One way of measuring employee engagement is through surveys and data collection—creating spreadsheets and examining trend lines using a variety of HR tech tools. Another is by making your way around the office to check in with employees and have real conversations with them. Most Human Resources employees enjoy the latter, human side of human resources more, but face-time with every employee can be difficult depending on the work situation—especially for companies that hire remote workers or large companies with multiple branches worldwide.
With the advent of so many tech tools available to HR teams, it can seem like the job has totally shifted to a more tech-based skillset. But while HR teams need to be able to understand the basics of the tech that assists them, a lot of this technology allows more freedom to focus on what is truly important to an organization. The real power of technology is that it can free you up from busy work to better focus on employees and the human side of Human Resources.
Tech Tools Reduce Busywork
The busywork of HR comes in the form of reviewing endless resumes from prospective employees, scheduling interviews, emailing candidates, onboarding tasks, and reviewing paperwork like feedback surveys from current employees. With all those tasks, at what point can the HR professional really engage with the individuals that make up the company? Truly listening and offering support to employees is one of the most rewarding aspects of HR.
To reduce busywork, resume screening software is a must and is already in use by most talent acquisition teams. Using AI-assisted screening tools can work even better—resumes can be scored and whittled down to a select group that allows your team to really engage their best candidates. Another AI tool that helps reduce busywork is a chatbot to engage prospective candidates and undertake interview scheduling. Removing the day to day micro-tasks means your HR team can be more focused on the needs of current employees.
Collecting Data Can Help You Focus On Employees’ Professional Growth
As a Human Resources leader, you likely want to focus on encouraging growth in your employees and understanding each individual as the whole person. Who is trying to grow their career? Who has personal factors that may require more support or flexibility in the workplace? Recognizing what’s important to employees, what bothers them, and what ignites their passion and their enjoyment at work is the real stuff of HR—and HR teams can be the difference between individuals seeing their work as “the grind” versus individuals finding fulfillment in their livelihoods.
In essence, HR teams with a focus on empathy for employees are collecting a very important type of data that can’t be quantified by AI software. Yet, collecting data from tech tools and using analytics can also help HR teams do the very same thing. Tech can help you track trends over time that you may not get from your day-to-day interactions with employees. Once you have all the data collected you can actually act on it, listen to employees, and find ways to support and engage them. As your data might tell you, retention rates correlate to productivity, as does employee engagement. An engaged workforce is a productive workforce—and a workforce that sticks with your organization over time.
Tech Can Help With Outreach And Employee Bonding
Tech tools are not solely about productivity. Putting systems in place to make it easier for your employees to engage with you and with each other is also smart. Tech can also help you focus on the human side of HR through communication tools, social media apps, or employee engagement apps—now it’s a given that the modern workforce is largely tech-savvy, filled with a plethora of social media users.
Your employees are one of your biggest expenses and one of your biggest assets, and your HR team should invest in that asset by developing a robust engagement strategy that keeps your workforce driven, happy, successful, and heard. While your engagement tech strategies may not be about setting up video games in the break room to become the “fun” office, you can make work more enjoyable and your business more productive by focusing on support and empathy—both among employees and between HR and employees.