On October 22, I was part of a panel discussion at Slack’s Spec conference in San Francisco, where I talked about how we used their new features to make Bridge more available in the flow of work. In their opening keynote, Slack presented a live demo of Bridge Slack app to showcase these new capabilities.
As with all of our partnerships, we’re passionate about helping customers address the key challenges they are facing when it comes to employee productivity and engagement. One of these challenges is getting employees to engage with and use employee development tools on a regular basis. Bridge’s focus on employee experience leads us to think a lot about what employees really need and how they work. Real-time solutions that help employees access learning content at the moment they need it is a way to boost engagement and productivity. For many employees, Slack has become the place to get work done. It has been great to enable this by partnering with Slack to infuse some of their pre-released features in our Bridge Slack app. We are honored to be a featured app in the Slack directory today as part of this launch.
The days of “if we build it they will come” is fading. Our recent Harris Poll results showed that 98% of companies provide employee development solutions but only 26% of employees feel the tools are useful. To be effective, organizations need to think about where employees are spending time, communicating and collaborating and make their tools more available in the flow of work.
While real-time learning is valuable, it doesn’t replace the need for people to have meaningful, reflective and regular development conversations with their manager and others. Our Harris Poll showed that 77% of people feel alone when it comes to their career. Companies that invest in meaningful conversations about drivers and skills will have more connected and loyal employees, and a more purpose-driven and productive workforce. Combining on-demand solutions with more reflective, personal experiences provides a rich environment for employee development. I’m excited to bring both together in Bridge.
Todd Ericksen
Director of Product, Bridge