Employee engagement is more than just a buzzword; it's a vital component of any successful business. Engaged employees are not only more productive, but they also contribute to a positive work environment, reduce turnover, and help drive innovation.
As the Chief Information Officer at TTI Success Insights, I know that technology plays a crucial role in boosting employee engagement and transforming how teams connect, collaborate, and innovate. At TTI, we know how to leverage technology to foster a thriving, engaged workforce. Here are some practical examples you may find helpful in your organization.
What is Employee Engagement and How Can Tech Help?
Employee engagement refers to the emotional commitment an employee has toward their organization and its goals.
It’s essential because it can lead to higher productivity, better customer service, and improved overall business outcomes. Technology can significantly impact employee engagement by improving communication, streamlining processes, and fostering innovation.
That makes sense; it’s hard to have a good attitude throughout your workday if your tools, like your phone and computer, aren’t working. That’s a simple example but one most people can relate to. Your working circumstances can be transformed by technology that supports your work while enhancing engagement because technology is deeply woven into the fabric of a modern company. It shapes how work is done, which in turn shapes company culture.
At TTI, we use technology to create operational efficiencies, automate tedious tasks, and enable our teams to focus on what matters most: delivering value to our customers.
Improve Communication Tools
Effective communication is at the heart of employee engagement. Technology can help break down silos, improve collaboration, and ensure that everyone is on the same page, regardless of their location.
At TTI, we use Mattermost exclusively for real-time communication. Our team, which is entirely remote and spread across the country, relies on technology to stay connected. The team holds twice-weekly check-ins over video and engages in inter-team communication via GitLab, which is a tool that helps teams manage and collaborate on code.
All one-on-one meetings are conducted via video conferencing tools like Zoom. Without these technologies, our team's functionality would be compromised, so we focus on making sure the entire company is well prepared and provided for regarding communication needs.
McKinsey shared that, by using “social technologies” like chat tools and email, “companies can raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20-25%.” That same report shows that teams with strong communication can also increase their productivity by 20-25%. We’ve seen the effects of that internally; when our team is well connected and using the same tools, it increases transparency and efficiency, which in turn improves engagement.
Create Excellent Tools Internally and Externally
The Technology Team doesn't just enhance internal communication; it also plays a critical role in delivering top-notch experiences to clients. Creating operational efficiencies makes our peers' lives easier and positively impacts our company's culture and reputation.
For example, automation in our Customer Relationship Management tool, or CRM, saves hours of manual labor by streamlining tasks such as onboarding new customers or updating statuses across our different systems.
All the monitoring of critical systems is automated, so humans do not have to check all the dials and gauges to see if things are running within defined parameters. If something gets out of bounds, alerts will start flying. Not having to manually check in on the status of things saves many hours.
Lastly, our build and deployment systems are fully automated. When we’re ready to deploy a new version, a developer simply indicates that the software is at a release point; everything else happens automatically. The test suite is run to ensure all tests pass. The containers are built, and the whole system is deployed and then tested to ensure it's fully operational before flipping the switch to the new version and turning off the previous one. This automation saves hours upon hours of time each week and ensures our customers never encounter a failed deployment.
Consistency and quality are crucial for your business’s success in technology. If your customers consistently have an excellent experience with technology when they interact with your company, it will build trust and reliability, enhancing your reputation.
Inspire Innovation
Innovation is key to staying competitive, and technology plays a pivotal role in fostering it. At TTI, we have a Smart Work group founded by our Product Management team.
The origins of our Smart Work group were rooted in a desire to focus on delivering value to the customer rather than simply delivering things from headquarters. By identifying communication gaps between departments and improving coordination on interdepartmental projects, we’ve been able to increase collaboration and drive innovation.
Technology allows us to focus on company-wide initiatives and outcomes rather than being siloed in departmental goals. After shifting to a more agile mindset and working to remove silos in our projects by coordinating across the entire organization, we’ve found it’s helped us get better at releasing updates and new products that provide value to our customers. This shift in mindset and tech use has empowered our teams to think creatively and push the boundaries of what's possible.
Using Tech Right
Technology is a powerful tool that can enhance employee engagement in numerous ways. By improving communication, creating excellent client tools, sustaining company culture, engaging employee feedback, and inspiring innovation, technology helps build a more engaged, productive, and motivated workforce.
At TTI, we've seen firsthand how the thoughtful application of technology can transform our teams and drive business success. I’m very proud of our team and everything we’ve accomplished together, and we’re even more excited for the future.
