Organisations Investing In Technology Will Become Workplaces Of Future: BI Worldwide

Employee engagement is not a priority for quite some organisations. What can help improve engagement levels in organisations?

Some of the changing trends that we can see today are diverse workforces, the advent of the digital workforce, changing perceptions on the productivity of employees and dynamic formation of teams owing to the new agile models of operational excellence. The priority has moved from engaging employees when they are on-board to have an engagement strategy in place from the very first interaction through the entire employee lifecycle until they become brand advocates. 

Technology as an enabler has not been fully utilized to its potential. The relationship between understanding behaviours and personalised engagement need to be further improved. Organisations investing in design thinking, data sciences and artificial intelligence to understand & engage their employees better throughout their lifecycle are the ones who will make the cut to become the workplaces of the future. 

How can AI and VR help in boosting employee engagement?

It is critical for organisations to adopt both AI and VR in activating their employee engagement strategies to meet business objectives. AI can provide real-time insights based on employee behaviour which can help to identify engaged employees and also those who may have an intention to move on soon. This will help organisations take smarter and corrective decisions. 

AI and VR can even help organisations identify unconscious bias in developing job postings or in calibrating team performance, or chat-bots to automate service request processes and evolving traditional system user interfaces to use written and even spoken natural language.

Adding a layer of gamification to AI and VR can be a more dynamic proposition to have for managing employee engagement programs in modern day workplaces. BI WORLDWIDE has done a lot of work in the Gamification space to drive human behaviour and help organisations elevate their overall employee engagement score.

Why are employees not a part of the company’s plans after work hours? Why do leaders ignore the bigger picture and how can they be made to learn the basics of employee engagement?

This is certainly not a true picture of today’s modern day workplaces. One of the new rules of engagement – “Understand Them”, states how well managers understand their team members with respect to their professional and personal aspirations and how organisations can help them get closer in meeting these aspirations.

Technology transformation is a driving force for many companies’ successes and these transformations and innovations are coming in through wider external society collaborations. 

It is very important for organisations to understand that there won’t be tangible ROIs that can be measured for every employee engagement activity but various intangibles that can help in driving organisation culture which in turn will start showing results. It is also important to note that the very definition of work hours is getting changed these days with the introduction of the flexible-working policy.

Can organisation culture push employee engagement?

Culture and engagement are the topmost challenges for most of the organisations across the world. Engaged employees thrive in a strong organisational culture. For any organisation, the culture is driven by shared values, belief, trust and most importantly recognition to keep everyone motivated, engaged and happy.

The culture of an organisation also brings out an interesting facet of attracting, engaging and retaining employees - the Employee Value Proposition. When done right, EVP helps bridge serious gaps that exist in the unsaid psychological contract between an employee and employer, while meeting corporate goals and employee expectations. This results in enhanced employee satisfaction, productivity, brand advocacy and visibility. 

How do digital workplace technologies change employee engagement?

Meetings that were conducted by flying around the globe are now done via video conferences and WebEx calls over the cloud and teams collaborate real time. The reduction in direct interactions between employees called for innovative means of employee engagement. Technologies like virtual reality fill in these gaps to make people virtually present anywhere by means of ‘Virtually Realistic Physical Co-location’. 

Surveys show that organisations with strong online social networks are 7 percent more productive than those without. Specific to employee engagement, we notice progressive digital workplaces help to stretch celebratory moments which helps develop a sense of pride and accomplishment for associates by being globally recognised within the organisation thereby satisfying their esteem & self-actualisation.

Can employee engagement define ‘Organisations of the future’?

 Absolutely. Employee engagement will address the core elements that will drive success for the “organisations of the future”. With factory culture losing steam, the concept of work inside the office for 8 hours and earn a salary is also fading away. More physically diversified locations across the globe and multiple jobs owned by a single person will start becoming the norm.

Innovative companies clearly understand that the “One size fits all” approach will start fading off in employee engagement solutions. Employee engagement solutions will have the intelligence to tailor itself, based on the behaviour and preference of individual employees so that no employee is left out and it is all-inclusive. This will now start defining an organisation’s ability to maintain a skilled workforce and succeed in its goals.

Rajguru Tandon

BW Reporters The author is a correspondent with BW Businessworld with keen interest in HR and employee welfare.