In today’s world, where speed is of the essence, it is hard to find the time to recognize a co-worker who has contributed in some positive way to the culture, mission, and values of your organization. But it’s critical to do so.
I recently returned from Achievers Customer Experience 2017, a conference where I was reminded of the importance of that act and the many ways in which recognition contributes to the spirit and performance of employees and the organization. The conference sessions demonstrated the many benefits of recognition and engagement and the compelling insights that can be gleaned about the workforce from the metrics produced from a recognition and engagement platform.
I was particularly taken with this theme because the results from Brandon Hall Group’s 2017 Rewards and Recognition Study support that recognition drives employee engagement, employee retention, and productivity. Many organizations utilizing a rewards and recognition technology solution have seen in the past year improved levels of employee engagement (75%), productivity (61%), and employee retention (46%). Few, between 1% and 3%, have seen a decline in those metrics.
In addition to the benefits of recognition, Achievers, a cloud-based recognition and engagement platform provider, announced details about its latest engagement offering, Achievers Listen, which enables employees to give continuous feedback.
Included with Achievers Listen is an engagement bot, named Allie, that will be launched toward the end of this year. Allie will act as a digital coach and ask employees questions related to engagement in a conversational manner. The responses provided to Allie will be kept confidential (names not associated with responses), but because of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, Allie will be able to derive insights not seen before. For instance, Allie may be able to determine that a dip in engagement during a specific time period is caused by a new policy, or a change in benefits, or some other reason. To be conservative, it may take some more time before Allie reaches full potential, but in the meantime, this is exciting news.
Achievers’ mission is to “Change the Way the World Works.” The company demonstrates this focus in the ways it draws insights from recognition data and applies AI to engagement data with its new bot, Allie. Recognition and engagement are indeed very powerful, and closely aligned.
-Daria Friedman, Principal Analyst, Talent Acquisition, Brandon Hall Group