Using Technology to Drive Employee Engagement

Last week, Nancy Reardon wrote an article on TLNT outlining how technology can improve an organization’s benefits delivery. She discusses 3 key ways technology drives employee engagement: educating the workforce, improving regular communication, and empowering employees for informed decision-making. Reardon discusses these concepts in the context of benefits delivery, but I would argue that they are true for all types of human resource service delivery as well.

Reardon’s first point is around educating the workforce.  She states, “the right solution can equip HR professionals with the ability to tailor, target and personalize communications that speak directly to an employee’s needs and meets them where they are.” This can be true for any information coming from HR. Perhaps there is a new policy around the ability to work from home – and maybe that policy is only true for a certain subset of employees. Maybe the company recently got acquired and there is paperwork that the entire workforce needs to acknowledge. With a flexible HR service delivery platform, HR professionals can educate their employees regarding company information and drive higher engagement.

Improving regular communication is the next idea Reardon uses to illustrate how HR technology can drive engagement. By providing employees with a knowledgebase so they can answer their own questions, technology facilitates the interaction between employees an HR in a form that is preferable to employees. They consume HR content how and when they need it. And as Reardon points out, “automated solutions and platforms also enable HR professionals to deliver updates across devices for workers on the go.” This way, HR can be in regular communication with employees to deliver important information – on whatever device the employee uses.

The final argument for service delivery technology that Reardon makes is that it empowers employees for informed decision-making. Once again, this is not just true for benefits policies. Employees need a wealth of information managed by human resources. They might want to be informed about compensation plans, perhaps learning and development opportunities. An employee might want to know if it’s possible to transfer to an overseas position - and what that might involve. With a knowledgebase personalized for the user based on their position, location, and other employee attributes, it’s easy for HR to empower employees to make better decisions.

Today’s workforce, accustomed to the ease and expediency of Google searches, prefers to self-serve and self-educate when they need answers. By providing a personalized knowledgebase with integrated forms and requests, as well as ways for HR to push out crucial information and documents to employees, HR service delivery technology enables HR teams to be more effective and provide better service to employees. As a result, employees are empowered, satisfied, and engaged.