In today’s workplace, technological innovation is the key to motivate employees and retain talent. Using technology-enabled tools help to automate routine work, enhance productivity and support the workforce. From improved communication and collaboration, telecommuting, and growth and career development, there are several ways technology helps employees to be happy and engage them in the company’s core business.

Here are a few successful technologies used by companies around the world that have adopted it as an integral part of their workplace culture to keep their employees satisfied:

1. Using Gamification
   
   Marriott Hotels had deployed a recruitment gamification strategy called ‘My Marriott Hotel' on its Facebook jobs and careers page. This strategy was to ignore traditional recruitment methods and assess the talent of prospective candidates through a virtual workplace. They also evaluated in advance whether the candidates were suitable for the hospitality positions or not. Besides, the hospitality giant had also released a game named ‘Xplor' that allowed the players a virtual experience of touring five gateway cities and gave challenges to earn rewards that could be redeemed as stay in Marriott hotels. By incorporating such elements, the company displays its innovative mindset which attracts millennials and other prospects to be a part of the company. 
   
   
2. Interviewing via video
   
   Cisco has embraced the idea of interviewing candidates via video conferencing and other companies are taking a cue from this progressive practice. In the present global world, a skilled talent can reside in a state, or even country that is different from the location of the company. And in such situations, it only makes sense to interview through virtual means. Careful planning and execution of an interview over video present the perfect marriage of technological sophistication and cost-cutting measures, which makes it worth trying.
   
   “With the growth in technology, adoption of innovative practices by businesses to better their people management will only accelerate. For some companies, such trends will unlock significant competitive advantages while others might face challenges in dealing with the disruption that technology brings. However, companies should take inspiration from these companies and strategically use the available technologies to their advantage, and improve their employee experience.”
   
   
3. Make it a game
   
   T-Mobile employed gamification from Bunchball to its employee collaboration platform as part of the initiative to consistently better service levels and share ideas. This resulted in 96 percent increase in participation and employee contribution spiked to 583 percent, apart from the responses rising to 783 percent. Such positive contribution from the workforce led to a 31 percent improvement in customer satisfaction scores, and an improvement of 40 percent in call deflection. This ultimately resulted in minimized support costs, better customer satisfaction scores, and month-over-month improvement of call resolution rates. This initiative helped the customer service representatives at T-Mobile to be deeply engaged with the organization and the line of work.
   
   
4. Improving the candidate experience
   
   Home Depot uses social media to ensure that candidates that apply in its hiring portal get status or notification in response to their application. It communicates with its talent community through its Facebook page where posts from candidates, customers, and employees regarding application status or policy changes or any such questions raised is resolved by the company. Here, both the candidates and customers are active contributors who post content about their views about the company and communicate virtually. 
   
   
5. Announcements done via video
   
   NexTV, a communications company launched an internal weekly video series names NexTV to better interact with its 300 employees and 100,000 customers. What started as a news show format, developed into a man on the street model featuring employees, which made the show more personal and engaging. The impact of the show led to a 96 percent engagement rate as every Friday 74 percent of its employees watched NexTV.

With the growth in technology, adoption of innovative practices by businesses to better their people management will only accelerate. For some companies, such trends will unlock significant competitive advantages while others might face challenges in dealing with the disruption that technology brings. However, companies should take inspiration from these companies and strategically use the available technologies to their advantage, and improve their employee experience.