Boosting Employee Engagement
The success of a company is dependent on the morality of its employees. So, if the employees are disengaged or dissatisfied with their job, they tend to be inefficient – leading to the company performing badly financially.
According to PDT’s 2015 State of Employee Engagement in South Africa survey, maintaining high level employee engagement and morale is a serious challenge for many organizations in South Africa. The report which surveyed over 1 100 people from a variety of sectors found that out of every 100 employees, 42 employees were not determined to bring change within their organisations. Some of the reasons cited for employee disengagement is lack of employee involvement, encouragement and better communication from management.
The effects of employee disengagement are devastating. Although there are no studies looking into its financial impact on companies in South Africa, we can get an idea of how devastating it can be by looking at the findings in other countries. A 2013 study by Gallup found that employee disengagement cost US companies more than $450bn per year. High level of employee absenteeism, decreased employee productivity and increased employee turnover are some of the contributing factors to the costs these companies burden.
What can fleet managers do to minimize these costs, and how can telematics help?
Telematics is a tool that can be used by organisations to realise both financial gains as well as increased productivity, compliance, optimisation, and safety. There is, however, also the opportunity for fleet managers to dive deeper and use telematics as a tool to curtail employee disengagement.
Telematics systems provide endless data for analysis, learning, and cost reduction. Some of the information accessible to fleet managers includes poor driving habits like idling. Using this information, fleet managers can advice drivers on how to improve their driving behaviour, leading to cost reductions on fuel. The savings from altered driving habits can be passed on to the drivers themselves if they are exposed to the knowledge base the analysis can provide. If the drivers themselves and the organization can realize that they can benefit from savings, a reason for job dissatisfaction is minimised. In addition, transparency with data by an organisation is both welcomed and appreciated by employees. Read more on how to detect and stop true fleet idling.
Since the transport of goods often requires drivers to work independently and isolated from others, recognising and rewarding stellar and loyal employees can be difficult. Telematics, however, offers managers a platform to recognise fleet drivers’ importance and value. Managers can access strong metrics through telematics and have flexibility to track what behaviour to reward while providing clear objectives to motivate and challenge drivers.
Also, knowing clear organisational expectations will help reduce stress levels of employees. Using Telematics to translate “safe’, “efficient” or “compliant” driving expectations into measurable actions eliminates any confusion in the relationship between management and employees. This will, in turn, uplift the quality of drivers’ work, leading to stress reduction and increased job satisfaction.
Long distance professional drivers often cite that time away from home, the difficulty of making a living, and the lack of recognition for their hard work as reasons for not recommending the occupation to others.
Using Geotab’s substantial telematics capabilities, you can boost the relationship between employee and employer, increase employee morality, and eliminate the manifestations of employee dissatisfaction that can be detrimental to any organisation.
GEOTAB Africa suggestion is that companies introduce reward programs internally in their companies and with their contractors, based on tangible “green band” driving parameters, that can be measured effectively using high-quality data from the GEOTAB systems.
https://www.fin24.com/Economy/Level-of-employee-engagement-in-SA-dismal-survey-20150826
https://www.fin24.com/Finweek/Featured/the-true-cost-of-disengagement-at-the-workplace-20170810
Credit: Caitlin Johnson, GEOTAB INC Human Resources Assistant
