Two Ways Robust and Integrated Platforms Increase Employee Engagement
In a bring-your-own device world, providing employees with functional business apps increases their productivity. But how can you build a business app that employees will trust and use?
Building your app on a robust and integrated platform increases employee engagement by providing the backbone of a common app with the power of mobility. Essentially, you are combining functionality with familiarity. Here's how it works:
1. Functionality
A second (and just as important) method is to build a customised app that parallels your business' workflows, making the app an integral part of how you do business.
By building the bulk of the common app functionality on a robust and fully integrated mobile platform, existing workflows and legacy data are accessed easily. By eliminating pain points, customised apps encourage employee engagement and help streamline workflows. This occurs when developers pay attention to how a particular business' employees engage with technology. Then, developers build an app that integrates with the users' tasks.
When customising apps for businesses, developers take into account the business mission and the ways employees interact with data, how they collaborate with one another and how they engage their customers and clients. Eddie Lockhart of TechTarget explains how this is managed:
“Next, developers should establish a clear purpose for the app and integrate it into users’ existing workflows. Don’t make users change the way they get work done; just help them be more efficient. Developers should also avoid adding extra features just for the sake of adding extra features. Anything unnecessary will just make matters more complicated for users. ”
Familiar interfaces, device flexibility and flawless integration builds employee confidence in the app. With confidence comes increased usage and engagement.
2. Familiarity
One method that increases use and engagement is to customize and streamline the app features so that they mimic the apps employees use each day in their personal lives.
Employees consume technology outside of their business hours but they also interact with technology while performing their business roles. Often these two technological faces rarely meet. But they should. When they do meet, employees are more likely to adopt business applications. When a business apps' features, interfaces and navigation mirror consumer apps the user experience improves and with that, so does engagement. Robust and integrated platforms are essential when it comes to providing this kind of user experience. Here's how:
Cross-Platform Integration.
Integrated platforms provide employees with familiar technology that pulls all of the pieces of their technological world together seamlessly.Whether they are completing a task on their smartphone, or collaborating with team members on a tablet, employees are confident that their work is accessible whenever and however they wish to access it.Real-time Updates.
Additionally, integrated platforms ensure that all connected devices communicate effectively with one other and with the cloud. Updates on one device or through one app immediately register on another.
Employees expect this kind of response from their consumer apps. If their business applications act in a similar manner then employees trust the technology and engage with it. Users are more likely to interact with apps that mimic consumer app design.
When ERP features are similar to the business' consumer applications, the learning curve isn't steep and employees are able to access the features they need in ways they are accustomed. This is accomplished when developers take the time to customize apps that reflect employee digital habits.
Investing in enterprise business software can be risky. Even the best, most sophisticated and powerful applications are worthless if employees do not engage with the application. But, paying attention to user experience (UX) design, and leveraging software technology to meet the demands of business processes is a sure way to encourage employee engagement with a new business application.
For more information on building a customised app for your business, please contact us.