3 Strategies for Using Data to Boost Performance Engagement

Performance Engagement: The perfect alliance of employee engagement and performance management. It’s a way to make work fun without sacrificing productivity and vise-versa. Until now it has always been slightly out of business reach, requiring a manager’s entire day. But thanks to smartphone tech, realistic performance engagement platforms now exist and stand to revolutionize the modern work landscape. Here’s how you can harness this incredible technology to strengthen your operation.

Until now, performance engagement was simply too time consuming to implement. Imagine trying to design, launch, maintain and adjust a motivation plan for each individual employee every day. It would involve monitoring each worker, personally setting goals for each, then rewarding them with whatever would motivate them most. The theory was solid, but there was no realistic way to implement it.

Thanks to modern performance engagement platforms like Arcade, you can now do this all digitally, with instant data at your fingertips. With each task completed, employees are rewarded for entering the task into a custom-made app on their smartphones. This gives you quick data on who is performing and who needs help. Here are three ways you can make the most of that data.

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1. Micro-remediation

Is this a word? It is now. Remediation is the principle of seeing a flaw in an employee’s work process and helping them overcome it toward better success. But it often means waiting until the end of the month for everyone’s performance numbers to come in, then meeting with the employee, trying to figure out what’s hindering him, and coming up with a better plan. In the meantime, negative habits form, frustration builds, and communication breaks down, all while performance drops. Sales are lost, production goes down, less gets done.But if you could see throughout the day who isn’t performing, a quick stop by the employee’s desk or workstation could rectify the situation. The employee will feel more cared for and less singled out, and everyone will be more productive throughout the month.

2. Harness Peer Recognition

A good performance engagement platform will feature an element in which employees can recognize each other for their achievements throughout the day. Whether they’re nominating someone for Employe of the Month or giving a simple high five for a successful customer interaction, peer recognition is an extremely powerful motivator. So if your employee upsells a cellular protection plan, she’ll get instant recognition for it via the platform, building momentum to try again with the next customer.

A 2012 survey by SHRM and Globoforce found that peer-to-peer recognition is 35.7% more likely to have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line than recognition from managers. So you can get the ball rolling, then let your employees take over as one team, encouraging each other. The synergy this produces is priceless.

3. Customize Rewards

The trouble with rewards programs is that you’ll never find the perfect single reward to suit everyone. So the gift card or free lunch you’re promising will never motivate 100% of your team. Some will shrug their shoulders and get back to their middling efforts.

A performance engagement platform allows you to set up a number of different rewards for varying levels of achievement, then lets each employee choose what they really want. If Tamara loves to work, leaving early on Friday might not appeal to her as much as a special parking space right by the door. Maybe Bill doesn’t follow sports and won’t want those tickets, but would prefer a gift card to his favorite restaurant instead.

Giving options doesn’t just let employees appreciate their rewards more, it also helps them feel valued and autonomous.

We’re only scratching the surface of what performance engagement can do for the modern workplace. If you’d like to learn more about how Arcade can revolutionize your business through the power of gamification, let’s set up a time to chat.

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