When vetting tech tools to deploy across your workforce, Christopher Shryock, the chief people officer at Sam’s Club, recommended asking this question: “Does the technology let me work efficiently?”

It’s common to toggle between half a dozen (or more) apps during the workday. A 2018 survey by PwC found that “46% of professionals in a supervisory role feel overwhelmed by tech at work,” and “61% say they spend more time getting technology to work than they’d like.” Corporate preoccupation with efficiency can betray its own goal—the more efficiency tools we use, the less efficient we become. 

But is there a way to selectively use tech to improve employee engagement at work? Panelists in a From Day One webinar titled “Bridging the Distance: How Tech Can Boost Engagement and Recognition,” say yes. 

For example, Sam’s Club is focused on using tech to simplify the tasks of frontline workers. “Every one of our clubs are run on handhelds,” said Shryock. “It’s the entire business run on an iPhone, so that’s access to data in terms of inventory levels, it’s access to sales reports and historical trends. We have an app called Ask Sam, and anything you need to know in terms of sales, where an item is located—just Ask Sam on your phone.” When employees spend less time on the tedium of tracking down inventory monitoring sales, they can spend more time engaging with customers.

Shryock was joined by four other leaders in people operations and career development to discuss how tech can be deployed to improve engagement among workers, whether they work on site or remotely. 

Use Tech to Make the Most of Face-to-Face Time

Face-to-face time is rare for hybrid teams or those that work remotely. Some make it a point to gather their workers in the office periodically, and tech tools can be used in the lead-up to these meetings. 

Andrea Osborne, VP of people on the product team at SaaS software company Genesys, says she used a virtual whiteboard for ongoing collaboration during a yearlong project. Between in-person meetings, Osborne’s team would mark up the whiteboard with ideas, notes, and prep work. With all of that done in advance, said Osborne, “when people do get together, you can build in more time for socialization.” She also found that with ample virtual prep, the team was able to use its in-person working time more efficiently.

Trying to combine virtual work with in-person work isn’t always engaging. Freddie Simshauser, the VP of leadership learning and development at health care tech company Ciox, thinks of in-person collaborative work vs. virtual collaborative work like this: “If you’re going to be in person, make sure it’s additive,” he said. “It has to be something that we can only achieve in person, because there’s nothing worse than getting into a meeting room and then watching a screen, which you could do from the comfort of your home.”

Use Tech to Recognize and Reward Good Work

Employees may find themselves more engaged with their work and their colleagues if they feel like their contributions are recognized. And if you can give them a way to promote their accomplishments with their wider network, even better.             

“We tend to look at today’s employee in the same lens as we would look at the consumer—what’s driving their behavior, what’s making them committed and engaged to this brand?” said Loren Blandon, the global head of learning and growth at advertising firm VMLY&R. “What we find is that for today’s folks, it’s not just recognition from your work peers and your direct boss, but also your external peer network and your family and your friends.”

To satisfy this need, Blandon’s team makes “brag assets,” or shareable social media posts and other digital assets that employees can share on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. “We see it when folks go on vacations or to restaurants—they want to go to places that are shareable and braggable, so we try to make our internal initiatives and experience the same,” she said.

Lynn Kubinski, the VP of digitization excellence and strategy at pharmaceuticals company Bristol Myers Squibb, said her team uses tech to build and track employee development plans. When goals are met, those milestones can be recognized by managers and peers in view of the company. 

“We have a platform where it’s very easy to recognize someone based on our core values,” Kubinski said. “There’s even a rubric that’ll identify the level of the recognition in a points system, or a monetary system if it exceeds a certain amount of effort, and then it will be posted.”

Osborne works with her internal communications team to recognize good work on internal networks and the company intranet, making sure to shine the spotlight on high performers and strong contributors who often go unnoticed. “It also helps those people that are remote and mobile, get more visibility across the organization and build their internal network,” she said.

When employees see that good work is recognized and rewarded, they may be more inclined to seek out opportunities for advancement. Panelists recommended giving staff a virtual environment to volunteer for reach projects and promotable work. Capture those hungry people first, said Simshauser, “and they will turn around and influence the people who maybe are less hungry, but are going to point them towards the same channels.”

 Visible engagement with projects and with colleagues can be contagious. Kubinski said she has steered her teams away from using email and encouraged them to use more communal forms of communication, like Slack, instead. When employees log on in the morning, they can see all the chatter that’s been happening—who’s doing great work, who’s getting kudos, what new projects are up for grabs. She described it like reading the morning paper.  

Friendly, lighthearted exchanges are something all the panelists sought to recreate via their virtual toolkits. “Trying to find places to create laughter is super important,” said Osborne. “Be able to have fun on Zoom—or whatever platform you’re using. Just make time to have fun together in whatever way you can.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Workday, who sponsored this webinar.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a From Day One contributing editor and freelance reporter who covers the future of work, HR, recruiting, DEI, and women's experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Fast Company, Quartz at Work, Digiday’s Worklife, and Food Technology, among others.