Role of AI in Employee Engagement
What is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement (EE) has become a buzzword in recent years. It is a measure of how engaged an employee is with their work.
The benefits of employee engagement are undeniable: higher levels of engagement lead to increased productivity and lower rates of absenteeism, while low levels can lead to high turnover rates and disengaged employees.
The meaning of employee engagement has changed over last few decades.
For Example, consider the “Employee Engagement” among the baby boomers. For them the job was very important. No matter what may come they did not quit the job even if the employer abused or beaten them. That was the era when the earning was top priority to arrange for the basic needs like food, clothes and shelter. This generation never changed the job.
The next generation — Gen X had all the basic needs already with them hence they started looking for a better paying job and standard of life. Employees of this generation started changing the job for various reasons.
The next generation — millennials and Gen Z has all that mostly inherited from grandparents and parents. Now they are looking for a quality of work.
Engaging baby boomers was not at all required but engaging the Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z is required.
Employee engagement changes with situation and time. An EE practice which is working fine today might not work after a few years, months, or even days. Therefore, the organization must stay up-to-date on the latest employee engagement trends.
Baby boomers and Gen X attended interviews personally. They visited the office. Later generations started engaging digital tools or applications. This generation does not look for building but for quality of work. Engaging such employees is not an easy job.
After the COVID effect the work has become work from home. In this scenario engaging employees is even more tough.
After many researches and experiments the EE programmes in organizations have evolved to a level where they want to engage AI powered tools to engage the employees.
AI in Employee Recognition — The Benefits of Using an AI-powered Solution
The use of AI in HR departments has been on the rise over the past few years with more companies adopting this technology for various purposes. Employee recognition is also one such area where AI can play a big role. An AI-powered solution has a lot of benefits like providing personalized feedback, insights, and recommendations which will help employees to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
AI can also be used to provide feedback on employee performance. This includes giving feedback on how they are doing at work, what they need to do better, and what they are doing well. AI can also recognize employees for their achievements by sending them a message or email when they have done something that deserves recognition.
Refer my previous blog Role of AI in Performance Management.
How AI can Improve Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is a key factor in the success of any organization. It is a measure of how committed employees are to their organization. It is an important factor for any company because it has a huge impact on the company’s culture and productivity, the leadership team, and the employees’ work-life balance.
AI can be used to help companies with employee engagement by providing insights about what employees want and need from their employers. Organizations can use this information to implement changes in their culture and management style to improve employee engagement levels.
The benefits of AI go beyond just improved engagement levels though. AI can be used to provide or receive feedback on how employees think their work-life balance could be improved. Organizations could then make adjustments or change themselves wherever necessary.
AI can help organizations identify what their employees want and need in order to be happy at work.
For example, AI can be used to find out what motivates employees and what causes them stress, so that companies can create a work environment that will keep them engaged.
AI can also provide HR insights to help them make better decisions in the future.
For example, AI can figure out which employees are most likely to leave the company based on their performance and other data like absence from work, downloading pay slips and communication. This will allow HR teams to concentrate their resources on those who are most likely to leave the company.
The algorithms of AI powered tools can read the emails and chats to find out what the employees are discussing about. Such tools can identify the emotions of employees and group them as positive and negative sentiments.
Some of the common positive and negative emotions felt at work are:
· Enthusiasm
· Comfort
· Conducive
· Satisfaction
· Frustration
· Anxious
· Stress
· Anger
Apart from the emotions they can identify if the employees are taking about salary, increments, promotions, pay-slips or any other organizations. And help HR to take the required actions accordingly.
Artificial intelligence has unlimited potential and advantages. It can be used to automate exhausting and repetitive tasks, and help to boos employee engagement, and reducing attrition.
Tools such as predictive analytics, predictive analytics, collaboration tools, real-time feedback tools, focused learning and interactive chatbots are changing the way employee engagement was conducted and measured.
Predictive Analytics: AI can help in monitoring employees’ mental wellbeing, behavioral patterns and engagement levels through data collected in real-time through emails, chats, and face recognition (facial expressions). It helps in measuring engagement levels by analyzing historical and current data, identifying patterns, predicting trends and offering customized solutions through prescriptive analytics.
For example, data backed insights can help in grouping of people who are dissatisfied and planning to exit the company, AI can easily identify this set of disengaged employees and help HRs in retaining them.
Collaboration tools: There are many tools which organizations are using to bring the employees together. In the organization where I work, there are many dedicated groups are being created on the communicator. There by it helps to collaborate likeminded or same skilled employees. This in turn helps organization to keep the employees engaged and motivated. All this is monitored by the AI in real-time.
Focused learning: AI integrated learning tools/ apps also ask questions about what learner wants to learn and also identifies the gap. Based on the information generated a personalized learning path will be suggested. This makes the content very much personalized and eventually keeps the employee motivated till the end.
Real-time feedback: Real-time engagement feedback collection are the easiest ways to understanding what is exactly going on in the mind of employees, what kind of emotions are they exhibiting, what are they discussing most about the organization. By employing AI-backed feedback platforms, businesses can access the real-time feedback from their employees and know the exact areas where they need to put their efforts.
Chatbots: chatbots are so interactive such that they can converse with the employees for their requirement. One express the feelings and also get the job done. In my organisation the chat bot reminds me to approve the timesheets, recognise the performance of team members and also helps on policies, contract letters, address letters for utility connections and important contact details.
Benefits of AI in Employee Engagement
· Employee engagement through sentiment analysis.
· Unbiased and data supported decision making process,
· Work culture improvement by real-time feedback available round the clock.
· Help reduce the attrition by helping to convert disengaged employees into engaged employees.
· Skill development by focused, easy and personalized learning.
· Increased productivity, communication and collaboration.
. Sense of belonging.
The Future of Workplace Automation?
The future of workplace automation is not just about the robots and AI taking on the jobs of humans. In fact, it is a lot more than that. It has a lot to do with improving employee engagement and HR in general. The use of AI in HR is not new but it has been gaining traction lately because of its ability to make processes more efficient, save time and provide accurate data for decision-making.
How to Choose Which AI Tool Fits Your Needs?
The first step is to ask yourself what you want the AI tool to do. Then, find a tool that will be able to do it for you.
There are many different types of AI tools in the market, so it can be difficult to choose which one is best for your needs. There are some things you should consider before making a decision.
For example, what type of content do you need? Do you need something that is just for personal use or something that will help with general tasks at work?
Conclusion: Start Using an AI-powered Solution Today to Supercharge Your Employee Engagement & Recognition.
References: research on internet, Self-experience and websites like jigsaw academy and leena.ai.
