How do you choose from the many employee engagement solutions? Check out this blog to identify features that matter.
You’ve probably heard or read how leaders across the corporate world have started prioritizing employee engagement. They’re realizing that it is no longer just a nice-to-have practice but a critical approach to steering organizational success. Good to know: The numbers back this thinking. Estimates suggest that global employee disengagement costs organizations $8.8 trillion a year. In addition, 59% of employees are quietly disengaged, whereas 18% are actively disengaged. If you’re motivated to ensure your employees operate at peak productivity, and these grim numbers don’t mirror the reality of your organization, you must start intervening using robust employee engagement solutions!
What does that include, though? An employee engagement solution refers to technology that helps you proactively improve your workplace so that employees look forward to working and feel fulfilled in their jobs. However, the fact remains that not all employee engagement solutions are made equal. How do you choose the one that works best for your organization? Are there any essential features that your employee engagement solution must offer? This blog provides a run-down of the most critical features you need to screen when you’re looking for an employee engagement solution for your organization.
4 must-have features of employee engagement solutions to ensure optimum results
#1User-friendly interface and accessibility
Unless your employee engagement solution is user-friendly and accessible to all, your employees will likely be uninclined or find it hard to use it. After all, nobody wants to switch to lengthier or more complex workflows, right? So, whatever solution you implement, you need to ensure everyone can use it, irrespective of geographical location or the language they speak. For instance, it shouldn’t divide your workforce over language and should help everyone communicate easily. This can be possible with a tool that supports built-in translation features.
So, while picking one, account for the needs of both in-office employees and your frontline workforce, who are often out and about. They’ll need to receive updates and feedback timely even when they’re not in the office. Moreover, it needs work for all kinds of employees to create smooth comms pathways, including the less tech-savvy ones, as they’re equally a part of your organization.
Hence, look for a user-friendly, mobile-compatible solution that’s accessible to everyone and doesn’t create barriers for specific groups.
#2Customization features
When you are choosing from a range of employee engagement solutions, look for personalization capabilities to suit your organization’s unique needs. For instance, some employees may prefer asynchronous communications, whereas others need real-time interactions. Your employee engagement solution must cater to the needs of both groups.
So, keeping in mind your organization's varied needs, look out for personalization features like the ability to tweak workflows according to your needs, grant and revoke permissions, customize dashboards, and add or remove features that matter to you and your employees.
In addition, screen for the ability to customize and brand your employee engagement app to align with your corporate identity. This customization is what will help you build trust, demonstrate professionalism, and increase the tool’s adoption.
#3Analytics and reporting capabilities
Recording and analyzing employee behavior is essential to intervening appropriately and tangibly boosting engagement levels. Actual employee data is the most precise way to examine them and ascertain whether your message is conveyed. Ensure that your engagement tool supports recording employee data and provides a way to interpret it simply with workforce analytics. Mere recording combined with the inability to simplify and make sense of that data can lead to information overload and analysis paralysis. So, try looking for an employee engagement solution that lets you assign individuals who need to track workforce analytics and gives them full visibility to take immediate action when needed.
Let’s understand better with an example. For instance, let’s suppose you notice a high degree of absenteeism among certain employees. If you study their behavior on your engagement app, you may be able to identify causes and intervene with proper measures. Moreover, if your employee engagement solution has reporting and analysis features, you can get ready access to distilled insights. This information will help you plan the proper steps to address gaps and tangibly boost engagement. 
#4Capabilities for integration with existing systems you're using
When you introduce an employee engagement solution, look for integration capabilities. Introducing too many tools in the organization can cause tech fatigue and result in scattered information. This may make it difficult for information to flow easily, reduce adoption, and make implementing the tool counterproductive to engaging people.
On the other hand, if your different tech tools work together, they’ll make everyone’s life easier and also reduce duplication of effort. So, look for the list of compatible integrations before selecting something. If your essential tools, such as your ERP, HRMS, and so on, aren’t compatible with out-of-the-box integration with the employee engagement solution, you need to check whether API integration is available. 
Are you looking for an employee engagement solution with these features?
Try Speakap. It’s the quickest and most efficient way to build an easy-to-use, branded employee engagement app that’ll help you reach the right people at the right time across the board. It lets you engage employees and always put your people first! Use it, track analytics for regular insights, and integrate it with your existing tools to make work simpler. It’s our guarantee that 80% of your employees will immediately adopt the app once you implement it, way faster than with you-know-who (wink, wink).
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