Tech for Good: Enhancing Employee Experience

Public Sector Smart Working recently held a three day virtual summit to explore the topic of using tech for good in the public sector.

As part of the summit, our CEO and founder Paul Reid along with Alison McBride of West Dunbartonshire Council and Mark Gannon of Sheffield City Council participated in a panel to discuss the role of smart tech in enhancing employee experience.

The discussion focused on three key areas that all organisations should be considering during these challenging times. These included:

• What should a digital solution do
• Maximising human connectivity during isolation
• Addressing barriers to tech adoption

Covid-19 has irreversibly changed the world of work and highlighted the pressing need for organisations to embrace agile and adaptive smart technology.

Leaders should now be considering putting in place adaptable solutions that support what organisations and their people need for the long term.

Organisations need to tune in to what their people are feeling and thinking in real-time so they can identify problems early and adapt quickly.

During this period of uncertainty, adaptability will be a key differentiating factor for successful organisations.

What should a digital solution look like?

A platform should bring employee engagement and wellbeing together to be addressed in tandem. Engagement is often based on how people feel, which is why the two go hand-in-hand.

A solution should do the following;

• Support connectivity and inclusion, which are both key to engagement and wellbeing. People need to feel part of the journey and be able to openly share their thoughts, suggestions and concerns in real-time.
• Enable people to reach out for support 24/7 when they need it, ensuring nobody feels isolated or excluded from contributing.
• Promote transparency across the organisation and build trust between management and their teams.
• Give employees a voice so that they can share and contribute. Digital platforms should let employees do things they can’t do in the physical world such as anonymously request support and or seek a private dialogue.
• Enable organisations to become more agile and responsive so that they can focus on celebrating quick wins, share good news, and be more proactive in taking early interventions to support their people’s health and wellbeing.
• Facilitate continuous feedback, which will demonstrate that managers are taking employee opinion onboard and encourage their people to become more trustful and invested in the organisation.

Maximise opportunities for engagement

A sense of belonging and human interaction are both vital to a person’s wellbeing.

But, in the current environment, there are either no, or limited, opportunities for everyday office interactions, such as water cooler chats or corridor conversations, which enrich our daily work life.

Without this natural flow of dialogue, organisations and their people miss out on:

• Opportunities for spontaneous innovation
• Joint problem solving
• Idea sharing
• Peer-to-peer recognition
• Relationship building with co-workers

Prolonged periods without colleague interaction can lead to feelings of isolation, loneliness and disengagement, all of which are detrimental to their wellbeing.

Digital tools, such as Trickle, bring all these key interactions together into one platform. From sharing ideas, suggestions and concerns, to offering Fist Bumps to colleagues, Trickle facilitates a variety of interactions that help build a sense of inclusion and belonging.

Beyond enabling communication, these interactions allow leaders to understand what’s on people’s minds within the context of the entire organisation.

Trickle prioritises the most popular topics and automatically highlights the top issues so managers can prioritise their focus more efficiently and make better decisions.

Smart tech is enabling organisations to support their staff and reduce burnout and should be deployed where it adds value to the organisation and employee experience.

Show your people how it benefits them

Often, tech can be viewed with scepticism or apprehension by a workforce, which is why it’s important to pick tech that is transparent, intuitive to use and enhances their workday.

Transparency is key because your solution should feel like a tool that benefits and supports them, not like Big Brother is checking up on them.

Instead, it should support and empower them to make their workplaces better. The benefits need to be clear to your people so that they will want to use the tech and will buy into it more quickly.

People need to understand why you are introducing a solution, and what is in it for them, not just for the company.

We are at a pivotal moment, Covid-19 has presented us with an opportunity to rethink and reinvent how we deploy tech for good and better support our people.

Let’s put the value on what is working. To do that you need to talk to people and use tech only where it is beneficial.

 

Find out more about how Trickle can help your organisation, get in touch for more information or to book a short 20 minute demo.

Alternatively you can trial Trickle absolutely free for 30-days, simply visit: https://trickle.works/freetrial/