As a business owner or manager, your staff is the key to your success. Getting them engaged with their work and the technology that makes it all possible is a must. There are many approaches you can take to enhancing employee engagement with technology.
The first approach you can take to encourage employee engagement is to offer virtual work. It’s been shown that employees who are given the chance to work virtually tend to be happier and have less sick days than those who always work out of an office location. Offering your employees the chance to work virtually can benefit their mental health while still allowing them to connect with other employees through virtual collaborations. Some examples of these include project management tools, shared whiteboards, file sharing, and wikis.
It’s no joke that humans have a natural desire to compete with one another. This desire is something that every good business owner or manager should use to enhance employee engagement with new technology. Gamification is a broad term that is used to describe turning technology-related work tasks into a competition for your employees. This has been shown to boost employee motivation and morale. This strategy works great when you’re trying to introduce new technology into your workplace. Instead of employees thinking of learning the new technology as a chore, they can see it as a fun game.
Lack of recognition is something that can take a toll on all employees from time to time. It’s not about major bonuses, although their nice, it’s just about the gesture. Many employees are happy with a good job or a thumbs up on their work. While it’s not always possible for a manager or owner to focus on employee recognition 24/7, it doesn’t hurt to encourage recognition from co-workers. With online platforms, such as the ones described on the PagerDuty blog, you can create an environment where employees can post encouraging words and recognition to their coworkers. These are an easy way to allow for employees to engage with each other and receive the recognition they need to continue to work hard each and every day.
One of the biggest reasons that employees tend to falter when it comes to implementing new technology is that they don’t see the benefits of using it. It’s not uncommon for people to get stuck in their ways of doing things and believing their way is the most effective. It’s true that many new technologies will take longer than an employee’s current strategy due to lack of familiarity with the technology. However, once the employee becomes familiar with the new technology, they will drastically surpass their productivity with their old strategy. The trick to getting employees familiar with new technologies is to boast about the benefits for both them and your customers. This will give them the incentive to work towards familiarizing themselves with the equipment.
Employee engagement with technology is something that every business owner and manager should be concerned with. Technology is drastically increasing the productivity of businesses around the globe. To get your staff engaged with beneficial technology you should employ some of the tactics listed above.
