Revolutionary Wristband Shocks Employees To Stay Engaged

internalDesk, the Swedish SaaS company, had already made quite some noise when it took the enterprise software market by surprise with its disruptive collaborative platform. It has since acquired some serious customers incl. Fortune100. Now, it is making the headlines again… this time with its wearable technology for the workplace.

After the successful introduction of its revolutionary employee-wristband in America, the forthcoming availability of the product in Europe is under scrutiny. Whilst the employee-wristband has been received with enthusiasm by American employers it cannot, in its current form and design, be made available to European companies said yesterday Mr. Ernesto Divalgio spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Labor Rights.

According to the patent filling, the employee-wristband connects synchronously with internaldesk.com, the enterprise social collaboration platform from the company.

With it, employees can now receive – in real-time and directly onto the band – the key updates and motivational messages from managers and fellow employees of whatever initiative that is being rolled-out in the company.

Yet, beyond the prowess of the gadget regulators are now assessing the employee-tolerance to “The Jolt™“. So what is ‘The Jolt™’? ‘The jolt™’ is a unique-of-its-kind feature available on the premium version of the wristband, which sends an electrical shock to the person wearing the device when he/she has not been adding any tangible value to his/her team/company in 12hours (The time can naturally be adjusted to the preferences of the client).

Nathan Jr. Borough, Senior Vice President of HR of a US-based conglomerate has been piloting the wearable for 6 months and puts it this way;

Whilst the jolt is not of unbearable intensity it is certainly enough to shape you up.

“Whilst the jolt is not of unbearable intensity it is certainly enough to shape you up. Since we started this experiment with internaldesk.com we’ve enjoyed an unprecedented jump in our Employee Engagement Index. We are now rolling out the bracelet to the whole company”.

Since we started this experiment with internaldesk.com we’ve enjoyed an unprecedented jump in our Employee Engagement Index.

We have interviewed a director at internaldesk.com to get more on that story;

“Over the last 3 years we have conducted a lot of experiments across industries, across functions, across roles, seniority levels, age-groups, race, ethnicity, beliefs, etc. Our data points confirm the social, economic and behavioral evidence and research drawn since the Bell Hawthorne Effect namely – employees need the right balance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to ‘keep going’. We are going full-throttle in workplace-wearable and with the jolt™ we are taking ‘motivation in the workplace’ to the next level.

Already, two camps are forming: The ‘pro-jolt campaigners’ (also known as PJs) are welcoming the wearable advancing that it has the potential to cut the societal cost of workplace-disengagement. The ‘anti-jolt campaigners’ (AJs) are not necessarily against the device for ‘employee-motivation’ purposes but are flagging the potential consequences of the wristband’s remote hijacking.

You are in North America and have tried ‘the jolt™’ we want to hear from you. Have not tried it yet but would love to; the premium version of the wristband (incl. the jolt™ function) is available for a little while on pre-order on the company’s website internaldesk.com. PJ or AJ – whichever side you are on, have your say.

This article was first published by Switch and Shift