5 Ways to Boost Employee Engagement Using Technology

When we talk about employee engagement, we talk about the employee’s emotional commitment to the organization. In simple language, employee engagement means an employee that feels wanted in the company, is valued, and genuinely wants the company to succeed.

Have you ever thought about why startups always have higher employee retention than well-established companies? That’s because startups create an environment that makes the employees feel connected, which in turn, improves productivity and engagement. Startup companies know how to use technology to its fullest, which gives them the upper hand.

There are several ways that organizations can improve their employee engagement plan. But with technology, the percentage can go higher than expected. How? Read on to find out.

Whether you are working remotely, hybrid, or from the office, it’s essential to collaborate with your colleagues to keep them engaged.

That’s where virtual collaboration tools come into the picture. By using these tools, you can let your employees connect via audio and video calls, collaborate on projects, brainstorm ideas, and much more.

Besides, a collaboration tool can also improve the onboarding process of newcomers as they would get to know their team members and understand work processes simultaneously. Here are some of the most used virtual collaboration tools that you can use for your employees.

To engage with employees and avoid miscommunication, many companies nowadays started using different communication tools. You can use tools like Zoom or Google Meet for video meetings and Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Troop Messenger for instant messaging. The use of these tools exploded especially after the pandemic.

Additionally, if you have a culturally-diverse workplace, encourage team members to use language learning apps like Babbel, Duolingo, and Lingvist or translation apps like Google Translate and Microsoft Translator.  By learning foreign languages that are often used in the workplace like French, Italian, or Spanish, team members can bridge cultural gaps, foster stronger relationships, and enrich collective team dynamics.

Besides communication, you can also empower your employees with all-in-one project & task management tools to keep track of their work-related activities. Here, tools like SmartTask or Asana can help employees organize their work, manage projects, and collaborate with teammates from one single platform.

These tools also enable managers to distribute work evenly between employees, manage workload and avoid their team’s burnout.

It’s essential to have a specific platform where your team members can drop off all important files and documents. Tools like Google Workspace, Notion, or Dropbox are well-known for document sharing and collaboration.

Startups and new companies emphasize employee feedback, which is useful to increase employee engagement. How? By collecting regular feedback from your employees, you can understand the areas that the organization is lacking and make improvements in those areas.

But, how can technology help over here? Virtual feedback platforms like Folks can help you more than old pen-and-paper feedback. From onboarding experience to exit surveys, Folks can help you figure out how your employees feel while working with you.

Moreover, such feedback platforms can store the survey information for a long time for future usage. You can also create surveys and feedback based on your requirements. Whether it be a weekly pulse survey or monthly feedback, it’s essential to understand employees’ needs and act accordingly.

Organizations that pay attention to their employees’ concerns are the ones that have higher engagement and productivity rates.

Every human being craves appreciation after accomplishing their goals. And no, it doesn’t mean just congratulating your employees after completing the project on a tight deadline and producing great results. You must appreciate them in a way that further motivates them to keep up the good work. How? By using technology.

Nowadays, many organizations started using employee recognition platforms like Fond, Guusto, or Bonusly to reward employees. These tools enable organizations to provide a personalized recognition experience to each employee. You can offer gift cards, branded POD merchandise, and different customized rewards with these tools.

These small things can help in encouraging your team members to work enthusiastically and hence, increase employee engagement in the company.

The simple definition of “gamification” is applying the typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring) to various work-related activities. Whether you are arranging training sessions for newcomers or assigning projects to different teams, you can use gamification in each task.

For example, there are a bunch of newcomers in the company, and you want them to learn the workflow and systems used daily in the company. Now, you can either arrange a typical session where you will teach them everything and then they’ll start working. Or, you can make it a fun process. How? Arrange small quizzes after each module, and the newcomers that give the most answers will get points and a major reward at the end.

The same thing goes for your permanent employees as well. While assigning projects, you can make rewards boards in the company platform, and the team that attains the maximum points will win and get prizes, and so on. Introducing gamification in the organization will create a fun, competitive environment and help the employees in engaging more in their work.

It’s quite common for offices to prevent employees from using their mobile phones and personal laptops while working. But, it has been seen that by allowing personal devices to work, the engagement rate has increased a lot.

Why? That’s because most of the employees are either millennials or Gen Z, who know how to multitask and give good results. By allowing them to use their devices at work, you are giving them the liberty to take their time off work, relax, and then return to work with a fresh mindset.

It should be duly noted that employees will use their devices no matter what you say. By preventing BYOD, you are only helping them to think of ways through which they can use their devices at work. But, if you allow BYOD, you are giving them the freedom to work how they want, creating a flexible work environment, improving productivity, and producing good results.

With the ongoing Great Resignation and Mass Layoffs, it has become quite tricky for HRs and managers to find suitable candidates who can fill up the position and stay in the company. But, as most companies do not have good employee engagement and satisfaction rates, the newcomers leave the organization within six months of joining.

Though organizations are at fault for this, there are ways to amend their mistakes and improve the percentages. Using HR software for employee engagement, providing a better working environment, understanding the employees’ concerns, and taking notable actions are just a few examples.

Employee engagement is pretty important in the present scenario, and the sooner companies realize that the faster they can recover. Gone are the days when employees used to work for companies just for the paycheck. The new generation is looking for better opportunities and benefits that the companies can provide them. And if you can provide such benefits, not only will the retention rate increase, but the engagement percentage will also escalate.

Still not convinced? Read our HRIS case study here.

Shyamal Parikh is the Founder of SmartTask, an online work management/automation software that helps teams streamline their processes, whether sales, hiring, customer success, or projects. He actively shares strategies and techniques that improve a team’s productivity.