5 ways to drive engagement through your Workday integration

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel motivated and committed to your company. But in today’s organizations — especially in those with a frontline presence — employee engagement is too often overlooked.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace for 2024, just 23% of people are engaged at work. And organizations with low levels of employee engagement are more likely to experience the following:

• High employee turnover
• Reduced productivity
• Poor team performance
• Poor customer experience

For frontline leaders, engagement is a particular challenge. It can be hard to even reach, let alone engage, employees who spend their days traveling, out in the field, or working across multiple sites. 

So what can a company do to motivate and inspire its workforce? As we’ll see in a moment, improving employee engagement requires a holistic approach — one that encompasses all areas of the employee experience.

Here, we look at employee engagement strategy — and the employee engagement best practices — that every company should adopt. 

Employee engagement: understanding the challenge

Employee disengagement is a widespread issue in both desk-based and frontline businesses. Employee engagement scores are low because of:

• Poor internal communication. A lack of transparency and communication within a business leaves employees feeling disconnected from their teams and leaders. Internal communication suffers when leaders and managers are overworked, when internal comms are not made a priority, and when the right communication tools aren’t in place.
  
• Inadequate tech. Technology plays a significant role in employee engagement. You can use it to keep employees engaged, by giving them access to the tools and connection opportunities they need to succeed in their roles. You can also use it to measure employee engagement. A lack of adequate technology tends to be a bigger problem in frontline businesses because most tools are designed around desk-based teams.
  
• Leaders not leading by example. Employee engagement is the outcome of a positive employee experience. And positive employee experience is the responsibility of every leader and manager in your organization. 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. So team leaders need training and support to understand their role in boosting engagement. ‍
• Poor work-life balance. Stress is a huge issue in many industries. According to O.C. Tanner research, nearly a third of employees are living in survival mode. They’re on the verge of burnout with many of their basic needs unmet. When employees aren’t happy and healthy, they’re unlikely to be engaged in their work.

Employee engagement challenges in frontline organizations

Any business looking to get the most from its workforce has to stay up-to-date with employee engagement best practices. But for leaders in frontline organizations, the stakes are particularly high.

Frontline teams already experience a high rate of employee turnover. It’s fair to say that frontline employees are dissatisfied with their employee experience… and for several different reasons.

McKinsey’s EX Factor framework breaks this employee experience down into nine elements across three categories: social experience, work experience, and organization experience.

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• Organization experience. Technology is arguably the biggest challenge to resolve in the frontline organization experience. Frontline workers waste significant amounts of time jumping from one not-fit-for-purpose platform to another, and logging in and out of multiple systems in a single shift. It’s no surprise that 52% of frontline workers say they’d leave their jobs because of the poor quality tech tools provided.
• Social experience. Frontline workers don’t spend much time at HQ, if any. And the nature of their work means they spend their days in different locations, often working in isolation. This makes it hard to maintain a sense of community and engagement, and it risks frontline employees feeling on the margins of your organization, particularly in comparison to their desk-based peers.
  
• Work experience. The frontline work experience can be less flexible and rewarding compared to desk-based employees. Few frontline employees are given development opportunities (despite wanting them) and many fail to get the recognition they deserve. On a more practical level, basic tasks like swapping shifts are inefficient at best — and impossible at worst.
  
  

Employee disengagement can have serious consequences in frontline sectors. It can lead to health and safety risks, poor customer care, and compliance issues, as well as employee dissatisfaction and churn.

So how can frontline businesses turn it around? Let’s dive into the employee engagement best practices that will help you improve the employee experience at your organization.

6 best practices for employee engagement in 2025

Employee engagement is a priority in high-performing businesses. These employee engagement best practices are ingrained in company culture and operations. 

Five of the best practice recommendations we’ve included here are based on the 5 C’s of employee engagement:

• Care — show employees you care about their wellbeing as well as the company’s bottom line
• Connect — build relationships and foster a sense of togetherness
• Coach — guide your employees to be the best they can be
• Contribute — encourage employees to contribute their thoughts and ideas
• Congratulate — celebrate employees for the great work they do

We’ve also added a bonus best practice – analyze and optimize — as this is key to evaluating your performance and improving employee engagement going forward.  

So, read on to discover how to implement the 5 C’s and adopt these best practices for employee engagement within your organization.

1.    Care: create a supportive environment

When you show genuine care for your employees and their wellbeing, you foster loyalty and trust, and develop a positive work environment. This works wonders for your employee engagement metrics.

44% of employees experience a lot of stress at work. In supportive environments, employers know how to recognize and respond to stress and burnout in frontline workers. But they also do their best to prevent stress and burnout from occurring in the first place.

Supportive employers offer health and wellness programs, mental health support, and flexible work arrangements. They communicate empathetically and show employees that they value their work and input. Employees know who to turn to if they have a problem or need help.

In 2025, the way companies care for their employees is evolving. And digital tools are becoming a more important part of the picture. 

With an employee app like Blink, you can send important communications straight to every worker’s smartphone. You can point them in the direction of health and wellbeing resources — and reinforce company culture with clear and consistent communication.

You also reduce employee stress by improving the digital employee experience.

Today’s employees expect their workplace tech solutions to be of the same quality as the tools they use in their personal lives. Using technology at work should be as simple as sending a direct message or scrolling a news feed for company announcements.

When workplace systems aren’t intuitive and familiar, it can add stress to the working day and cause employees to feel burdened and disengaged.

So by adopting a digital approach, companies can use technology to ensure all workers — including those who don’t sit at a desk all day — feel cared for and supported by the company.

2.    Connect: foster meaningful relationships

Humans are naturally social. Neuroscientists have found that we crave social connection in the same way we crave food when we’re hungry.

The best workplaces satisfy this craving. They support employees to create a network of strong and meaningful workplace relationships.

Connections like these help employees feel like part of the company team. They bring business benefits too. Employees who feel that they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.

Other advantages? You improve team-building and collaboration. And employees are more connected to the wider aims of your organization, which makes it easier for you to get everyone pulling in the same direction.

Types of workplace connection

When adopting employee engagement best practices, you have to consider and facilitate two different types of connections within your workplace.

Employee–employee connection

What stops a worker from moving from one hospital to another? Or from one bus company to another? More often than not, a company’s values, culture, and sense of community play an important role in people choosing to stay — or to leave.

Dispersed workers need regular connection with their co-workers. They should be able to share their knowledge and connect with like-minded co-workers in workplace communities. Leaders need to provide tools that help team members from across the organization feel part of company culture.  

Employee–leader connection

Meaningful relationships are built on two-way communication and they involve people from all levels of an organization. Employees should hear from their leaders and vice versa.

For dispersed teams, achieving open communication across the company hierarchy requires a tailored approach. You need to find tools that allow the conversation to continue, even when a worker is on the road or based over multiple sites.

Tools for employee connection

In today’s modern workplace, reaching frontline, hybrid, and office-based employees is easier when you have the right communication tools.

A modern intranet

The traditional company intranet doesn’t facilitate the type of communication the modern workforce wants and needs. But upgrade to a modern intranet and you move beyond top-down news and one-way conversations.

With a modern intranet, you can develop internal communication channels that support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer connections.

An employee app

A mobile-first employee app takes intranet features and puts them into the palm of every employee. It provides a user-friendly interface and integrations with lots of other workplace software.  

An app is particularly useful for organizations with a frontline workforce. These employees rarely have access to a desktop device, which means they can’t send and receive important workplace communications.

If you’re still sending paper pay stubs, posting out a paper newsletter, or pinning notices to memo boards, then going mobile could be the best thing you do for employee engagement.

An all-in-one platform

Emails from leadership. WhatsApp messages from co-workers. A noticeboard crowded with posters.  When employees have to look in lots of different places for company communications, things get confusing.

An all-in-one platform provides a range of communication channels, including private chat, a content hub, and a social-media-style news feed. These channels are available on desktop and mobile devices.

Pick a platform like Blink and you also get tools for employee recognition and feedback. You can even integrate the app with your other workplace tools, turning Blink into a digital front door for your organization.

With an all-in-one platform, you give employees the connection they need and streamline the communication process.

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3.    Coach: invest in employee development

According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report:

• 7 in 10 people say learning improves their sense of connection to their organization
• 8 in 10 people say learning adds purpose to their work

This is why employee development is another of our employee engagement best practices.

Employee development makes staff more invested in their work and loyal to your organization. And it’s not just for office-based teams. Frontline employees want the chance to learn new skills and earn promotions, too.

70% of frontline workers surveyed by McKinsey said they had applied for career advancement opportunities. But the McKinsey survey also revealed that 65% of frontline employees were unaware or unsure of how to achieve advancement.

To keep employees engaged, companies have to provide equal access to learning and career opportunities, such as training courses or mentorship programs. Again, this may mean using digital tools. 

Employee development case studies

Let’s take a look at two companies that are investing heavily in employee development for their frontline employees.

Amazon

Amazon is keeping a close eye on the future. Through courses and apprenticeships, the company is helping employees to develop technical expertise. New tech skills will benefit both employees and the company over the years to come.

But Amazon isn’t just offering L&D in areas closely linked to business goals. The company recently committed an incredible $1.2 billion to employee L&D. This fund covers all sorts of education.

Frontline employees can use it to pay for college tuition fees. They can use it to fund high school completion and English as a Second Language (ESL) certifications. 

While these courses may not provide direct benefit to Amazon, the employee loyalty and engagement it fosters are well worth the investment.

McDonald’s

Employee L&D is fun and digital at McDonald’s. The company created a cash register training program that looked and felt like a computer game.

Learners had to respond to customer orders under timed conditions. They could use lifelines and win bonuses as they did their best to keep customers happy.

This gamification was successful. A high proportion of employees engaged in the training. McDonald’s reduced the time it took to serve each customer by 7.9 seconds and increased customer spend by an average of £18,000 per restaurant.

4.    Contribute: make employee voices heard

Employees feel a greater sense of belonging and are more motivated to succeed when they’re empowered to contribute their ideas, skills, and expertise.

The company benefits, too. You avoid working in an echo chamber because you get to hear a wide variety of perspectives. You develop leadership skills among your workforce, which can help with succession planning. And you encourage employees to take greater ownership of their work and results.

A frontline business can encourage employee contributions by:

• Providing a dedicated platform for idea sharing. It’s not always easy for frontline workers to share their ideas. Dispersed shift work means they often have little access to office-based decision-makers. But you can use technology to recreate the ‘open door’ experience. With a dedicated employee voice platform, all staff can offer their contributions — and managers can give those valuable contributions the recognition they deserve.
  
  
• Seeking feedback from employees. Surveys are another great way to make employees feel heard. They’re an easy way for you to canvas employee opinion and discover the issues that matter most to your workforce. Regularly request employee feedback on topics like internal communications, employee satisfaction, and company culture to make meaningful improvements in these areas.
  
  
• Acting on employee input. However you receive employee input, be sure to act upon it. Employees only have faith in the process if they feel listened to. So keep employees in the loop. Tell them that you’ve received their contributions. Tell them what plan of action you’ve put in place, giving realistic timescales where possible. And once your plan has produced results, share these with employees, too.

5.    Celebrate: recognize employee achievements

Recognizing and celebrating employee achievements is another of our employee engagement best practices.

Research from Gallup shows that well-recognized employees are 45% less likely to leave their roles within two years — and employees who get valuable feedback are five times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t.

The first thing businesses tend to think of when they hear the word ‘recognition’ is monetary reward. And of course, employees want to be paid fairly for the work that they do. You can use pay raises and financial bonuses to recognize a job well done.

But, in good news for budget-holders, monetary rewards aren’t the only way to recognize employee achievement. McKinsey found that up to 55% of employee engagement is driven by non-monetary recognition. A simple “thank you” goes a surprisingly long way.

Other employee appreciation ideas include fun benefits like a catered lunch, a day of volunteering, or an employee ‘wall of fame’.

To get the most out of non-monetary benefits:

• Get to know employee recognition preferences — and then tailor rewards to teams and individuals wherever possible
• Make it equal — all employees, whether they work in the office or on the frontline, should have equal opportunity for praise and reward
• Encourage peer-to-peer employee recognition — 75% of employees say that giving recognition makes them want to stay at their current organization longer, so encourage co-workers to highlight and celebrate each other

With Blink’s recognition feature, you can shout out employee successes, congratulate someone on a promotion, celebrate team milestones, and even wish your coworkers a happy birthday, all within the company newsfeed.

You can decide who sees your recognition post and have the option to create personalized messages, too.

6.    Analyze and optimize: evaluate employee engagement performance

Once you’ve adopted the 5 C’s and associated employee engagement best practices, it’s time to analyze and optimize the process.

There are various metrics you can track to establish the success of your employee engagement program. These include statistics on employee retention, sick leave, satisfaction, and employee engagement tool usage. You can also gain insight from staff surveys. 

If you’re to make good use of the available data, you have to clarify two things:

1. Your metrics before you made changes to your employee engagement program
2. Your employee engagement goals

Using this information, you can set targets. For example, you may decide that you want to improve your employee retention rate from 60% to 80% within the next quarter. Or that you plan to outshine your competitors by beating the industry average for staff satisfaction within the next year.

By setting goals and regularly analyzing your employee engagement metrics, you learn where you’re making progress. You can also make strategy changes based on insight, rather than anecdotal evidence or gut instinct.

The end result is an employee engagement program that is continually improving, better meeting the needs of your frontline team and your business. 

This is another part of the employee engagement process that Blink can help with. Our app comes with powerful frontline analytics.

You get data on employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction. You can launch in-app surveys to find out how employees are feeling. And you can hone your communication style with insight into your most popular posts and topics.

Employee engagement best practices: key takeaways

extra thought and attention.

Finding ways to connect your team, offer training opportunities, get employee input, and show recognition can be tricky when your teams aren’t spending their days together in the same office environment.

But thinking about the 5 C’s can give you lots of employee engagement ideas. And when you incorporate the 5 C’s into your employee engagement best practice — and also take the time to analyze and optimize employee engagement — you can count on numerous benefits. 

These include:

• Better employee retention
• Improved productivity
• Streamlined operations
• Improved employee and customer satisfaction

Go North West, a transport company in the north of England, used Blink to improve communication between office-based staff and drivers. The app drove employee engagement and moved the company lightyears from the office noticeboard full of old news they’d been using previously.

Take a look at the full Go North West case study here.

There are lots of ways you can up your internal communications game. You can attend courses and conferences. You can work with a mentor or an internal communications expert.

But don’t overlook the free resources you have at your fingertips. The blogs of professionals, companies, and consultancies working in the field of internal communications (IC) often contain a lot of wisdom.

They feature the latest IC trends along with tried and tested employee communication strategies. You can discover what other companies are doing with their comms. You can also find new ways to engage employees, influence leaders, and keep up-to-date with communication technology. 

So how do you unearth this insight? Trawling through the internet to find the best content is tough. So we’ve done the hard work for you. Here, we’ve put together a list of the best internal communications blogs around right now.

Happy reading!

Best internal communications blogs to follow

1. The institute of internal communication

The Institute of Internal Communication has been a go-to for internal communication professionals for over 75 years. The Institute runs training, conferences, and awards. It also issues qualifications.

Its blog is an excellent resource. It covers topics such as visual communication, AI in the workplace, and the importance of developing trust in the workplace.

Some blog posts are only available to IoIC members. But there’s plenty on there to get you started. There’s also a podcast called The Future of Internal Communication, which is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Must-reads from this blog:

• Engaging and supporting leaders is a vital component in IC
• Getting the measure of your strategy: using data to drive IC’s direction
• ‘I learned the hard way that less is more’

2. Gallagher Communications

Gallagher is an internal communications agency that has worked on 100+ internal communication audits and strategic projects for large and small companies all over the world.

The company believes that real workplace communication isn’t about ticking a checklist. Instead, it’s about engaging workers through strong leadership and incentives. So Gallagher blogs on topics that include leadership, pension communications, rewards and benefits, and workplace culture.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Three ways communications can elevate recruitment strategies
• Prioritizing your wellbeing as an internal communicator
• Toxic positivity: when good vibes go bad

3. Alive with Ideas

Alive with Ideas is a creative internal communications agency. They provide brands with strategy and engaging internal content.

The Alive with Ideas blog provides lots of creative comms inspiration. It covers topics like storytelling, the benefits of illustration, and tips for unleashing your creativity. There are lots of fun pop culture references and beautiful visuals, too.

If you’re looking for ways to liven up your employee communications and improve employee engagement, this is definitely the place to go.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Ted Lasso’s Positivity Playbook
• Diving into communication differences
• SNACKABLE SNIPPET: Transforming disagreements into opportunities

4. McCann Synergy

McCann Synergy is an employee communications company focused on improving employee engagement across the entire employee lifecycle. It helps organizations develop a strong employer brand and a positive employee experience. It also offers support with employee engagement and workplace communications.

The McCann Synergy blog is filled with reports, whitepapers, and best practices on useful topics related to engagement and communication. These include crisis communications, employee experience, and behavioral science.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• How to put reward and recognition center-stage
• Breaking the cycle of distrust in the workplace
• 10 best internal communications and employee engagement case studies

5. Redefining Communications

Redefining Communications is another internal communications consultancy. The team runs workshops and offers project support. They support global companies with comms, engagement, and organizational change.  

Over on the Redefining Communications blog, you’ll find a ton of IC news and insight. The blog provides lots of great advice on the topic of employee communications, with some posts focused on improving comms in frontline organizations.

Dig a little deeper into their content and you’ll find some great podcasts, along with IC reports that you can download for a fee.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Is the staff magazine making a comeback?
• Line manager cascades for deskless workers: how to get them right
• The power of influence and persuasion in internal communications

6. All Things IC

Rachel Miller is the ex-journalist and comms professional behind All Things IC. She’s been working in the IC industry for over two decades — and her company offers training and 1-2-1 support for internal communicators.

Over on the All Things IC blog, you’ll find lots of up-to-the-minute resources. There are summaries of newly released workplace communication research reports — and blogs on topics including AI and neurodiversity.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Understanding and engaging Gen Z employees
• Building a culture of inclusivity: effective internal communication for diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Communication-related words people hate

7. Blue Beyond

Blue Beyond is a consulting firm with expertise in the human side of business. Its impressive client list features many Fortune 500 brands.

With the Blue Beyond blog, the company shares internal communication trends and insights based on real IC experience. It also provides useful resources for both small and large companies. Recurring themes include change management, talent management, and workplace culture.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• How to have courageous conversations in the workplace
• Quiet quitting is a cry for help; here’s what you can do about it
• 7 best practices for reaching non-wired employees

8. Brilliant Ink

Brilliant Ink designs employee experiences that lead to positive business outcomes and high employee engagement.

Its blog spans a vast selection of topics — all related to employee engagement. So articles on employee communications are a regular feature. You will find insights on internal communication data, intranet platforms, and company values.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• 10 employee engagement & internal communications trends
• 5 comms tips to boost employee retention
• 5 essential steps to prepare your organization for AI

9. Comms Rebel

Comms Rebel is a communications consultancy founded by comms professional and confidence coach, Advita Patel. The Comms Rebel blog covers a wide range of topics surrounding workplace communication, with a particular focus on leadership, bias, and inclusion.

As you’d expect from the company name, Comms Rebel approaches workplace communications from a unique angle, highlighting overlooked issues and underrepresented employee groups. 

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• The 5 secrets of inclusive language
• Empowering women in the workplace through internal communications
• Four things to consider before adopting AI in internal comms

10. Local Wisdom

Local Wisdom is a digital communications company with expertise spanning UX design, content development, and communication strategy.

Its blog offers lots of incredible content related to employee communications. It also looks at the technology, design, and development IC involves.  

Must-reads from this blog:

• Encourage Employee-Created Content on Your Internal Social
• Lights, Camera, Confidence! Video Interview Prep 101
• When employees are “too busy” for internal comms

11. Changing the Terms

Mike Klein is a consultant and strategist who helps organizations and communications leaders create sharper, more effective messages. He believes that people can say more by saying less.

Mike’s blog is packed with useful insight for comms professionals. He challenges conventional thinking and looks at internal communications measurement, technology, and strategies.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Internal communication: What’s the “tipping point” for small and medium-sized businesses?
• “It’s all about the managers.” Really?
• Herd virality? Why focusing on internal influence beats “100% engagement”

12. Inspiring Change

Inspiring Change is an internal comms agency that supports companies with organizational culture and employee engagement. The company’s founder, Scott McInnes, is on a mission to make internal comms clear, memorable, inspiring, and authentic.

Over on the Inspiring Change blog, you’ll find lots of useful articles. There’s advice for comms professionals wanting to connect employees with company values and culture. There are also tips on navigating organizational change.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Bridging the gap: connecting employees with the organization’s vision
• The role of senior leaders in creating values-led organizations
• Creating psychological safety at work

13. Ragan Communications

Ragan Communications has been training professionals in internal communications, public relations, and social media for over 50 years. So, as you’d expect, the Ragan blog offers some great resources.

There are real-world internal communication case studies, round-ups of IC news, and interviews with IC professionals. You’ll also find lots of workplace communications advice, on topics ranging from manager comms, discussing social issues, and data analysis.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• 6 steps to humanize, personalize, and maximize your employee comms
• ‘Supercommunicators’ author Charles Duhigg on fostering deeper virtual connection
• Lessons from Nike’s layoffs and employee change comms

14. Leader Communicator 

One for the leadership team. The brain behind this blog, David Grossman, is a leadership and communication expert and the founder of The Grossman Group. David is passionate about leadership communication and publishes articles on a bi-weekly basis.

Recent topics include empathetic leadership, change management, and building trust with employees.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• Great communicators share these 7 essential characteristics
• Internal communications plan: 7-step strategy and template
• Setting employee expectations as a leader: a how-to guide

15. The IC Citizen

The IC Citizen is penned by Martin Flegg, an IC expert with more than 20 years of industry experience. He specializes in internal comms, employee engagement, and change communication.

Martin has a knack for sharing strong opinions on debatable topics. You may not agree with everything he writes, but you’ll certainly get fresh perspectives.

Must-reads from this internal communication blog:

• No good advice
• Igniting change
• What’s that got to do with internal communication?

16. Blink intelligence

Yes, this is us. Blink is a modern intranet software provider.

Our platform is built with frontline workers in mind. Traditionally, deskless employees have been left out of the company conversation. But we’re changing that with a user-friendly, mobile-first employee app.

Our blog reflects our passion for frontline communication. There’s in-depth guidance and actionable strategies you can use to improve workplace communication, employee engagement, and employee retention across your frontline and desk-based teams.

You can also read the latest internal communications news on The Shift, Blink’s bi-monthly newsletter — or get the lowdown on frontline communication tech by watching our live and on demand webinars.

Must-reads from our internal communication blog:

• 6 ways to create an intranet your frontline workforce will love
• Doomscrolling detox: How to uplift your people through internal communications
• 12 metrics and KPIs for effective internal communication

Using internal communication blogs to improve comms at your organization

The way we collaborate and communicate is changing. So staying up-to-date with employee communication insights is a great way to boost the effectiveness of your comms.

Start by making the most of the IC information available online. The internal communication blogs on this list provide fresh ideas, practical strategies, and creative inspiration. They offer guidance on IC tech and communication trends.

So add these articles to your reading list. You’ll find new ways to share messages, engage employees, and improve the employee experience.

Want to delve deeper? For in-depth resources on frontline employee experience and engagement, take a look at Blink’s whitepapers and reports. 

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The Capital District Transport Authority (CDTA) runs the public transit system in Albany, New York. They employ around 800 people.

Most of these employees are drivers and maintenance workers and CDTA was having a tough time staying in touch with them. An intranet. Seat drops. Posters. Digital screens. They tried everything. And it just wasn’t working.

For this webinar, our team sat down with CDTA’s Head of Communication, Jaime Kazlo, and Communications Manager, Emily De Vito. 

Two years after launching Blink, they talked about how they went from an ineffective internal communication strategy causing a huge digital divide to an employee app that supports digital inclusion.

The internal communication problem

Before CDTA found Blink, internal communication was a nagging problem.

They had a high proportion of frontline workers who didn’t sit behind a desk and didn’t have company-issued emails or devices. So it wasn’t easy to share company messages with them.

To communicate with office-based employees, the company was relying on an outdated intranet. For frontline employees, the main methods of communication were:

• Noticeboards and digital screens
• Emergency SMS
• Word of mouth
• Seat drop, where posters were left on a bus operator’s seat in time for their shift

But these comms were ineffective. As Jaime pointed out, “A lot of the folks that work at CDTA don’t necessarily come into the office every single day. They may get their bus out on the road. And if they do come into the office, they’re coming in and getting their work at the dispatch window and then immediately leaving”.

So employees weren’t reliably seeing posters and digital screens. They weren’t getting an awful lot of co-worker contact. And teams ended up relying on one-on-one communication, which put a lot of pressure on supervisors.

Focus group feedback made it clear to the CDTA leadership that their comms weren’t cutting through. Frontline employees were missing out on important communications. They were missing out on the fun stuff too, like competitions and giveaways.

This was creating a disconnect between employees and the organization. And it was harming the employee experience. So in 2021, CDTA decided to make a change.

They wanted to overhaul the way they did internal communications. And they needed a way to meet frontline employees where they were at.

Their CEO, says Jaime, is a champion of open communication and certainly didn’t want more than half of the organization missing out on comms. So with his support, they set out to find a solution.

"I know we’re not unique. A lot of organizations struggle with internal communication. It’s just whether or not you’re going to take that next step to really get to the employees, listen to their feedback, and give them what they need so they can also feel that they’re an integral part of the organization.” — Jaime Kazlo, Head of Communication, CDTA

Deciding on a solution

CDTA already had a SharePoint intranet, which they’d tried to revamp. This was a tool that they’d been using for several years. But it was old, outdated, and poorly maintained.

While a handful of employees chose to use the intranet, many stayed away. In fact, it had gotten to the point where comms and HR teams wouldn’t even tell staff about the intranet because they didn’t want them using it.

The intranet didn’t provide relevant information and wasn’t a good representation of the company. Crucially, it was hard for frontline employees to access.

Having gone ahead with a new and improved intranet, the team had some last-minute doubts. As the launch approached, they questioned whether they wanted to roll this tool out to the workforce.

Jaime says that, having taken the intranet as far as it could go, they were still wondering if there wasn’t something better. A tool that would improve employee communication for the whole organization.

So they took the bold decision to shelve the intranet. And started talking seriously about other options. Here’s how they decided that a modern intranet, in the form of an employee app, was the frontline-first solution they were looking for:

They got buy-in from the IT team. The IT team was integral to the process. They made sure the chosen solution was secure, sustainable, and wouldn’t compromise the company network.

They got buy-in from the union. The team worked to ensure the union president and employees would get on board with their chosen solution.  

They took a cross-functional approach. The comms team collaborated across different departments. They had conversations with everyone who had a big stake in the solution, including HR, IT, and operations. They gathered co-worker questions, found answers, and learned what each department needed from the company comms tool.

They got buy-in from the CEO. Finally, having decided that an employee app was the best solution, they made their case to the CEO, who gave the go-ahead.

“For our workforce — and the way people consume information in this day and age — it seemed archaic to stick with that intranet tool. So we decided to go to something a little bit more user-friendly and something that is pretty much in the palm of everybody’s hand every day.” — Jaime Kazlo, Head of Communication, CDTA

Buying a solution

The next step in the process was choosing app technology that suited their frontline employees and the rest of the organization.

The comms team started by, again, looping in different departments to find out what modern intranet features they needed. 

They asked marketing leaders about their branding requirements. They asked HR how they’d like to use employee information within an app. They spoke to maintenance and transportation teams about the needs of their frontline workers.

This part of the process, says Jaime, was easy. Everyone was on board. Because everyone agreed that internal communications at CDTA needed to change. And because everyone wanted largely the same things:

• a product that was user-friendly and easy to use
• a product that was easy to download
• a product that allowed us to communicate daily company news
• a product that made it easy for employees to receive emergency messages

Once internal discussions had taken place, it was time to vet solutions and choose the best software for the job.

This part of the process was led by the IT and communications teams. The IT team knew what CDTA was looking for technically — and in terms of app security. The comms team knew what tools they needed to communicate effectively with the organization.

After speaking with several vendors and viewing app demonstrations, they decided on Blink. It was a speedy process. The team started looking for a solution in January 2022 and launched Blink in June of that year.

They were able to turn this process around in just six months, says Jaime, because the team got clear on their priorities first. By getting their ducks in a row — and knowing exactly what they were looking for in an employee app —finding the right app was quick and easy.

Ensuring success

Finding the right employee app is the first part of the battle. The next? Ensuring success — in the form of employee adoption and engagement — once that app goes live.

So how did the CDTA team tackle this particular challenge? In the webinar, Emily explains what the team did before and after the launch of Blink to maximize its success.

Pre-launch

The CDTA comms team started their pre-launch activities with a group of company leaders. They wanted to establish these people as app ambassadors. So they made sure they understood exactly what the app was for, what it could do, and how they should use it to interact with employees.

The comms team — along with the company’s new app ambassadors — started promoting the app to the wider organization about a month before it launched. They sent letters, put up posters, and advertised the app on digital screens.

Emily emphasizes the importance of speaking to people face to face, too. She and her team hosted information sessions. They also visited staff in break-out rooms, at every company location, to promote the app and field employee questions.

“[We were] letting them know — “Hey, this app is for you, it’s so you know what’s going on in our company and so you’re the first to know what’s going on in our company”.  

Contests and giveaways also helped to incentivize employees to download and use the app, both pre-launch and for about a month after. For example, the team launched the app on the first day of summer. So they had an ice cream truck come to each division and people who signed up to Blink got a free cone.

Post-launch

Launch done and dusted, the comms team turned their attention to sustaining app engagement levels. And encouraging late app sign-ups, too.

To achieve high levels of engagement, CDTA has focused on:

• Creating engaging content, with input from every department
• Being responsive to employee comments and questions
• Using pictures and graphics to grab employee attention
• Balancing serious content with fun content

Emily says managing the app and its content doesn’t take up her whole day. And you don’t need someone to do it 24/7.

Her role now involves asking team leaders to send her regular content. She launches surveys. And she posts at least a couple of informal, fun posts each month. That might mean highlighting a member of staff who got a promotion. Or — as CDTA did recently — posting pictures from an Exemplary Attendance Luncheon.

Employees like being able to see pictures of themselves or their teammates, says Emily. They like being recognized for their hard work. And they like being able to comment — congratulating others.

While they see better levels of engagement for fun posts, she says employees like to engage with serious content, too.

For example, CDTA recently did a safety post about cell phone usage on the road. Employees appreciated seeing it on the feed. They like being able to comment and contribute their thoughts. And these posts are a great way to get instant feedback on company policy.

Responding to resistance

CDTA doesn’t require employees to download the Blink app. So it’s up to each individual whether they choose to use it.

Emily acknowledges that some resistance is inevitable. Some employees told her that they didn’t want to see work content on their personal phones. Some simply didn’t see how Blink would benefit them.

But, says Emily, many of these employees have changed their perspectives. “Those people have now come back to me a year later, “Can you send me the invite to Blink again, I wanna download it.””

Part of CDTA’s success in getting employees to come around has been illustrating the personal benefit Blink brings to employees.

Comms team members get in the room with other employees to show them — here’s where you get your tax form, here’s where you see your pay stubs, here’s where you book vacation time.

They’ve also been using Blink’s analytics functions to see which content is working best. By seeing when and where employees are interacting, the team can hone content to make it even more relevant and engaging.

A majority of employees, says Emily, have seen the value of being able to do so much from their smartphones. And now — two years after the launch — adoption is at 80%, just shy of the company’s 85% target, which they hope to meet soon.

Q&A

The webinar ended with a Q&A session. Jaime and Emily provided answers to viewer questions. Here’s a summary of what they discussed.  

Do you allow employee comments on the app? And, if so, how do you manage them?

Allowing comments, says Emily, is essential for two-way communication. And the comments they get on the CDTA feed are mostly positive and primarily question-based.

Negative comments, when they do occur, are seen as a jumping-off point.

When the conversation feels constructive, leaders and managers can respond in the app. Alternatively, they go into Blink’s chat feature to say they’re happy to discuss an employee issue in person — and then set up a meeting.

While the admin team can delete comments, Emily says they would only do this if a comment contained profanity or something vulgar. And, thankfully, in two years of using the app, this is a problem they’ve yet to encounter.

It helps that openness is part of CDTA culture. And that company leaders understand that it solves more problems than it creates. 

“We have a CEO who is very transparent. He wants to know what the workforce is thinking. He wants them to know what he’s thinking[…]If you’re not transparent it brings up more questions and it creates more angst within your company because people are saying “Why aren’t they answering me” “Why are they being secretive?”.” — Emily De Vito, Communications Manager, CDTA

How do you work alongside your union when rolling out an employee app?

CDTA has a unionized workforce. So it was important for them to work in lockstep with the union president during the whole process — from solution scoping to app launch and beyond.

The comms team made a real effort, says Jaime, to explain to the union why they were implementing the app and to help them understand where they were coming from.

There were some employee concerns about how an app might invade their privacy. But we made it clear that the one and only purpose of the app was to make all employees feel included within the organization.

Now that the app is up and running, Emily highlights the importance of the union president having a profile and using the app. And knowing they can get in touch with the communications team when they want to send a union-related message out to the workforce. 

How do you enforce a cell phone policy when you have an employee app?

So you’re promoting a cell phone app. But you have a cell phone policy that means employees shouldn’t be looking at their phones during certain workday hours. What do you do?

For Jaime and Emily, it’s all about education and helping employees understand app features, like Blink’s snooze function.

Employees can set a do-not-disturb function to run automatically during particular times. This means they can pause notifications during work or driving hours. They can then pull out their cell phone during a break or when they’re back at home. 

How does an employee app work for team members without a smartphone?

There are very few employees at CDTA, says Jaime, who don’t have a smartphone. These tend to be older employees who aren’t necessarily very tech-savvy.

For these employees, the company has computers in break rooms. These computers are equipped with Blink’s desktop version. And they’re a way for employees who don’t have a phone — or who don’t want to download the app — to check in with their account and company news.

Does each employee have a profile? How do you manage those?

Every employee has their own app profile. They can upload a picture to this profile. But employees don’t have admin capabilities and they can’t edit anything else.

When it comes to creating profiles, the CDTA comms team worked with the HR team to import employee data. The app integrates with most HR software, so profiles can be added and removed automatically.

You can set up a profile with very basic information, including name, location, and job title. You also need an email address or a phone number so the employee can receive an invite to download Blink.

But you have the potential to refine these profiles. Emily is currently working with the CDTA on segmenting employees. She’s working out which employees should be grouped together so they can send the most relevant comms to each individual.

So there you have it. A summary of our webinar — and of CDTA’s journey from a clunky old intranet to a modern employee app.

Despite having more technology than ever before, the modern workforce is largely disconnected and divided. We’re working across different locations and juggling with more platforms and logins than ever. These challenges, already hard on desk-based, computer-connected office workers, are amplified for the frontline workforce.

Frontline employees tend to spend their days isolated from both their desk-based coworkers and other frontline colleagues. They don’t always have access to the same communication channels or tech tools as their office-based peers — and even if they do, they have minimal time to check on these platforms in between shifts, travels, and on-the-job work.

This means that the concept of the employee experience varies dramatically from team to team, and sometimes from worker to worker, across the same organization. It makes it harder for HR teams to keep a handle on overall employee engagement and satisfaction — and often inadvertently creates gaps in the workforce culture in different pockets of the company.

Just look at a recent Axios report to see this discrepancy in action: Deskless employees are less trusting of their managers and people leaders, less engaged in general, and more likely to experience burnout than their desk-based coworkers.

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Bringing your employees together through a unified frontline workforce experience helps to close and mitigate these experience gaps. And by improving employee engagement, you can also make a positive impact on: 

• Company culture
• Workplace communication and collaboration
• Productivity and customer service
• Employee satisfaction and retention

Here, we take a look at three primary strategies you can use to build connections between employees and create a unified employee experience.

3 ways to unify your frontline employee experience

To unify the frontline employee experience, you need to:

• Provide frontline-facing technology
• Communicate over one cohesive channel
• Conduct regular employee surveys

1. Provide frontline-facing technology

Bad tech adds friction to the work day. It causes headaches and slows your teams down. This is true for any of your employees — but it’s particularly relevant to the frontline.

Frontline workers need fast, easy, streamlined tech solutions that fit into their busy work days. They shouldn’t have to remember lots of different sets of login details and shouldn’t need a company email address to access essential tech tools.

In instances where your desk-based and frontline staff use the same tech tools — which is an excellent logistical way to unify your workforce — everyone should enjoy the same great digital experience. The same features and functionality should be available on both desktop and mobile devices.

But this isn’t the current reality. Just 10% of frontline employees say they have enough access to the tools, tech, and opportunities they need to connect and advance in their workplace.

The most effective frontline-facing technologies are the ones that have been designed for and with the frontline workforce. Rather than trying to modify the desk-based experience, purpose-built technology can make a huge difference to the employee experience. It brings desk-based and frontline staff onto the same (digital) page and ensures everyone feels valued.

2. Communicate over one cohesive channel

Communicating with frontline employees can be a challenge because they don’t tend to spend a lot of time in the office or working alongside managers.

Frontline organizations have usually tried various methods of internal communications. Paper notices on a board in the break room. Posters left on the seat of every bus driver. Overstretched frontline managers sending messages individually to every employee smartphone.

But they all reach the conclusion that these communication channels are inefficient and ineffective. A piecemeal approach makes it easy for important messages to get missed, messaging to become confused, and conversations to remain one-sided.

Communicating over one cohesive communication channel helps to unify your workforce and improve the frontline employee experience. As well as ensuring relevant communications reach your entire workforce, a workforce engagement app can allow you to:

• Engage in two-way communication with frontline employees, with the help of features like a news feed and group chats
• Target and tailor communications to specific teams, departments, and locations, ensuring that messages are always relevant
• Create mandatory reads that necessitate employee acknowledgment so you know that important messages are being read 

3. Conduct regular employee surveys

Top-down communication is essential for company-wide updates and culture-building. But if you want to improve the employee experience and bring your workforce together, you need to truly understand what’s going well — and what isn’t — by giving employees a voice.

For many, that might mean conducting regular employee surveys, including:

• Quarterly surveys: More regular than the annual survey, quarterly surveys help you to benchmark and track progress in key areas of the employee experience
• Pulse surveys: To ensure employee engagement issues don’t sneak up on your HR team, pulse surveys offer a snapshot of employee sentiment, right here, right now

By using a combination of employee surveys, you can seek employee input on corporate policies and initiatives as well as gauge how loyal employees feel toward your company in order to improve retention, engagement, and professional development.

Having an all-in-one internal communications tool to support this process makes things simple. Built-in feedback tools makes it easier for your HR and communications teams to launch surveys — and it makes it a streamlined process for employees, too. No more long-winded paper process. No logging into a communal computer. Workers can simply open the app on their smartphone, get an alert for the survey, and fill it out on their break.

The valuable data you get from your whole organization — and the reporting and analytics tools that analyze it — gives you the information you need to make targeted improvements to the employee experience.

In summary

When you unify your frontline employee experience, you create a work environment where all workers have the channels and technologies they need to come together. They can share their successes, voice their concerns, and experience a sense of camaraderie.

Create the best workplace experience for your entire employee base, and get their best work — and enhanced engagement and loyalty — in return.

With an employee super-app like Blink, you have everything you need to improve the employee experience for frontline and desk-based workers alike. To see what Blink can do for your organization, schedule a personalized demo today.

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The average person will work 35 hours per week. That adds up to 84,365 hours over their lifetime. Yet just over one-third of employees (34%) are engaged, and 16% are actively disengaged in their work and workplace.

If you’re reading this, the chances are you want to make sure your employees don’t feel like they are wasting a large portion of their life at work. We’ll do our best to help you do just that.

In this handy guide, we’ll break down the key steps you need to take when creating an employee engagement strategy.

From understanding why your organization truly needs an employee engagement strategy, to the actionable steps you can take to create your own strategy, we’ll cover everything you need to know right here.

Why you need an employee engagement strategy

Creating an employee engagement strategy can seem daunting, but it’s important for any business. Having a strategic approach to your employees’ happiness and engagement will help you retain top talent, keep them motivated and productive, and ultimately grow your business.

Effective employee engagement strategies will outline exactly how you are going to improve employee engagement within your organization, allowing all team members to stay on the same page when it comes to their roles and responsibilities.

In short: by creating an employee engagement strategy, you can strategically work to improve your employee engagement. And with improved levels of engagement, come a number of organizational benefits, including: 

• Higher Productivity: Employee engagement is closely linked with productivity. Engaged employees are more motivated to do their best work and achieve their goals. In fact, research has shown that engaged employees are up to 202% more productive than disengaged employees.
• Reduced Staff Turnover: Low employee retention is costly and disruptive for any business, and one of the most decisive factors for employee retention is employee engagement. Engaged employees are less likely to leave their job, which reduces the need for costly and disruptive staff turnover.
• Improved Morale: A happy workforce is a productive workforce. When employees feel engaged and valued, they are more likely to be happy at work and less likely to experience stress or burnout. As such, a staff engagement strategy can motivate employees and improve morale, job satisfaction and overall company culture.
• Greater Loyalty: An engaged employee is more likely to be loyal to their company, in fact 90% of workers said they are more likely to stay at a company that takes and acts on feedback: AKA one that engages them. They are less likely to look for jobs elsewhere and are more likely to recommend their company to others. Therefore, the right employee engagement strategies can drive your staff retention rates and encourage employees to stay with your company for longer.

Employee engagement strategies & business types

What your employee engagement strategy needs to consist of will change depending on your business type. For example, a software company will need to focus on ways to motivate and engage product designers and developers in order to compete for top talent in a competitive Silicon Valley environment. A healthcare organization, on the other hand, will need to come up with innovative ways to engage their nursing and medical staff to combat physician burnout and the growing nursing shortage.

What's important is that you provide your workforce with strategies that are designed for them specifically. Ultimately, your strategy will depend on the type of employees you have, the unique challenges facing those teams in your market, their day-to-day tasks, and how your organization operates as a whole.

Employee engagement for the frontline

Creating an employee engagement strategy can be especially important for frontline organizations. With 80% of the global workforce working on the frontline, it’s important to have strategies in place that will help keep these workers engaged, productive and motivated.

Additionally, employees in frontline positions often have more direct contact with customers and are more likely to represent the company to the public. As such, it is important for these employees to be engaged and motivated, so they can provide positive customer service experiences.

Frontline staff engagement strategies might involve providing employees with accessible digital tools for employee engagement, offering transparent and frequent communication, or emphasizing the importance of customer feedback.

Remember: whatever strategies you use, it’s important to tailor them specifically to your industry, business type and workforce.

How to create your employee engagement strategy

In order to have engaged employees, you need a plan in place, outcomes in mind, a clear outline of responsibilities and a culture that takes participation seriously. You also need a toolset available that is able to execute your plan, close distances, track results and simplify operations. 

To make this a little easier to understand, we've broken the process down into 7 simple steps.

1. Define - Your purpose, values & mission

Defining your own purpose, company core values, and mission statement is a crucial step in creating your employee engagement strategy. In fact, when teams know your goals and expectations of them, they are 2.8 times more likely to be engaged in their roles, according to research from Quantum Workplace.

By clearly articulating what you stand for as an organization, you can align your staff with these values and give them a reason to be invested in the success of your business in the long-term.

To ensure that all employees are on the same page here, you should provide an easy-to-access Hub containing all company policy and procedure documents, along with a thorough onboarding process for new hires.

2. Listen - Conversations and research

Direct, two-way conversations and further research into your employees’ needs and wants will help you to create a more personalized engagement strategy, making this a core step in the strategic process. One way to do this is through pulse surveys.

Pulse Surveys are short, regular surveys that ask employees about their engagement levels and how they feel about their work. This can help you to identify any areas where your employees may be struggling, and can help to ensure that your employee engagement strategy is constantly evolving.

Whether it’s through surveys, focus groups, one-on-one interviews or anonymous staff feedback tools, gathering data and hearing directly from your employees can give you valuable insights into what they need from an engagement strategy, and help you identify your organisation's key engagement drivers, in order for staff to stay engaged at work.

3. Review - Analyze and plan

Once you have gathered data from your employees, it’s time to analyze this information and determine what action needs to be taken. You may find that certain areas of your workplace are in need of improvement, or perhaps a company-wide change is necessary to boost employee engagement.

Whatever the results of your employee research, it’s crucial to identify specific targets and actions that will make your plan a success. What’s working, what's not? Are there specific issues that need to be addressed? What are your engagement goals as a business leader?

Key goals for your employee engagement strategy could include:

• Lower staff absenteeism
• Better employee retention rates and lower turnover
• Improved productivity
• Enhanced employee motivation and happiness 
• Increased customer satisfaction 
• More positive organizational culture.

By reviewing and analyzing the data you have gathered, you can gain a clear understanding of how to better engage employees in order to achieve these goals. This will help you to build a more effective employee engagement strategy that your employees want to respond positively to.

4. Commit - Actions speak louder than words

Strategy is important, but actions always speak louder than words. Employee engagement strategies that work, only work if you plan to back them up with core actions, processes and real change.

Below, we have outlined some key ways to commit to your employee engagement strategy. By truly committing to all of these actions, you can bring your employee engagement strategy to life and start seeing real results.

Tools & technology

Digital tools are essential for any organization looking to boost engagement. By providing your employees with the right tools, you can make it easier for them to connect with each other and with your company. This can help to improve communication and collaboration within your team, leading to higher job satisfaction, and a more engaged workforce.

There are a variety of different digital tools that you can use to engage your employees, including great employee engagement apps, online chat software and team collaboration tools.

It’s also important to consider using technology with frontline-specific features in deskless organizations. With 52% of frontline workers claiming they would leave their job over tech tools, better digital commitments are clearly needed here. By providing your employees with tools fit-for-purpose on the frontline, you can ensure that your employees feel supported and engaged no matter where they are in the organization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV1_4ZdjPQ4&ab_channel=Blink

Recruitment 

Assuming that you have already begun the process of gathering data and analyzing it, you should now begin to take actions across the board in order to improve employee engagement. One way to do this is through better recruitment practices.

People who match your ideals and company culture, who will add value, and who are onboarding engagement are more likely to be engaged employees. Therefore, it is important to take care in the recruitment process, and to ensure that you are hiring people who will be a good fit for your company. You can use interviews, personality tests and job simulations to get to know a candidate better, and to see how they would fit into your team.

It is also important to provide a thorough onboarding process for new hires in order to establish a culture of engagement from day one. This can help them to feel welcome and comfortable in their new role, and can help them to learn about your company policies and procedures.

Communication

Regular communication is key to keeping employees engaged. Employees need to feel like they are part of the bigger picture, and that their voice is heard. By establishing a regular communication schedule – whether it be through Secure Chats, email, newsletters, team meetings or other methods – you can ensure that your employees are kept in the loop.

It’s also important to have a clear internal communications strategy in place. This should outline who is responsible for communicating with whom, and what methods will be used. This will help to ensure that everyone is on the same page, and that important messages don’t get missed.

It’s important to tailor communications to the needs of your employees. For example, if most of your employees are frontline workers who don’t have access to a computer, you may need to adjust your communications methods so that they can be accessed on mobile devices – think mobile employee engagement apps. You may also need to consider using different methods for different departments or locations within your company.

Surveys

Although surveys are important when drafting your strategy, it’s also important to gather feedback from your employees on a more regular basis if you want to walk the walk of employee engagement. By conducting regular Employee Surveys, you can get a sense of how your employees are feeling at any given time – and if things need to change.

An employee engagement survey can help you to gather valuable data and feedback from your employees, which you can use to improve your strategy. You may want to consider including questions about work-life balance, employee engagement initiatives, training and development, and other areas.

Frequent surveys are a great way to get ongoing feedback from your employees and to see how they feel about various aspects of their job or the company as a whole. You can also use surveys to measure the success of your employee engagement strategies, obtaining valuable insight into what is working and what needs to be changed or improved.

Managers

“Leadership has an important role to play when it comes to employee engagement, and this is especially important given nearly half (45%) of workers say leadership is “minimally” or “not at all” committed to improving company culture. In fact, 78% of employees confirmed that any change to culture needs to be driven by the CEO.” — Jeff Cates, CEO of Achievers.

For business leaders, mid-level management is often the first step towards employee engagement. By ensuring managers are supported from the top level, given the budget, training, tools and support they need, you can set them up for success as well as help to create a culture of engagement across your entire organization.

Effective managers have many important roles when it comes to employee engagement. They are responsible for setting expectations, holding people accountable, and providing feedback. They are also responsible for coaching and mentoring their team members, as well as helping to resolve any issues or conflicts that may arise.

5. Measure - Analyze and report

To measure the impact and see if their employee engagement activities and strategy is working, businesses should use employee engagement analytics via the right tools, at the right time.

It’s important to use analytics at different points throughout your engagement strategy, as this will help you to gain valuable insight and data that can be used to adjust what is working and improve the areas that need improvement. For example, you may want to analyze employee satisfaction levels before implementing a new training program, or track engagement levels over time to see if your initiatives are working.

There are many different types of analytics tools that you can use to analyze and report this data, for example Blink's Frontline Intelligence tool. Our powerful analytics offer insight into the people and relationships that make your organization tick. 

By analyzing data from people, places, and things on a regular basis, you can gain real-time intelligence into your employee engagement strategy that you can use to better support and understand your workforce.

6. Reward - recognition & progression

When used effectively, recognition can be an extremely powerful tool for improving employee engagement. Employees need to feel appreciated for their efforts, and recognition is one of the best ways to show your most engaged employees that you appreciate them.

However, simply giving employees a pat on the back isn’t enough – recognition needs to be meaningful, memorable and measurable. By taking the time to recognize employees in a meaningful way, you can show them that you truly value their contributions, and make them want to engage and contribute more.

There are many different ways to recognize employees, and it’s important to find what works best for your organization. Some popular methods of recognition include offering Kudos or Employee Recognition, awards ceremonies, Feed shout-outs, gift cards or vouchers, and thank-you notes.

It's also crucial that you back up recognition with opportunities for growth and career development. This may include promotions, opportunities to learn new skills, a stronger compensation and benefits package, or simply more responsibility. By providing employees with opportunities for growth and progression within the organization, you are helping them feel valued and motivated to continue performing well.

7. Repeat - Regular check-ins and adjustments

To truly maximize the impact of your employee engagement strategy, it’s important to take a regular and systematic approach. This means that you should regularly check in on key metrics, analyze the data you gather, and make any necessary adjustments based on what you find.

Stay on top of your engagement. Track key metrics such as employee satisfaction and engagement levels, and conduct regular check-ins to analyze the data you gather. This will help you make any necessary adjustments to your strategy in a timely and effective manner, ensuring that your employees are engaged and motivated at all times.

Final Thoughts

At Blink, we provide the all-in-one solution to employee engagement. Designed for the frontline, our easy-to-access, intuitive employee engagement app delivers real-time data and communications, actionable insights and intelligent recommendations.

Inspiring engagement in your employees has never been easier. With our powerful analytics tools and customizable recognition programs, you can gain valuable insight into your workforce and take the steps needed to boost engagement levels across the board.

Whether you’re looking for a way to track employee performance, improve communication and feedback, or simply create a more positive work environment, Blink has everything you need.

Get started today

A frontline super-app, like Blink, can transform employee engagement and the employee experience. And it can be a real game-changer for HR and people teams.

In our recent webinar, Marcy Paterson (VP of Solutions Consulting) and Simon White (Chief People Officer) discussed how Blink can help solve People team’s goals and shared best practice tips for using the app.

They covered a lot of ground, including:

• Closing the connection gap between employees and management
• Ways to adjust the noise level and moderate app content
• Ensuring HR messages get heard
• Using an employee app to measure employee engagement

HR team priorities: internal comms and employee engagement

Chief People Officer, Simon White, started by giving his take on current HR priorities. It’s all about internal communication and employee engagement, he says.

Employees have higher expectations year on year. Employees want to know what’s happening within their organization. And they want to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. 

To enable that feeling of connection, companies need to embrace transparency.

An increasingly dispersed workforce also means meeting employees where they are. In terms of their location, shift patterns, and the tech they can access.  

In the modern workplace, HR leaders don’t just need to decide what to say. They also need to consider how they get people to hear and absorb internal communications. And how they make that content equally accessible to every employee in the organization, regardless of their role or schedule.

With these priorities in mind, let’s find out how a People's team can get the most from Blink, a super-app designed for the frontline. 

How HR teams can get the most from a frontline app

Closing the connection gap

There’s often a connection gap between frontline workers and office-based teams.

Frontline workers don’t always have access to devices or even a company email address. The resources and information that is often readily available to office-based teams, can easily get lost when getting to the frontline. The information they receive is sometimes piecemeal or non-existent.

This can lead to engagement problems. Employees may not see how they contribute to the bigger picture, so they’re unlikely to go above and beyond in their role.

That’s where Blink comes in - an app available via a personal smartphone device, not requiring a work email to access. It supports employee communication and employee recognition. The sharing of company updates and company culture.

Crucially, an app gives employees a voice - and gives visibility to that voice. Employees can tag their CEO in a question and everyone sees the CEO’s public response.

That’s meaningful two-way conversation and connection. And this is something that helps move the dial on employee engagement. Closing this frontline connection gap is one of the best ways HR teams can use a frontline app.

You help people to see – hey, you may be one person in a 10-person company, you may be one person in a 10,000-person company. But actually, you really contribute something. And that’s really important. – Simon White, Chief People Officer

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Want to take a look at how it works? Preview our employee app today.

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Adjusting the noise level

Some HR leaders are concerned about the unnecessary noise an employee app might create. But with Blink, you decide who can post what, and where.

Employees may be limited to posting within particular groups. A team leader can then decide to boost the most relevant content to a wider audience.

But both Marcy and Simon were keen to point out the importance of informal content to the employee experience. They recommend allowing informal posts alongside formal, top-down content. The reason? It encourages employees to spend more time on the app, and drives a sense of community across your employees.

Posts wishing someone a happy birthday or about finding your work bestie may seem irrelevant to business success - but they’re often some of the most engaging and meaningful for employees.

They encourage workers to spend time in the app environment. So it’s easier to make the larger top-down messages heard, too.

Streamlining self-service

You could give your employees 50 different apps and say this is all the software we use. But you’re not actually driving a good experience for them. You’re not providing something that makes their lives easier. – Simon White, Chief People Officer

Blink is far more than just a communication tool - it integrates with other tools you use, allowing for employees to access other tools easily and without friction. 

Via the Blink interface, employees can navigate to pay stubs, time off, or learning and development. A quick click on an icon and employees are taken straight to the relevant place within the relevant software.

This benefits everyone. Fewer support tickets are submitted from employees who can’t remember what the pay stub app is called or what their various passwords are, and employees get a streamlined, intuitive experience. 

And on top of that, the dollars and time your teams have spent on other important tools for your employees will be easily accessed, driving the adoption you need on those technologies. Employee technology is only as valuable as the employees actually using it, and often employees don’t even know what is available to them and how to get there. Blink gives them one place to access everything they need in their day - driving ROI across your existing tools, too.

The work you’ve done to select a vendor, to pay for a vendor, to get approval - the ability to then drive adoption and drive the change management through a product like this is imperative.  – Simon White, Chief People Officer

Getting HR messages heard

Important HR messages don’t have to become dead documents in a deeply buried shared file. With an employee app, you put HR messages right in front of the right people.

Here are a couple more benefits of this approach:

• Employees can read HR messages at a time and place to suit them
• You can pin messages or request confirmation to ensure that essential information is read
• You can add useful links to a post so employees can access additional information easily
• Automatic translations allow all employees to read messages in their preferred language

A user-friendly search function also allows employees to revisit HR messages, posts, and resources whenever they need to.

For HR teams, this makes messaging more effective - it also saves a lot of time. Your HR staff do less chasing and make fewer phone calls. They can be confident that their message is getting through via the app.

Embracing transparency

Some organizations worry about opening up a newsfeed to employees. They’re unsure about allowing employees to comment, like, and post. But this is often less of an issue that organizations expect.

From his own experience of using Blink, Simon says that the benefits far outweigh the risks. And actually, an app can help bring small issues into the light, allowing leaders to address them before they become big ones.

Marcy also highlights the crawl, walk, run approach that Blink customers can take. Thanks to Blink customizations, you can dip your toe in water. You can find out how a transparent culture fits your organization. Then scale up or down accordingly.

This fear that people have of “oh, you know, an employee communication platform – people will use it to unionize”[…] People aren’t unionizing because you’ve given them a platform. They’re probably unionizing because you haven’t given them a voice. – Simon White, Chief People Officer

Encouraging adoption

Employees already spend time in their personal lives swiping, scrolling, and liking posts on different social media apps. Blink has a very similar interface to those types of apps we all use. This makes it easy for employees to pick the app up and use it – even if they don’t feel confident with tech in general. It’s a familiar, adaptive tool that doesn’t have the same learning curve that some advanced tech tools do.

But some employees inevitably take more persuading than others. When encouraging employees to adopt an employee app, Simon and Marcy recommend leading with the benefits to employee experience.

By explaining to employees what they stand to gain from using the app, you get better uptake. Here are a few ideas:

• It’s a way for them to stay in touch with co-workers
• It’s an easy way for them to see L&D opportunities
• The app is the only place to find overtime shifts
• They can access everything via one app without needing multiple passwords

Once you have a decent level of adoption, you can rely on organic growth. Employees promote the app and its features to one another, driving an even higher proportion of the workforce to choose to download and use it.  

Measuring engagement

Moving onto a platform with surveys and analytics is a really effective way for HR and people teams to measure engagement. And find ways to increase employee engagement too.

Blink engagement is a useful metric. If a team or an individual isn’t answering posts and asking questions, this may be a sign that they’re feeling disengaged. You can also access real-time data on how many people are using Blink – and your other software tools.

Engagement surveys are another great feature. Employees don’t have to log on to the communal computer at lunchtime, or log on to another platform. They can respond to survey questions quickly and easily within the Blink app they already use.

This makes it easy for HR leaders to gather statistically significant data. And to share anonymized survey results with employees. 

You can then sit this data alongside other HR metrics – relating to retention, attrition, and promotion – to uncover trends and areas for improvement.

Going beyond HR and people teams

Marcy and Simon discuss a lot about how HR and people teams can get the most out of Blink. But they emphasized the fact that, to truly transform internal communication and employee engagement, you need a company-wide effort.

Blink supports cross-functional usage. And when different teams – HR, operations, comms, leadership – all harness its potential, you get the best results.

Blink is an employee app focused on connecting everyone in your organization - regardless of their role, location, or seniority. When leadership can show the way and engage, employees will naturally follow and adopt the app. They will have all of the resources they need to do their job efficiently - no longer wasting time finding important announcements, passwords for other tools, or even trying to find their payslips.

Ultimately, improving your two-way communication will enhance employee engagement, and you’ll create a more loyal, productive, and satisfied workforce.

Want to take a closer look at Blink – and find out how these features would work for your HR and people team? Schedule a personalized demo today.