Stimulus Tech Talk Podcast: Stop Quiet Quitting: Use These Technology Tools to Boost Employee Engagement
Work environments have changed dramatically over the past 20, or even 10, years. There are increasing numbers of remote employees, hybrid employees, and flex-schedule employees. Even employees who come into an office or other in-person work environments are faced with constant distractions. Mobile devices have made it possible for employees to have constant access to their kids, other family members, friends, social media, news, online shopping, or whatever they may want to look at besides work.
What is Quiet Quitting?
Quiet quitting refers to the trend of doing the minimum requirements of a job and never going the extra mile or going above and beyond at work. Employees keep jobs they are not necessarily happy in to make a paycheck, but are not personally motivated to grow in their job. While some see it as a way to prevent being taken advantage of by employers such as working extra off the clock, missing their kids' soccer game, and dong tasks meant for a higher position, others see it as a way to get paid for doing a little as they can without getting fired. Of course an employee view of minimum requirements may differ from that of their employer.
Employees blame overtaxing employers and employers blame lazy employees for this problem, which points to lack of communication and isolation in the workplace. Employee engagement, recognition, and a sense of being a valued member of an organization will reduce worker dissatisfaction. Instead of technology being a distraction for employees, business owners can use it to increase interactivity in the workplace and keep their employees engaged with the company.
What Types of Technology Can be Used to Increase Employee Engagement?
Technology can be used for collaborating with other employees on projects, meeting "face to face," and rewarding employees for good work. Using Microsoft SharePoint in conjunction with Teams allows team members to work together in a virtual environment. They can see each other's faces, hear their voices, and create or revise documents in real time. A file can be opened and edited in real time by all team members, allowing for efficiency and real team work to finish a project. Micro-bonusing programs, such as Bonus.ly, allow employees to reward each other and show appreciation for helping out, doing a great job, or for accomplishing goals.
These types of tools allow employees to be interactive with everyone, even if they work outside the office. Allowing employees to reward each other offers motivation to go the extra mile and gives a sense of everyone being in it together, rather than isolated by only their own tasks. In this episode of Stimulus Tech Talk we discuss how these types of technology for engagement have helped inside our own company.
Listen here or watch on YouTube.
Stimulus Tech Talk Episode 12 - Stop Quiet Quitting: Use These Technology Tools to Boost Employee Engagement - transcript
0:00
You're listening to Stimulus Tech Talk. A conversation-based podcast created by Stimulus Technologies covers a range of topics related to business and technology.
Sherry Lipp 0:15
Welcome to a Stimulus Tech Talk. I am Sherry Lipp, marketing manager at Stimulus Technologies. I'm here with our CEO Nathan Whitaker, as usual, and today we have kind of a fun topic, we are going to be talking about employee technology and for employee engagement in the workplace. Welcome, Nathan.
Nathan Whittacre 0:33
Thanks, Sherry. It's good to be here. I, you know, before we started our conversation, I wanted to share something kind of controversial, do you? Are you ready for it?
Sherry Lipp 0:41
I think so.
Nathan Whittacre 0:42
I was reading a news article the other day. And I guess this has been a big controversy for many years of whether to store your ketchup in the refrigerator or the cupboard. And I can tell you, I always store my open ketchup in the refrigerator. So we might have just turned off a bunch of viewers. But how do you store your ketchup?
Sherry Lipp 1:04
I store my ketchup in the refrigerator as well. But mine, the one that I buy says too, so I'm just following the directions.
Nathan Whittacre 1:13
So does mine. So that's what I've always done. I guess this was a controversy. And Heinz put out a tweet the other day, that's, you know that caused an uproar. And on Twitter, that they said, we tell you to store it in the fridge, so you should store it in the fridge. So I think that, I thought that was interesting. So it might be controversial, we might have turned off half half our viewers today. But both of us store it in the fridge.
Sherry Lipp 1:39
We should talk about whether to put the ketchup on the hot dogs.
Nathan Whittacre 1:44
We don't want to go that far today. Well, then we coulid talk about how hot dogs are they a sandwich or not? That could be a difference.
Sherry Lipp 1:52
Mayb,e maybe some people can can leave us some comments on those topics.
Nathan Whittacre 1:59
Alright, employee engagement. So
Sherry Lipp 2:02
Engagement. So let's get a little overview. When we talked about employee engagement, what are we talking about?
Nathan Whittacre 2:12
You know, it's, we can define this a lot of different ways we can talk about culture, company culture, you know, there's been a lot of talk about employee disengagement, or, you know, this quiet quitting. That's, you know, been around for a while, but I think it's, you know, employees being interactive or engaged, I guess, using that same word, but really, you know, interacting with each other in a positive manner and interacting with the company in a positive manner. So, you know, creating employee engagement is doing is doing something more than just their, you know, assigned task or job, it's, you know, being dedicated to the company, believing in what the company is doing, and then also being dedicated to other members of the team to I think that beginning, you know, is is, and it's become a lot harder, I think, with hybrid, you know, we're both on video, we're not in the same building, and how do you have those little conversations? You know, before, you know, an online meeting, how many times when we sat in online meeting, or a zoom call, or team call, and just kind of stared at each other, you know, or continued working or what have you. And, and so this engagement among team members has become much more difficult. And so I think that's why this topic is so important today to discuss,
Sherry Lipp 3:36
And how have you as a business owner, what do you think business owners can do to assess their needs for employee engagement?
Nathan Whittacre 3:46
I, I think it's, I think, organizations really need to be clear on what kind of culture they want to create, if organizations are fine with employees, not or are fine with employees just coming to work doing the tasks that they need to do, whether they're, on person, or in person or working remotely. And and they just completely task oriented organization. You know, define it, that that's, that's what they're there for, but most, I think most organizations want their employees to be engaged, they want to be part of the organization, feel like they belong to something greater than, you know, their tasks that they're doing, whether it's, you know, entering invoices or calling customers or, you know, solving service issues. You know, they want to look at the whole goal of the company. And so, being clear on the vision of where the company is going, and what the culture of the company should be, is up to the leader, you know, to decide what are the leadership to decide what that needs to be as a company ourselves. We're now multistate, we, you know, we're mostly hybrid workforce. So you know, at Stimulus thinking about, you know, the changes we've had to make inside our company over the last four or five years. First, it started with, you know, being multi state. And then with COVID, most of us are working hybrid. So, you know, some of our team is working in the office, going out to customer sites, a lot of our team is working remotely for a percentage of their job. And so we've had to really, you know, it's easy for employees to disengage from each other, when they don't see each other. So we've had to be intentional about what we want to do as an organization. And in COVID, you know, there was a complete disengagement, you know, people felt, you know, unplugged from their whole world, you know, having to work remotely. And so we did some things, and we could talk about him a little bit today that kind of made things fun, but I think we have to be, you know, we have to look at ways to better communicate with each other through our screens, which, which some people naturally do and some people have difficulty doing.
Sherry Lipp 6:14
And what tools do you recommend? You mentioned some technology tools, you know, in addition to just, you know, vocal, you know, being engaged through conversation, what tools do you recommend, you know, to help with this?
Nathan Whittacre 6:32
So we do a couple of different things. One of them that we added on early on, which is Bonusly is the tool that we use, there's a lot of other tools out there. And it's a it's a micro bonus system that the company sponsors, and it allows employees to basically give each other high fives, we call them kudos. That is, employees do a good job, help each other out. You know, they're encouraged to give each other Kudo points, you know, for going outside of what they normally do, and so that, that allows employees to recognize each other for a job well done, and, and the company sponsors that we provide some funds into the bonus system. And so as employees bonus each other, you know, the company covers those costs. So it's a micro bonus system, there's a lot of them out there, Bonusly, was one of the first and we jumped on early on, and I really like it, I monitor that as as a, you know, leader of the team, so I can see what people are doing. And there's, there's also reports that I can pull to see they kind of using the term engagement, you know, people that are actually using it, those aren't using it, I think most of our team uses it, and you most people, it's like 90% Plus are doing some type of bonus to another employee every month. So you know, the use of the system is really high. And most people are giving out all their points throughout the month, which I think is great.also. So happy to sponsor that. And everybody sees what everybody else is doing, I think having multiple locations that and there's people that you might not interact with very often, you know, that that allows it, to see what other people are doing. The other thing, you know, we use these online systems, Zoom, Teams, you know, whatever it may be GoTo Meeting, the I think one of the issues that people have, especially is in large group settings, especially online, there's just a certain number, or I would say the majority of people have a hard time speaking up. And that's an you know, I think a really big issue for interaction with people you get into these, you know, we have an all hands on deck meeting every month, and you get seventy people in, in a Team's call. And, you know, nobody's interacting before the call, you know, maybe a few are online as we're waiting for it to start. But in the conference room, we'd be all talking to our neighbors and conversing. And, you know, Hey, how's your dad, you know, your son back in soccer, or whatever it may be, we build these relationships. But it's harder to do that in these online meetings. So we use breakout rooms. And I think that's a good way to bake smaller groups inside the large meetings, and I try to keep it around four or five people at the most. And I think there's better conversations that happen in those in those smaller rooms. And so yeah, that's an intentional thing that we do, to pull out people that in interact and talk to people that might not necessarily know. And so we we actually, you know, that question that I brought up about is a hot dog a sandwich? We, we had that question one time and a few other questions just to get to know each other a little bit better. And and it's just kind of fun, you know. And so one of the things we've done is like, played some online games, not not like, you know, first person shooter type games, but there's a system called jackpot, Jackbox that I like that more like trivia games that are fun to do with large groups. So there's, there's just ways to do contests or gaming, gamification, things like that, that improve employee engagement, even in these virtual virtual environments.
Sherry Lipp 10:47
Yeah, I know, I've benefited from having the breakout rooms. And that kind of leads to my next question. I mean, what are your recommendations for keeping employees engaged with each other, especially when there's new employees, when we're all remote, you know, you don't go around the office and introduce like we used to, you know, the new employee.
Nathan Whittacre 11:07
So what we've done, one of the things we've tried to do is have a mentor or somebody that kind of walks them through the process of being an employee of Stimulus Technologies, that they can always ask questions of. So I think, you know, assigning a team member to help. I think that helps quite a bit and having these smaller groups to, you know, people that they interact with. Again, it is tough, I mean, it's not easy, especially if you have people that may never come to an office, you know, that shipping equipment out to them for them to work. They may never interact, you know, physically with the person. So creating these environments where, you know, they know that they can contact somebody with questions through, you know, teams chat, or by phone or video conference, if they have any questions or issues scheduling. One of the things I do with most of my direct reports is having recurring meetings where we just have, you know, 15 to 30 minute, catch up once a week. So that we can, you know, interact and talk and see what's going on. So I think, again, intentionality is really important to have, you know, that engagement among among team members. And so it ends up being a lot more like scheduled meetings, which is kind of tough, because you don't have that spontaneous interaction, you can't just walk into somebody's office or sit around the watercooler. But you know, you can have those interactions. One final thought that I have on that, too, is, you know, this is stolen from the book, Traction, which is EOS. And I think they have a lot of foresight on this is it the beginning of each meeting, we do a segue, and it's personal or business, good news that everybody in the team shares. And so it's, it gives us an opportunity to share something, whether it's in business or in our personal lives, it's going well, and that sparks some conversation among the members kind of that small talk that builds relationships. So having that, you know, those moments that takes you know, five to seven minutes, depending on the size of the group, this is share something positive, it could be good news of the week, it could be something they're grateful for, but something positive to share at the beginning of the meeting. And I think that creates some good interaction among the team.
Sherry Lipp 13:34
Yeah, I agree. I think that it, you know, getting to know your other your fellow employees is important, and it makes them feel like they're more than just, you know, a worker, and that they're a whole person. So I agree with you on that. So you're saying you would encourage people when they're in remote meetings, maybe to have a little conversation? Because I think when we go into a virtual meeting, we're just kind of waiting to get to the point. A lot of the time, we're waiting for the leader to talk and we forget about that part of it.
Nathan Whittacre 14:05
Yeah, I mean, that you think about back in our days in the office, you know, we used to do that you walk into the meeting, somebody was, you know, waiting, and you just, you know, a, whatever it may be, you just have that conversation, you know, just see the game last night or, and, you know, this that small talk that leads to that, building those relationships, and it's it's much harder, I mean, recognizing it's much harder in a virtual environment. I think we have to create better ways to do that. And it's possible, it might not be the same, but many companies, you know, if you look at these large enterprises that have, you know, thousands of employees, they might be working in small teams, but those teams could be spread out throughout the world. And so this has been a problem for a while. And the good news is, I think with you know, with cameras like what we have here, and you know, the internet has gotten so much better. We do have at least a little Little bit of ability to feel like we're interacting with other people.
Sherry Lipp 15:03
And what tools do you like, for collaborating on projects, you know, as a team, remotely?
Nathan Whittacre 15:14
So inside our company, I actually really like SharePoint, in combination with Teams, we use that a lot. It's included with Microsoft 365. Google has a very similar system. But what I really like about both Microsoft's and Google's system, is it allows people to work on the documents simultaneously together. So you know, setting up a team's meeting, we just did this Sherry, you know, we've been doing this for the last couple of months, as we've been working on some plans. And for the future, as we all get a Team's meeting, we all open up the document, and all of us can be editing and working on the document together. And honestly, it's almost more efficient than being in person, because the a lot of times you had, you would hand out paper copies, people would make notes on the paper copies, or maybe one person's taking notes. But the collaboration tools have gotten so much better. So SharePoint, combined with Teams is great. Google, again, has their own with Google Apps, very similar thing that you can all be working on the document at the same time. And it just gives you the ability to be very productive inside these meetings. So, check out those two technologies if you don't have them, most likely, if you're running, you know, if you're one of our clients, you have Microsoft 365. And, and, you know, it's just a great tool that's included in that subscription to be able to collaborate and work together.
Sherry Lipp 16:44
Yeah, I agree. It's it's much faster. And it's nice to not have one person who has to be the person who updates the the document for, with everybody's notes, so it's definitely very useful. What are the resources for business owners who are kind of researching this? I mean, obviously, we have our podcast now we've just given a lot of information, but what other resources do you think business owners could look to for for finding this kind of information? I think
Nathan Whittacre 17:12
just some quick searches online, I mean, a lot of the things that I've done, you know, the big papers have written a lot of articles, you look at Inc, or Wall Street Journal, or Forbes, you know, there's definitely a lot of thought about this. I'll do a quick plug in here, I have a chapter in my book on this coming up. So in October, when that's released, I talked about this quite a bit. And, you know, there's, there are a lot of resources out there, because a lot of companies have jumped on this, because we realized that this is the the, I hate the term, but the new normal for business. This is the way that we're operating now. And I think it's it's great, whether we stay in the office, if you're a company, that's all in the office, there's ways to use these tools and things to improve your engagement inside the office. But for those of us that are working hybrid, or you have remote employees, or you're working with employees that are not in the same location, you know, there's just some great, great tools out there. So, you know, things that look at micro micro bonuses is a great thing, any type of gamification for business, whether you want to do like some type of step game, you know, to get employees up and moving. That's something that we've done before. That's kind of fun. I think also, from an engagement standpoint, doing a net promoter scores, employee survey and NPS survey to understand you know, where they're at, and get some feedback. We do that every six months inside organization, there's plenty of software out there that allows you to anonymously poll your employees to get some feedback from them. And, you know, anything that allows the employees to better work together, obviously, you know, the this standard, the zoom, the team's video conferencing, Google meets, things like that allows employees to interact better, too. So, you know, give the give your employees the tools to do this, they'll find new ways and I you know, there's a lot of fun stuff out there that allows companies to better work with, you know, create a better working environment, environment for their employees, and you have to be intentional about it. You know, as leaders, you know, decide what you want for your organization. Make sure you have a defined vision and mission and culture that you want and the values and build this engagement around that.
Sherry Lipp 19:44
All right, well, that's all great information. I'd like to encourage anybody listening if you have a favorite tool for employee engagement, you know, send us a message if you're listening on the podcast, or if you're watching on YouTube, you can leave a comment and let us know what you think. Thanks so much, Nathan.
Nathan Whittacre 20:01
Thanks Sherry. And you know, I'll send through the comment catch up in the fridge or if you're a rebel, ketchup in your cupboard, so. Thanks everybody
