How Today’s Digital Tools Can Fuel Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is very important to successful businesses. Without it, employees are invested in the success of the company–an important foundation in businesses of all sizes. A study from the Harvard Business Review found that 71% of executives say that employee engagement is critical to their success.

Reaching a common goal takes more than just teamwork, and technology has come a long in helping businesses and employees reach their goals. A 2018 poll reported that 81% of organizations agree that IT is a strategic enabler of the business. Aside from just reaching work goals, technology can also help businesses boost engagement within their employees. Below are just a few examples of how technology initiates employee engagement.

Builds Opportunities for Collaboration

Remote workers and virtual teams are common in today’s workforce, and yet companies still manage to reach their goals. They complete their jobs through a variety of technology tools including:

File sharing – Tools like Google Drive and Dropbox make it easy for teams to share materials in real-time. For groups that are working on a project or are peer editing each other’s work, file sharing tools can offer live updates no matter the location, cut down on time spent emailing, or allows employees to call one another for clarification on changes. Plus, most file sharing programs have mass storage abilities that relieve some storage pressures from a company’s own internal IT solutions.

Cloud technology is also another great technology tool for file sharing. Aside from files, it can also store insightful data to share with teams and provide recommendations for improving processes. However, not all the clouds are the same. Some, like Infor systems, are hosted on third-party clouds, which can make collaboration and file sharing
a more complex process.

Project management tools – Employee teams need to regularly create, organize and delegate jobs into smaller tasks. Sites like LiquidPlanner and Wrike can assist teams on getting shared projects in order. Chat capabilities on these tools also help with project conversations and updates, while encouraging engagement from employees.

Chat tools – Although numerous technology tools that organizations use contain chat tools, it can be helpful to have a single chat tool for sharing ideas or talking to employees. Slack is a popular tool for businesses to use to engage teams. From asking questions to sharing funny articles, chat tools assist businesses with encouraging engagement from their employees.

Content curation tools – When doing research and curating content, Kurator lets you record your thoughts, frame your curated article with your own headline, summary and tags and publish your finding into a knowledge base to be shared by the community.  Information workers are burdened by information overload and waste 2.5 hours a day looking for information. A knowledge base that is created and indexed by the information workers customized to how they use information will help your save time and collaborate efficiently.

Your collective research can be published into visual bookmarking pages (KBucket Pages) that are categorized and easily accessible like this KBucket page here.

Turns Activities Into a Game

Boosting participation in events, such as training, can be difficult for companies. One method for increasing engagement that companies have started to use is turning these sessions into a game. Dividing employees into teams, creating a point system and rewarding correct answers can take boring educational training and turn it into an exciting activity. It’s also a way to increase collaboration between individuals and boost interest in doing a task. One company that tried out a gamified learning portal saw a 417% increase in employee use.

Promotes Recognition from Peers

Recognition and praise are necessary for encouraging employees. In fact, 43% of workers cited a lack of recognition as one of their biggest sources of unhappiness at work. It’s not always easy for companies to show appreciation to their team members. However, the use of chat tools, weekly internal e-blasts and social media are some of the ways technology can ease the lack of recognition within an office. Team members, leadership and managers can use these tools to let individuals, and in some cases, the whole company, know how well a person is doing at their job or larger project.

Creates Times for Social Engagement

Social media provides opportunities to not only promote employees, but aid businesses’ marketing tactics. Interactions on sites like Facebook or Instagram can help organizations strengthen their relationship with employees. It’s also a double score for marketing efforts; when team members promote a company’s posts through shares and likes, they are building awareness of the brand.

Because companies are already using social media for initiating brand awareness, why not put a face to it as well? User-generated content is a popular tactic for social media teams, and companies have begun to use it for their own employees too. Whether it’s sharing fund happenings around the office or group activities, companies can increase engagement from individuals by promoting them on social media channels.

Technology is a useful tool for businesses in achieving their company goals and fueling employee engagement. Whether it’s turning a training session into a game or recognizing an individual, technology can help organizations with growing employee engagement.