According to a Gallup’s report, only about 35% of the American workers are actively engaged in their jobs while 16% are actively disengaged. This means that only about a third of all employees love their jobs and they are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace while 16% are miserable in the workplace.
The global figures present an even more depressing picture; only 13% of employees worldwide were found to be actively engaged, and only 8% for Indonesian employees. Consequently, the question that most organizations have been grappling with over the years is why their employee engagement survey scores are not improving despite the ever-increasing investments in employee engagements programs.
In a Harvard Business Review article, Jacob Morgan noted that most employee engagement initiatives amount to nothing more than an adrenaline shot. This creates a short-term approach which leads to a vicious cycle whereby perks are introduced, they create temporary spikes in the engagement scores and soon thereafter the organization is back to the drawing board crafting new perks.
The Long Term Solution
The solution for this chronic low engagement scores lies in taking a longer-term approach and investing in programs which improve the overall employees’ experience. This involves creating a workplace environment which encourages employees to work in the organization as a matter of choice and not for lack of alternatives. Developing conducive cultural, technological, and physical environments will not only result in happier employees but will also improve productivity and profitability.
Constantly improving workplace environments are seen as natural, employee-centric initiatives creating new experiences and opportunities to improve oneself and their work. They boost the staff morale, allow them to be innovative and engage in controlled risk-taking to improve performance. In the above HBR article, Morgan observed that in his study of 250 companies, compared to other companies, the organizations which invested in employee experience recorded more than 4 times the average profit and more than double the average revenue.
One of the modern approach to improve employee engagement is by creating an environment in which employees can freely engage with one another and moderately engage the organization. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of employees are working in branches across the globe, there are real challenges in fostering employees’ interactions, disseminating corporate information and getting employees feedback. Consequently, there is an increasing need to develop applications which not only disseminate corporate news and events but also connects employees and allows them to socialize in a relaxed manner.
It is against this background that our team at WGS have developed a novel social media mobile app that has revolutionized the way companies relate to their employees as well as employee-to-employee interactions. The mobile app is available for Android and iOS devices and has already been deployed for Unilever Indonesia with good reception.
We have made use of the latest technology to guarantee rapid development, deployment, and data security. The app’s dashboard has two tabs; the corporate tab and the social tab. The corporate tab is a platform where the organizations share news, events, and announcements and are closed for employees’ contributions. The social tab is the actual social media platform where users can share their thought, pictures, and video and they can follow, like, give comments and tag others.
The social media mobile app provides a medium through which organizations can bring their employees together as a family. It helps them to avoid clunky communication protocols by breaking communication hierarchies and silos. The salient benefits of using an internal social media app include;
- Improved communication and transparency
- Leads to a consumer-like engagement for employees, to feel closer to their employers.
- Increased potential for collaboration thus improved productivity
- Engage & nurture relationships which may extend beyond the confines of the workplace.
- Break down hierarchies, promoting horizontal networking and creating a culture of mutual respect
- Keeps the mobile employees connected
- Easier to create and promote organizational culture since the social network can provide positive reinforcement of the information disseminated to staff.
- Forum for sharing and archiving of knowledge
- Assists in discovery of subject matter experts and new talents
Conclusion
The deployment of a social media app in an organization may sound like an insignificant investment but such seemingly small moves make employees see and feel that the culture of their company is strong and continuously being refined to put the employees at the center.
For more details on how this mobile app can help to change how employee engagement work, visit here, you can also request a demo 🙂