Are you a one-person HR team or part of a small internal communications team that also includes frontline workers in your communication efforts?  We hear you if you feel you’re building Rome with a post-it note and some hope. A noble effort. But also: maybe let’s get you a few bricks and an actual blueprint.

Acing employee experience strategies and delivering significant impact for an organization that also houses frontline staff can feel out of reach without a solid ecosystem. It can be a lot to juggle when fielding requests, running surveys, and trying to boost engagement from your desk across locations without burning out. Let’s just admit it: the “do more with less” era has overstayed its welcome. The fascinating part? It needn’t be this hard. You just need to be smart about what moves the needle. Wondering how? 

In this blog, we explain the importance of prioritizing and the mindset shift you need. We also tell you how to get there in the race to ace employee experience for the frontline and share five actionable employee experience strategies to implement right away.

Why is prioritization non-negotiable for effective employee experience?

Most teams are expected to and trying to do too much around employee experience, butseeing too little impact. Sound familiar? We’ve all been there — drowning in “initiatives” that somehow make no difference. The common link? The thinking that delivering a solid employee experience for the frontline means going all out with everything under the sun, from acing internal comms to expensive or time-consuming interventions, such as yoga Fridays, branded swag, and weekly surveys. Oh, and cue the branded tote bags no one asked for.

While the intentions remain good, we’ve noticed that efforts in this direction often fizzle out. Why? Because they demand more resources than most teams can spare. In all honesty, more than teams necessarily require either. 

Quite commonly, comms teams of one are expected to do everything. When they overstuff their plate, they most likely end up with:

• Burnout on both sides 
• Inconsistent execution
• Confusing priorities
• Also: that haunting sense of “Wait… what were we actually trying to do again?”

The solution to getting real outcomes lies in prioritizing what matters, and getting other things to take the second row. But, what and how do you prioritize? 

1. What to prioritize: Consistency over complexity

Firstly, accept that employee experience is not about doing everything, but about doing the right things consistently. This is the official permission slip to stop chasing perfection. It’s not helping anyway. Once you internalize this, you’ll see you no longer need a fancy budget or a ten-person team to make a dent. You’ll only need a simple rhythm of clear, regular communicationthat actually helps employees:

• Feel included
• Stay aligned with goals
• Know who to turn to for what

This doesn’t necessarily mean running corporate polish all over your comms. It can be casual, human, and heartfelt. And yes — it’s okay if your Monday post is written in lowercase and sent from your phone.

For example, you can step in with:

• A weekly Monday morning check-in post with a quick two-sentence post about the days ahead
• A simple Friday wrap-up post highlighting a top performer or sharing a fun photo
• A gentle safety reminder that shows you care

These small comms-related interventions can instantly create a connection without requiring design resources or weeks of planning. 

2. How to prioritize: Think like a product manager

Use an "impact versus effort" lens when deciding what employee experience strategies to roll out. Break your different projects down into three buckets:

• Essential: These are non-negotiables. For example, things like clear communication about safety updates, manager updates about shift changes, or onboarding support.
• Valuable but flexible: These are nice to have, but not urgent. Think birthday shoutouts, social events, or feel-good campaigns. 
• Resource-heavy distractions: These include complex, elaborate programs that consume time but don’t align with business goals. You need to cut these out ruthlessly. For example, a flashy campaign or a professional redesign for an internal newsletter. If it makes you say, “This will be amazing... once I have four spare weeks and a graphic designer”? Yeah, park it.

Based on these classifications, prioritize the essential and valuable over the resource-heavy ones. You’ll sleep better. Promise.

On that note, let’s look at five strategies that are low-lift, high-impact, and doable even if you're flying solo.

5 actionable employee experience strategies for small teams

1. Maximize efficiency through content scheduling

Ever find yourself scrambling for an announcement post at 4:59 PM? Stop the chaos and take charge. Go systematic and block one hour a week to plan and schedule all internal news updates in advance. This will position you to communicate consistently with everyone from the office to the frontline staff, while conserving your sanity. At the same time, you’ll be able to push out the updates when your people are most likely to see them,  giving you breathing room too.

Using a specialized employee experience tool (like you know, Speakap), you can:

• Schedule news posts for times they’re most likely to be read—no more confusion about shift changes or early mornings at the last minute. 
• Send targeted messages to relevant teams. Miami doesn’t need to get a weather update for NYC workers. 

2. Create a library of reusable templates

Optimize your approach. Skip writing the same welcome message ten times. You’ve got better things to do. Like remembering to eat lunch. Instead, build a template bank. You can start with:

• Onboarding checklists for all new frontline workers
• Birthday or anniversary shoutouts, because they matter too
• Policy update announcements, far and wide, from the office staff to field workers
• Safety reminders because every life matters

Once these templates are ready, store them in a shared folder on your company intranet. Ensure it’s easily accessible to anyone who handles communications, as well as frontline employees who may need to access these resources. Bonus: when you’re off on vacation, your coworkers won’t call you “just to check the wording.” This will make your life easier and ensure consistent messaging across departments.

3. Involve line managers in message distribution

Even if you’re the only comms person, don’t be the only one sending updates. Let’s normalize not being the sole communication lifeline for 400 people, okay? According to Gallup research, 70% of engagement variance is attributed to managers, particularly frontline managers. So, arm different line managers with ready-to-share messages they can pass on to their teams. This way,

• Employees will  get updates from people they actually interact with
• Messages will feel more relevant and localized
• You can scale your reach without increasing your workload

Speakap’s group-based messaging feature can make this seamless. It allows line managers to communicate directly with the right staff, without cluttering everyone’s feed.

4. Simplify feedback collection

Surveys are great. But let’s be real: no one wants to answer 27 questions every month, right? Especially when servicing a queue of 57 customers in line at a quick-service restaurant. So, go micro when you need feedback. By micro, we mean:

• Ask one-question polls: "How was your first week?" or “Is the safety training clear?”
• Conduct instant polls for quick responses and insight into the situation. 
• Focus on moments, not metrics.

If participation is quick, easy, and directly relevant, the response will increase. This way, you can reduce survey fatigue and also get frontline feedback when it matters most(without disturbing them during a busy shift). 

5. Maintain consistent, simple recognition workflows

A Gallup study found that employees who receive regular recognition are 45% less likely to leave their jobs. And probably 100% less likely to say “no one even noticed” at the end of the day. In fact, according to another study, 39% of frontline staff say recognition drives their happiness and success at work. When workers work from various locations and often don’t feel seen, unlike their in-office counterparts, getting this right becomes all the more critical. 

Recognition doesn’t always have to mean trophies or marathon events. Let’s keep the cake but skip the awkward speeches, yeah? It can be as simple as a quick shoutout on your comms platform. Make it part of your rhythm:

• Highlight weekly “wins” and “shift stories”.
• Celebrate birthdays,  work anniversaries, and productivity milestones
• Post peer shout-outs in your internal feed.

In fact, with Speakap, you can pin these moments to your main feed so everyone can see them. It fosters belonging without any big lift.

The secret to executing like a pro: Using tools that help rather than hinder

Manually implementing employee experience strategies can become soul-crushing. As you may have figured out with our strategy, using the right technology (and not more technology) can give you your time back and raise your impact. What’s that? 

Tech that improves clarity, reduces complications, and saves time. Therefore, ensure that you look for simplicity and intuitiveness in your tools.  You want everyone to use it, not just tech-savvy managers.  Translation: If your tool needs a how-to video before anyone can post… it’s not the tool.

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Speakap, a leading employee experience platform, is explicitly built with frontline needs in mind and prioritizes usability so that all employees can engage. Admins don’t need a training manual just to send a message. There’s no need to juggle emails, group chats, spreadsheets, and six different tools. Just one single app and real results. Using it, you can 

• Schedule posts in advance
• Send targeted messages to departments or shifts
• Use acknowledgements to track who’s seen what
• Run instant polls to capture real-time feedback

Ready for small steps, strong outcomes?

Gone are the days when you need a massive team or a fancy software stack to build a meaningful employee experience. What you need: a plan, a pulse on your people, and a tool that doesn’t make you scream into a pillow. Today, you just need to focus on what matters, keep it simple, and use the right tools (like, ahem, Speakap) to lighten your load and measure impact. 

Take small, intentional steps, and you’ll surely improve communication, boost engagement, and cultivate a culture where people feel seen, heard, and connected. And if no one’s told you lately? You’re doing great. Even when it feels like you’re not. Ready to see how Speakap can support your internal comms? Learn more here

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