BPM solutions can support employee engagement efforts

Employee engagement strategies can help companies ensure productivity in the workplace. Workers who are engaged will, generally speaking, perform their best instead of just coming into the office, getting the job done and getting out. However, finding ways to meaningfully engage workers can prove challenging. Solutions like business process management software can help companies lay a foundation for employee engagement by automating tedious processes and helping workers collaborate more effectively.

Finding ways to use BPM solutions and similar technologies to improve employee engagement could prove essential for businesses, anda recent study from Aon Hewitt found that highly engaged employees often have a positive impact on corporate growth, shareholder returns and operating income.

Employee engagement and its business results

Aon Hewitt found that the correlation between employee engagement and business success is somewhat astounding. To illustrate this, the study provided the example of a $5 billion company that had operating margins of 15 percent and a gross margin of 55 percent. When employee engagement was improved by just 1 percent in this organization, operating income increased by $20 million. A 5 percent increase in employee engagement led to $102 million operating income boost.

Ken Oehler, global engagement practice leader for Aon Hewitt, explained that efforts to improve employee engagement have bred major positive results for organizations.

"The economic recession of 2009 put significant pressure on corporate spending on talent - and engagement took a significant hit in the following year," said Hewitt. "Our analysis concludes that companies that managed higher employee engagement relative to their peers throughout the economic downturn are now seeing dramatic, positive impacts to their revenue growth."

Using BPM to support employee engagement

Cloud, mobile and social BPM solutions can play a vital role in enabling organizations to engage their workers. A truly engaged workforce is one that is not only motivated, but empowered to work at peak efficiency. Having to manually complete mundane processes, such as data entry, passing projects on to other users or working around incongruities between cloud, social and mobile systems can leave employees bogged down in inefficient operations. Improving process efficiency eliminates these productivity roadblocks, freeing workers from tasks that leave them disengaged and bored. As a result, BPM software investments can play a foundational role in employee engagement strategies and deliver a considerable return on investment by eliminating key engagement roadblocks, such as tedium and inefficient collaboration.