Struggling to engage frontline workers with your internal communication tool? Discover why desk-based solutions often fail and what features a unified platform needs to bridge the gap and boost engagement for your entire workforce.
Okay, you have an internal communication tool, and it's working wonders for your desk-based team. Collaboration is booming, information flows freely, and everyone seems happy. It's natural to assume this will solve your communication woes across the entire organization, right? But hold on a minute.
The reality is, extending the same tool to your frontline team could be a recipe for disaster. Why? Because their work environment, needs, and communication style are fundamentally different from their desk-bound colleagues.
Why the comms tool that works for your desk-based workforce won't work for frontline
Understanding the different needs of desk-based vs frontline workers
Office-based teams often have dedicated workspaces with access to computers and desks throughout the day. Their communication needs typically involve:
- Real-time messaging: Tools like instant messaging and chat platforms facilitate quick and efficient communication with colleagues.
- Video conferencing: Virtual meetings allow for face-to-face interaction regardless of location.
- Collaboration tools: Shared documents and project management platforms streamline teamwork and information sharing.
Frontline teams, on the other hand, typically spend most of their time away from desks, often in dynamic and fast-paced environments. Their communication needs differ significantly:
- Mobile-friendly experience: Tools need to be accessible and usable on smartphones and tablets, allowing for on-the-go communication.
- Personalized experience: Information needs to be relevant and tailored to specific roles or locations.
- Short-form content: Bite-sized information like news updates, safety reminders, or task instructions are more readily consumed in short bursts.
- Operational work: Tools should enable functionalities like scheduling, task management, and reporting directly within the communication platform.
- Location-based communication: Features like geofencing or location-specific announcements can be crucial for geographically dispersed teams.
Consequences of choosing a comms tool tailored only for the desk-based workforce
While tools like Microsoft Suite and Slack offer excellent communication solutions for desk-based workers, they often fall short when it comes to catering to the needs of frontline teams. Implementing these office-centric tools for frontline workers can lead to several detrimental outcomes:
- Low user adoption and training challenges: These platforms are often designed with features and functionalities optimized for office workflows. Such complexity can overwhelm frontline workers, hindering their ability to grasp the platform and use it effectively.
- Low perceived value: Frontline workers might not see the value proposition of a complex platform that doesn't directly address their daily communication needs, leading to a lack of motivation to learn and use it.
- Ineffective communication: The features and functionalities of these platforms are not well-suited for the fast-paced, dynamic communication needs of frontline workers. This can lead to delays in information sharing, misunderstandings, and confusion, ultimately impacting their individual and team output.
- Disrupted workflows: Switching between different platforms and navigating complex interfaces can disrupt the flow of work for frontline workers who often have to juggle multiple tasks and responsibilities simultaneously.
- Lack of task management features: These platforms might not offer features specifically designed for frontline work, such as scheduling, task management, or shift coverage, forcing them to rely on additional tools, further increasing complexity and hindering efficiency.
- Feeling disconnected: Frontline workers who struggle to use or find the platform irrelevant to their daily needs might feel isolated from their peers and management, leading to a sense of disconnection and disengagement.
- Information silos: Complex platforms can create information silos, where crucial information gets trapped within specific channels or teams, hindering smooth information flow and collaboration across the organization.
- Lack of visibility: Managers and supervisors might lack real-time visibility into team communication and progress, hindering their ability to provide timely support and address issues effectively.
- Missed opportunities: Ineffective communication can lead to missed deadlines, delayed responses to customer inquiries, and ultimately, missed opportunities to optimize operations and improve the customer experience.
The solution? A unified tool for both desk-based and frontline workers
While communication tools designed for primarily desk-based employees often fall short when used by frontline workers, a unified employee experience platform, such as Speakap, bridges the gap. This single solution offers several advantages for organizations
Advantages and benefits of a unified tool for the entire workforce:
- Real-time communication, bridging gap the between different work environments;
- Desk-based and frontline workers receive the same updates and resources, positive impact on consistent information access on employee engagement and decision-making.
- A single tool can reduce subscription costs, IT infrastructure complexity, and maintenance overhead.
- Improved collaboration & task management: improved teamwork, knowledge sharing, and problem-solving across different employee groups.
- Unified workforce analytics: understand the different behaviors and needs of each group, and enable communicators and HR to tailor their strategies and comms, while simultaneously gathering insights about each part of the workforce. Desk-based and frontline.
- Streamlined employee journeys: whether it be onboarding, training, learning and development - it all can take place within one tool. Making it more simple for you, and your employees regardless of their working location.
Real life success stories from retail & logistics
Nexeye, a leading European optical retailer with over 4,000 employees, uses an employee experience platform to bridge the gap between its desk-based and frontline staff across five countries. The platform fosters a more connected and agile workforce by enabling employees to share news, stories, and feedback
Brink's, a global security company, implemented an employee experience platform to improve communication between its desk staff and security officers in the field. The platform facilitates quick, secure, and two-way communication, leading to increased information sharing accuracy, a more engaged workforce, and improved operational efficiency
In the world of boardrooms and bottom lines, we know that numbers carry the most weight. Hence, we've crafted this guide to elucidate how to assess the return on investment (ROI) of an internal communications application tailored for your workforce.
