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Enhancing Employee Communication with the Touch of Technology

HR Tech Outlook | Thursday, August 29, 2019

It is essential to foster technology transformations in a way that engages employees without missing out on the human element.

FREMONT, CA: Technology has permeated almost every segment of our lives. However, communication is an area which has been transformed beyond recognition in the past few decades. The role of smartphones cannot be undermined in fuelling the transformations in recent years. Tools which are specifically centered on employee communication are emerging in the market, and the future workplaces are expected to leverage such technologies for almost everyday tasks in the future.

Improving Employee Experience

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The potential of new technologies is often alluring for business leaders. The applications are essentially designed to enhance productivity and efficiency levels. Despite the many benefits, some HR teams are hesitant to adopt digital communication technologies because of engagement concerns. They fear that cutting the human touch in communication among employees will affect the staff member’s commitment to the firm. Instead, they prefer traditional communication methods such as in-person meetings, calls, and standard cubicle-style environments.

Such outdated communication systems have drawbacks too. Even the employees have moved away from the earlier methods of making personal connections in favor of making contacts via digital technology. As per research, the percentage of smartphone users has increased from 35 percent to 77 percent, and a whopping 98 percent of millennial are smartphone users. Almost 40 percent of the millennial reported that they engage with their smartphones more than they engage with people.

Checkout : Top Enterprise Communication Companies

Thus today’s employees prefer making connections via technology, and their personal communications are also dominated by instant messaging, texting, and social media. It should be extended to the workplace for the employees to gravitate to the technology-based culture of the companies naturally.

The Reality of Digital Connections

Millennial generations have grown up with the internet. Even referred to as “digital natives,” millennial has a natural inclination toward digital communication tools. Legacy systems are not the ones to appeal to them. Thus the employees must offer a similar high-speed experience which they get on their personal devices.

According to a joint research project by Nimble Storage and Oxford Economics, 77 percent of the individuals who were a part of the project stated that their productivity was impacted by “sub-optimal application performance,” and another 50 percent said that they had removed the apps that run too slowly. As per an Adobe study, 81 percent of millennial found state-of-the-art technology to be more important in their work than perks or amenities.

Deciding Over the Most Relevant Communication Technology

Incorporating digital communication tools can enhance the employee experience by facilitating the colleagues to stay in touch. However, the way to significantly enhance employee engagement is to install high-quality digital communication tools that provide the same features that they experience on their devices. Advanced technology that offers messaging and customized pages, and news feed, with social intranet capabilities, act as an employee directory and a section for company updates. The most popular platforms allow employees a chance to publish blog posts, while virtual teams can foster relationships by sharing images and videos. These features will fill the requirement for personal connections at work.

Minimizing downtime is another important aspect as transitioning to a new platform can disrupt day-to-day operations. Moreover, the success of an implementation plan depends on the ease and speed of the rollout. It is crucial to ensure that any solution can be easily integrated into the current software. Finally, communication platforms can only be effective when employees utilize them. An application with an intuitive user interface will encourage the staff members to log on and get started immediately.

With digital communication becoming standard, HR professionals and business leaders are increasingly getting concerned about employee engagement. However, if tools are properly integrated into the digital workplace, employees will feel more connected and ultimately achieve higher productivity.

Check This Out: Top Employee Communication Solution Companies

Check This Out: Top Employee Communication Consulting/Services Companies

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