MicroBenefits: Improving Employee Satisfaction While Increasing Operational Efficiency and Productivity

In 2010, a group of impact entrepreneurs and investors had the idea to use technology to take the concept of employee engagement to frontline workers in factories in Asia. MicroBenefits with its flagship mobile application—CompanyIQ (CIQ)—has enabled companies to foster strong employee engagement that has consistently led to superior productivity, profitability, customer satisfaction, and lower turnover. Bryant J. Eggett, President of MicroBenefits, believes that the company is fulfilling a very important function in the global marketplace. "Engagement among frontline workers is very important for both factories themselves, as well as the brands they serve as suppliers for. It increases both output quality and workplace safety, as well as helps increase employee retention. This, of course, reduces turnover, which is a major cost drain for factories," says Bryant.

The concept of employee engagement and discussions regarding it go back to the early 1990s in the U.S. when companies began to realize that employees were no longer motivated simply by getting a paycheck. Suddenly an employee wanted to feel pride in their company, that the organization as a whole was committed to working towards common goals with a shared set of values and, perhaps more importantly, they wanted to be provided with training to develop new skills and expertise for ongoing career growth.

However, it wasn't until MicroBenefits developed CIQ that the concept of employee engagement was practical within the confines of Asian factories. The mobile application has three main areas of focus—human resource management, worker voice, and digital learning—to provide an overall suite of tools available to factories workers right on their phones. Since rolling out the product, over one million employees of major brand suppliers, including NIKE and Jabil, have downloaded the application. CIQ is now available in 10 languages, offers over 400 courses and has provided more than 350,000 logged hours of training.

The contents of the digital library are customizable depending on specific requirements or needs of the factory or even specific departments. CIQ actively employs the concept of gamification in its modules that has been shown to increase ownership in the learning process, creates a more relaxed atmosphere in regards to failure, the learning process becomes visual and the information is presented in a less confrontational gaming environment. By completing milestones, employees become eligible to receive badges that accredit their new knowledge.

CIQ has proven to be a very useful and effective platform for MicroBenefits' impressive list of clients. One of its U.S.-based clients had about 70,000 employees in six separate factories with only about 10 percent to 15 percent of those workers with adequate training regarding the workplace and company culture. Afterwards, the training rate jumped to 95 percent culture prior to rolling out CIQ. As a result, the company noticed a 26 percent greater retention rate among the employees who opted to complete the training in contrast to those that didn't. CIQ was able to save the company recruitment costs and reduced its overall annual training expenditures.

"We want to offer members of this particular demographic a platform that allows them to develop skills and knowledge that will provide them with career opportunities for a better future for them and their families," said Eggett. "Improving the lives of frontline workers, not just in the workplace, is what drives every employee at MicroBenefits."