16 Jul How A Software Overhaul Can Help End Team Apathy
In a perfect world, each and every employee would love their job and genuinely care about what they do. They would be fully engaged in each and every task that they take on. Always striving for the best possible outcome, always putting in the extra work.
Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, and every employee is a different person.
Sometimes, it’s just hard to stay motivated. You could spend a lifetime reading books on how to motivate employees. You could even force them to read self-help-motivational books themselves!
However, there are other ways to keep your workers…well, working.
Being a good leader is a great start, but simply upgrading your company software to something more relevant to your business can have a positive impact on your team’s motivation.
And with motivation comes production and efficiency!
A software upgrade is more than just a shiny new coat of paint or a comfier work chair (although, comfy chairs can’t hurt). The idea is to use software development to build a suite of programs that make your employees more excited to work. Let’s look at a few ways this can make a difference.
Enterprise Social Networking
Although some companies simply encourage their employees to get on Twitter and Facebook and communicate with each other (and some don’t), there are also options built specifically to be used within the company. One of the most popular is called Yammer, and it can be integrated in many software development solutions, including SharePoint.
One of the ways to utilise enterprise social networking is to make employees feel not only like they are part of the company, but that they really matter.
Red Robin, an international casual restaurant chain made up of more than 450 restaurants, utilised their employees to fix a big time menu bust. The company rolled out a new sandwich called the “Pig Out Burger.” Customers hated it.
And in an industry like that, who hears the complaints?
The employees on the ground floor – the managers. In a situation without the right software, those complaints would take months to get to the source. But with the right system in place, in this case an implementation of Yammer, they were able to get a new, customer approved version of the sandwich out in a matter of a few weeks. Normally it would have taken 1-1.5 years!
Blogging
Why would your employees need a blog? So they can be proud of their work! Custom software development solutions like SharePoint have blogging built in. If employees have certain specialties, encouraging them to blog about their progress on projects serves multiple purposes.
It makes it easy for them to keep a running log of their achievements and work that can be viewed by anyone else in the company, or anyone outside of the company if you wish. This encourages collaboration, and maybe even some healthy competition.
Nobody wants to feel their work ges unnoticed. Built-in blogging is a great way to get workers to increase their pride and their teamwork. It will also help increase accountability, but there are other ways to do that too.
Accountability
Speaking of work going unnoticed, know that it’s bad for the company and the employees.
A reported 41% of organisations have problems retaining critical-skill employees, and the percentages have been trending upward the last four years.
Plus, Forbes listed this as one of their top five ways to “demotivate” an employee:
“Take credit for a project one of your employees actually did most of the work on.”
Nobody can take credit for results they didn’t create if there is a clear digital trail of hard work and effort that leads right back to the person responsible. A software overhaul would ensure that employees can take credit for the work they do. At the same time, when mistakes get made, it will be easier for them to take the blame on those as well, rather than trying to blame someone else.
- Fewer than four in 10 employers (37%) say their employees understand how they can influence their careers.
- A reported 41% of organizations have problems retaining critical-skill employees, and the percentages have been trending upward the last four years.
- Nearly one-quarter of organizations give bonuses to employees who fail to meet expectations — and close to two in 10 give employees the same bonus regardless of individual performance
[Source: Towers Watson]
Usability
Employees who lose motivation or be apathetic when it comes to their day to day tasks has a lot to do with how your company software functions. We’ve been talking about software uses, but what does it actually look like? How easy or difficult is it to use?
Some employees might become frustrated with the software that they use on a daily basis. This can lead to frustration, low morale, and a huge lack of efficiency, not to mention a lack of effort.
According to a study by the Nielsen Norman Group, when attempting basic intranet tasks employees’ average success rate 10 years ago was only 75%. You’d think it would go up, but in fact, currently it sits at 74%. This means that 26% of the time employees fail at a basic task they are trying to accomplish when using their old intranet software.
With a software update comes a streamlined interface. One custom built for your specific business. The idea is that it will be easier for your employees to use the software and accomplish what they set out to do. After all, if you’ve got an employee motivated to work, what good will that do if the software is holding them back?
