6 Ways to Know if You’re Ready for Employee Engagement Tech

Adopting digital tools to support employee engagement and provide a better employee experience is a valuable advantage in today’s competitive marketplace. Employee engagement tools like Inspirus Connects can help employers motivate employees, creating a healthier team culture, which can lead to improved employee satisfaction, better retention, a stronger employer brand, and more effective talent acquisition. Connects helps build a strong team culture by providing a central location for employees to interact, be recognized by managers and peers, and stay up to date on company news.

We see many different types of clients enjoying the benefits Inspirus Connects has to offer. Connects is the right solution to help you support your employees and remain competitive in today’s business and talent markets if one or more of the following statements is true about your organization:

1) My organization manages employee recognition through manual processes.

Your organization approaches employee engagement and employee recognition using more ‘traditional’ methods — maybe you’re recognizing employees with certificates and unilateral gifts, but without using technology. Or perhaps you’re trying to use other types of technology (like Teams or Slack) but aren’t using a solution that was made specifically for employee recognition and/or employee engagement.

Connects is made for companies that see the benefits of going digital, and are ready to enter the employee engagement tech space. They need a new solution to manage basic program components like peer-to-peer recognition, ‘on the spot’ recognition programs, birthday celebrations, service milestones, a social aspect (the ability for users to like and comment), and they want them all in a central repository.

Consolidation and automation saves manual time and effort, and reduces errors. Best of all, going digital with Inspirus Connects means all your organization’s data is in one place, giving you a better view of spend and ROI.

2) The HR role within my organization is more complex than before the pandemic and continues to expand.

Over the years, the role of the HR professional has gradually evolved and expanded to include more technology, more areas of responsibility, and more nuance. The COVID-19 pandemic threw HR departments into crisis mode, having to adapt to a remote workforce, increased demand for mental health benefits, and more. Now, as the ‘new normal’ emerges, organizations are finding they need to continue one of the positive outcomes that came out of the pandemic: a people-centric approach. As an HR professional, not only are you likely responsible for employee hiring, performance, productivity, and efficiency, but you must also understand and support all the challenges that employees are facing, both inside of and outside of work – in other words, the total human being, not just the 9-5 pm worker.

Inspirus Connects helps HR professionals manage the complexities of their jobs by automating some of the HR functions and tasks that are being done manually. For instance, Connects can send notifications to managers when employees are approaching their service anniversary, so they never miss an important milestone; administrators can pull a myriad of enterprise-wide reports, instead of patching them together from different departments; and employees can recognize each other on a peer-to-peer level, so that part of the program is "self-service."

Inspirus Connects streamlines processes and takes things off HR’s plate, rather than adding to their already heavy task load.

3) My organization’s employee recognition program is informal – most departments “do their own thing”.

If you’ve been leaving employee recognition up to individual departments, you may be ready to coordinate your efforts with an organization-wide platform that provides a more consistent employee experience. When recognition is managed at the department level, different departments will approach things differently and none of their processes or efforts are connected to each other, so nobody can get a comprehensive understanding of what is going on (or what is being spent) in recognition.

Inspirus Connects streamlines employee recognition and keeps everything in one place, including different types of recognitions: work anniversaries (milestone recognition), peer-to-peer recognition, and company-specific ‘on-the-spot’ programs.

Inspirus Connects brings employee engagement and recognition together in a central technology platform. For organizations, it consolidates ownership, which enables easier accountability and results in a less fragmented management process and simpler administration. For employees, it offers inclusion and community.

4) My organization needs to improve employee engagement.

With retention on everyone’s mind, organizations are becoming more proactive, and are starting to “get” that recognition elevates employee engagement. A Gallup study shows that with increased levels of employee engagement come more positive business outcomes like 18% higher productivity and 23% increase in profitability, and lower negative outcomes like 81% less absenteeism and 43% less turnover.

One simple way to boost engagement is to recognize employees earlier in their tenure, and more frequently. Rather than the traditional model of rewarding employees for five-year increments of service, begin by celebrating a new hire’s first 90 days, their first year hiring anniversary, and then on an annual basis from there on.

Using Inspirus Connects elevates employee engagement levels because the digital platform is enterprise-wide, and accessible by everyone. All employees are encouraged to participate, so everyone feels appreciated, valued and a part of something larger.

5) My organization needs to reduce employee turnover and increase morale.

This scenario is similar to # 4 above, but, unfortunately, more reactive. According to Gartner, U.S. employee annual voluntary turnover is likely to jump nearly 20% in 2022, from a pre-pandemic annual average of 31.9 million employees quitting their jobs to 37.4 million. In fact, 68% of employees whose work could be done remotely report that their employers have required them to return to the workplace in some capacity. This disconnect has resulted in unhappy employees who quit in search of more flexible working arrangements (the ‘Great Resignation’), and decreased morale of those employees left to pick up the slack, with no extra recognition or reward.

Inspirus Connects improves morale by allowing employees to recognize each other with peer-to-peer recognition, which creates a stronger sense of community and builds employee engagement. The platform fosters a sense of inclusion because it is enterprise-wide, giving everyone the opportunity to participate. And, it alleviates anxiety and fear of the unknown by making company news, initiatives and information front and center, accessible 24/7.

Inspirus Connects builds community within your workforce and creates a culture of gratitude. When employees feel appreciated and valued, they are happier and less likely to quit. 53% of employees say they would stay longer in a company if they feel appreciated. (Glassdoor)

6) My organization has employees in many different locations.

With the new normal of workplace flexibility, organizations with a dispersed workforce are tasked with keeping employees connected who are either on-site, remote or working a hybrid schedule. Nearly all communication must be digital in order to reach every employee, regardless of where they work. And organizations should no longer try to replicate the “in-office” experience for people working from other locations. It’s time to evolve and prioritize what really matters to employees.  

Using a platform like Inspirus Connects provides the technology to connect employees, which builds community. This self-service tool allows employees to recognize and celebrate one another, which motivates everyone and builds a culture of gratitude. And, ultimately, a digital employee recognition platform gives everyone an equitable experience, which fosters inclusion.

Inspirus Connects helps you create a strong, inclusive culture. Everyone comes ‘together’ in a digital space to share, regardless of the disparate locations of where employees actually sit.

Build community through employee engagement

As you can see, there are many reasons why an organization can benefit from the advantages of Inspirus Connects as their employee engagement and recognition solution. If you recognize your organization in any of the scenarios we outlined above, Connects could be the next step in your efforts to improve employee engagement, create a great team culture, build a stronger community and employer brand, and take your organization to the next level.

To learn more about how Inspirus Connects can streamline your processes, improve employee engagement, and lead to better business outcomes, set aside 15 minutes to talk with a Specialist today.