Disconnected Employees? There’s an App for That!
Employees aren’t at their desks. They catch up on emails during lunch at the coffee shop, at the deli, or on the road. Engagement tools have overlooked the on-the-go worker, leaving them disengaged. The purpose of engaging employees is to connect them to their organization; the company mission, culture, and values; and one another. By getting people more engaged at work, we can increase performance and motivate them to be more productive. In the research I conducted for my book CRAVE, I found humans require three things to be motivated (at work and in their personal lives): respect, purpose, and relationships. When the environment is right in a traditional workplace setting, employees can physically speak to one another, making it easier to have these needs fulfilled. But for the worker who clocks in from their smartphone in the morning and receives all of their tasks through a workforce management platform on their tablet or phone, it’s often difficult to reconnect them back to the company. Even the “traditional” workplace has changed. Employees check emails from home in the evenings to get a head start on their morning. A mobile workforce is a reality. According to the International
Data Corporation (IDC), the mobile workforce will climb to 72.3 percent of the total U.S. workforce by 2020. And HR leaders need better tools to better engage with every person on their team.
Technology Connects the Disconnected We’ve replaced our phone calls with text messages, drastically cutting down the amount of time we spend on quick phone conversations that aren’t timely. Now, you can send someone a few short phrases as a reminder to pick up milk on the way home. Social media, which we easily access from our smartphone, has allowed people to stay connected with their friends and family, and in some instances make new friends and family. Many of us have become completely absorbed by the apps on our smartphones, constantly communicating and engaging for fear of missing out. Regardless of how much we use our smartphones, as consumers, we’re connected through them and the apps we’ve downloaded. We don’t have to wait to get home to log in on the desktop. We have on-the-go access, wherever we are. Technology has come to us. What would be the outcome if we took advantage of this new reality and used it to engage employees at work? Also Read: Rethinking the Employee Experience in Human-Centric Workplaces
Uniting a Workforce Employee engagement is driven by many factors. Pay and benefits might get a worker in the door, but they’re not enough to keep them connected to your mission or values. According to Gallup research, two of the top reasons employees aren’t motivated to work to their full potential are unclear or misaligned expectations and ineffective and infrequent feedback. There are employee engagement solutions today that help organizations unite and connect their workforce with the ability to read company communications and celebrate fellow employees while on the go. But it’s critical for employees to want to use those solutions, whether it’s on a coffee run or during the carpool ride home. To engage an employee, you have to go to them. What if organizations took a similar approach to how consumer technology is engaging the same people they’re trying to reach? Imagine a world where organizations can give workers everything they crave to communicate and be celebrated at work through a mobile app! The time is now.
We Have to Engage Like Consumers
The experience employees get from their favorite mobile apps has led to higher expectations for how they want to communicate at work. We need to be able to mimic the accessibility and ease that people experience on a daily basis by keeping up with their family and friends on Facebook. The social media platform boasts 2.23 billion people logging in every month, according to Hootsuite, to maintain relationships with friends and family. It’s more than just a pastime — Facebook keeps people glued to the app. People literally scroll their news feed an estimated 27 to 41 minutes per day, according to The Motley Fool. Engaging in an activity that helps employees feel more connected to their company and co-workers like sending a thank-you card takes only 10 minutes a week, less than what the average person spends on Facebook. To make that a reality and get people committed to those 10 minutes, our engagement tools must be like people’s experience in the consumer world — easy to use and accessible. Our engagement tool must fit in our environment and schedule. Our engagement tool must be mobile, so we can reach employees wherever they may be. Also Read: 7 Ways to Engage Your Employees in 2019
Engaging the Disengaged in 10 Minutes by Friday Our current employee engagement strategies aren’t working. Not only are more people physically disconnected from their workplaces than ever, but they are also more disengaged than ever. Here are three tips to form the Ultimate Habit and begin engaging your disengaged employees in 10 minutes each week: 1. Schedule recognition. Set a calendar reminder on your smartphone. Use that 10 minutes to recognize your employees through your engagement app. There’s no excuse for not remembering when you’re not in the office. The app goes where you go. 2. Form a habit. You remember to brush your teeth every day, right? Forming a habit of recognizing employees is done in the same way. If you have a financial habit of paying bills or a health habit of eating better, you can form a recognition habit.
3. Give the gift of recognition. Your recognition habit is a gift. It can create an entire mindset and culture of recognition for others to take part in and create their own habit.
Simply dedicating 10 minutes of your time each week to recognition not only boosts your confidence as a leader but boosts your organization’s bottom line. It’s a small amount of time to invest for such a powerful tool as recognition. Our workforce has adapted to be more versatile and mobile. The technology we use should be the same to cater to the on-the-go employee.
To engage the entire workforce, we need to meet them where they are. Mobile is the gateway to a new era of keeping employees connected and engaged.