There’s a big payoff for having happy employees. Studies have demonstrated that employees that are happy are more than 20 percent more productive than those that aren’t. That means that employers who have happy employees stand to save 20 percent on their labour costs compared to their competitors.
So it’s worth asking the question, in this age of high technology, what technology can do to improve not just employee productivity, but their happiness too. Let’s take a look.
Automation Tools
The very best way to upset employees is to disrupt their work-life balance. A Gallup poll found recently that the so-called 40 hour work week was more like 47 hours, and that more than 40 percent of Americans actually work more than fifty hours a week.
But there’s good news on the horizon. According to one report, things like support desks, automated marketing, and calendar tools are reducing individual and collective workloads.
Employee Happiness Analytics
One of the things that Health Assured's employee counselling services deal with on a day to day basis is employee misery. Misery at work can be caused by all sorts of things, but usually intervention is required when an employee loses a loved on and feels bereaved. Businesses tend to already have great systems in place for when an individual employee is feeling down, but what about managing the happiness of the workforce as a whole?
We’re now seeing an increasing number of startups enter the fray, promising companies that their software solutions can actually track and improve employee happiness in real time. A tool developed by Polly.ai, an AI analytics company, allows employees to give feedback in real time and offer their comments on things like business meetings. The idea behind the software is to make sure that employees stay in a good mood and give entrepreneurs an opportunity to find out what people like and what they don’t about the business.
Chatting Tools
Email overload has almost become a cliche - but, for whatever reason, it seems like one of those problems that is impossibly difficult to solve, like global warming. Last March, news outlet Business News Daily released an article listing all of the things that are driving employees crazy. At the top of the list was, of course, non-stop emails and worse still, a fifth of workers said that they got emails that had nothing to do with them.
Now, though, there is a solution at hand: the humble chat app. EThere are now lots of companies, including Google of course, who are integrating chat apps into their email platforms, allowing employees to send a quick message at the opportune time, rather than a full blown email, complete with time-consuming niceties like “best wishes.” According to the data, these apps actually help to reduce employee strain and make the working day more manageable.
Peer-to-peer Recognition Software
Then, finally, there is P2P recognition software. Software like Tap My Back is designed to give employees the opportunity to congratulate each other on a job well done. Employees will no longer be unhappy for not being recognised for their work.