Engaged employees are more productive, stay longer with a company, and create better customer experiences. Statistics show that engaged employees are 22% more productive than unengaged workers and 87% less likely to leave their employer. This translates to increased profitability for companies, with those reporting high engagement levels being 21% more profitable than others.
However, the majority of the U.S. workforce (68%) is not engaged, which affects productivity and profitability. According to research, companies lose $3,400 for every $10,000 a disengaged employee earns annually. A 2020 Gallup report showed the situation is no different globally, as only 20% of employees were engaged against the 36% engagement rate for U.S. workers the same year.
To address these challenges comes employee engagement tools. The tools focus on improving employee engagement through recognition, communication, consistent feedback, tracking goals, analytics, and other measures. For instance, more than two-thirds of employees say they would work harder if they felt appreciated by their employers, while most human resource professionals agree that providing ongoing feedback is the best way to improve engagement.
Besides enhancing the employee experience through recognition and feedback, there are multiple other ways of using employee engagement tools to support business initiatives.
What Is Employee Engagement Software?
Employee engagement refers to how committed a worker feels toward their employer. Employee engagement software, thus, refers to tools that help organizations measure and improve employee engagement through initiatives such as soliciting feedback, recognition, wellness assessments, employee segmentation, goal and challenge creation, etc.
The tools help foster employee job satisfaction, which in turn, improves retention rates and boosts productivity and profitability.
How Can Employee Engagement Tools Support Business Initiatives?
As mentioned, there are multiple ways employee engagement tools support business initiatives. An engaged workforce is vital to the success of any organization. In addition to being highly productive, engaged employees are more invested in the long-term success of their employer. As a result, they’re less likely to leave the employer voluntarily.
Common employee engagement tools include:
- Survey tools – Surveys (pulse surveys, employee lifecycle surveys) give your employees a voice, enabling you to uncover their experiences and engagement level. Acting on their feedback shows you value their contributions and helps boost their morale.
- Communication tools – They facilitate in-depth conversations between employees and managers on different issues, fostering better coordination and collaboration. Open communication also makes employees feel appreciated and valued, boosting their morale and productivity.
- Recognition tools – Recognizing employee achievements makes them feel valued for their contributions and motivates them to perform better, positively impacting the company’s profitability.
- Goal tracking tools – Without goal tracking, employees can easily lose focus leading to poor outcomes. Goal-tracking tools allow you to keep them focused by tracking their progress in real-time.
- Performance monitoring tools – The tools allow you to monitor employee performance continuously. It also gives you a better understanding of the processes for quicker interventions and improvement.
- Management improving tools – Good management creates a conducive environment for employee engagement. Management improving tools allow you to build agile leadership in the company, enabling you to lead better, thus, promoting employee engagement.
- Wellness tools – Employee well-being is a critical factor in their engagement. Wellness tools allow you to design programs that foster their well-being for improved overall wellness–physical, social, financial, mental, etc.
The list of engagement tools is long; the above are just a few examples you can start leveraging to support various business initiatives. With that background, let’s discuss several ways utilizing employee engagement software can benefit your business.
Generate Valuable Data for Insightful Decision-Making
Engagement software generates valuable employee data that you can leverage to make better talent management decisions. Good software integrates with the rest of your HR system, allowing you to track behaviors and gain insights that can inform hiring decisions, project assignments, etc.
Promote Employee Well-being for Improved Performance
Employee engagement is the level of commitment a worker has to their company. By improving their well-being through the help of wellness tools, they feel appreciated and, in turn, are more inclined to perform better.
Give Employees a Voice
Survey and communication tools give employees a voice. Continuous feedback and open communication enable you to understand the employees better and act on their sentiments accordingly. As a result, they feel their contributions are valued, which leads to improved morale and fosters job satisfaction. Though job satisfaction does not necessarily mean an employee is engaged, it’s vital in encouraging engagement.
Recognize Employees to Foster a Positive Company Culture
Employee recognition makes them feel an important part of the company. As a result, they become more invested in the company and are highly likely to create better customer experiences. Overall, recognition fosters a positive company culture, starting with the employees and trickling down to the customers.
Save Time and Resources
Employee engagement software allows the automation of important tasks such as feedback gathering and goal tracking, cutting down tedious and time-consuming responsibilities for the HR team. It also powers real-time communication and provides real-time analytics, again promoting efficient time utilization.
Generally, the software allows you to foster employee engagement through multiple initiatives while saving time and resources, positively impacting the overall business performance.
Improve Onboarding
Employee engagement software plays a vital role in shaping the onboarding process. How well you conduct employee onboarding significantly impacts retention rates. Might sound obvious but it’s worth reiterating!
Joining a new team can be overwhelming. From acclimating to the team to learning the ropes and wanting to deliver soonest possible, a new employee has lots of pressures to deal with. Using survey tools to gather their feedback on the onboarding process makes them feel you value their opinion and encourages them to settle in.
Besides, an interactive onboarding process provides insightful data that you can use to improve hiring decisions and create personalized experiences to boost retention.
Promote Productivity and Business Performance
Employee engagement initiatives are geared towards promoting productivity and job satisfaction to improve engagement. While utilizing the tools, you collect insightful data that can help optimize your processes and create better strategies to enhance the employee experience. Usually, this is a win-win as optimized processes and highly engaged employees significantly impact business performance.
Create Transparent Goals
Setting goals is one thing, and achieving them is a different thing altogether. Goal-tracking tools make it easy to set and achieve goals by enabling you to keep employees focused through continuous monitoring and feedback.
The process also enhances goal transparency, making creating a culture of open feedback easier. At the same time, it fosters trust between employees and the leaders and streamlines performance reviews.
Boost Employee Engagement to Enhance Retention Rates
Talent engagement initiatives such as employee recognition, consistent communication and feedback, transparent goals, wellness programs, etc., enhance the employee experience and retention rate. Generally, employers that offer superior employee experiences tend to attract top talent who are highly likely to be engaged in their roles and stay longer with the company.
Foster Effective Communication
Effective communication is vital in business. Good communication builds strong relationships, enhances individual and team performance, streamlines management, and fuels companywide growth.
Communication tools foster effective communication, a catalyst of employee engagement. It enhances internal communications and creates a positive environment where teams can share their ideas and express their concerns. Consequently, it fuels the achievement of individual, team, and organizational goals.
Analyze Engagement Trends
Employee engagement tools gather insightful data you can use to analyze engagement trends based on different initiatives. For instance, you can track the impact of using survey tools, wellness programs, recognition programs, etc., on engagement levels. By so doing, you can optimize the initiatives to maximize their impact on the overall employee experience and organizational performance.
Lower Absenteeism
Finally, you can leverage employee engagement tools to lower absenteeism. Employee absenteeism has a direct negative impact on productivity and overall employee engagement. For instance, wellness programs can help boost employee well-being and lower absenteeism due to ill health.
Start Leveraging Employee Engagement Tools Today!
Engaged employees are more productive than their unengaged counterparts, which explains why companies with higher engagement levels are more profitable. While the engagement levels at the national and global levels are still worryingly low, there are multiple tools you can utilize to nurture a more engaged workforce. This has been proven by research. For instance, employees and HR professionals admit that recognition and ongoing feedback are effective in boosting engagement.
From survey to communication, recognition, goal-tracking, performance, management-improving, and wellness tools, there are multiple resources and initiatives you can roll out to get your workforce engaged. Eventually, the impact of employee engagement is felt across the entire organization in various ways, including improved onboarding process, data-driven decision-making, enhanced employee well-being, increased productivity, better communication, engagement strategy optimization, reduced absenteeism, and improved retention rates.
If you’re ready to start leveraging employee engagement tools, we encourage you to explore Refresh. Our solution offers multiple features, including wellness, communication, challenges, discovery, coordination, segmentation, analytics, and workflows. Contact us to learn more, or call us at 800-616-9271.