Video tutorial: Edenred’s Steven Morris on the value of online communities for recognition

Online communities play a huge role in helping people in gathering information, making decisions and interacting with a number of brands and lessons from them can be used in the workplace to improve recognition and better engage employees, according to Steven Morris, board director of Edenred.

“We use these tools all the time and it influences our behaviour, our motivation and our trust in brands,” he told delegates at the REBA Innovation Day.

He called such communities trust factories. “Trust is incredibly important when doing business with each other,” he said.

With a changing workplace he said the relationship with employees was also changing and that communication and generating trust with employees was more complicated as result.

He said employers needed to evolve and look at moving recognition into the digital world. He outlined how to do that and said employers must invest in systems to better understand their employees, what's happening and react and behave in a more agile way.

"It's about taking advantage of concepts that exist in our everyday lives and through online communities, building on communication and principles that fit a digital world for the benefit of your employees, your managers and your customers," he said.

"Recognising a colleague should be able to be done whether you are sat on a bus or having your lunch in the park - not just when you are sat at your desk."

This video was recorded at the REBA Innovation Day 2018, held in London on 22 November.