How Can Technology Increase Employee Engagement in the Workplace?

At present, there really is a tech solution for everything. With the incredible boom in HR SaaS solutions, growing at over 10.21% per year, you can now find a platform or system that facilitates almost every part of the HR experience. From streamlining the hiring process to helping employees stay productive while at work, there is something for everyone.

HR software can radically increase the efficiency of a business. What is HR software? Simply put, any tools that help those that work in HR to manage people across the entire employment lifecycle.

Here is a range of core areas where HR tech can help your organization:

Simplify Monotonous Tasks
Foster Effective Remote Working with Collaboration Tools
Reassess How You Run Meetings
Digital Rewards

Let’s break these down further.

Simplify Monotonous Tasks - Automate

According to a study released by the National Library of Medicine, one of the leading factors for why people feel disengaged at work is due to feeling bored. If a person has to spend their day conducting a range of monotonous tasks, then they’re likely to suffer from boredom and take a negative perspective on their work.

Over time, this can lead to higher percentages of burnout, as well as decreased productivity. Luckily, the need to have employees move through monotonous tasks isn’t nearly as pressing as it once was. If your task is simply repeating a similar action over and over, then turning to automation technology can completely outsource this task.

Instead of spending a whole day a week going through a repetitive task, you can use technology to automate this task for an employee. Not only does this free them from their most boring task, but it also allows them to then focus on higher-reward work.

If you can automate something, do everyone a favor and do so.

Find Out How Much You Can Save by Switching to Workmates.

Other HR Teams made the switch from Workplace
and save upwards of 60%

Calculate Now

Foster Effective Remote Working with Collaboration Tools

Gallup released data that covers how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world of work. Unsurprisingly, one of the biggest changes was the fact that many more people are now working remotely instead of commuting into an office. At present, around 6/10 workers in the United States are working remotely at least part-time.

The Hybrid-Work Cisco study took stock of 28,000 employees, seeing how the transition to remote working impacted them. The vast majority, coming in at 82% of all employees, stated that working from home made them much happier. Of course, it’s easy to see why, with no need to spend hours each day commuting to the same place. With this, employees have more free time to spend outside of work.

If your company isn’t already looking into remote work, now is the time to do so. Yet, to pull this off effectively, you need to make sure that you have the right tech tools in place. There are a couple of core ones that you’ll need:

Meeting Platform - Platforms like Zoom have blown up over the past few years, with businesses needing to facilitate online meetings between their employees.
Instant Messaging - Using services like Slack or Microsoft Teams will allow your employees to chat rapidly or jump on calls with ease.

Investing in effective remote working tools will help your business thrive while working from home. Not only will your employees thank you and be much happier, and therefore more engaged, at work, but you’ll also save money on renting office space.

Social Intranet Software that Encourages Employee Communication

Finally, a Better Intranet Experience Your Employees Will Love.

Learn More

Reassess How You Run Meetings

Nearly 70% of all employees believe that meetings are the number one factor that prevents them from getting their best work done. For most people, meetings seem like a waste of time that could have definitely just been a simple message or a few paragraphs of writing.

Of course, sometimes meetings are essential. Yet, most of the time, your employees will audibly groan when that invitation lands in their inbox. If meetings are making your workplace less satisfied at work, then investing in asynchronous meeting tech tools can help out.

Asynchronous meetings are where an individual can use an online screen recorder to make a short video and then send it to other team members. This gives them the opportunity to speak, as if they were in a meeting, but forces them to get to the point. Equally, employees can listen to the meeting whenever they want, fitting it around their day in a way that suits them.

Asynchronous meetings can help reduce people’s frustration around meetings, contributing to a more productive and engaged workplace.

“Our staff has praised the increased communications level Workmates delivers. We use it to communicate important project matters and give staff specific ‘kudos’ or even recognize their birthdays. More importantly, we use Workmates to clarify important project details that needed rapid dissemination among the entire team.”

Christopher Baggott Chief Executive Officerator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.

Learn More

Digital Rewards Help Boost Employee Engagement

According to the Journal of Business Management, one of the best ways to increase employee satisfaction and engagement is to provide positive feedback and rewards. Positive feedback is something you can incorporate into your business easily. By using the aforementioned meeting tools, you can structure 1:1s with employees, using that time to praise them on what they’re doing well.

Yet, for some employees, a bit of positive feedback might not be enough. An additional way that you can improve employee satisfaction is to offer rewards for great performance. We’re not talking about the infamous Friday pizza parties; we’re talking about real financial compensation for hard work.

At least, you could offer to pay for employees’ digital subscriptions for their hard work. Offering recurring prizes that cover subscriptions can help catch an employee’s interest and facilitate hard work. Alternatively, if your business is in a position to do so, offering monthly bonuses to top employees is a great way to boost engagement.

Remember, if you can, financial recompensation is the best way to improve employee engagement and boost loyalty at work. While this might not be what we want to read, with the current global economic crisis that we’re going through, every little will go a long way with your employees.

Final Thoughts on Boosting Employee Engagement with Technology

We’re living in an age of incredible change. In the world of HR, never before have we had access to such a useful array of technological tools. From every angle, we can use tech implementations to streamline the employee experience. When looking to boost employee satisfaction, these tech tools can provide an invaluable way of boosting engagement at work.

Think of technology as a method of facilitating change. We know that remote work boosts employee engagement and happiness, so how can we get there? The answer, almost always, is through turning to technology.

Using technology throughout our business can streamline employee workloads, facilitate collaboration and connection, and lead to a better workplace culture. All we need to do is get started and embrace everything HR software has to offer.

Author Bio:

This article is written by a marketing team member at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.