WHY MACORVA
For some time, tech companies have seen a surge in employment. CompTIA’s 2023 “State of the Tech Workforce” report found that $1.97 trillion or 8.8% of the national economy was output generated by the tech industry, which is now projected to create over 272,000 new tech jobs every year.
Yet, despite the industry’s rapid expansion, nearly 3 in 4 tech company leaders report challenges in meeting the broader needs of their workers. Attracting and retaining top talent requires more than just competitive salaries. Creating a work environment that engages employees and offers opportunities for advancement will be key to productivity as well as retention.
In a landscape crowded with innovative tech, a versatile employee engagement platform is essential. It is a vital tool for creating continuous learning environments that will address broader worker needs and support their growth in the coming years.
Let's explore six benefits that employee engagement software offers tech companies, enhancing their ability to thrive in this fast-paced sector.
Increases Data-Driven Decision-Making
Being in the business of developing solutions to today’s problems, tech companies naturally rely on big data, analytics, and other quantitative means as context for their key strategies. This approach also works quite well when managing the workforce, and employee engagement software is the ideal tool for facilitating better talent management decisions.
Employee engagement software supports better data-driven decisions about employees, teams, and company culture because it gathers qualitative and quantitative employee feedback and delivers actionable insights. It enables every employee to submit feedback scores for their peers, managers, and subordinates, as well as report on the effectiveness of programs, benefits, learning systems, mentorships, and other leadership initiatives within the company. Their responses, not only to each other but also directly to new engagement strategies, provide data that helps companies refine their employee experiences more meticulously than a traditional survey or performance review could. Some examples of talent management decisions that are supported by employee engagement software include:
- Which manager should lead a specific team
- How to develop high-potential workers
- When to reorganize a segment of the business
- How to better recognize employee achievement
- How to facilitate collaboration between teams
- Who should be selected for skill mentoring
Businesses aware of the crucial link between continuous improvement in employee satisfaction and retention understand real-time feedback on the employee experience invaluable. Not only does a real-time source of feedback help a business strategize changes in its work environment, but it also provides managers a way to spot and resolve issues with engagement in real time.
Helps Reduce Employee Burnout
Perhaps more so than in other industries, tech company employees are so focused on innovation and meeting ever-evolving customer needs that they can become burned out.
Recent data shows that 75% of tech employees work over 40 hours per week, though 51% of workers report that they aren’t living up to their potential and 43% report feeling less engaged. This “IT epidemic in the making,” as CIO reports it, indicates the threat of industry-wide burnout.
However, instead of simply reacting after employees have become burned out and their performance has begun to suffer, tech company leaders can take a more proactive approach with the aid of a reliable engagement platform. Employee engagement software can identify employees who are frustrated, burned out, or in need of more hands-on leadership before they suffer a drop in effectiveness or decide to leave the company.
With the help of feedback that identifies employee pain points as crucial areas where they need more support, company leaders can take action before stress takes over their workplace.
Equipped with information gleaned from employee feedback, managers can address issues proactively, by taking actions such as:
- Establishing training for supervisors to help them more effectively lead their teams
- Engaging in follow-up conversations with employees who may be feeling overworked or under appreciated
- Reorganizing select teams for greater efficiency
- Creating a more positive and motivating work environment
Despite some ominous numbers, employee burnout in the tech industry is not inevitable, provided businesses invest in their employees’ well-being beyond the obvious HR policies. Versatile improvements to broader employee engagement based on feedback from their own experience help businesses strengthen their strengths and fill gaps.
Highlights Employee Standouts
Successful tech companies possess a great deal of highly talented employees, many with specialized education, qualifications, and skills. However, it is often difficult to identify individual contributors with management potential or those who inspire others and have the most positive impact on employee engagement.
Employee engagement software addresses that challenge by helping companies identify individuals who have the potential to lead, who are ready for expanded leadership responsibilities, or who are struggling and need coaching or training. Now that nearly half of all workers would switch companies if their new managers offered opportunities to upskill, the ability to identify and cultivate potential leaders is vital to employee retention.
When you can identify your company’s standouts, you’re in a better position to develop a plan for elevating those with key strengths and skills, as well as supporting those who may be struggling. For example, some employees may be “silent superstars” who need more recognition from senior leaders, while others may be upwardly focused and require coaching on how to be more accountable to their peers.
Employee engagement software can highlight those employee standouts. Company leaders will know where they are and how to support their growth and development before they (or their coworkers) become disengaged or leave the company for better opportunities elsewhere.
Ensures Effective Employee Engagement Activities
Tech talent is in high demand. Despite numerous post-pandemic layoffs, recent studies by Deloitte Insights revealed that 90% of tech company leaders expressed a need for recruiting and retaining skilled tech workers. To retain existing staff and attract new talent, tech companies must be particularly vigilant when it comes to talent engagement initiatives.
As New Kind’s Pippa Armes describes, “With our increasing reliance on technology and the innovation borne of the companies that make it, keeping the tech workforce happy and engaged is becoming a uniquely nuanced challenge.”
Tech companies are well-known for creating a work culture aimed at keeping employees engaged, whether through flexible hours, plentiful remote work options, or employee-focused amenities like game rooms and company chat servers. Employee engagement software helps measure the degree to which those benefits actively support employee engagement, or whether employees see them simply as “nice to have.” For instance, the right survey asks not only how much an employee values existing benefits but also how to identify new benefits or activities that would have a more positive impact on employee engagement.
Supports More Effective Workplace Communication
Tech companies require a strong base of communication between management and employees to resolve workplace issues, especially now that 39% of the workforce works remotely in some capacity.
Employee engagement software supports workplace communication in numerous ways. It streamlines communication between management and team leaders by creating a central hub that organizes the info that people need to know (no more endless company emails that employees end up ignoring). It acknowledges employee achievements in the same central hub, which leads to higher enthusiasm and productivity. And it unearths issues that may be festering within teams or among coworkers. For example, some employees may be frustrated with a manager who doesn’t share enough information about important initiatives.
Many business leaders point to a lack of collaboration between certain teams as the cause of a slowdown in new product development or strategies. Through the power of real-time feedback delivered by engagement software, managers have a chance to identify areas where mixed signals or duplicate efforts are hindering team effectiveness or where there are individuals who aren’t communicating effectively.
By using an engagement platform that delivers feedback to every employee, it’s easier to get to the heart of communication issues, discuss them with individual employees, and resolve them before they become a major roadblock to success. When that happens, employees are free to grow in engagement and increase their commitment to the company.
Guides Targeted Workforce Investments
Companies must invest in this engagement to reap its benefits. Tech companies particularly rely on employees with the most up-to-date digital skills and the ability to upskill in their fields to remain competitive. Given the need to compete for top tech talent, companies need tech solutions that will serve as long-term investments in employee engagement and upskilling, which is the not-so-secret recipe for increasing retention among emerging employees. Did you know that 83% of Generation Z talent is looking for a mentor at work, not just an employer? Only about half of them also report being able to find one.
Employee engagement software helps identify the areas that will deliver the greatest ROI while strengthening employee knowledge and skills. For example, 360-degree feedback for each employee identifies individuals who will benefit from soft skills training, coaching, and mentoring. With a clearer picture of individual development needs, you can make targeted, timely investments in employee growth.
Employee engagement software drives employees to be more productive, cooperative, and capable by turning workplaces into environments suited for continuous learning. The feedback generated by workers through the platform allows tech companies to support what they’re doing right and isolate what they can improve before a lack of engagement progresses to burnout and turnover.
As real-time feedback systems for employee engagement become more widely available, the companies that smartly leverage algorithmic insights into their work environment will be the ones that maintain the most productive workplaces. Real-time feedback is the best basis for creating strategies that actively improve the long-term employee experience at a company because it allows workers to contribute to their own success and allows managers to respond quickly to the pain points that matter. Collecting and analyzing this data is nearly impossible without a dedicated software platform equipped to turn responses into actions, which is a trend that will continue to define the tech industry moving forward.
To learn how Macorva can help your business bridge the gap between feedback and action to increase engagement, retention, and performance; watch this video.
Editors note: this blog was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
