Employee engagement is one of the most important yet often ignored aspects of a productive workplace. While most employees may report to work on time regularly and do their assigned attacks, only a few of them are committed to accomplishing all the organizational visions and goals. According to a 2015 Gallup survey, only 30 percent of workers are completely engaged in their work, with over 50 percent less engaged and 16 percent “actively disengaged”.
That’s a serious crisis in the workplace. On top of the Gallup poll, other surveys have revealed that only 25 to 35 percent of employees throughout the U.S are fully engaged in their job. This is definitely an invisible epidemic. Fortunately, there is something you can do about it. Here are 4 secrets on how to leverage technology to enhance employee engagement.
Promote a Collaborative Culture
Flexible and remote work is now the new normal. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working was still a big thing. In fact, a poll by Forrester Research revealed that more than 63 million Americans worked remotely in 2016. This was a tremendous increase, considering this figure was just 34 million in 2010. But other than the current global health crisis, what else is driving the popularity of remote working models? A PGi Telework Week poll found out that 82 percent of remote workers suffer less stress, 80 percent have improved morale, and 69 percent have lower absenteeism rates.
These statistics prove the significance of companies investing in appropriate technology infrastructure to enable employees to work and train remotely. Once they do that, then they can enjoy the benefits of a more contented, more motivated, and highly productive workforce. A virtual team also reduces overhead expenses and proves you believe in your employees’ capabilities. With the right communication and collaboration tools, you can keep track of projects in real-time. Some of the tools that can help you foster coworking include:
- Project management tools such as Basecamp and Asana allow you to set up, organize, and assign tasks. They also allow conversations and chats during breaks.
- Shared whiteboards: Tools like slack can help your workers share ideas and collaborate.
- File Sharing and extraction: Tools like Google Drive and Dropbox are a perfect choice for file sharing. Tools like WinZip, on the other hand, can help your employees extract and open rar files quickly and effortlessly.
Leverage Gamification to Enhance Employee Motivation
You can use technology to add fun and thrill to your business processes, particularly in workforce training and education. Gamification can make everyday activities like weekly meetings or training more exciting and increase the number of employees actively participating. It allows you to add gaming aspects, including attaining higher levels, earning badges or points, goal-setting, and gaining rewards, to work-related activities.
On top of boosting engagement and productivity, gamification also gives you a transparent method for assessing employee performance. There are tons of enterprise gamification platforms on the Internet. They mostly exist as Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms, meaning you can integrate them into your existing business apps.
Embrace P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Recognition
Around 43 percent of employees associate the biggest portion of their unhappiness at work to a lack of recognition. Companies that have embraced P2P recognition are already seeing significant improvement in employee engagement.
Smart tools like Salesforce Chatter helps your workers feel treasured and respected. Team members become cheerleaders for each other and build healthy support systems. An active network of teammates can help employees stay engaged and productive even when senior managers seem too busy or too unconcerned.
Permit Personal Devices at the Workplace
A large number of professionals use at least two devices in their everyday lives. Around 60 percent of employees would prefer to handle both work and personal matters with a gadget other than a laptop. These statistics from 2014’s Cisco Connected Tech Report stress the importance of companies allowing their workforce to use personal devices at work.
Allowing personal devices at work promotes autonomy and enables workers to employ the methods they consider ideal for completing tasks. While allowing your staff to use their tech devices (smartphones) at the workplace may seem counter-productive, it’s a strategy many organizations have used to enhance long-term engagement.
The Bottom Line
Employee engagement is a fundamental feature of any business. It helps set your brand as an authority in the industry and transforms the workforce into your brand’s ambassadors. Nowadays, companies are devising innovative ways to use technology to raise workforce engagement. The above 4 secrets will help you leverage the power and potential of technology to increase employee engagement.
