Customers get all the attention. After all, they’re the ones keeping the lights on. Your processes and procedures are designed with them in mind, you make critical decisions based on their needs and asks, and you do everything in your power to attract and retain them.
Bending over backward for your customers is by no means a bad business practice. What it does mean, however, is that it’s easy to become hyper-focused on all things “customer” and to lose track of other areas of importance. In this case, another critical group of people—your employees.
You value your employees tremendously. They are the backbone of your business, and their hard work is recognized through salary increases, promotions, and other commendations.
Employees love incentives—especially cash incentives. There’s nothing wrong with rewarding your employees for a job well done. It’s certainly part of a winning strategy. But, it’s not the only component that goes into building the best business possible when it comes to employee relationships.
Your investments in your employees need to go beyond bonuses, holiday parties, and awards. In some ways, your business needs to look at its employee relationships in the same light it would its customer relationships. It’s important to embrace how technology can improve areas such as employee communication, the onboarding process, reduce employee burnout, and the overall efficiency of their daily experience.
In short, enterprise resource planning software (ERP) under the umbrella of business management technology is capable of facilitating a better, more efficient employee experience that improves employee engagement—disengaged employees cost companies between $483 to $605 billion per year, and companies with more engaged employees outperform their counterparts by 202%.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways that business management technology can facilitate a more engaged, productive workforce and how that can have a positive impact on your bottom line.
How ERP Benefits Internal Communication
Even before the advent of widespread remote work, maintaining organization and accuracy in daily communication channels was a challenge. Now, the challenge has risen to an entirely new level.
If you have employees out in the field, they will most likely be calling or texting back to the office. Young and tech-savvy employees working remotely will have the inclination to use their favorite group messaging apps. The term is known as shadow IT where employees use familiar (to them) apps that have not been blessed by your IT department, typically for cybersecurity concerns.
And—even more prominently—most employees will still rely on traditional email chains as their primary method to relay information. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these channels of communication. However, there are two glaring problems when it comes to how they’re used:
1. They’re all disconnected systems that do not have a single, verifiable source of centralized data.
2. There is now an extraneous layer of separation between these communication channels and the work being done.
Transparency and Inclusion
One of the biggest and most immediate benefits that business management software offers in terms of employee communication is the fact that discussions are all happening within the system, with everyone on the same page.
In an atmosphere where all employees are encouraged to communicate, problems will be solved quickly. Oftentimes, problems that would have shown up later down the line will be stamped out quicker than ever when communication is at its peak.
Enabling transparent and inclusive communication empowers your employees to work productively and relay data faster. Another great way to empower employees is through corporate awards; in this way, they will feel more appreciated and productive. It will be favorable among your employees, and it will have a trickle-down effect on your customers who are seeing their problems and needs accounted for much more timely and efficiently.
Accurate, Real-Time Data
Sifting through various mediums of communication to find the “correct” set of data is one of the biggest time wasters that a company can face. One study found that employees spend 19.8% of their business time searching for information to do their job effectively.
If you’re not keeping your data clean, you could be missing out on opportunities to reach new customers or nurture relationships with existing ones. To create and maintain better data, you can use employee survey software tools and have better management.
Needless to say, improving the ways in which your employees send and receive information can save your business time and money.
Project Management Efficiency
Every type of business spends time working on projects of some kind. Whether it’s a construction job site, a catering event, or a financial planning document, you will have information in need of being stored, co-workers in need of being brought up to speed, and work that needs to be reviewed and revised. Thus you can give corporate awards to the most successful employees and enable their trust and dedication.
Instead of communicating about projects on a separate software app, communicate directly where the project data is stored. This way you can point to specific information, upload additional documents, and see a definitive edit history. You’ll be able to spend less time clarifying back-and-forth remarks and more time accomplishing the tasks at hand.
Adapting To Your Employees
Your employees are all truly one of a kind. Some employees are aces in analytical positions, while others are better suited for labor-focused tasks. Skillsets aren’t the only area of importance here—personalities also play a major role in the workplace. Some may be best suited for customer-facing positions, while others thrive in the back office environment.
Differing and diverse talent and personalities among your employees is an unequivocal strength. The hard part comes in pairing employees with others that complement their respective skill sets and personalities. While that requires some managerial expertise, business management software plays a vital role in empowering your employees to maximize their unique potential. Perhaps, take a look at branded corporate achievement awards to improve employee relationships and recognize outstanding achievers.
Automation Enables Creativity
While automation doesn’t directly contribute to creativity, it provides more of the most significant element necessary for creativity to flourish—time. Right now, 67% of organizations are implementing business process automation solutions. And around 85% of business leaders, believe that automating some of this workload will give employees more time to focus on crucial company initiatives.
The truth is, one of the easiest ways for employees to become burnt out and unproductive in their role is when they are required to perform large amounts of menial and repetitive tasks. By utilizing business management technology, your employees can get back to not only the work that they do best but also the work that keeps them highly motivated and productive.
Remote Work
Some employees work best in a lively atmosphere surrounded by lots of people and activity, while others work best in quiet solitude. In the last couple of years, the latter type of worker has thrived. While not every person is at their best working remotely, nor can every job be completed in this way, it can be highly productive for those that embrace it.
47% of employees that work remotely are more productive, and on average these employees end up working one additional day per week.
ERP business management software gives your employees the freedom to work in an atmosphere that suits their strengths while not sacrificing any of the communication or data visibility traditionally reserved for those working in the office.
Enhanced Decision Making
While you still may leave the bulk of the decision-making up to the executives within your business, it’s always a good idea to aggregate ideas from every person involved, not just executives. Using the tools that business management software has to offer, your employees will have faster access to better data, enabling them to make smarter decisions.
Giving employees more leeway to dive headfirst into data facilitates more openness within your organization and gives way to better ideas being developed. Even if your average employee isn’t responsible for making the final decision, having those conversations within your organization from top to bottom will prove the theory that two heads are always better than one.
Wrapping Up
Focusing on the relationship between you and your employees—as well as the relationships that employees have with each other—is really important. In fact, it can be viewed as an extension of focusing on your relationship with your customers.
If your employees are empowered to work their best, they’ll be best set up to serve your customers in an optimal fashion. Giving your employees the tools to communicate about projects, allowing them the opportunity to make intelligent decisions, and overall promoting an atmosphere of open communication, inclusion, and transparency will help every employee in your company reach their full potential, thereby helping your company achieve the most that it possibly can.
