Can technology help the manufacturing industry solve its employee engagement crisis?

Research Shows Manufacturing Workers Are the Least Engaged of All the Occupations Surveyed, Leading to Absenteeism, Loss of Productivity, and Business Disruption. Mobile employee engagement platform Staffconnect launches a new eBook to help address the situation.

– StaffConnect , provider of the award winning enterprise mobile employee engagement platform, today announced the availability of a new eBook entitled, “Can Technology Help the Manufacturing Industry Solve Its Employee Engagement Crisis?” The new eBook reviews the current state of employee engagement in the manufacturing industry, discusses what has led to what can be described as epidemic levels of disengagement, reviews the resulting dire consequences… and offers immediately actionable solutions.

Employee engagement is defined in Forbes as “the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.” While this is clearly a critical component of HR and internal communications strategy in any industry, engagement is particularly important in the manufacturing sector because of its exceptionally low levels of engagement. The 2017 State of the American Workplace report from Gallup shows U.S.

manufacturing workers are the least engaged of all the occupations surveyed, with only a quarter of employees engaged—significantly lower even than the also disappointing national average of 33%.

The situation isn’t much better in the UK, where a survey on employee engagement for manufacturers carried out by the Workforce Institute at Kronos by Coleman Parks reported that only 35% of UK manufacturers rate their employee engagement as strong. Additionally, 60% of UK manufacturers don’t feel that their workers’ productivity is strong.

Around three-quarters of respondents identified manual systems (74%) and systems that don’t integrate (76%) as the cause of this loss of productivity.

Why is this happening to manufacturers in the U.S. and UK alike? When we look at some of the main issues currently plaguing manufacturing organizations, it becomes clearer why it’s tough to keep engagement levels high.

The typical structure of manufacturing enterprises makes engagement more challenging (i.e., a high percentage non-desk employees (NDEs) on the manufacturing floor, or on the road). But with today’s mobile technologies, there’s no reason for remote workers or those who travel out in the field to have to rely on sporadic email updates or out-of-date message boards to get the information they need.

Mobile applications have the ability to reach the entire workforce, facilitate feedback, and generate engagement-related insights and reports. What’s more, instead of simply being peer-to-peer, integrated mobile engagement solutions enable operation managers to communicate with workers and vice-versa from any location.

“Clearly, the manufacturing sector faces some unique challenges when it comes to its workforce. But figuring out how to increase engagement is a worthy exercise from a bottom-line business perspective.

Engagement enables businesses to reach their full potential by helping to create open communication channels, improve productivity, and retain talented staff. On the employee side, engagement helps workers fulfill a wide range of personal and professional needs that can ultimately lead to feelings of life-changing self-actualization and desire to make a social impact,” said Geraldine Osman, Vice President of Marketing, StaffConnect .

“With this in mind, it’s important that manufacturers begin to build a business case for engagement.”

Ultimately, inspiring employee engagement in the manufacturing industry is about creating an emotionally connected organization where the entire workforce is empowered to interact, share, and collaborate with their peers and managers—no matter what they do or where they work.

To read “Can Technology Help the Manufacturing Industry Solve Its Employee Engagement Crisis?” in its entirety and to learn more about how technology can help employee engagement in the manufacturing industry, please visit: www.staffconnectapp.com/downloa…ring-ebook