Tracking employee productivity with technology has moved from just watching that a task is done to analyzing real-time data. This trend has taken over every industry, from healthcare and hospitality to manufacturing and construction.
Determining if tracking is successful comes down to: does the process empower employees or alienate them and is the data valuable or useless.
Some employees, especially younger generations, are hungry for technology-backed results. They want to know where they stand at all times. Without it, they may not stay with your company.
Other generations may feel like big brother is watching them with the introduction of some technology. This reaction is okay too. The level to which you use the data can be tailored to each employee, making it a customized tool that can be more gradually introduced. The technology also benefits you the employer with quick data access for things like employee reviews, making quarterly employee check-ins easier with automated and organized trends.
Think about learning management systems as a virtual cloud for safety, training and HR needs. Such systems help to keep employee records up to date by saving reviews and incident reports. They also act as a portal where employees can upload newly earned degrees, credits or certifications. This helps determine pay increases or bonuses, as well as new skills for future employment positions. Depending on the level of sophistication, the software can even make recommendations for you about rate increases and if employees are hitting their goals.
After adopting training and tracking software, peer and self reviews should not be tossed in the trash; human input remains vital to employee satisfaction and company growth. Continue to have employees assess their own skills and talk about what they need to improve. Ask peers to anonymously review each other, giving additional insight into skills.
We talked about artificial intelligence (AI) finding its place in construction in a past blog, and AI has a home in tracking and training too.
It can start by sorting through resumes and job applicants to quickly compare job requirements against skills. Again, this does not eliminate the need for staff to review candidates, but it helps streamlines the hiring process. AI also can help transfer knowledge by saving training program progress, for instance, and making the platforms even stronger for new hires.
We all learn in different ways, and certain programs can deliver personalized employee education. This comes with an upfront, initial investment but saves time and money in the end. The outcome can include: increased efficiency, improved productivity, and employee satisfaction and retention.
The construction industry has been through a lot in the past several years. And let’s be honest, we as an industry already felt the struggle to find skilled laborers. After the pandemic, economic impacts from inflation, the Great Attrition and other events, companies truly have to work smarter, not harder. Technology that tracks and trains might be one brilliant way to do that.