It's time for some real talk about the real-world employee experience. Your company probably has all the shiny stuff. Killer benefits package? Check. Fancy wellness programs? Double check. One of those recognition platforms that sends confetti when someone hits their goals? Triple check… with a cherry on top. But then you peek at your engagement scores and find that half your team still feels like they're working for strangers who happen to sign their paychecks. 

The fact is that truly enhancing employee experience isn't about throwing more perks at the wall and hoping something sticks. The real secret sauce is fixing the communication train wreck that often quietly sabotages everything else you're trying to build. We’ve seen firsthand that most companies still treat employee experience and internal communication like they're distant cousins who only see each other at holiday parties.  In reality, they’re actually joined at the hip. Communication IS how employee experience gets delivered. It's literally the delivery truck for all your good intentions around enhancing EX. 

In this blog, we take you through why the communication gap is absolutely damaging your EX efforts. We clarify what modern employee experience actually looks like when you get it right, and share five game-changing ways to enhance employee experience through smarter internal communication.

What enhancing employee experience really means 

To understand why communication is the secret ingredient for enhancing employee experience that everyone seems to be missing, we first need to unpack what employee experience actually means in 2025. 

Revisiting the old playbook for enhancing employee experience: When perks were enough

Let's start with a trip down memory lane. The old-school employee experience playbook was pretty straightforward: decent salary, solid benefits, some office snacks if you're feeling fancy, a swanky wellness program, and boom, you're more than done.

Don't get us wrong: these things still matter today and big time. But treating them as the whole crux? That ship has sailed.. 

Why communication is the new currency today when it comes to improving employee experience

The modern employee experience definition is way more about the feels than the freebies. We're talking about all those emotional, personal moments that add up to how someone actually experiences life at your company. 

Today, your people aren't sitting around wondering, "Do we get good benefits?"  They're asking the real questions like:

• Do I find out what's happening at my company from my manager or from random customers?
• Does anyone actually notice when I crush it at work?
• When I have something important to say, does anyone care?
• Am I part of something bigger, or just another brick in the wall?

Here's where things get interesting: Every single one of these experiences happens through communication. Statistically speaking, when employees are happy with how their company communicates, they're 46% more satisfied at work overall. That's not just a fun fact but rock-solid proof that communication is the delivery system for literally everything else.  Unfortunately, this is the part where things fall through the cracks for most frontline teams. Why?

Your frontline teams are living in a different reality

Frontline teams globally make up a whopping 80% of the global workforce. Yet, most EX strategies accidentally treat them like they're invisible. 

For office employees, getting updates is easy — they show up in email or Slack without much effort. Frontline teams, on the other hand, often have to go looking for the same information. Too often, they end up hearing company news from customers or break-room chatter instead of directly from leadership.

Pause and think about it: They can't exactly check email mid-shift. They're not sitting in all-hands meetings at the office. The company intranet? Good luck to them for accessing that from the warehouse floor or retail counter. 

So when something big goes down, such as policy changes, company wins, new initiatives, or leadership updates, they're literally the last to know if they find out at all. The result? Most frontline teams feel like they work for a completely different company than your office staff. There’s a sense of being treated like second-class citizens. And, from a communication perspective, this could actually be true.  And this isn't just a "that's kinda sad" problem; it's directly crushing your bottom line.

Communication IS essential to enhancing employee experience 

The point is that for your frontline teams, internal communication isn't just one slice of their employee experience pie; it's practically the entire bakery. Comms is their only real lifeline to leadership, company strategy, and what's actually happening beyond their immediate four walls.  

Every moment of "oh, I get it now," "wow, someone noticed," and "I'm part of something cool" flows directly through your communication channels. When this communication breaks down, their entire experience crumbles faster than a house of cards in a hurricane. But when it is firing on all cylinders? It becomes the foundation for everything else: trust, engagement, loyalty, performance, the whole shebang.

Now, here's a (rather sad) reality check that'll make you want to hide under your desk: 

• Only 29% of employees are satisfied with the internal communication they receive.
  
  
• Meanwhile, less than a quarter (21%) of employees globally are actually engaged at work according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report. 

So, this isn't an engagement problem with communication symptoms. It's a communication crisis wearing an engagement mask. But how do you flip the script? It starts with treating internal communication as the strategic backbone of your entire EX strategy, not just another item on HR's to-do list.

5 practical ways to internal comms can enhance your frontline employee experience

Meet people where they actually are 

Stop making your frontline workers jump through hoops to get basic info. No more "please check your email during your 15-minute break" or "log into this system you can't access from your phone." Meet them where they actually live: their mobile devices.

Encouraging mobile-first communication isn't just convenient for the frontline staff; it's a sign of respect. When your team hears company news from you first(in a convenient way), instead of catching it as break room gossip, that's trust-building happening in real time. 

FYI: this isn’t just our view. Statistically speaking, 82% of frontline workers would totally use their personal phone for work communication if companies actually made it an option. And Gen Z employees? They're already team text-message over email anyway.

Create feedback loops that work

Everyone launches employee surveys these days.  But quite often, the conversations pause once the information is collected. What we mean: feedback tends to flow one way-from employees into HR or comms, without a clear path back. That’s somehow by design in many organizations. However, it leaves people wondering if their voice really matters. No surprise, then, that 32% of frontline workers feel unheard.

Here’s the opportunity: when employees see their input in action, their motivation levels skyrocket. And research backs this up: Employees are 4.6 times more motivated if they feel their voice actually matters.

How do you make it matter? Simple-Start by creating a two-way flow:

• Share what you learned from surveys, and be transparent about the findings.
• Highlight the changes you’re making based on feedback.
• Recognize contributions—thank people by name when possible.

Technology can make this seamless. Employee apps, for instance, enable teams to share survey results, run anonymous polls, and maintain the conversation in real-time. Once this information flows both ways, frontline managers can actually lead with it—and employees can see that their input moves the needle for real.

Turn your frontline managers into communication champions

Your frontline managers are often the only "corporate" face your frontline employees see regularly. They're basically your company's ambassadors. But here's the problem: they're often drowning in busywork, losing several hours a week to administrative gabble instead of actually leading people.  To empower these line managers, you need to throw them a comms lifeline. By that we mean, step in as internal comms managers and:

• Hook them up with clear talking points for big announcements
• Give them simple ways to recognize fantastic work the moment it happens. For instance, send out simple shoutouts on your company’s social intranet
• Keep them in the loop so they never get blindsided by questions they can't answer

When the direct line managers are informed and equipped to manage, frontline employees get access to consistent, confident leadership. That’s so much better(and rewarding) than the awkward "uh, let me get back to you on that" energy.

Ditch corporate speak for stories that actually connect

Company values living their best life on motivational wall posters is now so last decade. They need to show up in how your frontline employees actually talk about work, day in and day out. So, consciously ditch the corporate buzzword bingo. Instead, share stories that hit different. We’re all in for real stories with real people doing real things. 

For that, demolish the abstract corporate speak every single time. We mean:

• Instead of generic "we value teamwork," tell real stories. Perhaps, how the night shift totally saved the day shift's bacon during that crazy rush last week
• Rather than "we care about customers," spotlight how a certain Sarah from retail turned someone's terrible day around with her quick thinking and genuine kindness

Such personalized efforts will actually connect with people and mean something to them. 

Make communication feel like less work, not more

Nobody, and we mean nobody, wants communication that feels like homework piled on top of their already packed schedule. So, make an effort and step in to ensure your communication tools don't add to the chaos, but they actually make life easier. If communication becomes part of the natural workflow instead of another thing to remember, adoption rates will go absolutely through the roof.

Putting that into practice is no rocket science, You simply need to work on integrating your employee experience platform with the other task management tools your people already use. For instance, you can work on integrations that help to:

• Schedule changes and send out team shout-outs in the same mobile app
• Deliver training content where people already get their daily updates
• Celebrating wins in one seamless place

It’s that simple!

TL;DR: Better communication = enhanced employee experience on the frontline

Mind-blowing employee experience isn't built on fancy perks or perfectly crafted policies. It's built on communication that actually works. Every single moment of clarity, connection, and "someone sees what I'm doing," the employee experience flows directly through.

The companies absolutely crushing it on employee experience aren't necessarily throwing more money at the problem. They're being more thoughtful about how they communicate. They’re reaching everyone(including frontline teams) with messages that actually matter, through channels that work in the real world.

So here's your challenge: Stop measuring EX success by counting how many wellness programs you've rolled out. Instead, start measuring it by how well you're connecting with every single person who shows up to work for you. Because here's the deal: if your people don't know what's happening, don't feel heard when they speak up, and don't feel connected to something bigger than their daily grind. All the yoga classes, free lunches, and ping pong tables in the universe won't fix that fundamental disconnect. But communication that hits different? That actually will transform everything.

Inspired to take the next step? Talk to our experts to learn how Speakap can help you fix the comms problem and enhance EX for real. Want proof first? Check out our customer stories.

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