Shweta Agrawal,
CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER
Engagement is one most the most studied subjects when it comes to organisations and employees. Organisations spend billions of dollars per year on annual parties, high profile events, entertainment, and interventions designed to engage their workforce, boost morale and improve the bottom line/ top line. While, these one-off events, entertainment provides incentive for engagement, but often this type of workforce engagement quickly fades away as soon as the event concludes, the celebrities leave, or a new program replaces an old one.
An effective way to tap into the engagement potential of workforce is through ongoing, effective process that is tied to workforce behavioral data. Engagement is not a one-size fits all concept because it operates on a continuum and cycles up and down depending on the business environment, a person’s mood and at times unknown factors. Sometimes there’s no human explanation for why your most productive and enthusiastic employee is having a down day, or why an average employee suddenly hits a home run. But if you have data to understand what motivates each of your employees, to connect with them in a way that matches their natural behavioral drives and needs, managers can better connect, inspire, and retain their most talented workers.
Personalization has become a key to the effectiveness of engaging with employees and more effective the process, more will employees stay engaged to the organisation and its processes.
Internet of Behaviour, also known as IoB, refers to the behavioral data analysis gathered from the Internet of Things and other sources and then attempts to make effective use of. IoB aims to discuss how data are better understood and can be used to design and execute organisation processes from the view point of human psychology.
IoB platform will enable the organisation to develop an in depth understanding of its employees, likes, dislikes, preferences etc. For example, a simple pop up notification sent to employee to share the mood after each meeting will give great insights into impact of meetings with different people, agenda etc on this particular employee. If the employee reports “angry” emotion after every meeting with his manager, this could be a red flag that the organisation wants to address. Another example could be a shift in energy of the organisation from medium to high as the evening time approaches, could be an indicator of organisation productivity peaking in the evening and this could be a great insight for leaders/ managers to organise intense project discussions with teams.
With these insights, organisations can personalise the approach to engaging with employees. Some employees’ engagement will improve if they get to work with colleagues they gel with, while some others may feel better engaged when the managers are discussing projects when they are at their creative and energetic best.
Gone are the days, when launching point in time surveys will provide sufficient data points to organisations for designing process/ interventions to improve engagement scores of their employee base. In the ever changing needs, desires, likes, dislikes, its key to have a continuous insight about employees and create touch points during every stage of employee lifecycle, tangibles that employees can experience consistently and meaningfully.
