LUMEN: Using AI to Motivate Employee Development

Technology can help motivate your employees stick to their development plan

It’s not uncommon these days for people to know how many steps they took in any given day, or how many flights of stairs they walked. With an abundance of technology tools at our fingertips, or around our wrist, we can monitor our daily exercise and habits more precisely than ever before.

This is without question a good thing for our collective health and well-being. Data driven behavior has benefits that are both intuitively and empirically substantiated

Except when it isn’t.

I found myself demotivated last week when I channeled all my limited energy to squeeze in a 30-minute run on a day when I had no time available for exercise. My device assesses my productivity based upon a number of factors, and on that particular day, I received an “unproductive” rating in the form of a downward arrow on the “fitness” tracker. That simple word – logically derived through an algorithm – did not boost my energy but rather deflated it. 

Improve Motivational Feedback and Progress

Imagine a similar scenario in the workplace. An employee who is mustering all her energy into improving her leadership effectiveness, and yet she doesn’t see an improvement in ratings contained in her leader development app.

Technology doesn’t have to be a downer. With LUMEN we provide more inspiring, more motivational feedback that shows continuous progress. Our AI-based evaluation tool fosters and encourages habits that lead to enhanced performance.

Encourage Engagement. One way LUMEN shows progress is to display an engagement index within the app. The index provides a visual display intended to reward and encourage a learner to engage in her data. The idea is that being active with one’s learning goals and ratings provided from colleagues in the app has corresponding benefits of increased self-awareness, ability to make desired change, and the empowerment to be a detective on his or her own learning journey.

Incremental Progress. Another way LUMEN shows progress is what I’ll call the “tankometer.” As you progress toward your goal, the tank starts to fill up. In this way you see progress however minimal it may be, rather than being stuck in the same spot until you fully complete your goal (outcome), or until others notice your efforts. The “tankometer” therefore is encouraging of process steps that yield desired outcomes.

This inspires and encourages learners to persist in their hard work. Perception by others often lags behind effort. What this means is that you may spend a fair amount of energy toward improving how you communicate under stress. However, others may not “see” your efforts, may have calcified perceptions, or other factors that impede them from recognizing your new habits.

We need process and outcome-based feedback

Think about weight gain and weight loss. It’s really easy to put on 20 pounds, but it takes a while of continuous consistent habits to take the weight off. The same holds true for an employee working on his or her development. Feedback from others will lag behind effort that is being put into the process. So that means we need to help our employees stay engaged while they’re waiting for others to acknowledge growth and development. Technology can help if we harness it.

My watch provides great analytics but for all of its calculations, its unproductive assessment on that day was wrong. On that 30-minute run day, what would have been “unproductive” was not running at all. So I continue to work my intrinsic motivation when extrinsic (signs from my watch) ones fail to lift me up.

Similarly, continuous feedback through apps needs to provide both process and outcome feedback and features like LUMEN’s engagement badge and “tankometer” to inspire the learner on his/her journey.

Check out LUMEN, the revolutionary talent development app from Avant that shortens the learning cycle, deepens employee engagement, and enables data-driven succession planning.