U.S. businesses have an employee engagement problem. According to Gallup’s most recent State of the American Workplace report:
- Only 33 percent of employees are actively engaged in the workplace
- 51 percent are not engaged
- 16 percent are actively disengaged
The High Cost of Disengaged Employees
A study from Harvard Business Review found organizations with low employee engagement scores experienced 18 percent lower productivity, 16 percent lower profitability, and a 65 percent lower share price over time. On the other hand, businesses with highly engaged employees received 100 percent more job applications as engaged employees are more likely to refer people they know to apply for open positions.
The Right Technology Can Empower and Engage the Workforce
Through the process of auditing and reorganizing some of the the world’s largest enterprises, Deloitte observed the value of “High-Impact HR.” Organizations that put the same effort into meeting the needs of their employees as they did to serving external customers were more likely to achieve their business goals.
In other words, how employees interact with a company directly affects their productivity and engagement. Their research revealed:
- Productivity is directly tied to employees’ ability to access and use the tech needed to do their best work.
- Workplace digitization is no longer “nice to have.” Employees expect the same ease of experience at work they’ve come to expect as consumers.
- High-Impact HR starts with the customers of HR, the workforce.
“Take care of associates and they’ll take care of your customers.” — JW Marriott
Engaged Employees Create a Better Customer Experience
Employees are a crucial gateway between your customers and your products and services. A high-quality internal customer experience demonstrates a company commitment to employee happiness and establishes a culture of mutual trust. Unfortunately, many businesses plow resources into new digital tools for external customers leaving employees to struggle with outdated internal apps and software.
The old way: Employees search for information via internal web portals that are frequently disorganized, difficult to navigate, and redirect them to other systems that require additional logins. The employee portal is static for every user and not mobile-friendly.
The new way: Using a digital experience portal, employees can receive personalized information and even complete basic tasks on the device of choice. Important insights, such as ticket status updates or metric anomalies, can be surfaced in a work feed based upon an employee’s role and responsibilities.
Engaged Employees Work Harder and Stay Longer
In addition to providing better customer service and support, engaged employees can reduce hiring costs. More than half of employees are searching for new jobs or watching for openings; however, businesses with engaged employees experienced a 41 percent reduction in absenteeism and a 17 percent increase in productivity. Additionally, engaged employees are nearly nine times more likely to recommend their workplace to potential hires.
“Whatever industry a company is in, its employees are its biggest competitive advantage.” — Richard Branson
Empower, Engage, Retain
Creating an exceptional employee experience for your workforce is a proven tactic to improve engagement. Deloitte claims that the key to providing a superior user experience is to think of them as customers. This may include:
- Asking employees about their biggest problems and providing solutions
- Making enterprise apps available on anywhere an employee may be working—on any device, in a company intranet, or within a messaging client
- Simplifying complex workflows through automation and design thinking
For example, CBS Interactive (CBSi) partnered with Sapho to provide employees with the same “wherever, whenever” content experience offered to its external customers. CBSi used Sapho to streamline and modernize their outdated enterprise applications, deliver personalized information to employees, and show their commitment to making their employees work lives better.
The right technology, designed around its employee customers, can make a significant impact on worker engagement and an organization’s bottom line. Sapho generates measurable value through productivity gains from better workflows and higher employee engagement.
This post originally appeared on the Sapho blog. In November, Citrix announced the acquisition of Sapho, a leading micro app platform that enables a better and smarter work experience.
