7 signs you’ve found the right internal communication platform

If you’re like most people, you’d probably prefer not to imagine what happens in a worst-case scenario, or a situational crisis.

However, imagining what could go wrong — and how you’ll react to it — is one of the most important things you can do for your business. 

An effective crisis communications plan starts with your employees. With early, clear, and consistent messaging, your team can become advocates for your company during any crisis. 

By following these four straightforward crisis communication best practices, your stress levels will go from 100 to 10 (hopefully).

The 4 crisis communication best practices you need to remember

1. Make messaging consistent
2. Back up statements with action
3. Balance timeliness and precision
4. Practice empathy

Let’s have a more in-depth look at each of these practices. 

1. Make messaging consistent

Your internal communications during a crisis should convey the same stance and expectations to every member of your team, regardless of level. 

That is more effective if you already have an easy, direct line of communication with each member of your organization. 

While different roles may need to respond differently, it’s crucial t foster a sense of transparency rather than secrecy to ensure a better response across your organization. 

Communicate often to make sure everyone is on the same page, even with constantly changing information.

In a 2020 Edelman study on internal communications during the COVID-19 pandemic, 63% of employees wanted daily updates, and 23% wanted communications multiple times a day.  

2. Back up statements with action

It's important for your team to understand how to talk about a situation, but it's even more important for them to understand what's being done — and their role in the process. 

As soon as you have a response plan, communicate it to your team. That way, what's being done to resolve an issue is at the forefront of the conversation. Share what your organization's plan is to prevent situations from arising and use as many concrete steps as you can. 

Recruit those in your organization who can help with definite tasks. Perhaps the PR team needs to create an official statement, or the development team needs to redesign a product. Whatever it is, let everyone know how they can help to react to the crisis. 

3. Balance timeliness and precision

The moments immediately following an event are often the most critical for your internal communications during a crisis. 

You don’t want there to be a sudden vacuum of silence where others may be left to speculate. That is the time to get your initial response out quickly, to guide the narrative. 

It’s alright to let your employees know there are some things you still don’t know. It’s better to be upfront about how you’re addressing uncertainties than to wait to communicate at all. 

With that in mind, it’s also appropriate to take your time to craft a more thought-out response for the long term. Planning for crises means you’re prepared immediately in the event. 

While it can be impossible to plan out the details of your crisis response, it's vital to create crisis response documents that lay the groundwork processes for establishing more detailed responses with your team. 

4. Practice empathy

The crisis will undoubtedly affect your employees day-to-day, some certainly more than others. 

It’s critical to empathize with your employee’s struggles throughout the crisis and recognize where their duties have become more difficult.

A 2020 Catalyst survey on the effects of empathy in the workplace during COVID-19 found that empathetic leaders and managers increase productivity, innovation, and engagement. 

Although you don’t want to dwell on how the situation is causing setbacks or difficulties, you can still empathize with your workers while returning to the positive.

Communicate your gratitude for their continued hard work and outline plans to alleviate their stressors. 

The Catalyst study states empathetic leadership entails: 

• Respecting life circumstances
• Supporting both life and work needs
• Fostering inclusion

Open lines of communication to hear their input and experiences. Solicit feedback through forms, polls, and one-on-one interviews. Let your employees know that you want to listen to their thoughts on tackling the crisis from their point of view. 

Show up in more than just writing. Video messages and calls communicate more empathy than written statements. 

Final thoughts: 4 crisis communication best practices

Your internal communication during a situational crisis is just as important as your public communication — and perhaps even more so. 

That’s why it’s essential to lay the groundwork for a plan so you can react effectively if necessary. Your internal crisis communications should be consistent, actionable, timely, and empathetic. 

All the members of your organization deserve frequent, comprehensive, and accessible updates during a crisis. 

Psst – looking for crisis communication tools?

Blink’s employee communications app provides an efficient way for you to communicate with everyone in your organization. From company-wide status updates to policy changes through the intranet, the all-in-one app makes connecting with your employees simple. 

In 2020, digital transformation in the manufacturing industry was valued at $263.9 billion USD. This figure is anticipated to reach $767.8 billion USD by 2026. As business leaders in manufacturing, you probably already know all about how DX on your production line can improve your machinery, drive your production rates and refine your overall output.

But what about your day-to-day, run-the-biz systems? How can digital transformation in manufacturing also benefit your wider company operations and employee performance? How can you utilize DX in manufacturing to craft a more meaningful and engaging employee experience, and what other bonuses may you discover along the way?

At Blink, we know a thing or two about transforming the employee experience through the right digital tools and technologies. So with this guide, we are providing you with a comprehensive introduction to the key benefits of digital transformation in manufacturing and why it's essential for your organization right now, with a core focus on the digital employee experience and how you can transform it in your business.

What is digital transformation (DX) in manufacturing?

Digital transformation (DX) in manufacturing is the process of implementing new digital technologies to improve and refine processes in a manufacturing organization. This typically involves a range of procedures, from improving communication and collaboration to adopting new manufacturing methods, or automating tasks.

A digital transformation strategy works to improve the overall efficiency, productivity and profitability of a manufacturing organization by integrating new digital technologies – such as employee engagement tools, Industry 4.0, big data analytics, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) – into company processes.

And while we all know that production machinery and tech makes up a huge part of your company processes, it’s important to see the wider picture, too. DX can actually have a significant impact on the behind the scenes operations of your business, including how you communicate and engage with employees, distribute knowledge and connect teams, recruit new talent, and even support the wider community.

By undergoing DX in all areas of your business and integrating stronger digital employee experience strategies for your workforce, you can in fact unlock a range of surprising benefits for your organization.

Main goals of manufacturing digital transformation

"It's not possible to pick just a short list of technologies and declare them to be the next big thing. Any innovation project is always a combination of different technologies and thoroughly designed processes aiming to achieve business goals."

Max Ivannikov

But what are some of the main goals that manufacturers are focusing on for their digital transformation initiatives? As this industry whitepaper discusses, the main goals of manufacturing digital transformation can be segregated into four broader areas:

• Cost reduction: Leveraging digital technologies to reduce costs in areas such as supply chain management, employee performance, production planning and inventory control.
• Competitive advantage: Utilizing digital technologies to gain a competitive edge in the market, such as through improved customer/employee experience, product customization and data-driven decision making.
• Agility: Increasing flexibility and adaptability in the face of changing market demands, such as through improved supply chain visibility, predictive maintenance and agile business processes.
• New business models: This could include refreshing manufacturing processes, investing in digital technology to improve processes company-wide, and otherwise finding new revenue streams through digital transformation initiatives.

Common roadblocks to DX in manufacturing

Some common challenges organizations see when undertaking DX in manufacturing include:

• Competitive market: In a highly competitive market, your current digital capabilities and processes may not be enough to stay ahead. And with the swift upturn in DX investments in the market, it can be difficult to keep up with competitors who are already rapidly integrating new digital technologies. While you might feel on the back foot, it's important to remember that digital transformation is a long-term investment, and there are always opportunities for growth and sustainable improvement.
• Distributed workforce: It can be difficult to know where to begin with digital transformation, especially for manufacturers who have a distributed workforce and may not have a clear understanding of the specific needs and pain points of their frontline employees. This can make implementing new processes, rolling out communications and combating employee attrition particularly challenging. We'll dive deeper into how to enable DX by empowering your frontline workers later in this post.
• Costs and fees: Adopting new digital technologies and processes can be a costly investment, and there may also be additional fees for training and implementing these changes company-wide. It's important to conduct thorough ROI analysis and carefully weigh the potential long-term benefits against the initial costs.
• Resistance to change: Change can be difficult, especially for employees who have been working in a certain way for many years. This is why it's important to have clear communication and a strong employee engagement system in place to help employees transition and adapt to the new digital technologies and processes.

  Enabling DX by empowering the frontline

As we mentioned, a distributed workforce and lack of visibility into the specific pain points and needs on the frontline can make DX a challenge for manufacturing organizations. But by focusing on empowering your frontline workers, you can not only improve their experience and enable better communication, but also gather valuable insights to inform your digital transformation efforts.

One way to do this is through a mobile-first approach, providing frontline employees with devices and applications that allow them to easily access the information and communication they need, wherever they are on the factory floor. This not only improves productivity, but also allows for better data collection and analysis to inform DX initiatives.

Another key aspect is giving your frontline employees a voice in the digital transformation process, through tactics like regular check-ins and surveys, as well as dedicated onboarding and training programs. By actively seeking their input and understanding their specific needs, they will feel more engaged and empowered in the DX journey.

Frontline specific tech like Blink's employee app allows for better communication, feedback and overall engagement with your frontline workers. This helps to address common DX challenges such as unclear frontline needs and resistance to change, while also improving productivity and efficiency on the manufacturing floor.

With real-time employee engagement analytics, manufacturers can also track the impact, employee satisfaction and ROI of their digital transformation initiatives, supporting cost reduction efforts and decision making.

 One great example to illustrate this is our work with JFE. When Canadian manufacturing company JFE approached us, their frontline workforce was disconnected due to outdated technology and communications, and they were facing large shortages in the labor market.

We overhauled their current technology and communications processes with a real-time communication solution by offering channels to funnel information, the ability to communicate with their operating teams through chats and a central hub to give employees access to company information in one place. 

As a result, JFE was able to improve their recruitment processes, employee engagement, satisfaction and, crucially, its workers’ safety. With our help, they took the company from 300 to over 450 employees, and were able to promote initiatives in both recruiting and retaining staff to make them a more attractive employer to staff and new recruits.

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Interested in seeing how Blink's employee app can support your manufacturing digital transformation efforts? Schedule a free demo today.

6 unforeseen benefits of DX in manufacturing

So, you already know the production benefits of implementing DX in your business, but what about the benefits of DX solutions for the back of house? Here are 6 key benefits of DX in manufacturing that you just might have overlooked in the past.

1. Reduce staff turnover & recruit the right talent

More than 90% of manufacturing leaders believe that DX is important for their success, IDC states. They go on to predict that global DX spend among companies in discrete or process manufacturing industries will total more than $816 billion in 2025.

Hiring and retaining the right people in a competitive market can be a challenge for manufacturers, but DX can help. And with the IDC statistics above, it's more important than ever for manufacturers to keep up with digital transformation efforts in order to stay competitive in the recruitment market and attract top talent.

Adopting new technologies can make a company more attractive to potential employees and improve employee satisfaction and retention. It allows you to modernize, stay competitive and attract the right employees even when competitors are vying for the same pool of skilled workers with high DX spend.

In addition, frontline-specific tech can boost your employer value proposition as a manufacturer. You listen to how the frontline thinks and feels, allowing you to build trust with the entire workforce and reduce churn.

2. Improve worker health & safety

According to the Workplace Safety Index 2020, workplace injuries are a key driver of loss for U.S. businesses, costing more than $1 billion per week and $59 billion annually.

As we mentioned before, the rise of Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing industry has seen various manufacturers investing in new digital technologies to automate, modernize and enhance the entire process.

And with losses like these reported in the WSI, the key aspect of this modernization in the manufacturing industry is safety. By improving traditional manufacturing processes, boosting direct communication and implementing predictive maintenance, manufacturers can improve worker health and safety at the workplace.

With a frontline app like Blink, manufacturers can also gather direct employee feedback on safety concerns and act on them quickly, as well as offer training materials, policies, procedures and updates to ensure a safe work environment. 

Additionally, with research showing that engaged workers are more aware of their surroundings and best practices around safety and are more likely to take steps to protect their co-workers, by investing in and driving employee engagement throughout your company, you can improve worker health and safety as a whole.

By promoting a culture where employees feel comfortable to speak up about concerns or risks, actively participate in risk management and adhere to policies and procedures, manufacturers can see a decrease in injury rates and overall improvement in the health and safety of their workforce.

3. Increase your bottom line

The latest data suggests that digital transformation investment for manufacturing companies increases business value. Gartner reports that 36% of manufacturing enterprises realize above-average business value from IT spending in digitalization at a reasonable cost when compared with peers.

Opportunities for driving profit and increasing your bottom line don’t only come from your production line. Keeping the wider picture of DX in mind, you can utilize digital tools to drive business value through improving your run-the-business functions (like finance or human resources)

DX in an organization’s HR function, in particular, have shown increased employee engagement and statistics show that highly engaged organizations benefit from:

• 18% higher sales
• 23% difference in profitability
• 43% difference in turnover.

With employee engagement tools that provide streamlined workflows, real-time frontline communication and intelligence, seamless scheduling and product updates in addition to new production tech like IoT and augmented reality, manufacturers can cut down on extra expenses and improve the overall efficiency of all their operations.

This ultimately drives up profits and revenue and increases business value, with your teams performing at their best by using the latest and greatest technology solutions.

4. Boost Employee Engagement

The digital transformation process can also boost employee engagement. Adopting new, modern technologies can make employees feel more valued and appreciated, improving job satisfaction and retention rates.

Currently, Gallup data notes that industrial manufacturers haven't quite caught up to other industries in terms of adopting digital tools to improve employee engagement, with only 25% of manufacturing employees stating they felt engaged at work.

DX offers new ways for frontline employees to communicate with each other and leadership, improving transparency and overall communication in the workplace – a key component of employee engagement.

With frontline-specific tech designed to engage employees like manufacturers, you can gather key employee feedback and act on it to improve processes and enhance overall employee engagement. 

Further, according to the Chron, employee satisfaction is a reliable predictor of employee retention, meaning you can reduce churn and cut recruitment costs at the same time by improving the engagement your employees have with their digital tools.

Simplified, improved communications and streamlined, intuitive workflows means DX can enhance employee satisfaction levels for frontline workers, in turn, boosting their levels of engagement with their new tech and your employee retention rates.

And with the distinct improvement in profitability, sales and turnover that engaged teams provide as we highlighted above, it’s clear that investing in employee engagement initiatives is worth it from an ROI perspective.

5. Improve employee productivity 

It’s obvious how traditional digital transformation solutions help improve quality on the production line. But did you know that implementing DX to improve your employees’ engagement can also lead to huge productivity boosts? 

In the manufacturing sector, DX is not only about staying competitive or cutting costs – it's also about supporting your current employees; finding innovative ways to drive their motivation and productivity for a better overall business performance.

TechNative tells us that businesses must embrace innovative digital tools to make the employee experience seamless and personalized, creating a stronger emotional connection to the day-to-day experience of work.

Adopting new digital solutions, like frontline intelligence, predictive analytics and real-time communication solutions, allows you to foster connection with your frontline employees and act on their feedback to streamline day-to-day tasks. As such, your employees will feel better supported to be productive and efficient in their roles, and can produce their best work.

These employee technologies also offer product updates that keep everyone aligned with company goals, as well as streamlined workflows and schedules, reducing miscommunications and errors and allowing for maximum productivity.

So, not only does investing in digital transformation for your frontline workforce improve their overall job satisfaction, it also leads to a significant increase in motivation, productivity and output. It’s a win-win!

6. Build a positive brand reputation

In today’s day and age, it’s no secret that a company’s reputation is everything. In fact, the World Economic Forum has stated that a company's reputation can account for a quarter of its market value. Additionally, 87% of executives believe that reputational risks are more pressing than any other strategic risks.

As the digital transformation movement continues to evolve, your reputation as a manufacturing leader hinges on how well you adopt and use technology for success. Investing in new digital solutions for your frontline workforce is not only beneficial for your employees and your bottom line, but also for building a positive brand reputation.

By boosting employee engagement, satisfaction and productivity with technology, you’re not only improving the experience for those within your company, but also for your potential new hires and even your customers. With employees better equipped to provide top-notch service and meet customer demands efficiently, you can create a more positive customer experience and, ultimately, attract new business.

On top of that, adopting digital solutions for your frontline workforce also demonstrates your commitment to innovation and staying ahead of the competition in the manufacturing industry. It shows potential employees, investors, partners and customers that you’re dedicated to improving processes and creating a successful future for your company.

4 DX in manufacturing tips

Create a DX roadmap

According to LTI’s whitepaper: 

"Business leaders must move away from industry stereotypes, understand technologies, and help firms ride this wave with a competitive advantage by developing a successful transformation roadmap."

A DX roadmap, or digital transformation roadmap, is a plan that outlines the specific steps and timeframes for the adoption of new technologies to achieve your DX goals. This roadmap may be long and contain a number of different steps, but this allows you to stagger your digital transformation initiatives over time, prioritizing the areas that align with your current goals and business requirements.

To create your DX roadmap, you first need to understand the current state of your business. Your KPIs from above will come in handy here. Without knowing your starting point, it is impossible to map out a clear path to your goals. Therefore, knowing where you currently are is essential. 

Your DX roadmap should outline key objectives, success metrics, technology investments, roles and responsibilities, and timelines. Begin implementing new technologies, methods, and processes one step at a time, starting with those that will have the biggest impact on your desired goals. And don’t forget to measure and evaluate your progress regularly to ensure you stay on track.

Remember the bigger picture 

Remember, digital transformation is a long-term investment, with long-term value. Digital transformation is changing the way people do business. 

Great digital leaders sift through the latest technologies to identify which ones will have the biggest impact on their business, and then prioritize those implementations. Keep in mind that digital transformation is not just about adopting new technology, but also about changing processes and culture for maximum efficiency and success. 

And even with the relevant new technologies and industry trends to guide your digital transformation, you want to be uniquely positioned from your competitors. So, it's vital that you consider the wider market picture and how your DX transformation fits into it.

Consider your USPs. Can you provide a swift turnaround time based on your unique manufacturing technologies or streamlined business processes? Do you provide a second-to-none customer service journey because your customer-facing employees are always in direct contact with your frontline? You want these to be considered when mapping out your DX journey.

Set, monitor and measure your core transformation goals 

To undergo digital transformation in any industry, you need to know your transformation goals. According to Asana, the best way to understand if your digital transformation strategy worked is by monitoring your business success metrics.

For the manufacturing industry, these success metrics might include employee engagement rates, retention of clients or employees, a reduction in accidents and errors, increased efficiency in production, and sustainable business growth.

Make sure to align these goals with your business key performance indicators (KPIs), as this will ensure that the entire company is on the same page about what constitutes success for the digital transformation. Plus, it's important to regularly track and measure your progress towards these goals, adjusting as needed.

To do this, look for DX solutions that allow you to access Frontline Intelligence, providing you with key metrics, analytics and insights into your employee engagement, satisfaction and even retention rates. With handy tools like this included in your DX roadmap, you are set up for success in achieving your core transformation goals.

Communicate well and often 

As Mckinsey recommends for those undergoing digital transformation in the manufacturing industry:

“Communicate well and often. Establish an effective engagement plan and regular communication with critical senior stakeholders, site leaders, and a cross-functional core team.”

In short, communication is crucial for the success of your digital transformation. Keep all stakeholders, from top executives to frontline employees, in the loop about your DX roadmap and progress towards goals. This will ensure that everyone knows their role in the transformation and can work together towards success.

And don't forget to communicate with your employees! Driving employee engagement and buy-in for the digital transformation is crucial. They will be the ones driving and implementing these changes, so it's important that they understand the benefits and their role in making them happen.

Effective communication can also help with any potential resistance to change from employees. By keeping them informed and involved with easy-to-use, two-way conversations, you can work towards getting them on board with the transformation.

Accelerate your digital transformation today…

It's clear that leaders in the sector must prioritize DX efforts to ensure they're keeping up with competitors and improving overall satisfaction among their workforce. 

From minimizing the time spent switching between apps and logins, to sending real-time communications and vital updates, DX allows manufacturers to improve the employee experience in a modern, digital way, and boost their bottom line in the process.

Engineer a better employee experience for your manufacturing workforce today with our frontline employee engagement app. 

Designed specifically for industries like the manufacturing industry where workforces don’t have 24/7 access to a computer, or even a company email account, our platform is here to transform how you do business. Our app rethinks outdated frontline tech and offers a modern, digital solution for your frontline employee engagement.

Request a free demo today to see how Blink can transform your manufacturing business.

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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

Thanks to our awesome customers leaving stellar reviews on our G2 profile, we are excited to announce we have gained 5 new G2 Trust Badges for being high performers in various categories, including “Enterprise Employee Communications.”

‍What is G2 and why does it matter?

G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 90 million people annually — including employees at all Fortune 500 companies — use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. 

That means when companies like Blink improve their rankings and earn G2 Trust Badges, it’s because users are actually taking the time to share their experiences with the products. 

‍Blink’s new G2 trust badges for spring 2024

Blink’s CEO Sean Nolan shared his thoughts on the recognition, saying, “For years, frontline communications, and frontline digital enablement more broadly, has challenged companies regardless of industry or location. To see that Blink is helping our customers stay connected in a meaningful way and helping frontline workers thrive like never before, is the best validation of the product and culture we’ve built here. For our product and support to be recognized as high performers and leaders in multiple G2 reports is a testament to the excellence of the entire Blink organization.” 

Our product is featured in several Grid categories on G2. G2’s Grid Reports have four categories, with the best being Leader, followed by High Performer, Contenders, and Niche. Here’s a quick synopsis of four of those categories Blink is featured in, how the category is scored, and how Blink fared.

Employee Communications

New G2 trust badges: 

• Leader in Employee Communications Platforms Overall
• High Performer in Enterprise Employee Communications

Notable movement: 

• Increased by 29 in the Mid-Market Grid® Report for Employee Communications in Spring 2024
• Increased by 25 in the Relationship Index for Employee Communications in Spring 2024
• Now included in the Enterprise Implementation Index for Employee Communications in Spring 2024

Employee Communications is a critical function for any organization, but it becomes more difficult (and important) to get right as organizations grow their workforce. Keeping employees engaged and informed is no small feat in fast-paced office environments or along the frontlines. Features like Blink’s News Feed help teams deliver internal, top-down communications, while comments, group messages, and surveys help Blink users foster a workplace based on two-way feedback and collaboration. 

To be named a Leader in Employee Communications Platforms Overall, Blink needed a minimum number of reviews as well as a high customer Satisfaction score and a large Market Presence compared to the rest of the category. 

To be named a High Performer in Enterprise Employee Communications, Blink needed a minimum number of reviews, as well as a high customer Satisfaction scores and a low Market Presence compared to the rest of the category. 

According to G2, products included in the Employee Communications category must be able to: 

• Create internal content campaigns
• Personalize distribution of communication
• Segment company into designated groups
• Allow employees to subscribe to topics or content of interest
• Analyze performance of content shared within the application

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Frontline Worker Communications

New G2 trust badges: 

• Leader in Frontline Worker Communications Platforms Overall
• Easiest to Use in Mid-Market Frontline Worker Communications Platforms 

Notable movement: 

• Now included in Enterprise Grid® Report for Enterprise Frontline Worker Communications Platforms

Frontline Worker Communications is a unique challenge for each organization trying to improve frontline productivity and collaboration. Depending on the locations, work environments, geographical dispersion, and the needs of the workforce, staying connected to frontline workers requires a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use solution. Simply giving frontline workers access to the same apps and platforms as their office colleagues won’t work—they need access to be seamless, communication to be effortless, information to be readily available, and all in one tool, ideally. 

With Blink, a robust suite of built-in features delivers a complete frontline communications solution. Organizations love Secure Chat, which helps workers have one-on-one or group discussions with managers and colleagues, and the Content Hub, which gives workers a convenient place for all their important policies and documents. On top of that, the deep integrations with HRIS, payroll, and IT tools paired with single sign-on access to those tools makes it easier than ever to keep frontline workers engaged and informed. 

To be named a Leader in Frontline Worker Communications Platforms Overall, Blink needed a minimum number of reviews as well as a high customer Satisfaction score and a large Market Presence compared to the rest of the category. 

According to G2, products included in the Frontline Worker Communications category must be able to: 

• Provide real-time messaging capabilities, allowing frontline workers to communicate quickly and efficiently with their colleagues and supervisors
• Provide the ability to broadcast announcements and updates, such as policy changes or emergency alerts, to specific individuals, groups, or the entire workforce
• Enable the sharing of documents, manuals, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and other resources
• Provide survey and feedback tools to gather insights from employees
• Have a specific and designated use case for frontline and deskless workers

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Employee Engagement

New G2 trust badges: Leader in Employee Engagement Platform Overall

Notable movement: Increased by 12 in the Enterprise Relationship Index for Employee Engagement

Employee Engagement is a vital metric for organizations whether the workforce is based in an office or is on the frontlines. By striving to keep employees engaged, organizations can help increase productivity, lower turnover rates, and boost profitability. HR teams often take on the role of employee engagement, working diligently to solicit feedback, keep an eye on employee sentiment, and promote a positive workplace through constant worker recognition. 

With Blink, HR teams have greater access to the frontline worker— a group that is notoriously difficult to gauge and suffers from high rates of turnover typically. With built-in Surveys, keeping tabs on the sentiment of mobile workforces is easier than ever. Creating a culture of appreciation and bringing visibility to the achievements of frontline workers is easy with Recognition in Blink, which allows HR teams to send Kudos that mark anything worth celebrating in the Feed in seconds. 

To be named a Leader in Employee Engagement Platforms Overall, Blink needed a minimum number of reviews as well as a high customer Satisfaction score and a large Market Presence compared to the rest of the category. 

According to G2, products included in the Employee Engagement category must be able to: 

• Enable users to conduct employee pulse surveys to gauge employee satisfaction
• Allow users to design and distribute custom pulse surveys
• Organize and maintain data collected from pulse surveys for reporting purposes
• Promote employee recognition through internal communication channels

Employee Intranet

New G2 Ttrust badges: High Performer in Employee Intranet Platform Overall

Notable movement: Increased by 10 in the Mid-Market Implementation Index for Employee Intranet in Spring 2024

Employee Intranets have been around for decades, but as companies strive to keep employees everywhere—including frontline workers—informed and engaged, many require modern, mobile-friendly versions. For a long time, frontline organizations were shut out from the intranet because they worked outside the company network or lacked a company email that provided access to it.

With Blink’s take on the modern intranet, companies can deliver a mobile-first experience that includes access to the content and collaboration tools once only available to their office-based colleagues. Furthermore, companies can personalize the experience based on the individual, the role, or location, to ensure that frontline workers remain focused and enabled with the information they need to succeed. 

To be named a High Performer in Employee Intranet Platform Overall, Blink needed a minimum number of reviews, as well as a high customer Satisfaction scores and a low Market Presence compared to the rest of the category. 

According to G2, products included in the Employee Intranet category must be able to: 

• Provide access to, or the ability to create, an online portal with predefined access
• Allow for collaboration, communication, and file sharing within defined groups
• Be customizable

See what Blink customers had to say 

Don’t just take our word (and G2’s) for it. Here are some of the recent user reviews that contributed to our rankings this spring. 

“The best Employee Engagement App there is!”

Reviewer: Alex P., 

Company Size: Enterprise (>1000 employees)

Review Date: March 20, 2024

Rating: 5 ⭐

“Blink is a really colorful and engaging app that brings all colleagues in every business together. Supported with world-class hyper care by the team (thanks Elly and Maggie), I have been really impressed with the better functionality it provides over alternative platforms such as Yammer. The team are constantly developing the app as well which makes it future proof. There isn't a better engagement app for businesses.”

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“Great platform”

Reviewer: Sarah B.

Company Size: Mid-Market (51-1000 employees)

Review Date: March 12, 2024

Rating: 4.5 ⭐

“Blink has been a fantastic solution to our work 'intranet' needs. As it's like a social media platform, it has familiarity with our staff that makes it simple to use. It's easy to navigate and the hub section is really useful. Its great that it can also be broken down into teams so that the feed doesn't become too overwhelming.”

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“Blink is an industry game changer for home care integration for team members.”

Reviewer: Jaime W.

Company Size: Enterprise (>1000 employees)

Review Date: February 19, 2024

Rating: 5 ⭐

“Blink links a workforce together and provides a one stop shop that team members can access to complete their work day. The platform provides not only an outlet for communication and for team member camaraderie but also as a workplace hub. Blink is ultra responsive to feedback and uses suggestions to add enhancement and features to the platform. We would be lost without Blink!”

Want to read more reviews of Blink or leave your own? Visit our G2 page today to learn more about what real customers think about our product. 

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Blink customers love the direction of the product

One of the standout results from our G2 reviews is the fact that users are excited about the direction we’re taking the product. We’re constantly improving our product and innovating in new ways to improve the experience for frontline workers, managers, HR teams, Comms teams, and IT teams.

Here’s a few Blink features our users love that you may have missed! 

Blink Assist

The power of GenAI is in the palm of your hands and in your Blink Feed. 

Blink Assist allows users to leverage the power of AI to improve or write posts, helping improve communications style and making translating messages to connect with a diverse workforce easier than ever. 

Blink Assist can help with a post you’ve already written by improving the tone or refining the language. If you’re not sure how to say it, you can have Blink Assist write your post for you based on a prompt you provide. Furthermore, Blink Assist can summarize other posts in the feed, giving you an easy way to highlight items or create a daily digest.

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Mandatory Reads

Mandatory Reads give Administrators the ability to create or mark Pages in the Hub that require attention and action from users—no more manually getting colleagues to sign documents to acknowledge that they have read them.

Mandatory Reads give Administrators the ability to distribute updated policies, documents, and training to teams, and receive an acknowledgment that each individual has read the compulsory information.

If individuals have not acknowledged the Mandatory Read, Administrators will be able to find out who hasn't read the information, follow up with reminders, and/or contact individuals directly through the Analytics function.

Learn more about Blink

Is your company struggling to stay connected to frontline workers? Does employee turnover cause you to toss and turn at night? Getting cold feet thinking about employee engagement?

The Blink employee super app is here to solve your biggest frontline workforce challenges. Blink’s mobile-first app was designed for frontline workers to use on the go. No desk, no email, no problem: everything employees need—from a modern intranet and a social media-like Feed for updates to secure chat and single sign-on access to critical HR and IT tools—is all right there within the Blink app. 

Simplify frontline communications and engagement with Blink. Get a demo today and in a few short weeks you could be up and running with Blink to revolutionize the frontline experience at your company. 

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Employee experience (EX) is still top of the agenda in 2025.

84% of businesses see EX as a competitive differentiator — a way to attract top talent and keep them working for your organization long into the future.

But that doesn’t mean all these organizations are getting it right. Crafting an employee experience that engages workers — and has them singing your company’s praises on workplace comparison sites — is no mean feat.

It requires a consistent approach that carries through all departments and across every employee touchpoint. And it requires a deep understanding of worker needs and expectations.

To achieve all this, a solid employee experience strategy is invaluable. This plan will guide your EX initiatives, the workplace tech you use, the company culture you strive to create, and the metrics you use to assess employee experience success.

Here, we take a look at all the ways an employee experience plan benefits your business and outline the steps you need to take to create one.

What is employee experience?

Employee experience is how employees think and feel about their workplace. 

It encompasses every touchpoint and interaction throughout the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, onboarding, workplace relationships, development opportunities, and the technology you expect workers to use.

Employee experience managers are responsible for shaping EX, creating the kind of company culture and workplace environment that employees enjoy spending time in.

Why every org needs an employee experience strategy

Happy employees are good for business. High levels of employee satisfaction lead to improved talent acquisition, productivity, employee engagement, and staff retention.

The benefits of EX are clear. But many businesses are failing to deliver the kind of employee experience that inspires worker motivation and loyalty.

55% of all workers feel dissatisfied with their overall employee experience and this figure rises to 61% for Gen Z employees.

Why are these figures so high? You may have noticed that the modern workforce has pretty high expectations. Employees expect way more from their place of work than they did a few generations ago.

There are a couple of factors at play. First, we’re accustomed to personalized digital experiences at home — algorithms that know what we want before we do. And we expect the same quality and usability from the tech we use at work. 

Second, the baseline for what makes a good workplace has risen. Mental health support, flexibility, and a sense of belonging aren’t perks anymore — they’re must-haves. 

And finally, people are thinking bigger. A job isn’t just a paycheck. Employees are seeking growth, transparency, fairness, and purpose — and are willing to switch jobs to find a workplace that provides them.

Meeting these expectations is tough for any company. And — without a clear employee experience strategy — it gets even tougher.

With a solid employee experience strategy, however, you connect the dots between what your people need and what your business wants to achieve. You create the kind of workplace where people bring their A-game — where employees are engaged, productive, and with you for the long haul.

12 steps for building your employee experience strategy

Stellar employee experience management relies on a clearly defined strategy. Here’s how to get there.

1. Establish your why

Before jumping into tactics, pause and consider what you’re trying to achieve with your employee experience strategy. You need to understand the business case for improving EX. This will help guide your EX efforts — and get stakeholder buy-in.

Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourself to get the ball rolling:

• What pain points do our employees currently experience?
• How does this link to business outcomes, like retention, productivity, customer service, and engagement?
• What kind of company culture do we want to build — and how does this align with our values?

2. Map the employee journey

From day one to exit, every touchpoint matters. Working out each point in the employee lifecycle can help you uncover areas for EX improvement.

You should look at:

• Recruitment
• Pre-boarding and onboarding
• Career development and growth opportunities
• Engagement
• Retention
• Offboarding

Then, across these employee journey stages, figure out what the employee experience looks like. 

Consider employee priorities like recognition and feedback, work-life balance, and any bottlenecks in their daily workflows.

Examine the cultural environment. Things like leadership style, the quality of co-worker connections, and the effectiveness of your internal communication channels.

Also, audit the physical environment, assessing how safe and comfortable employees are when they’re at work. Ergonomic desks and chairs are a given for your office-based staff. But consider the needs of frontline employees and those who work at home, too.

With a clear understanding of the employee journey and the factors that impact EX, you can (at step 4) craft staff survey questions that cover all elements of the employee experience. But first, there’s another key area of EX to get a handle on.

3. Assess your tech-sperience

Tech tools are now a fundamental part of every work day. So the digital employee experience forms an increasingly integral part of EX.

Remember that employees get streamlined, personalized experiences on the software they use at home. So — whether you like it or not — your workplace tech is going to be compared to the very best consumer-grade tools. 

Clunky or outdated tech tools create frustration. They harm productivity and employee motivation.

Even the most cutting-edge tools can cause problems if they aren’t implemented with the proper focus on EX. Use too many different tech tools and employees can easily feel overwhelmed. They constantly have to recall login details and toggle between tabs.

So when crafting your employee experience strategy, assess your tech stack — and its impact on employees. Find out where technology is supporting a positive employee experience and where it’s creating friction.

Also, consider tech needs on a team-by-team basis, paying special attention to frontline employees. Without easy access to a desktop computer or a company email address, frontline workers often find workplace tools difficult or impossible to use, which harms the frontline experience.

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4. Ask employees what they want

Every workplace is different. And while you’ll find plenty of articles listing the workplace attributes that employees value most, these can only ever act as a rough guide.

To make a success of your employee experience strategy, you need to understand your workforce and what motivates them. Then, treat them as co-creators of your EX strategy.

That starts by gathering employee feedback. Send out surveys and polls. Launch a listening tour. Find out what employees think of EX at your organization and what would improve it. Work to discover pain points, needs, and expectations.

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This shouldn’t be a one-off event. You should aim to build employee listening and employee voice into company culture. Create two-way communication channels and foster open communication across all levels of your organization. Acknowledge feedback and tell employees what action you plan to take.

By doing so, you encourage engagement with the feedback process and prompt honest responses from employees. You also keep your finger on the pulse, which — faced with ever-evolving employee experience trends — helps you stay ahead of EX issues.

5. Dive into the data

You’ve got feedback. Now what? It’s time to analyze the data you’ve gathered from employees, looking for EX patterns, pain points, and opportunities.

Celebrate the areas where you’re doing a good job. And hone in on areas where EX could be improved.

Use the analytics tools you have access to and combine qualitative feedback with quantitative data on retention, absenteeism, and employee engagement to get a big picture perspective. 

6. Get to know EX across the organization

Segment your data and you can also find out what employee experience looks like for different sectors of your workforce.

Perhaps your office-based team is satisfied with the quality of internal communications they receive. But your frontline team has to make do with a patchwork of paper memos and word-of-mouth messages. 

It could be that Millennials are loving the option to work from their comfortable home offices. But Gen Z employees, still living in shared housing, are struggling to find a quiet and productive place to work.

Maybe one department experiences higher than average levels of turnover and lower than average instances of employee recognition. 

Only by digging deep into the data can you understand how EX at your organization looks for every member of your workforce — and start to see the patterns that will inform your plan of action. 

7. Set goals

You’re at the point where you’ve done all your EX research. Time to put down on paper what you hope to achieve with your employee experience strategy. 

Create targets that are measurable, time-bound, and based on the EX issues you uncovered during the research phase. 

Some examples include:

• Increase career development opportunities for employees
• Establish better two-way communication channels between employees and managers
• Boost news feed comments and reactions by X%
• Increase survey response rates

8. Build your plan

Keeping your goals in mind, lay out the actions that will help you achieve them.

For example, if you want to improve career development opportunities, you could launch a new mentoring program.

Or if you wanted to increase your survey response rate, you could look at ways to close the feedback loop, ensuring that employees feel their feedback is listened to and acted on.

You may like to overhaul employee pay and benefits, well-being support, or workplace recognition. You may want to focus on improving the frontline employee experience with better comms and flexible working opportunities.

9. Find the right EX tech

This is a great time to consider the employee experience tech tools that will support your employee experience strategy. The best employee experience platforms can improve EX with the help of:

• Internal communication tools — channels that support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer conversations and an engaging company news feed
• Recognition tools — that help you create a culture of appreciation

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• Integrated software — integrations with the other workplace software you use to create a streamlined digital experience
• Automated employee journey tools — features that make it easy for you to deliver the right content to employees at exactly the right time in their employee journey
• HR self-service tools — tools that allow employees to swap shifts, request leave, or view their pay stubs right from their user-friendly dashboard
• Surveys and analytics — employee survey and analytics tools that help your team keep up-to-date with employee satisfaction and EX
• Personalized employee experiences — tools that go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to provide tailored comms, dashboards, and journeys relevant to each individual employee

10. Communicate and roll out

To make a success of your employee experience strategy, you need all hands on deck. Employees should get a consistent experience across the whole lifecycle and that relies on lots of different departments working together.  

Get everyone on the same page — including employees — by communicating your EX vision clearly and transparently. Lay out your objectives and the positive outcome you expect. Tell them what will change and why.

If you’re rolling out new employee experience software, think carefully about how you’ll get your workforce to embrace it. Start by picking user-friendly, mobile-first tools that every employee can use. Then, use a marketing campaign, incentives, gamification, and platform ambassadors to encourage employees to log in.  

11. Measure and evaluate

Is your employee experience strategy having the desired effect? As well as looking at the specific EX goals you set earlier in the process, measure your success in terms of overarching business goals too.

These include employee satisfaction metrics like:

• Employee net promoter score
• Absenteeism rate
• Turnover rate

You can also look at KPIs relating to talent acquisition, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity.

Measure employee experience and you stay ahead of any EX problems that might arise. You see where your EX strategy is bearing fruit — and where you still need to make improvements.

12. Iterate and improve

Improving employee experience isn’t a one-and-done situation. Creating and honing the perfect employee experience strategy is an ongoing task.

Use insights gained from employee surveys and analytics to keep pace with evolving employee expectations. Review your goals. Find new ways to enhance employee experience and keep staff loyal to your organization.

By treating EX as a continuous process, you’re more likely to create a strong culture, happy employees, and the business results you’re looking for.

Using your employee experience strategy to build a better workplace

A strong employee experience strategy can transform your workplace. It impacts company culture and internal communications. It boosts productivity and staff loyalty. And it can put a spring in the step of employees as they turn up to work each day.

And with 52% of employees saying they’re watching for or actively seeking a new job, employee experience strategy isn’t something you can afford to neglect. 

The occasional free lunch or mental health day won’t cut it at a time when employees demand more than ever from their places of work — and are prepared to vote with their feet if their expectations aren’t met. 

To ensure EX success, you need to consider the experience of every employee. The priorities of your retail staff, for example, are probably very different from those of your office-based team. Then, you need to create personalized experiences that make employees feel seen and valued.

An employee experience platform like Blink can make a huge difference to your employee experience strategy and its success.

With tools that automate elements of the employee journey, improve communication, streamline workflows, and include every employee in the workplace community, it becomes much easier to deliver the kind of employee experience your workforce expects.

Blink. And make employee experience your competitive advantage.

Blink, the leading employee super-app, today announced a strategic partnership with LineZero, a leading provider of workplace community and culture solutions, and the largest Meta Workplace partner globally. This collaboration leverages the existing relationship between both companies, offering Meta Workplace customers a seamless transition and upgrade to Blink’s employee experience platform following Meta’s announcement to close its Workplace operations.

Meta’s decision to close operations of Meta Workplace by Q3 2025 has left many companies challenged in finding a modern solution that enables a smooth transition of their workforce and data while offering a more innovative approach to deepen employee engagement and strengthen ties between employees and their companies.

“Our goal is to support the thousands of Meta Workplace customers seeking new solutions to drive employee engagement through a great internal comms tool,” said Sloan Kendall, head of global partnerships, Blink. “Partnering with LineZero provides customers with an easy migration of workforce data and technology applications into Blink’s platform. With LineZero’s expertise and Blink’s proven track record, we are excited to empower companies to migrate smoothly from Workplace and upgrade to Blink to enhance their employee engagement experience.”

Blink is a mobile-first, all-in-one communication and collaboration platform designed specifically for frontline workers. It allows companies to connect their entire workforce, regardless of location or device, through a single unified platform. With Blink, employees can stay updated with company news, chat with colleagues, access essential tools, send personalized kudos, complete surveys, and much more. Blink boasts industry-leading adoption rates, reaching up to 95% of employees and decreasing employee turnover by 26% in some cases.

“Blink’s platform is an ideal Workplace replacement for customers looking to modernize the way they engage their people,” said Greg Sugar, president, LineZero. “While organizations valued the similarity between Workplace and Facebook, we often heard there was a need to engage workforces with a tool that better represents how they interact with technology today. Blink approaches the frontline with an employee experience that meets them where they are. We are so excited to help organizations smoothly transition from Workplace to Blink’s platform. This partnership reflects our shared commitment to creating better employee experiences and shaping the future of work.”

The partnership highlights both companies’ commitment to enhancing employee engagement and creating a positive work environment. The collaboration ensures that Meta Workplace customers can migrate easily to Blink’s platform that enhances their engagement strategies and aligns with their long-term goals.

For more details on working with LineZero and Blink for a migration or implementation, visit LineZero’s blog.

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