Organizational leaders have long realized the importance of fostering customer loyalty to ensure profitability and growth. To improve consumers’ experiences, they have traditionally captured and analyzed the voice of the customer and additional insights within their organization. Such customer experience management efforts tend to stall, however, when employees are not able or willing to act on the information that has been collected. At DHL Freight, collaboration with Gallup, Inc., led to a shift in strategy that focused on cultural change from the top down to bolster the link between employee engagement and customer centricity. The results of this effort not only accelerated implementation of the company's customer experience management program but also identified practical measures for fostering a customer‐centric outlook and complementary behavior throughout the organization. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Purpose This paper aims to establish the state of employee engagement levels in Europe and offer insights into the reasons behind the current state of affairs. It proposes that management matters most out of all the factors influencing employee engagement, and that European organisations should therefore invest in equipping their leadership teams to provide employees with a positive experience of the workplace. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses data from the Gallup World Poll, which Gallup has used to conduct surveys of the world’s adult population, using randomly selected samples, since 2005. Covering more than 160 countries since its inception, the survey was conducted via computer-assisted telephone interviews in 2020 to account for COVID-compliant safety measures. Findings This paper provides insights into the engagement levels of European employees, which remained dismally low in 2020 as it has for the last decade. By far, the biggest influence on the state of employee engagement is leadership, which will require improvement if European organisations are to improve their employee engagement levels. Originality/value This paper fulfils the need for organisations to gain a better understanding of how to improve their employee engagement levels in the wake of a significant global crisis. Inspiring workplace cultures that maximise the well-being of every employee can help to reverse the decline of economic dynamism across the globe.