The connection between technology, employee engagement and ROI

From first introductions via AI-assisted screening, to personalised onboarding with gamification and self-service learning, technology sets the tone for an ROI-driven employee experience.

Many communication tools have evolved in good time to help ease the transition from office-based to home-based work. Thankfully, we might add. Can you imagine work-from-home life without video calls, instant messaging and collaboration apps? Perhaps fewer video calls would improve your productivity, but on balance, we’d be lost without the tech that makes all that communication possible

The need to engage

Remote work is rapidly transitioning from a trend to a mainstream option in many industries; changing how employees need to be engaged and motivated. And now, more than ever, you need engaged employees. Your delivery methods need to change, which may take a little getting used to, but the ROI benefits of employee engagement are clear:

• Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by 147% in earnings per share
  A 5% increase in employee engagement correlate to a 0.7% increase in operating margin
• Highly engaged employees have less absence days – on average 3.5 days – compared to disengaged employees
• Highly engaged business units achieve a 20% increase in salesCompanies with high engagement show 9% higher shareholder returns.

For a bigger picture on the business benefits of engaged employees, see the infographic by bountiXP, 10 powerful statistics that prove the ROI for employee engagement.

The challenges of remote engagement

Popular collaboration software tools like Trello and Slack, or Microsoft’s Loop make it easy to keep your remote team on top of the work at hand. Technology has taken care of that. It’s the softer side of working at a distance that’s a bigger management challenge.

Remote work is a comfortable fit for some employees, providing an important sense of autonomy and control over their time and efforts. Yet, it can also lead to a decrease in the meaningfulness of work and an individual’s sense of security due to changes in job structure and social isolation.

But for employees who enjoyed the comaraderie of working beside colleagues and managers in the office environment, the physical distance of remote work could create a psychological distance from the company. This is a sure prelude to dis-engagement.

The challenge for managers is to find the most effective ways to keep the entire team both productive and engaged.

A digital rewards solution

Recognising and rewarding employee efforts and achievements is an important cornerstone of engagement. And rewards don’t need to be high-priced to be effective, they need to be personally meaningful. It’s the broader rewards experience – the delivery, the timing, the message – that makes people feel truly rewarded. And this is where digital voucher rewards are an ideal solution.

Digital vouchers offer everything you want and need to reward your remote employees personally, meaningfully and effectively.

• Personal. There was a time when vouchers felt impersonal – a generic fallback when you didn’t have the time or inclination to put too much thought into the reward. These days, you’ve got nothing but choice and scope for personal preference.

We offer vouchers from more than 50 top retail brands in categories ranging from fun to functional. And the list keeps growing.

• Accessible. They’re as quick and easy to order and deliver as they are to redeem. Select the voucher you want, choose a value and zip it straight to your recipient’s cell phone via SMS or direct to their email inbox. Redemption is as simple as a quick scan at the retailer’s till.

The Achievement Awards Group Voucher API lets you access our entire range of vouchers from a single interface. Voucher management doesn’t get faster or easier.

• Economical. Because the entire voucher reward selection, purchase, redemption process is digital, there are no despatch or delivery costs involved.

As remote work becomes a mainstream reality, we have an opportunity to rethink our traditional ideas about how employee recognition and rewards are most effectively delivered. And while the core principles of these programs are timeless, technology is driving the development of exciting new tools to engage, motivate and reward employees.

Digital rewards expertise

Achievement Awards Group offers the widest range of digital vouchers in South Africa, a voucher app that’s fully integrated and ready to use and 40 years’ experience and insight on engaging, motivating and rewarding people for business results.

Get in touch. Let’s talk about how Achievement Awards Group can help you best leverage technology for effective employee engagement and return on investment.