Why employee engagement apps are a scam?

Since companies have adopted remote work at a rapid pace, employee engagement has become a big buzzword. In fact, according to a recent study by Gallup, “employee engagement is one of the most critical factors for business success.” There’s no denying that employee engagement is an important part of any company, and its people are the key to its success. To increase their success, many companies choose to adopt apps that would help to engage their employees. 

Sounds reasonable, right? 

But here’s the truth: employees aren’t happy with engagement apps. 

Why? Because they don’t work! 

If your employee engagement solution isn’t solving any problems, then it’s not going to be adopted and used consistently by employees. If you can’t get any actual results from an engagement app, chances are that your engagement strategy is not going to be successful either.  

The only way for HR solutions to succeed is by helping to solve some specific problems for its users. If employees don’t see the value of a new engagement app, they won’t use it. You can tell them all day long how great it is, but if you don’t show them how it will make their lives easier or better at work, then it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with you. 

Why do we even have this problem? Why do HRs choose to adopt engagement solutions that don’t work? HRs care about their employees and want the best for them. That’s why it’s so easy to fall into those beautiful marketing or sales stunts. “Buy this engagement app and employees will appreciate it”, easy as that. 

However, the real challenge starts after releasing the solution to employees. Even if HRs are excited and experienced satisfactory results on a trial run, employees are more skeptical about these new engagement apps. Everything new is interesting but if it doesn’t solve any real employee problems, there won’t be a long future for the solution. 

Unfortunately, for HRs churn comes slowly but surely. After a couple of weeks, most employees have never returned to the new app. What a nightmare, you have spent a lot of money on this employee engagement solution, but your employees aren’t engaged at all. 

What to do now? Since you are responsible and want it to work, you start to look for other ways to make this employee engagement solution a success. This is where you come up with a fantastic solution – bribing your employees. A gift card or a cinema ticket in exchange for giving the app one more chance, “employees will see the value and will stay active” you think. And then when employees still don’t retain, you bribe them more. And then more. It just doesn’t work that way. 

Employee engagement is important. It’s the secret sauce that makes your business run smoothly, drives productivity and innovation, and builds camaraderie among the team. You shouldn’t spend your time and money on bad employee engagement apps. You can find free engagement solutions solving real problems for the employees, keeping them retained at a very high rate.  

Only when you see that employees are happy with the solution, it’s the right time to take a step further and understand how you can benefit from this engagement backbone of your company. Start with engaged and happy employees, which will increase your odds of your business success.