How to Increase Employee Engagement with Technology

Even the busiest employee encounters downtime during the workday. Can organizations leverage these moments to increase employee engagement? Today's technology market offers numerous options for businesses to connect with employees wherever they are.

With the average person touching their phone 2,617 times per day, organizations have an opportunity to reach employees in one of the most highly trafficked channels. Managers who curate mobile technology to communicate and deliver content effectively will see the highest levels of employee engagement.

woman mobile microlearning outdoors Sales reps and account executives in the field have all experienced sitting idly in a car or stopping to get a quick coffee just before entering the next client meeting. With a minute to spare people in the field typically turn to their mobile device to fill in even the shortest gaps between tasks.

According to comScore, adults in the UK spend just over 2 hours a day on a smartphone while their U.S. counterparts spend closer to 3 hours per day on "non-voice activities on mobile devices."

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When organizations leverage mobile technology to connect with employees, engagement increases. Human Capital Institute found that mobility not only improves performance, but also improves retention rates: “When employee engagement increases, there is a corresponding increase in employee retention by up to 87%."

70 senior-level executives were asked by Forrester Research what the major benefits of smartphone or tablet mobile technology solutions, the top three responses were 1) increased employee responsiveness and decision-making speed, 2) faster internal issue resolution, and 3) increased worker productivity.

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Engagement, productivity, and retention are directly related to the measurement of an employee's satisfaction in the workplace. When employees are engaged they are more likely to be motivated to perform and stay where they are.

Reaching employees through the most actively used channel throughout the day is key. Choosing the right mobile technologies to support higher levels of employee engagement will build stronger ties regardless of location.

Select the mobile technologies your organization needs to reach the performace levels. The better the selection of tools with the right content, the more autonomous employees will be at making the decisions they need to perform.

Microlearning for Effective Corporate Training

The mobility market offers cloud-based solutions and collaborative tools to support employee productivity wherever they are.

Document sharing- telecommuting and remote workers gain flexibility with access to web-based storage solutions. Promote team work and collaboration through document sharing, saving versions, adding comments and notes to versions with tools like Microsoft OneDrive, Google Docs or Dropbox.
Wikis- give quick access to resolve questions or issues when employees are in the field. Allow employees to add or comment on entries to leverage any new knowledge gained in the market. MediaWiki is free, open source and the same software as Wikipedia.
Third-party chat apps- communicate with instant messaging to individual employees or to teams. Members are organized in groups or by topics for individual or group chats. Some common features of CiscoSpark, Slack or Flock are conversation threads, drop-in attachment files, to-do lists, favorites, and video.
Apps- While there are many apps geared toward increased business efficiencies, “... there are 900,000 apps on the Apple App store, the role of curation is crucial,” says Senior IT Manager, Mobility Services at Cisco. Pre-approved apps are an effective way to engage employees while establishing a technology-driven culture. 45% of companies employing 10,000 or more people provide apps to at least half of their workforce.

Gamification- gain positive employer branding through entertaining way of learning and complement training. Apps provide one-click access to pre-approved company content. Gamification allows managers to leverage bite-size learning or microlearning. Our trivia game app, Atrivity supports on-the-go training, increases knowledge retention and promotes reinforcement.

Productivity- manage projects, calendars, and deliverables.

Make apps and log-ins available to every employee. Whether using personal or company provided technology, each device must be equipped with the pre-approved apps as made available. Create a workflow that deploys the tools for immediate use.

For organizations that provide mobile devices, add the apps before they start. To ensure participation train new and current employees on best practices and uses of each app or software. Test their knowledge, monitor, reinforce and adjust to optimize actual use.

Making your organization available on any device promotes employer branding and establishes a positive and working culture of:

Transparency: the majority of cloud-based solutions incorporate a social aspect or ability to communicate.
Analytics: measure and monitor to track usage and optimize where needed
Learning: technologies are constantly evolving, by promoting their use, every employee is encouraged and forced to get up to speed
Excellence: the content your organization chooses to share will cultivate excellence in learning, upgrading skills, keeping employees in -check with corporate culture and standards
Collaboration: leverage chats, use comments, editing tools in software and apps to encourage teamwork

Off site downtimes are the perfect moment to support employee engagement through curated technology. Next time employees pick up their mobile make company apps and tools available to give them a chance to stay connected, up to date and to start checking-off to do's from their lists.

Sources: CITO Research, Lightgroup, SmartInsights