start with happy employees. Yet today, employee well-being has become the most urgent workplace issue of our time.

Thrive and Genesys recognize technology has a powerful role to play. But technology focused solely on business efficiency and effectiveness won’t enable better employee relationships and only serves to fuel more burnout. To improve the employee experience, Thrive and Genesys are introducing a first-of-its-kind solution that enables organizations to embed well-being tools directly in the workflow itself so workers can de-stress, reset and recharge in real time. Results from an early pilot with a Fortune 10 retailer showed both improved employee well-being and increased customer satisfaction.

While the global epidemic of employee stress and burnout was growing even before the pandemic, it now has been compounded as many people begin their third year of remote or hybrid work. The blurring of the lines between work and home has created an always-on culture that leaves no time to decompress. Employees everywhere are buckling under sustained, cumulative stress. This has fueled “The Great Resignation” and has accelerated the growing mental health crisis.

Organizations can reinvent their relationship with employees by taking an empathy-first approach. That’s why Thrive and Genesys created a solution aimed at improving people’s overall well-being, helping them to achieve more clarity, balance and focus on the job. With Thrive Reset for Genesys, the customer experience industry now has an employer-initiated stress intervention solution for frontline workers that is science-backed and designed to focus on the root causes of burnout.

Empathy-enabled Technology: The Future of Customer and Employee Experiences

Across industries, customer service departments have been a critical lifeline for consumers, who have required unprecedented levels of support to deal with challenges related to the pandemic, economic volatility, and societal strain. At the same time, many contact centre employees have been stretched thin, handling increasingly tense customers while working virtually from an isolated environment for organizations that are short-staffed. According to a Cornell University study, nearly 90 percent of contact centre operators report high or very high-stress levels. In addition, even before the pandemic the average attrition rate for contact center workers was two times that of other occupations.

Now, businesses using Genesys to orchestrate their customer experiences have a proactive way to help their employees course-correct from stress in 60 seconds based on proven neuroscience methodology. With the new empathy-led offering from Genesys and Thrive, organizations can intervene in their employees’ workday by delivering well-being breaks straight to their desktops when they’re needed the most.

For example, imagine the stress an agent experiences during an intense interaction with a frustrated customer. Instead of another call being thrown into the queue, the employee is given a brief video-based break designed to reduce stress and help them reset. As a result, the next customer is dealt with by an employee who is recharged and better prepared to deliver great service, instead of one coming directly off a stressful experience. An early trial of the offering showed employees who experienced Thrive Resets, received greater customer satisfaction ratings (+5%), higher productivity scores (+17%) and better overall satisfaction levels with their employer.

Organizations can download Thrive Reset for Genesys with a simple click and customize the timing of the breaks to address their employees’ needs. For example, Thrive Reset may be triggered due to long call durations, a certain number of calls handled, or hours worked with no downtime. In the future, Genesys and Thrive plan to enable the automatic delivery of well-being breaks for employees during critical times using technologies like real-time AI-based sentiment analysis determined by key factors including mood of the previous interaction, behaviour and tone of voice.

Thrive Reset for Genesys will be available in March to businesses via the Genesys AppFoundry, a dedicated customer and employee experience marketplace.

• “Thrive is on a mission to end burnout,” said Arianna Huffington, Thrive Founder and CEO. “It starts with reshaping the employee experience by giving employers tools to foster individual well-being. Together with Genesys, we’re embedding well-being experiences into everyday workflows, which is key for the sustained mental health and resilience of employees.”
• “Many workplaces today are optimized for efficiency and effectiveness. That results in people feeling overworked and their contributions being undervalued,” said Tony Bates, Genesys Chairman and CEO. “With Thrive, we can shift the way businesses use technology to create personalized, empathetic employee experiences.”
• "In my research over the last 20 years, I’ve focused on finding the smallest thing that gives the biggest positive impact," said BJ Fogg, PhD, Founder and Director of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab and Behavioral Science Chair of Thrive's Scientific Advisory Board. "That’s what I see in Thrive Reset. So easy. But yet so powerful. This wonderful offering will boost the health, well-being and happiness for people around the world.”
• Explaining the science behind Resets, Leanne Williams, PhD, Director of the Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness, writes: “Stress shapes how our brain changes and adapts and the brain sometimes gets stuck in cycles of negative thought patterns, especially when we experience stress that is outside our control. Strategies for boosting positive connections can help break this cycle. As we practice them, our brain can adapt and create new thought patterns.”