The global pandemic has turned the business world on its head with the greatest long-term impact being increased working from home and the growth of flexible working. Ernst & Young, Deutsche Bank, Apple and Lloyds Banking Group – these are just four major employers that have recently unveiled hybrid-style working models.

In this brave new world of working there are undoubtedly benefits to employees, but what does it mean for the leaders at the helms of larger organisations and how can they maintain employee engagement when half the workforce is working remotely?

According to a report by McKinsey & Company, a number of industries including finance & insurance, management, professional services, IT & telecoms are already showing the potential for over 50 per cent working from home. Therefore the ability to engage employees anytime anywhere is more important than ever. Business leaders should take note of consumer experience strategy, where driving engagement is a key goal for any B2C brand. By creating digital experiences that offer value and convenience, brands can maximise opt-in so that consumers spend increasingly more of their time and money using their apps or products. So what if you could design an employee app which delivers sustained value to your organisation and the people who work within in?

Employees are consumers

Chances are that right now you have a whole variety of apps connected to your employees: places where they can schedule leave, track benefits, manage expenses or payroll. But how do these platforms compare with your favourite consumer app? Chances are, not well.

Don’t forget your employees are consumers and their expectations about experiences at work are based on the best of consumer apps. Spotify, Netflix, Uber, TikTok; that’s who you are competing with for your employees’ attention. In order to create and maintain an experience to meet these expectations, business leaders need to ensure their employee experiences deliver function, value and purpose.

Make no mistake. Remote working is here to stay and that means acknowledging the role the office played in driving culture, innovation and growth. Any process you implement for engaging employees in a hybrid model needs to replicate this.

The experience bar is high

Experiences are human in nature. The best ones are usually shared and in person and while it may seem obvious, it’s far easier to engage employees when in a physical multi-sensory environment. The forced move to home working hugely impacted organisations which previously relied on their physical spaces to drive culture, innovation and growth. And while most companies are planning for a return to the office to take place over time and to be partial, this hybrid model will place more pressure on how they engage with employees digitally.

The truth is, people crave experiences, and the need for community and socialisation is heightened when working remotely. Every experience we took for granted in the office needs to be reengineered in a digital arena, with a user group so tired of screens that they want less time with them, not more. Combine this with an increased awareness of digital privacy and security and it’s clear that employers have an uphill battle to get that ongoing opt-in from employees.

So in order to increase engagement with employees, gain their trust, support new ways of working and attract and retain talent, business leaders should look to the B2C world.

First things first, they must drive daily engagement with a must-have feature. Then they need to identify, develop and prioritise new features that increase the effectiveness of the platform, building a suite of services in one place that become central to life both in and outside of work.

Take WeChat, which started as an app for chat and messaging, solving one basic need well. It quickly developed new features for different areas over time, all from the same app, including online payments, dining and shopping, ordering a taxi, scheduling a doctor’s appointment, small business loans and so on. They don’t just look at the behaviour and needs of the individual, they look at users as part of a group and deliver value by showing things like friends who are nearby. WeChat grew quickly by partnering with financial service providers, eCommerce and local retailers, while keeping all the activity within WeChat.

As we move from remote working to a hybrid model, the importance of the digital workspace is only set to rise. In order to drive employee engagement, business leaders must first understand what their employees need and encourage them to opt-in from day one. They must recognise the features they will want tomorrow in order to keep them engaged in the long-term, and they must constantly evolve to meet the changing needs of their employees, adding value to their lives both in and out of work, which will in turn increase retention and productivity.

WONGDOODY is a human experience company offering insight and creative strategy to help businesses reimagine data, platforms, brand and experience.