Every month, technological advancements improve communication, increase employee productivity and efficiency, and simplify production.
Unfortunately, many organizations fail to take advantage of the extensive menu of collaboration tools available. In some cases, this is due to budgetary concerns — in others, it is a matter of holding on to outdated practices. Either way, being slow to adopt new technology — and the corresponding advantages — can have a negative impact on engagement levels.
Some of the most critical technology for high engagement levels includes the following:
Communication & Collaboration
Carefully consider interoffice communication platforms, as your staff spends a lot of time with these. Examples include email, instant messaging and internal community pages. Envision your intranet as the front of your organization, allowing staff members to enter and access all of the tools and resources you offer. Use your intranet to promote networking and community building, which leads to greater collaboration and helps improve employee engagement.
Many organizations have adopted modern intranet platforms that mirror the features of popular social media sites, so employees can get to know their colleagues quickly. These tools are effective in supporting acclimatization for new hires, and they increase connections among tenured employees.
Choose an integrated solution that keeps everything together, so your employees don’t have to check multiple platforms to ensure they have received all of their messages. Avoid complex, cluttered tools that overwhelm new users.
Finally, offer an intranet experience that can be customized, so your employees see the most relevant information right away.
Hardware
Invest in current desktops and/or laptops to ensure your systems can run updated software. Slow computers are a nuisance at best.
Production-Specific Tools and Equipment
Don’t have your employees manually inputting data if there is a program that can upload everything in an instant.
This philosophy extends to all areas of the business. Engagement suffers when employees feel they are wasting their time. Instead, ensure their work is meaningful and that they can feel positive about adding value to the process.
Employees expect their employers to provide the tools needed to get the job done. The endless frustration that comes with slow, obsolete systems and archaic software is directly related to decreased engagement, particularly when staff members have the most current features on their personal laptops and mobile devices.
An investment in appropriate technology for your business leads to improvements in employee engagement, as well as the decreased turnover and increased productivity that organizations with a highly-engaged workforce enjoy.
Information sharing, creative collaboration, innovation and interaction, flexibility: the role of technology in employee engagement is essentially limitless and will continue to evolve and expand. What technology inspires and motivates your employees? How have you used technology to create a strong sense of connection between employees and their work? Share your success (and failure) stories with us!
