The list goes on and on if we start to state all the benefits that an employee recognition program brings to your organization‘s table. It is a proven fact that the employees who feel like their efforts and hard work are recognized and rewarded, feel like they add value and belong and therefore, are more productive and efficient.
However, in today’s age, we all are almost dependent on technology to make our manual tasks and thereby lives easier, and it shouldn’t be any different when it comes to an employee recognition program. If you don’t make use of the right technology and tools, it can get very difficult for your HRs to implement an effective and successful employee recognition program. With the existing tasks and duties that an HR team has, it can be very difficult to track results manually, especially when some of these duties can be automated.
The good news is that the challenges that come when we think about integrating the right technology can be brought down to a minimum if companies are well aware of what their objectives are and have a culture that is well structured.
Now that you’ve reached here, one main question arises- how can organizations actually leverage technology to make sure their employee recognition strategies are effective thereby leading to a successful employee recognition program? Don’t you worry! Keep reading to find out about some strategies you can use.
Is Employee Recognition Important?
Well, before we get to the answer to this question, let’s have a look at some numbers that might give you the answer even before we do.
- 72%
of organizations agree that recognition has a positive impact on employee
engagement, as stated by the Harvard Business Review. - Some
recent studies say that 92% of employees are very likely to repeat their
actions again if they receive some recognition for them. - If
your employees are happy, reports state that your business productivity
can increase by 31%. - As
per SHRM, a company having an employee recognition program is likely to
experience almost 29% lower employee frustration levels as opposed to a
company with no recognition program.
So, after looking at these few numbers, we’re sure you’ve guessed the answer – YES, employee recognition is important, way more than you think! Happy employees lead to higher productivity with their boosted morale which helps in scaling your business growth.
But, Why is Technology Important for an Employee Engagement Platform?
Let’s start by thinking about all the tasks an HR typically performs- recruiting new talent, onboarding new employees, training them, then administering their offs, overseeing the benefits package they get, among other things. If a company automates some of these manual tasks that they have at hand with the right technology or software, it will help them in catering to some of the essential tasks of their role.
When we think about technology at a workplace, it also helps the various departments and teams to digitize many of their programs and some incentive systems. This also allows employees, on a personal level, to get a better understanding of their performance so that they can evaluate and calculate the effectiveness of their efforts and how they can fasten the pace to reach their goals quicker.
In today’s tech-driven world, it is good for HRs to extend their forms of recognition beyond just praise during team meetings. With the right technology and employee engagement platform, the HR departments can widen the horizon of their forms of recognition while also getting personalized reports to track the performance of their employees based on analytics and data.
Integrating technology with your employee recognition strategies also helps in enabling peer-to-peer recognition. In some cases, appreciation within colleagues works better than appreciation from a manager or leader, since it comes out to be more organic and it is always good to see that your peers see your hard work. You can set up systems to reward the employees who recognize other employees to promote this work culture.
How Can Tech Be Useful for Your Employee Recognition Strategy?
Largely, there are 3 major ways by which tech can help you in your employee recognition program. They are:
Automation of Time-Consuming Tasks
There are numerous tasks done by employees on a daily basis that are unnecessary and consume a lot of time. When it comes to HR departments, there can be activities like unimportant meetings, which can be bridged by using communication platforms powered by technology. You can even consider integrating technology into other tasks like background checks, finding suitable talent, payrolls, among others.
Gamification
Gamification helps in rewarding employees for their daily tasks and obligations, while also busting the myth of fun being a big no for the workplace. Gamification can be beneficial in making the employees realize that there can be fun in the work they do every day. It also helps in driving engagement and making them more productive. You can look for an employee recognition platform that helps to integrate gamification in numerous ways- quizzes, points, contests, etc.
Analyzing Performance of Employees
With the different departments and different employees for the various roles, there is so much complexity when it comes to the data derived. That is where technology comes in, it helps in understanding employee performance deeply. HR tech tools make it super simple for the HRs to understand each employee’s goals along with their progress towards the same. It also helps the managers to leave the correct feedback that can be a great input to motivate employees or for them to know where they are lacking. Using proper tech dashboards for the same also allows all employees to access this data.
The Bottom Line
Technology has made HR tasks along with so many things at work and in general life so much easier! From automating monotonous tasks to gaining recognition for the efforts put in, everything can be done under one roof.
Technology plays a major role in an employee recognition program. Knowing that you will get rewarded or recognized for the efforts you put in, that too in front of everyone, is very motivating. This helps in increasing productivity and scaling business operations.
About the Author: Advantage Club
Advantage Club is a global provider of employee benefits. The platform serves to digitize all employee demands under one canopy through numerous employee engagement programs such as incentives, rewards & recognition, flexible and tax-saving modules. It now serves over 300 organizations in 70 countries and has over 10,000 brand partnerships.
