In some rare and beautiful instances, proactivity is even easier than passivity.

Subscribers to conventional wisdom would probably rank employee engagement solidly within the realm of concepts that this statement will never apply to.

Well — there’s a reason it’s called conventional wisdom.

As it turns out, a combination of innovation and exhaustive research into the science of motivation has yielded a method of engaging staff that, miraculously, is actually easier than doing nothing. How is this possible? Because the platform in question actually takes work off of managers’ plates — while simultaneously boosting employee performance metrics by 8-20%.

Let’s take a step back and consider what a conventional engagement effort looks like.

The crux of any engagement effort is rooted in performance — more specifically, in tracking employee performance and in recognizing staff who go above and beyond the call of duty. The best GMs go a step further and ensure that employees always have access to their performance data, promoting ownership that in turn drives increased performance. The topmost echelon elevates further still by infusing competition into the mix.

The bandwidth allocation in even the most bare bones engagement scenario that follows these best practices is colossal. Managers typically must calculate performance metrics, take the time to type them out in a digestible format, print them and post them up in the back of house — daily. That doesn’t even include any recognition; it’s a small wonder that 90% of GMs admit that they don’t recognize workers as much as they should. Sales competitions layer another time sink on top of an already high-opportunity-cost initiative.

The manual print-out performance monitoring strategy is entry level engagement — the bare minimum. Many GMs fail to effectively or consistently implement even this. Thus, when it comes to engagement, the calculate-and-print method is a passive, wasted effort — an easy way to claim that something is being done when, in reality, the time would be better spent doing almost anything else. Employees don’t pay attention to Excel sheets posted on bulletin boards, and without a stratified recognition system — be it on a computer or a chalkboard — the data will not impact metric results.

The alternative to the stone age engagement method? A seamless, mobile-first platform that lives on employees’ and management’s devices. It automatically tracks all pertinent performance data — that means no calculations. It also hosts the results on a public leaderboard, facilitating competition. No more printouts and no more excuses about not seeing the guest satisfaction ratings or sales figures posted back of house. Crucially, it comes fully equipped with a proprietary automatic recognition system that acknowledges employee benchmarks with zero manual effort.

So, to tally up: that’s zero effort on management’s shoulders. In fact, it’s negative effort — it frees up that bandwidth wasted on engagement efforts that don’t work and enables managers to use it where it can actually make a difference. Simply implement, and watch scores increase.

That platform is MomentSnap.

What’s your excuse?