A new survey of senior HR professionals has revealed a number of concerns they are facing, relating to business productivity and employee engagement.
The survey by MintCentral, an employee engagement app provider, showed that an ageing UK workforce and increasing numbers of millennials entering the workplace are seen as the biggest threat to workplace productivity in the next five years, while employee apathy and remote working were cited as the main factors influencing the effectiveness of internal communication.
When analysing the factors affecting workplace productivity, 63 percent of participants ranked an ageing UK workforce and increasing numbers of millennials as more significant than the impact that Brexit will have (21 percent), or stagnating wages (14 percent). This suggests that organisations have a very real and pressing set of age-related concerns to tackle the evolving workplace age demographic.
When the survey asked about the factors that influence the effectiveness of internal communication, employee apathy and distance were jointly ranked in first place. This is indicative of a geographically disparate UK workforce which is not fully engaged.
A MintCentral spokesperson said:
Seventy-one percent of respondents said that online surveys are the most effective technology used to measure staff engagement. Interestingly, company intranets were ranked as the least effective technology for measuring staff engagement. This questions their continued use when the average UK workforce is increasingly non-desk bound. The inability to engage with employees through their intranet was cited by one respondent as why they ranked it as least effective.
When asked about the alternatives to their current employee engagement technologies 35 percent of respondents said that an internal communications app would help boost productivity and improve staff morale. The ability to measure staff engagement was ranked as the next most desirable feature of alternative staff engagement solutions.”