Forget those cumbersome surveys targetted to reveal how happy and productive a company’s employees are. Now there’s an app that delivers on behavioural data and employee engagement, writes Nur Zarina Othman
HAVING job satisfaction is very important for all of us, but in reality, not many employees feel engaged at work.
According to research by global human resource solutions firm Aon its latest report, the 2018 Trends in Global Employee Report shows that employees
in Singapore and Malaysia are the least engaged in Asia.
The report also shows that, on average, less than 33 per cent of employees are fully engaged, with lower employee engagement leading to lower productivity and higher turnover in an organisation.
HUMAN RESOURCE
Ramsol Group, a Human Capital Management System (HCM) implementer in the Asean region with more than 10 years experience, believes that employee engagement and morale are very important for high productivity in any organisation.
Headquartered in Malaysia, the HR tech company has been leading in the technical and functional deployment of the HCM system across the world, serving over 40 clients, with a prominent presence in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.
“It is no secret that a happy and engaged worker is a more productive and loyal employee,” says Clement Tan, chairman and CEO of Ramsol Group. Its subsidiary company, Feet’s Sdn Bhd, is a talent engagement solution company with a mission to enhance the relationship between employers and employees.
It aims to create a happier and healthier workforce through an employee engagement app called Feet’s App.
“As employees become more mobile with the gig economy taking over, team spirit and loyalty is often lacking and employers are challenged to provide clear values and strategies to position them for growth. Feet’s helps organisations keep their teams in the loop and nurture a sense of belonging,” says Tan.
STAYING AHEAD
Keeping up with employee needs is not easy, especially for big multinational organisations. Normally, these companies will have to do employee engagement studies to gauge employee satisfaction and behavioural indicators.
The Feet’s app aims to boost this engagement and equip employers with behavioural data to improve decision-making. It is compatible with iOS and Android mobile devices, and helps organisations build value by tracking and forecasting future workforce needs.
Some of the functions available on the Feet’s app include Feeters Forum (which functions as a platform for discussions and to spark collaborations between departments or sections), T’ing! (a suggestion box that allows autonomy of ideas and voting by members), and weekly quizzes backed by research, positive psychology and artificial intelligence for effective tracking of employees’ needs.
THE BEGINNING
Tan, who is also the brains behind Feet’s, feels that talents from local universities are not fully recognised and tapped. Therefore, he decided to collaborate with students from University Malaya on research and development when developing the app as he believes the students are capable.
The mobile app is designed for decision makers who want to know what is really going on with their employees on a real-time basis — what they have accomplished, what they are currently struggling with and how they feel about anything related to the organisation. It also keeps employee engagement fun and rewarding, and it is the first of its kind in the country. For example, The Executive Dashboard function on the app offers real-time tracking for managers on overall employee activity, satisfaction and stress levels.
FEELING GOOD
As a platform for companies to boost internal engagement, Feet’s is designed with the feel-good factor in mind and is also aimed at nurturing great relationships in the workplace between managers and their peers. What makes it unique is its simple and friendly workflow, combined with open collaboration, social interaction, crowdsourcing and gamification.
In the Feet’s app, there’s a Makan Buddy Meal Group function with location technology that delivers push notifications for “suggestions nearby”. This encourages co-workers to go for lunch together, and promotes interdepartmental interactions.
Meanwhile, the High Fivers Recognition enables badges to be earned by completing tasks and leaderboard, promoting individual achievements. The app’s friendly user interface encourages daily interaction and attractive rewards, which can be redeemed at a wide selection of Feet’s brand partners.
“Feet’s users are given incentives in the form of points which can be exchanged for rewards such as discounts or offers from local brands ranging from food and beverage to travel and health industries,” says Tan.
In addition to receiving company news and announcements, the app also prioritises rewards and recognition for employees’contributions and proactive attributes.
It is especially useful in this new era of millennial workforce where memos are no longer effective forms of communication, and emails are getting there too.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
In order to get a pulse on employees’ morale, Feet’s also collaborated with the AI department in UM to incorporate AI into the app so that it can formulate questions for insightful feedback.
No employee finds surveys a fun thing to do; we dread internal satisfaction surveys delivered to our email but the app makes answering surveys easier. It does this by delivering questions to the app over several weeks and highlights points offered, making the process fun. The responses and deep analytics derived from the AI function in Feet’s will help managers initiate more meaningful discussions with their teams, offering new source of motivation and creating a culture of growth among employees.
Not only that, the Feet’s app works in favour of the employer, where it has also gone through rigorous beta testing with diverse users to transform how employers engage with and listen to their employees — providing a win-win situation for all.
“The development of the app was done with valuable insights acquired through our experience and research with clients. While we can track productivity and performance with a dynamic software, with Feet’s, HR managers can continuously monitor if an employee is engaged or disengaged and they can identify appropriate and timely interventions to achieve the desired results,” says Tan.