In 2014, 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 across the globe. 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.
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.
