Read the press release here.
The global workforce faces a disengagement crisis. Only 15% report being engaged. This costs $7 trillion in lost productivity and threatens the very future of your company. So what’s the solution?
Over the last year we’ve introduced Workforce Success as a response to the drastic and irreversible changes in the way we work today, and the way we will work in the future.
It’s more pertinent now that we collectively embrace Workforce Success, due to the uncertainty of the current work climate. These unprecedented times have meant the future of work is no longer a distant dot on the horizon. The future of work is now.
What is Workforce Success? It’s something that can only be achieved when you have empowered and motivated people working for your company or organisation. They are informed and they feel a sense of belonging. Employees with a strong sense of belonging boost your bottom-line. Aligned with you, they work harder to steer you towards your vision, meaning they are 56% more likely to perform at their very best.
And we’ve arguably never been at a more critical moment when it comes to instilling belonging. When we are dispersed and isolated (and in some cases, totally alone) as is the current situation, employee motivation, engagement and productivity are highly vulnerable.
So how do you, in the face of the odds, engage and motivate your people? On a fundamental level, it’s by giving them the tools, and the control, to perform at their best.
When you provide highly accessible and engaging up-skilling opportunities - and you surface this relevant information at the appropriate time - you empower your workforce to perform at their best. It motivates and engages. With this motivation and engagement, you’ll be able to build a sense of community and reinforce your culture. And this will breed loyalty and productivity.
Employee loyalty is especially important to capture as it is an all time low - 80% report actively or passively seeking other job opportunities. And lack of loyalty is more rife among millennials, who will grow up to make 75% of the workforce by 2025. It’s essential the tide is turned.
Workforces aren’t static. A workforce is a living organism, made up of individuals and the resulting group dynamics that emerge when these individuals interact with each other. It’s a living, breathing entity.
When feelings of isolation creep in a disconnect is occurs - a void between you, the company, and them, the workforce. Isolated workers are five times as likely to miss a day of work due to stress. When they do work, their work is of lower quality than their non-lonely counterparts. They think about quitting their job twice as often and are 9% less productive.
And at a present, when workforces worldwide, across industries, have been dispersed and we find ourselves isolated indefinitely, loyalty, productivity and motivation is infinitely more at stake. Your people need belonging, context and a vital sense of purpose now more than ever. They need a VOICE.
Companies who are at the cutting edge of their industries, like Uber, Airbnb, Deloitte and Vodafone have already all joined us in the Workforce Success revolution. At eduMe, we constantly try to push the envelope further to solve even bigger global problems.
So, the natural question is - what’s next? Where do we (and can we) go from here?
eduMe was conceived of as a learning and communication tool, that’s how it began life. As such it’s very centred around the ‘Head’, i.e. how do we empower people by providing the right information, at the right time, to equip them with the knowledge they require to be successful in their job?
But what we realised this value proposition lacks in order to empower companies to truly achieve Workforce Success is the emotional dimension, symbolised by the ‘Heart’. We have to make room for the heart, or else what we offer is only a half-solution to the problem companies face - creating informed, motivated workforces.
The ‘Heart’ is the missing piece to the Workforce Success puzzle.
“The ‘Heart’ brings motivation and belonging into the picture at a time when it’s never been more needed. We want to go all-in on this.”
The Head thinks. It informs your people and does so in such a clever way that it makes their learning journey continuous, seamless, relevant and accessible. More than that - it puts the power back in their hands. This is the opposite of what you find with most corporate tools aiming to address the disengagement crisis and prepare for the future of work.
The Heart feels. It provides your team, no matter how, or where they work, with a voice and a sense of value. It also gives context to their professional life when they aren’t able to see or interact with team members in a traditional sense.
It gives control back to the individual at a time of centralisation of technology in the hands of the company. It allows you to get to know the individuals that make up the collective, to show that you care about them, and get more in return from each individual in the process.
85% of the global workforce may be disengaged at present, but we believe instilling them with a voice is the remedy. And the numbers would agree - those who feel heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform at their very best.
“Companies that want to thrive in the modern world need to address engagement, effort, performance and satisfaction, in a cohesive and concerted way.”
This lies at the heart of what we’ve found in the last year, and why we have dedicated our efforts to empowering people and companies to achieve Workforce Success.
When we scoped how to give the modern workforce a voice, we focused on delivering value across these dimensions:
-
I have a voice / I am heard / I am valuable
-
I’m aware of other people doing the same thing I do
-
I have a sense of control
-
My company knows me
-
My company cares about me
And then we asked ourselves: if we manage to provide a solution to this problem, what would be the expected, measurable, results - for the individual and the company? We resolved on:
-
Increased satisfaction with their role
-
Increased motivation in their role
-
Increased engagement
-
Increased productivity
-
Increased loyalty / reduced attrition
-
Better informed company: taking right decisions leading to efficiency gains and lower workforce churn
We are taking a comprehensive and long-term approach to working on giving the modern workforce a voice that will increase motivation and engagement. We want to turn the tables on the global disengagement crisis the workforce faces.
So we are thrilled to announce the first step in this direction, which also marks a significant addition to our product proposition by introducing Surveys in eduMe! 🚀
How did we get to surveys?
"How do I know what my team members think about the content we’re sending out?" was a question we kept hearing from existing clients.
We would suggest ways to achieve this using various third party tools but they were never quite right. They didn’t fulfil team leaders’ needs, or required them signing up for other services meaning their teams were being redirected away from eduMe. This additional barrier would create a fractured user experience.
We wanted to bring a mechanism for gathering this type of insight from team members into the eduMe platform to create a more seamless, connected experience for both admins and their workforce.
Why surveys?
A survey seemed a great way to achieve this - a simple way for leaders to send out a question that enabled them to check in and become more in tune with their workforce’s sentiments.
We wanted our surveys to be quick and easy to both create and respond to. The fact they are focused and single question only maximises response rate, generating useful, actionable data.
The admin has a choice of simple templates to choose from. Once you’ve decided on your question and added some answer options, your Survey is sent instantly via the eduMe app (or the web browser version of the app) to whichever teams or individuals it is relevant to.
As important as it is to ask for feedback, to show that you are really listening to your workforce, the response data must be analysed. We know how important it is, so we’ve made this information easily and readily accessible.
Click on the control panel to find a summary of peoples’ responses. If you want to drill down to the nitty gritty, a full report can be downloaded for analysis so appropriate action can be taken.
But Surveys go beyond just getting feedback on existing content you’ve created.
They can also be used as a way to identify knowledge gaps, which will then inform future learning content required to bridge that gap. But most importantly, they enable you to keep a vital finger on the ‘pulse’ of your workforce. For instance - gauging how team members feel about a newly introduced policy, or any cross-company subject.
How are we using Surveys internally
As the first users of surveys, our team have already adopted them as an integral part of our internal communications.
Having the ability to use surveys within eduMe has been a fantastic way to gauge peoples’ opinions and thoughts - ranging from culture-related discussions, like which film to screen at our monthly movie night, to more substantial issues, such as the taxonomy of new features we’re building.
As an example, we’re currently using daily multiple choice surveys, to check in on our employees’ wellbeing. They are proving extremely valuable during these unusual and uncertain times, when the whole company has suddenly found itself working remotely.
It’s a quick and easy way to gauge the mental health of the team, and make sure everyone knows, and feels, that their wellbeing is a key focus for us. Over the coming weeks, we intend to track how the team is feeling, analyse the data, take stock and then take action.
Results for clients
But it’s not just the eduMe team who are seeing the benefit. Our clients are already feeding back on the way Surveys has changed the game for them. Tigo (Guatemala), part of Millicom, Honduras’ largest mobile operator are just one client who have been using Surveys to the collective success of their workforce.
Using eduMe has given them peace of mind, knowing this dispersed workforce is getting the knowledge they need, when they need it.
But now the flow of communication is no longer one way. Surveys has enabled them to open up a dialogue between them and their people during this critical time.
It’s empowered their sales team, who are still out on the frontlines, with a voice. And its given them a tool with which to keep a finger on the ‘pulse’ of their workforce.
The coordinator of Tigo’s Sales and Experience School, Daniela Castro Dunaway, has said that:
“eduMe has become our direct communication channel with our workforce. We are not only using it for our COVID-19 campaign, but also for product enhancements and knowledge assessments”.
What’s next?
Releasing Surveys is only the first step in our commitment to providing you - the modern workforce - with a voice.
Because if there’s one certainty, it’s that the workforce is in a constant state of flux.
This means that any good solution must constantly evolve alongside - and in response - to this flux. And that’s what we strive to do at eduMe - satisfy the needs of an ever changing work landscape.
Book a demo with us now to see how we can help 👇
