Care About Employee Engagement?
Invest in technologies needed to succeed
Posted on 07-10-2018, Read Time: Min
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This just in: New research shows that the majority of companies are committed to prioritizing employee engagement. The 2018 Employee Engagement Survey from StaffConnect found that HR professionals—as well as CEOs and corporate communications—want to improve their employees’ experience (EX) in 2018. In fact, about three-quarters of organizations surveyed have plans to implement specific initiatives to boost EX this year.
If your company is among those that has identified EX as an area to invest in, however, you need to ask yourself some tough questions. Are you really taking the right steps and committing to the types of resources required to create high engagement among your workforce and keep employees engaged?
There’s good reason to think long and hard about your current approach, since StaffConnect’s findings revealed several shortcomings in the way that many organizations are approaching engagement-building and maintenance. Instead of using the latest technologies that have proven ability to create cultures of engagement and measure them over time, the study showed that far too many are still depending on legacy communications with limited reach. Even more concerning are the numbers of companies that aren’t even trying to measure engagement to track changes over time so that they can adjust cultural elements as required.
Let’s examine how HR and business leaders can play a key role in helping their companies overcome these trouble spots by leveraging innovative mobile engagement platforms.
Disturbing Data
It’s exciting for all stakeholders—employees, managers, and human resources—to see that an overwhelming number of enterprises are striving to do better in offering their workers a quality EX. But a deep dive into the report data reveals a disappointing disconnect between what many organizations profess is top-of-mind versus their commitment to (and investment in) actually achieving their stated goal. Consider these other key findings:
- Behind the times. A massive part of creating engagement comes down to internal communications. The 2018 Employee Engagement Survey revealed that the vast majority of enterprises are using relatively outdated tools to communicate with and among teams, potentially hampering engagement. Close to 80 percent still primarily use email and almost half rely on newsletters as their primary outreach to reach staff, including remote and non-desk employees (NDEs). This is problematic since NDEs may not even have access to a company email address or intranet, leaving a sizable chunk of the workforce out of the loop. Not a good way to foster engagement.
- No measurement. Engagement isn’t just about creating a positive EX in the moment; it requires examination and modification through accurate measurement of employee opinions and sentiments over time. Yet a sizable chunk of respondents to StaffConnect’s study—over a quarter—indicated they are either making no attempts to measure employee engagement or are using old-school measurement tools, from paper-based surveys (nearly 75 percent) to employee suggestion schemes (nearly 40 percent) and reward programs (over 20 percent). These tools are inefficient at this role, especially when compared with more innovative mobile technologies that simplify ongoing management and analysis of surveys and data insights while effectively measuring interaction and capturing feedback on corporate messaging and initiatives.
- Wrong indicators. Even for the organizations that do attempt measurement, the study found many are using insufficient indicators like rates of decreased absenteeism (26 percent), employee turnover rates (35 percent), or increased profitability (24 percent).
As you ponder these findings, I encourage you again to think about your own company’s approach. Are you expecting your organization to deliver superior EX while failing to invest in the best technologies and tools that drive and support high engagement levels? If so, it’s time to shift your strategy.
EX Investment in Tech
The 2018 Employee Engagement Survey contained some other eye-openers as well that point the way to needed improvements. The most glaring one is the fact that almost no companies in the study—under 2 percent—reported leveraging available mobile platforms in the engagement space. HR and business leaders can make a huge difference for the entire organization by focusing on upgrading their strategy and introducing new innovative technologies that help them reach and connect with the entire workforce. By swapping antiquated engagement tools of the email and newsletter variety for an integrated mobile engagement platform, enterprises can position themselves to fulfil their promises to raise EX by improving cross-company communication and engagement measurement in one fell swoop.
What’s so great about mobile when it comes to engagement? These technologies are the only tool available that can give today’s dispersed teams equal access to company information, feedback sharing, and collaboration opportunities, no matter where they work. There are plenty of other advantages as well, including the ability to use audience segmentation. Customizing notifications to workers based on regions, roles, and functions can give a big boost to engagement over the uniform communication blast of a company-wide email.
There’s more to engagement creation than one-way communication, though—employees need the ability to share their perspectives with their management and colleagues. This is a win-win since employees gain the information and cross-company access they want, while HR and managers have an easy way to tap into employee ideas and insights. This intel is what the organization needs to improve engagement over time. A few highlights of a solid employee engagement platform that make it worth investing in include:
What’s so great about mobile when it comes to engagement? These technologies are the only tool available that can give today’s dispersed teams equal access to company information, feedback sharing, and collaboration opportunities, no matter where they work. There are plenty of other advantages as well, including the ability to use audience segmentation. Customizing notifications to workers based on regions, roles, and functions can give a big boost to engagement over the uniform communication blast of a company-wide email.
There’s more to engagement creation than one-way communication, though—employees need the ability to share their perspectives with their management and colleagues. This is a win-win since employees gain the information and cross-company access they want, while HR and managers have an easy way to tap into employee ideas and insights. This intel is what the organization needs to improve engagement over time. A few highlights of a solid employee engagement platform that make it worth investing in include:
- Giving all staff, including people working remotely, easy access to corporate guidelines, policy documents, and company events.
- Helping employees connect directly to their work communities, colleagues throughout the organization, and management, with the ability to provide input to corporate/HR initiatives.
- Facilitating management’s ability to stay on top of worker opinions, experiences, and attitudes as they change over time, using tools that employees want to engage with like gamified polling, pulse surveys, and dynamic quizzes.
- Utilizing mobile measurement tools to measure and manage users and content through a management console, and tracking engagement to inform strategy adjustments over time to improve engagement and EX.
The year is already half over. So if you’re truly committed to EX in your company, don’t expect to get it done without the key tools and resources required for a successful outcome. If you want to help your organization continuously pinpoint and refine engagement-related areas that need improvement, move beyond just talking about it. Invest in a mobile engagement platform that can improve and enhance the employee experience for your entire workforce
Interactive Infographic: StaffConnect 2018 Employee Engagement Survey
Author Bio
| Bulent Osman is the Founder and CEO of StaffConnect. Visit www.staffconnectapp.com Connect Bulent Osman Follow @BizBulentOsman |
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