Searching high and low for the perfect employee to fill a complicated role can be difficult. It stresses you out if you’re already short-staffed and in a rush to get more hands as quickly as possible.
Of course, it would be preferable not to worry about hiring at all. Retaining employees you already have can be a lot simpler than constantly hiring. And it can benefit your business too.
While you’re probably familiar with some of the benefits of employee retention, there are several hidden advantages of employee retention that you may not have considered.
If you’re ready to get motivated to kick your retention efforts into high gear and retain your top talent, keep reading and learn some of the lesser-known benefits of staff retention.
Why employee retention is important
Employee retention is important because it can improve the productivity of an organization.
Organizations with high employee retention profit from increased employee engagement, higher employee morale, more experienced employees, and lower employee turnover costs.
That’s why 91% of Human Resources leaders are concerned about employee turnover in the near future.
Besides the revenue, companies with a lower turnover rate can spend time on their employees, build a cohesive company culture, and achieve innovations that outperform their high-churn counterparts.
Employee retention’s effect extends beyond your annual revenue or quarterly performance reports — it improves each day for your workers, managers, and customers.
In short, it’s hard to overstate the importance of effective employee retention strategies as they can impact just about every aspect of your business, including revenue, service, and company culture.
1. More quality hires
Hiring typically increases when employees leave your company. So it should decrease as your retention goes up.
The hidden benefit of high retention is that you can allocate more resources to the time-consuming job of sourcing new hires. You can be more selective in finding candidates with relevant experience and perfect cultural fit instead of rushing to fill a vacancy.
The candidates you hire this way are more likely to stick around and better fit your organization, which further improves your retention rate.
Ultimately, more employees staying means more business growth and more new positions. You can focus your hiring efforts on adding to the team rather than replacing previous talent.
2. Better employee training
Hiring new employees takes up a significant portion of your company’s HR budget and time. It’s estimated that replacing an employee costs anywhere from 50% to 200% of their annual salary.
Retaining just one extra employee means thousands of dollars saved you can use in other areas.
One often-neglected management area is training, with 78% of workers saying they want more training. By saving on hiring, you can spend on training.
With more time for training, your employees will be happier, more skilled, and even more likely to stay with your organization.
3. Improved customer relationships
Most of your return customers and clients don’t think of your business as a logo or physical store. They think of the person with whom they interacted. Your employees are the face of your business, from frontline workers up to account managers.
Your customers rely on your employee’s knowledge of their needs and history with the company to deliver the highest level of service. So when an employee leaves, the relationships they built with your customer base leave with them.
A PWC report found that 80% of Americans think a knowledgeable staff is the most important element to customer satisfaction, along with speed and convenience. They also pay more for things when they experience a positive customer experience.
The benefits of employee retention reach beyond your current staff and bottom line and impact the customer experience. A high employee retention rate ultimately improves your clients’ and customers’ perception of your business.
4. Faster progress
While onboarding and formal training programs are essential for satisfied, efficient employees, these resources are hardly the only way employees learn on the job.
One of the most valuable sources of guidance and information is your current employees. Studies show that 91% of employees with a workplace mentor are happy with their jobs.
By retaining most of your employees, you get:
Strong relationships between your employees that impact their performance
Employees who possess in-depth knowledge in their fields
Great mentors who have the technical skills and know little-known tricks in the field to help the newcomers
You benefit from the perks of high employee retention: Employees have a wealth of team members to turn to when they have a question or need advice. This turns your newest employees into your best employees.
Also, when turnover is low, you keep the work environment of cultural cohesion and the know-how of experienced employees. This results in less stress and high productivity.
Final thoughts: 4 hidden benefits of employee retention you should know
Why retain employees? The answer is clear.
The benefits of employee retention are wide-reaching for your entire organization. Employees, management, and customers all reap the benefits of employee retention.
Employees benefit from greater satisfaction, higher productivity, and better support on the job. Employers can enjoy greater profit and less uncertainty. And your customers can rely on consistently high-quality and personalized customer service.
These benefits are well worth the expense of managing incentives like healthcare, training, and work-life balance.
If you’re ready to improve your employee retention, an all-in-one employee communication tool like Blink can maximize your organization’s initiatives.
Searching high and low for the perfect employee to fill a complicated role can be difficult. It stresses you out if you’re already short-staffed and in a rush to get more hands as quickly as possible.
Of course, it would be preferable not to worry about hiring at all. Retaining employees you already have can be a lot simpler than constantly hiring. And it can benefit your business too.
While you’re probably familiar with some of the benefits of employee retention, there are several hidden advantages of employee retention that you may not have considered.
If you’re ready to get motivated to kick your retention efforts into high gear and retain your top talent, keep reading and learn some of the lesser-known benefits of staff retention.
Why employee retention is important
Employee retention is important because it can improve the productivity of an organization.
Organizations with high employee retention profit from increased employee engagement, higher employee morale, more experienced employees, and lower employee turnover costs.
That’s why 91% of Human Resources leaders are concerned about employee turnover in the near future.
Besides the revenue, companies with a lower turnover rate can spend time on their employees, build a cohesive company culture, and achieve innovations that outperform their high-churn counterparts.
Employee retention’s effect extends beyond your annual revenue or quarterly performance reports — it improves each day for your workers, managers, and customers.
In short, it’s hard to overstate the importance of effective employee retention strategies as they can impact just about every aspect of your business, including revenue, service, and company culture.
1. More quality hires
Hiring typically increases when employees leave your company. So it should decrease as your retention goes up.
The hidden benefit of high retention is that you can allocate more resources to the time-consuming job of sourcing new hires. You can be more selective in finding candidates with relevant experience and perfect cultural fit instead of rushing to fill a vacancy.
The candidates you hire this way are more likely to stick around and better fit your organization, which further improves your retention rate.
Ultimately, more employees staying means more business growth and more new positions. You can focus your hiring efforts on adding to the team rather than replacing previous talent.
2. Better employee training
Hiring new employees takes up a significant portion of your company’s HR budget and time. It’s estimated that replacing an employee costs anywhere from 50% to 200% of their annual salary.
Retaining just one extra employee means thousands of dollars saved you can use in other areas.
One often-neglected management area is training, with 78% of workers saying they want more training. By saving on hiring, you can spend on training.
With more time for training, your employees will be happier, more skilled, and even more likely to stay with your organization.
3. Improved customer relationships
Most of your return customers and clients don’t think of your business as a logo or physical store. They think of the person with whom they interacted. Your employees are the face of your business, from frontline workers up to account managers.
Your customers rely on your employee’s knowledge of their needs and history with the company to deliver the highest level of service. So when an employee leaves, the relationships they built with your customer base leave with them.
A PWC report found that 80% of Americans think a knowledgeable staff is the most important element to customer satisfaction, along with speed and convenience. They also pay more for things when they experience a positive customer experience.
The benefits of employee retention reach beyond your current staff and bottom line and impact the customer experience. A high employee retention rate ultimately improves your clients’ and customers’ perception of your business.
4. Faster progress
While onboarding and formal training programs are essential for satisfied, efficient employees, these resources are hardly the only way employees learn on the job.
One of the most valuable sources of guidance and information is your current employees. Studies show that 91% of employees with a workplace mentor are happy with their jobs.
By retaining most of your employees, you get:
Strong relationships between your employees that impact their performance
Employees who possess in-depth knowledge in their fields
Great mentors who have the technical skills and know little-known tricks in the field to help the newcomers
You benefit from the perks of high employee retention: Employees have a wealth of team members to turn to when they have a question or need advice. This turns your newest employees into your best employees.
Also, when turnover is low, you keep the work environment of cultural cohesion and the know-how of experienced employees. This results in less stress and high productivity.
Final thoughts: 4 hidden benefits of employee retention you should know
Why retain employees? The answer is clear.
The benefits of employee retention are wide-reaching for your entire organization. Employees, management, and customers all reap the benefits of employee retention.
Employees benefit from greater satisfaction, higher productivity, and better support on the job. Employers can enjoy greater profit and less uncertainty. And your customers can rely on consistently high-quality and personalized customer service.
These benefits are well worth the expense of managing incentives like healthcare, training, and work-life balance.
If you’re ready to improve your employee retention, an all-in-one employee communication tool like Blink can maximize your organization’s initiatives.
Employee engagement: The goal every company is chasing. And for good reason.
When people feel connected to their work and supported by their organization, you can count on more energy, productivity, and loyalty.
But engagement isn’t something that just happens. It’s built, little by little, through everyday workplace experiences.
That’s where engagement drivers come in. These are the things that shape how employees feel about their jobs, their teams, and your company as a whole. From safety to tech tools to progression to workplace friendships — they all add up.
And to really move the needle on employee engagement, these are the foundations you need to put in place. With them, you’ll find it easier to inspire, motivate, and retain your teams.
Ready to learn about the key drivers of employee engagement? Let’s go!
Why you need to know the drivers of employee engagement
Globally, just 23% of employees are engaged at work in 2025. That means the majority of workers are either disengaged and eyeing their exit, or sticking around just for the paycheck. Neither outcome is good for your business.
As we’ll see in a moment, many of the drivers of employee engagement are linked to connection, company culture, and access to the right workplace tools. And this is why frontline employee engagement is a particular challenge.
When employees work away from HQ, with patchy comms and limited co-worker contact, they’re a lot less likely to report high levels of engagement.
So let’s take a look. Which drivers of engagement should you be keeping tabs on in 2025?
What are the key drivers of employee engagement?
A driver of employee engagement is a workplace factor with the power to motivate and inspire employees. Together, these elements create a culture where people want to do their best work.
The 16 key drivers of employee engagement are:
A safe working environment
Tech tools
Internal communication
Psychological safety
Fairness
Management
Autonomy
Progression
Leadership
Work-life balance
Purpose
Well-being support
Two-way feedback
Peer-to-peer relationships
Company culture
Recognition
In this guide, we’ll break down why each of these drivers matters — and how you can put them into practice to boost employee productivity, satisfaction, and retention.
Physical drivers of employee engagement
Physical employee engagement drivers relate to the workplace environment and the tools employees are expected to use.
#1. A safe working environment
A safe and comfortable working environment isn’t just a legal requirement. It’s a signal that your organization values its people — and it allows employees to focus on doing their best work.
But recent research reveals that 56% of employees don’t feel completely safe at work. They say that poor communication, inadequate safety training, and weak safety reporting processes are putting their well-being at risk.
For customer-facing teams, there are other safety concerns to consider — a shocking 46% of UK workers have experienced customer aggression at work.
How to drive engagement with the work environment
Lots of things contribute to a feeling of safety in the workplace — good air quality, ergonomic desks, the right safety equipment, good hygiene measures, and robust safety protocols.
Here are some other things you can do to improve workplace safety:
Make safety info easy to access. Employees shouldn’t have to track down a dog-eared paper manual to get up to speed on safety processes. Make process and policy documents available digitally on your company’s content hub.
Provide streamlined reporting tools. Your teams should also have easy and effective ways to report their safety concerns. For frontline teams, that might mean using digital forms rather than paper processes, so it’s easy for them to report hazards on the go.
Ask employees what they think.Conduct an employee engagement survey to find out what employees want from their physical work environment. It may be as simple as turning down the air-con or improving access to personal protective equipment (PPE).
#2. Tech tools
Digital tools now form a huge part of the employee experience. Most organizations use software for internal communication, HR self-service, learning and development, and company operations. They even use tools for employee engagement.
When these tech tools are intuitive and integrated, they help workers to achieve a state of flow. When they’re outdated and clunky, they create friction and frustration.
How to drive employee engagement with tech tools
To drive worker engagement with tech tools, the software you choose needs to meet the following criteria:
Intuitive. The best tech is easy and intuitive to use. It doesn’t require extensive training and achieves high levels of adoption organically.
Consumer-grade. When it comes to tech, employees have high expectations. The tools you use in the workplace should mirror the consumer-grade experiences they enjoy on apps like WhatsApp and Instagram.
Integrated. A complicated tech stack can feel overwhelming for employees. So the best tech tools integrate with one another, creating a joined-up system, with tools ideally accessed from one centralized dashboard.
Mental drivers of employee engagement
Mental employee engagement drivers are the psychological factors that shape how employees feel about your organization.
#3. Internal communication
Internal communication is one of the most important drivers of employee engagement. Because if people don’t know what’s going on, they feel disconnected from your company.
The best comms keep people informed, aligned, and motivated. They give employees the context they need to do their jobs well and feel part of company culture.
Driving employee engagement with internal comms
If you’re still using a clunky old intranet or relying solely on email for internal communication, there are lots of ways to improve engagement with comms:
Centralize your channels. A single, mobile-first hub for news, updates, and resources means no more scattered messages — and communication channels that everyone can access, even hard-to-reach frontline employees.
Make it two-way. When comms are just a C-suite broadcast, they don’t tend to drive engagement. So allow employees to comment, react, share their ideas, and even create their own internal comms content.
Be open and authentic. Transparent communication builds trust. It helps to create a culture of psychological safety (more on this in a moment). And, when you go beyond the corporate memo to write like a real-life human, employees are much more likely to remember your messages.
Go social. The best internal communication tools provide a modern social experience. They give comms teams the tools they need to create rich, multi-media content that catches audience attention. Think images, short-form video, live streams, and infographics.
#4. Psychological safety
Psychological safety means employees feel comfortable speaking up — sharing ideas, asking questions, admitting mistakes, and even challenging the status quo — without worrying about a backlash.
But unfortunately, only 42% of employees strongly agree that they feel psychologically safe at work. And just 35% say they can voice their opinions without fear of repercussion. That silence comes at a cost. Without psychological safety, people hold back — and innovation, collaboration, and employee engagement suffer.
How to drive engagement through psychological safety
Psychological safety starts at the top of your organization. Here’s how:
Set an example. Leaders and managers need to communicate openly, admitting their mistakes and asking employees to share their ideas.
Recognize employee input. When employees do speak up, they should be praised, not punished. Highlight employee contributions so others feel empowered to have their say.
Create a dialogue. Use anonymous employee surveys, quick-fire polls, listening tours, and leader Q&As to start a conversation with employees.
Keep comms channels open. Beyond big, feedback-gathering initiatives, use instant messaging tools and adopt an open-door policy. That way, when employees have a concern or a bright idea, they know exactly where to go.
#5. Fairness
Fairness is another important employee engagement driver. It’s the sense that employees are being treated equitably — with regard to pay, workload, recognition, opportunities, and access to workplace tools.
Sometimes inequalities in the workplace go unnoticed by leadership. For example, did you know that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women move up the ladder? Or that two in five frontline employees say they’re viewed as inferior by employees in the office?
People notice when promotions go to favorites, when workloads aren’t balanced, or when policies aren’t applied consistently. And when things don’t feel fair, resentment and disengagement set in.
How to drive employee engagement through fairness
You can promote fairness in the workplace by:
Create clear policies. Put policies in a shared content hub so employees can access them. And stick to these policies consistently, across all teams and levels of the organization.
Be open. Transparency is another essential. Be open about pay — and about how compensation and promotion decisions are made.
Ensure equitable access. Make training, internal comms, and workplace tools accessible to all employees. For frontline workers, that might mean replacing desktop-based systems with mobile-first tech.
#6. Management
The relationship between employees and their managers is one of the strongest drivers of workplace engagement. According to Gallup, managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement.
A good manager supports, coaches, and clears roadblocks, inspiring loyalty and productivity. A bad manager drives people out the door.
For deskless teams, especially, managers are a vital link between HQ and the frontline. They’re the ones who share information, set expectations, and deliver recognition. Their leadership can make or break the employee experience.
How to drive employee engagement through management
You can have the best employee engagement strategies in the world. But if your managers aren’t on board, those initiatives simply won’t cascade down to your workforce. To support employee engagement, managers need time, the right tools, and the right training.
Here’s what you can do to help:
Recognize their role. Acknowledge managers as engagement champions. Give them space to focus on their team, not just on tasks and KPIs.
Train them. Managers don’t always have the soft skills they need to promote employee engagement. So train frontline leaders in active listening, empathy, and coaching. Dedicated employee engagement training may also come in useful.
Provide the right tools. Overstretched managers need efficient systems. Streamlined mobile-first tools for communication, HR self-service, and recognition make it easier for them to support their teams and drive engagement.
#7. Autonomy
Driving engagement means giving employees autonomy. Employees should have the freedom to take ownership of their work — because when employees feel empowered to make decisions and solve problems without constant oversight, engagement and productivity get a boost.
In contrast, micromanagement stifles creativity and erodes trust. It contributes to a “bare minimum” mentality, where employees tick tasks off their to-do list, never feeling truly invested in their work.
How to drive engagement through autonomy
Creating an environment where autonomy thrives means balancing freedom with clear direction and support. Here are a few ideas:
Set clear expectations. Employees are more likely to embrace autonomy when they’re clear on the boundaries. Clear goals and guidelines give them the confidence to act without seeking manager approval.
Provide the right resources. Easy access to information and resources empowers independent work. Use a content hub to store policies and procedures — and provide self-service tools and templates.
Encourage problem-solving. Cultivate a culture where employees feel safe to try new approaches and share ideas without fear of failure. Show that you trust employees and they’ll feel empowered to take ownership of their work.
#8. Progression
A lack of career growth opportunities is the number one reason people give for changing jobs. And organizations that don’t provide skills-building opportunities are 72% less likely to have employees saying they want to work there in a year’s time.
When employees see a clear path forward within your organization, they’re more motivated, productive, and loyal. But, for frontline workers in particular, progression can feel out of reach. They’re often overlooked for training opportunities and career paths aren’t always made clear.
How to drive engagement through progression
Give employees the space and support they need to grow, learn, and progress, and you boost engagement while reducing employee turnover. Here’s what you can do to help employees see a future at your organization:
Shine a light on career paths. Use internal comms and manager 1:1s to share clear routes for progression, including promotions and skills-building opportunities.
Invest in training that fits the frontline. Mobile-first microlearning makes it easy for employees to grow on the go. They can complete bite-sized modules without stepping away from their roles.
Create growth opportunities beyond promotions. When a new role isn’t available, use stretch assignments, job shadowing, and lateral moves to help employees develop new skills and experience new challenges.
Offer mentorship. Pair employees with more experienced co-workers who can offer skills development and career support.
#9. Leadership
Leaders set the tone for your organization. When leaders are visible, authentic, and inspiring, employees feel proud to be part of the company. They also have a clear understanding of where the company is headed and how they contribute to its success.
But leaders aren’t always great at sharing their vision in a way that lands with employees. Less than half (49%) of internal communicators say their leaders are effective at communicating with employees.
Reaching the frontline is an even tougher task. This segment of the workforce might never meet senior leaders face-to-face, so they often feel disconnected from the C-suite. This can leave the feeling like just a number, rather than part of something bigger.
How to drive employee engagement through leadership
To create a trusting and engaged workplace, good leadership comms are essential. So what can leaders do to create this kind of culture?
Be visible. Use video updates, town halls, and frontline-first comms channels to make leadership more accessible to every employee.
Be human. Leaders should use the comms platforms employees use. They can also humanize their comms by demonstrating empathy, ditching unnecessary jargon, and sharing relatable stories.
Lead with transparency. Don’t just share decisions. Share the why behind them. Honest communication builds trust, even when talking about difficult topics.
Lead by example. Leaders should live and breathe the values they expect employees to demonstrate. Authenticity inspires engagement.
#10. Work-life balance
Work-life balance has become one of the biggest workplace talking points in recent years. Employees don’t just want a paycheck — they want the flexibility to manage work and their personal lives without burning out.
Give people the flexibility they crave and they’re more likely to be engaged and stay working for your organization, too. 80% of workers say their loyalty towards a company increases when it offers flexible work options.
Of course, flexibility looks different for different sectors of your workforce. Office teams may be able to work from home a few days a week — or work flexible hours. For shift workers, achieving flexibility requires a little creativity, but it’s absolutely possible with the right approach.
How to drive engagement with work-life balance
Work-life balance is a top priority for employees. To ease stress and support flexibility, you can:
Plan ahead. Give staff advance warning of shifts, provide access to shift swap software, and try to accommodate their shift preferences wherever possible.
Provide practical perks. On-site childcare, a gym, or the option to buy extra vacation days all help employees manage life beyond work.
Create clear boundaries. Make sure people aren’t under pressure to check emails or company comms outside of their working hours.
Set realistic expectations. Ensure workloads and shift patterns are sustainable, so employees aren’t pushed past their limits.
Foster open communication. When managers know employee needs and preferences, they can create schedules and solutions that make a real difference.
#11. Purpose
Purpose connects day-to-day tasks to the bigger picture. When employees understand how their work contributes to the organization’s mission, they work with commitment and pride — particularly when that mission makes a positive difference beyond the four walls of your organization.
But purpose isn’t always clearly communicated. Almost one in five employees say they have zero clarity on company strategy, performance, or their contribution.
Driving engagement through purpose
Want to align your workforce behind the company mission? Here are a few ideas:
Communicate the mission. Use storytelling, internal channels, and team meetings to regularly repeat your company’s mission.
Link tasks to impact. Show employees the real-world outcomes of the work, whether through data, customer feedback, or social impact stories.
Celebrate contributions. Recognize and share examples of work that align with company values.
Empower employees to contribute. Give employees opportunities to lead projects, share ideas, and help shape the company mission.
#12. Well-being support
Between the state of the world, a cost of living crisis, and the stressors of modern life, employees are feeling the strain. And that’s before we even consider what their workday looks like.
Only 57% of employees report good holistic health, which includes mental, physical, spiritual, and social well-being. And they want help — 83% say that companies have a responsibility for the health and well-being of their people.
There are lots of very good reasons to invest in employee well-being. When employers support physical, mental, emotional, and financial wellness, employees are more resilient, less likely to burn out, and more likely to bring their A-game.
How to drive engagement through employee well-being
Offer mental health resources. Provide access to counselling services, mental health apps, and training for managers so they can recognize the signs of stress. Regularly signpost these resources across internal comms channels so employees know what’s available.
Promote physical well-being. Consider desk ergonomics and safety equipment. You may also like to offer healthy eating options, fitness classes, or subsidized gym membership.
Support financial well-being. Help employees overcome money worries by offering salary advances, financial planning workshops, or benefits that ease cost-of-living pressures.
Ask employees what they need. Use employee surveys and manager 1:1s to find out what your workers are struggling with most. Then, tailor support accordingly.
Social employee engagement drivers
Social connection is another significant driver of employee engagement. The contact employees have with co-workers, managers, leaders, and company culture impacts their productivity and commitment.
#13. Two-way feedback
Employees should get regular feedback from their managers. Research from Gallup shows that employees who get valuable feedback about their performance are five times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t.
But feedback should never be one-way. Employees should also have the opportunity to share their ideas, concerns, and opinions — on everything from internal comms to employee experience to the brand of coffee you stock in the break room.
Giving employees a voice helps them feel valued. It also helps you craft a more engaging workplace experience going forward.
How to drive engagement with two-way feedback
When gathering feedback from employees, bear the following tips in mind:
Make feedback easy. Use mobile-first tools so all employees, including frontline staff, can respond to surveys and polls — and contact their managers via chat tools.
Be consistent. Don’t wait for the annual employee engagement survey. Use pulse surveys and quick-fire polls to take the pulse of your organization at regular intervals.
Take action. Employees quickly lose faith in the process when their feedback doesn’t lead to meaningful change. So create a plan of action based on what you hear.
Close the loop. Let employees know what actions are being taken as a result of their feedback. They’ll see that their input matters and be more likely to respond to your next survey.
Strong workplace relationships are one of the top components of employee engagement. Having a work bestie also leads to better collaboration, productivity, well-being, and company loyalty.
So how do you help your staff to make friends? These days, bringing people together IRL isn’t always easy. Frontline and remote teams rarely set foot in the office. So to build peer-to-peer relationships across your organization, you have to be intentional.
How to drive engagement with peer-to-peer relationships
To encourage strong peer connections, you can:
Provide communication tools. Dispersed teams don’t get much opportunity for camaraderie. So ensure they have mobile-first communication channels, like direct messaging and video call tools, that help them stay in touch no matter where they’re working.
Create online communities. Encourage like-minded co-workers to get together by supporting the creation of communities around hobbies and shared interests.
Create a digital water cooler. Use the company news feed to bring co-workers together. Share photos from the latest social event, celebrate an employee’s work anniversary, or launch a hashtag competition to get people talking.
Organize virtual get-togethers. A virtual coffee morning, co-working, or lunch break brings dispersed teams together. This informal setting is an opportunity to go beyond the work agenda and get to know co-workers better.
#15. Company culture
An inclusive company culture is one where every employee feels valued, respected, and able to bring their whole self to work. This is really important for engagement.
8 in 10 people say a sense of community helps them perform better at work — and 55% would quit if they felt they didn’t belong.
Despite this desire for belonging, only 2 in 10 workers say they feel connected to company culture. Frontline workers, in particular, have few opportunities to engage with their workplace community — and can be left feeling disconnected and isolated.
How to drive engagement with company culture
Many of the other points on this list contribute to a positive and inclusive company culture. But here are a few extra ideas for building a workplace community that everyone feels part of:
Make comms accessible. Internal communication sits at the heart of company culture. So use mobile-first tools to ensure every employee can access the latest culture-building content.
Translate your content. If you have a large multilingual workforce, translate internal content so everyone can understand it. The best employee engagement apps come with built-in translation features.
Celebrate company values in action. Highlight real examples of employees living your company values through stories, recognition posts, or internal awards.
Training and awareness. Equip leaders and employees with training on unconscious bias, inclusive language, and accessibility — so nobody feels left out of the company conversation.
#16. Recognition
Only 22% of employees strongly agree that they get the right amount of recognition for the work that they do. And over half say the recognition they receive isn’t authentic, personalized, or equitable.
But we know that employee recognition is another important driver of employee engagement. When employees are recognized and rewarded for their hard work, they’re more likely to give their all. And recognition doesn’t have to be grand. Small, consistent, and sincere acts of recognition show employees that their work matters.
How to drive engagement through employee recognition
Whether you’re marking a work anniversary, the success of a big project, or an employee’s dedication to going the extra mile, here’s how to make recognition more effective.
Make it timely and specific. The most meaningful recognition is given soon after an achievement and explains clearly what was done and the impact it had.
Make it equal. The same recognition and rewards should be available to all members of staff. Digital employee recognition tools can help you reach employees who don’t work at HQ.
Encourage peer-to-peer recognition. The act of giving recognition makes employees more likely to stay working for your organization. So encourage co-workers to comment with their congratulations on recognition posts.
Tailor rewards. Ask employees what rewards they want to see for top performance. You can then tailor your rewards program so it truly incentivizes your workforce.
Ready to drive employee engagement at your organization?
For frontline employees, that often starts with the right workplace tech. An employee app like Blink puts connection, company culture, and vital workplace tools into the palm of every employee’s hand.
Using secure single sign-on technology, teams can use their personal smartphones to catch up on company news, congratulate co-workers, respond to polls, and send digital forms.
Thanks to strong integrations, they can also use the Blink dashboard to access other workplace software, like HR self-service, training courses, and shift swap tools. And your HR team can keep track of employee engagement metrics with the help of in-depth analytics.
Blink brings your whole organization together, so engaging employees gets a whole lot easier.
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How has Blink helped in his role?
By sharing information which can help ours and other sites- for example cell call plates that cannot be smashed, and lights from another manufacturer. The sharing of this type of information is great for the company.
What does he want to do next?
Andy has conscientiously trained himself on the Test and Inspection course, meaning he will be able to assist the company with extra work on testing.
If you're exploring alternatives to Happeo, you're likely looking for a modern intranet or employee experience platform that better fits your communication, collaboration, or content needs. While Happeo offers a sleek, Google Workspace-friendly intranet solution, it may fall short for organizations that need deeper employee engagement, more robust integrations, or greater frontline accessibility.
Before diving into the best alternatives, here’s what to look for.
What to look for in a Happeo alternative
When evaluating Happeo alternatives, keep these key criteria in mind:
Employee-first UX – Choose a tool that’s intuitive across devices and roles, not just built for office workers.
True mobile parity – Ensure the mobile experience offers full functionality, not just read-only access.
Instant communication features – Look for platforms with video, voice, push alerts, and Q&A—not just static posts.
Plug-and-play integrations – Prioritize tools that connect easily to your existing HRIS, payroll, scheduling, and productivity software.
Dynamic targeting and personalization – Employees should only see content that’s relevant to them, based on role or location.
Built-in governance tools – Features like post approvals, audit trails, and localization ensure compliance at scale.
Insight-driven decisions – Make sure the platform offers analytics that go beyond vanity metrics to show real impact.
The top 10 alternatives to Happeo
#1. Blink (Best all-in-one Happeo alternative)
Gartner Rating: 4.8/5 G2 Rating: 4.7/5 Pricing: Free trial available; custom pricing based on company size and feature needs
Blink is the #1 Happeo alternative for organizations seeking a more dynamic and inclusive employee experience platform. While Happeo is well suited for desk-based teams using Google Workspace, Blink stands out by meeting the needs of every employee — whether they’re on the front line, hybrid, or remote.
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Unlike traditional intranets, Blink is mobile-first, meaning employees can access personalized news, resources, and tools wherever they are. Its unified News Feed centralizes top-down comms, peer-to-peer messages, surveys, forms, and file sharing in one place. Features like voice notes, live video streaming, ghostwriting for leaders, and built-in translations make communications faster, more authentic, and accessible across diverse teams.
Blink also includes content governance, user-level targeting, analytics, and native integrations with HRIS, payroll, scheduling, and messaging tools. And while Happeo focuses on static content hubs, Blink offers a real-time digital HQ that drives usage and engagement.
If you’re looking for an intranet alternative that’s secure, flexible, and designed to drive meaningful impact across all teams, Blink is your best bet.
#2. Jostle
G2 Rating: 4.4/5 Gartner Rating: Not listed Pricing: Starts at $4/user/month
Jostle is an intranet alternative focused on clarity and usability. It’s ideal for mid-sized companies looking to simplify internal communications without overwhelming users with complex features. Jostle offers a visually organized structure with dedicated spaces for announcements, discussions, and documents.
Unlike Happeo, which leans into integration with Google Workspace, Jostle is platform-agnostic and easier to implement for Microsoft-based teams. However, it may lack the customization and extensibility needed by enterprise-scale orgs. It's a strong contender for companies prioritizing simplicity over design flexibility.
Simpplr is a sleek and highly customizable intranet solution that focuses on employee engagement and personalized experiences. It includes features such as smart feeds, event planning, video content, and policy management—all wrapped in a modern interface.
For companies looking for more than just a content hub, Simpplr’s AI-based recommendations and analytics offer a smarter way to keep employees informed. While it rivals Happeo in terms of UI and UX, it does require more onboarding and configuration time. It's best suited for enterprises with dedicated internal comms and IT support.
Staffbase caters to internal communications teams at large enterprises, particularly those managing distributed or non-desk employees. Its core strengths include branded employee apps, segmented messaging, newsletters, and editorial planning tools.
Compared to Happeo, Staffbase leans more heavily into comms and content workflows rather than being a digital workplace or document hub. This makes it an excellent alternative if you want to elevate your comms strategy but don’t need native integrations with Google or Microsoft ecosystems.
#5. Unily
G2 Rating: 4.5/5 Gartner Rating: 4.3/5 Pricing: Typically starts at $30,000/year
Unily is an enterprise-grade employee experience platform that delivers polished design, multilingual support, and deep integrations with Microsoft 365. It includes customizable content pages, advanced analytics, and personalization features.
Unlike Happeo, Unily is better equipped for global organizations with complex structures and compliance needs. However, its enterprise pricing and implementation time may be a barrier for smaller teams or those needing a fast rollout.
#6. LumApps
G2 Rating: 4.3/5 Gartner Rating: 4.2/5 Pricing: Starts at $12/user/month
LumApps is a robust intranet platform with strong support for both Microsoft and Google environments. It offers a central hub for personalized news, documents, and collaboration with social features like commenting and reactions.
Compared to Happeo, LumApps goes further in enabling internal branding and knowledge management at scale. Its onboarding can be intensive, but for organizations that want a visually impressive and highly segmented experience, it’s a solid choice.
#7. Firstup
G2 Rating: 4.4/5 Gartner Rating: 4.1/5 Pricing: Custom pricing based on company size
Firstup is built for employee communications at scale, with automation and personalization features that help you deliver the right message at the right time. It excels at campaign planning, content scheduling, and measurement.
While Firstup isn’t a direct replacement for a traditional intranet like Happeo, it’s a powerful alternative for companies focused on messaging, employee activation, and comms ROI. The platform is highly data-driven and ideal for comms teams seeking a more strategic approach.
#8. Haiilo
G2 Rating: 4.5/5 Gartner Rating: Not listed Pricing: Contact sales
Formerly known as Smarp, Haiilo combines employee communications, advocacy, and intranet tools into a single platform. It’s known for its intuitive UX and ability to empower employees to share content externally.
Compared to Happeo, Haiilo emphasizes social amplification and mobile-first communications more than intranet-style documentation. It’s a strong pick for organizations looking to boost brand reach and engagement from within.
#9. Noodle
G2 Rating: 4.2/5 Gartner Rating: Not listed Pricing: Starts at $3/user/month
Noodle is a no-frills intranet platform designed for affordability and simplicity. It covers the basics—document management, employee directories, calendars, and chat—in a clean and easy-to-use interface.
While Happeo has more polish and integrations, Noodle wins on cost and ease of deployment. It’s a practical option for smaller teams or budget-conscious orgs that don’t need advanced features or automation.
#10. Igloo
G2 Rating: 4.2/5 Gartner Rating: 4.1/5 Pricing: Starts at $8/user/month
Igloo offers a modular intranet solution for businesses that want to build a digital workplace tailored to their needs. With features like forums, wikis, task management, and dashboards, it’s more of a knowledge-sharing and collaboration platform than just a content hub.
Unlike Happeo, which is visually streamlined but limited in scope, Igloo supports cross-functional use cases such as project collaboration and onboarding. It requires more setup time but pays off in flexibility.
Final thoughts
Happeo offers a solid intranet experience, particularly for organizations tightly integrated with Google Workspace. But for many teams—especially those with a mix of deskless, remote, and office-based employees—it may not go far enough in enabling real-time communication, personalization, or frontline access.
Whether you need better mobile capabilities, deeper integrations, or more authentic engagement, there are several strong alternatives to consider. Blink rises to the top for its all-in-one approach, modern UX, and inclusive design. Explore your options carefully—and choose a platform that scales with your people, not just your tech stack.
Once upon a time, a company intranet that worked off a server in your office was enough to keep internal communication on track. But today, company needs have changed. And so have employee expectations.
We’ve entered the era of the digital workplace. Employees use a variety of different devices. Teams work remotely, across multiple locations. And beyond the world of work, everyone is now accustomed to intuitive, convenient, and personalized digital experiences.
Digital change has come quickly. And workplace software — like the intranet — hasn’t always kept pace. Traditional intranets feel old and clunky today. They’re affecting employee experience (EX) - and they could be doing more harm than good.
Thankfully, a new breed of intranet is now emerging. It’s fresher and more relevant to today’s workforce. It’s also built with digital workplace challenges front of mind.
A modern intranet holds the key to two-way communication and collaboration, better employee engagement, and an enhanced digital employee experience (DEX). And it could be a game changer for your organization.
Here, we’re going to take a look at the changing face of the company intranet and examine the features and benefits of a new and improved modern intranet.
Contents
Intranets: then and now
Why you need a modern intranet
Features of a modern intranet
How modern intranets impact the digital employee experience
Choosing the right modern intranet
Conclusion
Intranets: then and now
The company intranet has come a long way since it was first introduced back in the 1990s. Adapting to advances in technology and changing workplace trends, it’s taken on a variety of different forms over the years.
When talking about the modern intranet, it’s useful to compare the most cutting-edge intranet software to what has come before. So let’s step back in time and revisit each stage of intranet evolution.
Early intranets
Closed private networks were the first intranets to hit the office. They used local servers to host static web pages, meaning only computers based within the same geographical location could access them.
These early intranets provided limited interactivity and functionality. They were a place to share company directories, policies, and other documents. But because the setup and maintenance of early intranets required a lot of technical expertise, information was often outdated and badly organized.
Web-based intranets
As the internet went mainstream, web-based intranets made their way onto the market. These intranets were accessible via standard web browsers and had basic search functions, which helped users find what they were looking for. But these new intranets still had their drawbacks.
Internal communication remained one-way, with information traveling from the top of an organization down. Content was often poorly maintained because updates were complex. And there was very little opportunity for companies to provide personalized employee experiences.
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Social intranets
Social intranets were the first intranets to go mobile. Remote servers meant geography mattered less — and everyone within an organization, regardless of their location, could access the same information.
Inspired by social media platforms, social intranets prioritized communication, with features like user profiles and user-generated content. They were also designed to support team collaboration and productivity, with personnel services and project management tools built in.
Modern intranets
Modern intranets take the social intranet concept to the next level. They are a mobile-first solution with a focus on user experience (UX), designed to meet the expectations of today’s digital workforce.
Content creation is democratized in modern intranets. All members of an organization can access information and tools easily. And team leaders get the analytics and data-driven insights they need to improve employee engagement.
Interested in seeing a modern intranet in action? Preview Blink today with a short 2-minute video.
Why your frontline organization needs a modern intranet
So why should your frontline organization ditch its traditional intranet and adopt a modern software solution instead? There are several very good reasons.
Older intranet software can cause friction and frustration. Perhaps your intranet has become a dumping ground for outdated information. Or it simply fails to provide the intuitive, user-friendly, productivity-boosting features we’ve all come to expect.
We know that traditional intranets fail to live up to employee expectations. 67% of workers say that digital experiences in their personal lives are better than the digital experiences they get at work.
Many traditional intranets are built around the needs of desk-based teams, so they do your frontline workers a disservice. Frontline workers miss out on the communication and resources available to their desk-based peers.
A modern intranet, in contrast, helps you meet all of the following challenges head-on.
1. Employee engagement
According to Gallup’s State of the Workplace Report for 2023, just 23% of employees are engaged at work. But organizations should try to do better. That’s because high levels of employee engagement lead to happier employees, improved productivity, and lower rates of attrition.
Employee engagement is always a challenge. But engaging employees in a frontline organization can be particularly tricky. When your workers are deskless, how do you give them the connection, coaching, and support they need to thrive within your organization?
A modern intranet gives you all of the tools you need to engage your employees, regardless of where they work. You can count on a social feed, a content hub, employee recognition tools, surveys, and more.
With analytics too, you can see what is engaging your employees — and what isn’t — so you can improve your efforts going forward.
2. Communication
Open communication within a workplace is vital. It helps you inform, motivate, and engage your employees, while fostering an inclusive and supportive work environment. It involves top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication, so everyone has a voice.
For frontline teams, maintaining open channels of communication within teams who don’t work face-to-face requires tailored solutions.
A modern intranet helps you build internal communication links between every member of your workforce — whether they’re based in the office, on the shop floor, or out in the field.
You don’t need to rely on emails or a company noticeboard. Instead, all types of internal communication are supported via your intranet app.
With better communication, you bring your teams together and you may find it easier to grow your company too. A Forbes study found that companies who involve 75% of their frontline in internal comms, achieved more than 20% growth over a year.
3. Digital access
Older intranet software is built around an outdated version of the workplace. It doesn’t prioritize the mobile experience and instead works best for employees who sit at a desk on a computer for the majority of each working day.
Newer intranets understand that the world of work has changed. Digital tools are a workplace essential. And frontline, hybrid, and remote teams should have equal access to the information and interaction that these tools provide.
That’s why the best modern intranets have a mobile-first design. Employees can access them as easily on a small smartphone screen as on a desktop computer. All workers across an organization are engaged and empowered, so no one misses out.
4. Collaboration
Traditional intranets are known for being slow and difficult to use, with low rates of user adoption. In fact, 57% of employees say they see no purpose in their company intranet.
This impacts collaboration. When employees avoid your intranet — because it isn’t intuitive to use or data is hard to find — knowledge sharing suffers and you risk creating organizational silos.
For frontline teams, this exacerbates an existing risk. Frontline workers spend time away from HQ, working different shift patterns, and managing a high workload. These factors already get in the way of team collaboration.
Luckily, this is another frontline challenge that a modern intranet can solve. The intranet allows people across your organization to share ideas and objectives via an easy-to-use interface.
Everyone can contribute, even those who work remotely, making your organization more productive, more innovative, and better able to solve problems.
Features of a modern intranet
We’ve touched on what makes a modern intranet different from the other intranet software available. But now we’re going to delve into the details. Here are features you can expect from the newest intranets and how they stand to benefit your business.
A central hub
A modern intranet acts as the gateway to your business. It’s the go-to location for company communication and knowledge sharing.
With a single, searchable hub, it’s easy for employees to find what they’re looking for, whether that’s essential documents, a directory of co-workers, or a list of the latest company events.
Importantly, information is stored logically and consistently. And the advanced search functionality of a modern intranet — thanks to keyword suggestions and content tagging — means it’s always clear what information is and isn’t available.
User friendly interfaces
Modern intranets are familiar to their users. That’s partly because they can be customized with employer branding. But it’s also because they have an intuitive, user friendly interface that mirrors many of the digital tools employees already feel comfortable using.
Employees don’t need a company email address to sign in. They can get notifications whenever important information is posted. And it’s easy to download intranet apps from the App Store. This means very little training is required.
Personalized experiences
Personalization makes the modern intranet even more engaging for users. Employees can personalize their dashboard and see content tailored to their role and department.
You can also program your intranet so it presents different information depending on where an employee is at in their career and how much time they’ve spent with the company. Someone who started working for you last week will get different intranet content to someone who has been working for you for years.
Communication tools
Managers can share important news and announcements. Teams can share ideas. An employee can wish a coworker a happy birthday. With a variety of communication tools based within the same intranet software, meaningful communication becomes second nature.
Employees don’t have to switch between different platforms for informal co-worker chat, essential C-suite comms, and knowledge sharing resources. They can easily find communications, and contribute to them too, all within the same interface.
It’s also easy for managers to highlight need-to-know information.Push notifications and mandatory reads ensure essential information never goes unread.
Real-time communication
Asynchronous communication is important for teams who work across different time zones or shift patterns. But real-time communication is also crucial for your organization. It allows employees to communicate as if they were in the same physical location — even when they’re not.
This allows for faster decision-making, improved problem-solving, and better collaboration. It also helps employees to feel more connected to one another — because real-time communication mirrors face-to-face communication in a way that an email thread just can’t.
Employee recognition
Employee recognition isn’t always easy when employees work disparately. Managers have to be intentional about praise and recognition because they get few informal opportunities to show their appreciation.
With built-in employee recognition features, a modern intranet makes it easy for you to motivate and incentivize your team.
Managers are prompted to recognize employee anniversaries and milestones. Peers can celebrate coworker wins. And some intranet software even provides recognition leaderboards and real-life rewards as further incentive for hard work.
Collaboration tools
The modern intranet makes collaboration a priority. It provides features that support collaboration for teams who don’t necessarily work in the same office.
From shared calendars to real-time chat, document sharing to task allocation, a modern intranet helps teams work together, even when they’re physically apart.
Mobile compatibility
Workers no longer have to be chained to their desktop computers in order to get the most from the intranet experience. Modern intranets are mobile responsive. They offer the same user experience and the same great features whichever device employees have access to during their workday.
This means frontline, remote, and hybrid workers enjoy the same intranet experience as their desk-based peers. And you create a joined-up organization in which all workers are treated equally.
Integration capabilities
Modern intranet software integrates with the digital tools and data sources you already use within your organization. It creates a seamless experience for employees.
They don’t need to log in to multiple platforms and deal with repetitive or conflicting information. Everything is available via the same intranet hub.
For your management team, integration makes everything more efficient. You don’t need to duplicate work over different tools, which means you improve data accuracy too.
Feedback functions
Good internal communication goes both ways. And with modern intranet feedback functions, it’s easy to find out what your employees are thinking and feeling at any given moment.
Surveys and forms are delivered in a user friendly format so a higher proportion of your employees is likely to respond. And with accurate insight into employee sentiment, you can create better employee experiences, making informed decisions based on what your workforce really wants and needs.
Security
When you opt for a modern intranet, security comes as standard. The best providers work by recognized cybersecurity guidelines.
They provide data encryption and data backup. Regular penetration testing ensures the system always provides a strong defense against cyber-attack. And access controls mean admin teams can choose with members of your organization can see sensitive information.
Analytics to optimize and measure
The best modern intranets offer analytics too, meaning you get real-time data on employee engagement and the employee experience.
You can track a variety of metrics — things like user activity, co-worker interactions, likes, searches, and downloads. And then you can view these results in a visual, easy-to-digest format.
Along with surveys and feedback forms, intranet analytics gives insight into how employees use the software and how it impacts their overall experience of the workplace. This empowers you to make data-driven improvements.
How modern intranets impact the digital employee experience
The digital employee experience (DEX) is how employees feel about the digital tools they use within the workplace. For optimal DEX, you need digital tools that support and streamline every employee workflow, without creating points of friction.
DEX comes under the umbrella of employee experience (EX). But we’d argue that, in a digital workplace, DEX isn’t just part of the EX picture. It’s integral to it. In fact, we can relate DEX to nearly all of the nine EX elements identified by McKinsey.
an employee’s sense of growth, purpose, and motivation
how employees feel about their productivity and efficiency
The company intranet is inevitably a big part of employees’ digital experience. And when you replace a traditional intranet with modern software, designed to meet the expectations and needs of today’s employees, you impact DEX in all of the following ways.
Enhanced communication
These days, we rely on digital communication tools to connect frontline, hybrid, and remote working teams. It’s important to EX that teams get the same level of connection and knowledge sharing, and the same sense of belonging, that they’d get working face-to-face.
Modern intranet software is built with team communication at its core. It understands that, in a digital workplace, informal water cooler chats aren’t always possible.
So it provides teams with communication tools that create a sense of physical togetherness, even when teams work disparately.
With Blink Chat, for example, employees can message each other in real-time. They can chat one-on-one or set up Group Chats for multiple team members. Within chats, employees can send messages, send documents, and even start online voice or video meetings, straight from the app.
But the modern intranet doesn’t just facilitate peer-to-peer communication. It also gives managers the communication tools they need to enhance the employee experience.
This is where the Blink Feed comes in. Via a familiar, social media-style feed, leadership can post company-wide communications. They can guide company culture and broadcast important news, motivating and informing employees in the process.
Employee techquity
Employee techquity is achieved when frontline workers have equal access to the digital tools, resources, and people they need to succeed. Older intranet systems tend to leave frontline and remote workers behind. They fail to address many of the key challenges faced by frontline teams.
This means frontline and remote employees miss out on the opportunities afforded to desk-based staff. They find it harder to advance in their careers, they don’t always have access to the same tools, tech, and training, and they can end up feeling disconnected from company HQ.
A modern, mobile-first intranet helps to create a fairer working environment. All employees get to use exactly the same functions and features, whether they access the platform via a desktop computer or a smartphone device.
A modern intranet is easy to use, so frontline workers can dip into internal comms during a busy work day. It also acknowledges the fact that many frontline workers don’t have a company email address, so provides alternative login methods.
By providing an equal digital experience for all workers within your organization, everyone gets the tools they need to do their job — and everyone enjoys a sense of connection and belonging.
Employees enjoy a better workplace experience when they feel they’re working to the best of their ability.
In a digital workplace, this means having the right information, along with the right collaboration and productivity tools. And this is another area of DEX that a modern intranet can help with.
A modern intranet acts as a content hub for your organization. But unlike old intranet software, this new style of content management system is well-organized and user friendly. It’s easy to find and read policy documents and to collaborate on files with co-workers.
Just take a look at the Blink Hub. It’s a content management system that puts policies, training materials, and manuals in one convenient, easy-to-access location.
A drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to add content. And because the Blink Hub is available via desktop and mobile apps, every member of your organization can access it.
A modern intranet can also provide self-service functions, another big plus for the digital employee experience.
When employees can book shifts, request annual leave, register for a training course, and access pay stubs all from the same platform, work admin becomes much less of a headache.
Employee engagement
Engaged workers feel emotionally connected to their work and co-workers. They feel aligned with company values and empowered to work productively.
A poor digital employee experience gets in the way of engagement. But there are lots of ways that a positive DEX — supported by a modern intranet — can enhance it.
The social features of a cutting-edge intranet — like social feeds, discussion forums, and employee profiles — help employees build meaningful connections with people at all levels of your organization.
Employee recognition and reward functions within the intranet also boost engagement. Employees understand their goals and how these goals relate to the overarching company mission. A culture of recognition and rewards — made easy with intranet tools — then incentivizes them to meet their objectives.
Another way that your intranet can improve employee engagement is with employee personalization.
Workers get to personalize the platform dashboard to make it more relevant and engaging. Admins can adapt content too, tailoring it to the needs of workers at each stage in the employee lifecycle.
Analytics and feedback
Modern intranets make it easy for you to gather information on the digital employee experience. You can launch surveys, send out forms, and dive into the analytics provided by your platform.
This is a huge bonus to your DEX strategy. Because you don’t need to stab in the dark. You have all the data you need to make targeted EX improvements.
View data on employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. See what content performs best to improve your content management strategy. Understand how your teams interact, identifying co-worker relationships that need a little TLC.
A tool like Blink Analytics allows you to really drill down into the data. You can segment it based on team or location. So you understand exactly how your digital workplace is working for each member of your organization.
Simplicity
Some organizations have approached the challenge of digital transformation by acquiring tech tools for every business function. But this isn’t an effective way of doing things.
Gartner research shows that application sprawl (when workers are expected to use multiple digital tools) turns up the volume without improving communication.
Simplifying and streamlining the technology you use can therefore have a huge impact on the digital employee experience.
When workers have a single, go-to platform, there’s less friction. Employees aren’t constantly pinged with notifications from multiple apps. They don’t have to familiarize themselves with different interfaces. And it’s easy to find the information and tools they need.
Choosing the right modern intranet
We’ve covered all of the reasons that a modern intranet might benefit your organization. But with numerous intranet options out there, how do you choose the right one for your business?
Let’s take a look at a couple of questions you can ask when looking for intranet software that meets the needs of your organization and employees.
Is the software built to scale?
An intranet is a big investment of time and money. It also quickly becomes a central part of your company operations. So you don’t want to be changing it in a hurry.
When choosing an intranet, look for a solution that can grow with your business. Consider whether an intranet contender will continue to meet your needs if you experience a period of rapid growth and need to take on lots more staff.
Scalable intranets offer bespoke pricing for enterprise clients (per-user pricing can become unaffordable as your team grows). They’re also cloud-based, so you don’t have to rely on on-premise infrastructure when you need to expand capability.
Some other considerations to bear in mind? You need access controls suited to large teams, the option to create communication channels for each team or department, and the right level of security and support for a bigger organization.
Is mobile access a priority?
If you have any workers who don’t spend their workday sitting behind a desk, then a mobile-first intranet is the only logical choice.
On-premise solutions aren’t always accessible via mobile devices. You may even find that remote desk workers, using a laptop or desktop computer, have to jump through VPN hoops to access intranet content.
A mobile-first intranet is designed to work well — and provide the same features — over any device and from any location. So it’s particularly useful for frontline teams who need to access internal info on the go, using their smartphone.
Does the solution provide analytics?
The best intranet solutions give you the analytics and reporting features you need to measure the success of your new platform.
They provide data on employee engagement, content performance, user behavior, employee retention, and employee satisfaction. With real insight, you can identify areas for improvement and make targeted changes.
Only shortlist solutions that offer robust analytics functions. They should be able to provide data on a wide range of metrics, allow you to segment data by a variety of user groups, and provide real-time data. They should also present all data in a visual, easy to understand way.
Does the intranet integrate with your existing technology?
One of the key benefits of a modern intranet is its simplicity. It brings all of the communication and collaboration tools your digital workplace needs into the same platform.
The ideal intranet will meet your business needs in terms of two-way communication, content management, and collaboration. But it should also integrate with any of the tech tools you already use.
You need to know that any payroll, project management, or customer service software can integrate seamlessly with your intranet. And that these tools will continue to work just as well as before.
A new intranet shouldn’t negatively impact the adoption of your current tools. Instead, streamlining your digital tools should actually improve uptake.
Is the intranet user friendly?
An intranet only benefits your company (in all of the ways listed above) if your employees actually use it. So you need a solution that is intuitive and easy to learn, even if your team isn’t super tech-savvy.
Look for an intranet with a user friendly interface. It should feel familiar even if you’ve never used it before. Also, ensure it includes all of the self-service and search functions that make life easy for your teams.
User friendliness is particularly important for frontline teams. Working away from a desk, often with limited time for company comms, your intranet needs to be so easy and engaging that these remote, time-poor workers choose to open the app and check in.
When conducting your software search, it can be helpful to look at adoption and intranet usage stats. If other organizations, with a similar structure to yours, have managed to persuade their workers to use a particular intranet solution, then the platform will probably work well for you too.
Ever since its introduction in the 1990s, the intranet has been an integral part of company operations. But today, organizations are moving away from older intranet versions to embrace a newer, slicker, more effective modern intranet.
A modern intranet supports the creation of a truly digital workplace. It gives frontline, remote, and office-based teams everything they need to work happily and productively. Because it provides a beautiful interface, designed to meet the needs of digital workers, employees actually enjoy using it too.
Choose the right modern intranet and you’ll improve the way your teams communicate and collaborate. You’ll improve DEX and employee engagement, so employee retention gets easier.
You’ll also avoid some of the pitfalls of digital transformation, preventing application sprawl by making all tech tools available via the same user friendly dashboard.
For frontline organizations, the modern intranet really comes into its own. Mobile-first, intuitive design with a real-time communication focus, ensures everyone – whether they work on the frontline or in an office – has access to the tools and information they need.
If you’re ready to benefit your employees and your organization by adopting a cutting-edge intranet solution, take a look at Blink —– a platform designed specifically for frontline teams. Blink does everything a modern intranet does, and more.
Employees get a social feed and a content hub. They can access self-service functions, make their voice heard via company-wide surveys, and receive recognition for a job well done.
As an organization, you can count on analytics and top-notch security. Blink also integrates with many of the most popular workplace apps out there, so it fits seamlessly into your workflow.
Blink has all the tools you need to make your frontline organization more connected, collaborative, and successful. So why not book a demo to see Blink in action?
Meet Isobel Sanders (fondly known in the office as Izzy), our business intelligence lead in the London office. After being a frontline employee in previous roles, such as retail and hospitality, Isobel was extremely interested in the work that Blink was doing and knew she wanted to be along for the ride!
Izzy has been with Blink for a year and a half where she helped launch Advanced Employee Intelligence, and has also worked on internal business analysis across various topics across the business. This includes marketing analytics, creating a customer health score, sales pipeline coverage, implementation tracking, and more.
“Blink is a collaborative, challenging and fun work environment, where there is not just one direction to go in, but many different ones” says Izzy.
We sat down and asked her some burning questions about what it's like working at Blink, what she's proud of, and things she's looking forward to most during her time at Blink.
So…over to the interview…
What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?
One project that stands out during my time at Blink is the development of customer-facing analytics. I helped create a dashboard that is seamlessly integrated into Blink's platform. What started as an internal tool quickly evolved into a product in its own right, showcasing how our work directly enhances the company's value proposition. I am excited to transform the frontline worker experience, an area that's often ignored.
Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
Recently, I helped Blink launch an initiative called Advanced Employee Intelligence. Advanced Employee Intelligence allows us to influence all levels of the business, whether it's helping the internal comms team optimize the feed experience, connecting employees with their colleagues through channels or allowing employees to easily find what they need through hub analytics. We can also go above and beyond Blink usage and provide AI driven sentiment insights and turnover statistics, while retaining anonymity to create a culture of trust.This initiative promises to leverage data in unprecedented ways, offering insights that not only benefit our customers but also enhance their overall organizational effectiveness.
What are you excited about for the future of Blink?
Looking ahead, I'm enthusiastic about Blink's potential to revolutionize the frontline worker experience. By harnessing data insights, I aim to reduce turnover and foster a sense of belonging among employees, making an impact on workplace dynamics.
Why Blink?
Blink is not just the product itself, but the endless possibilities it presents. As a data person, I enjoy having access to a wide-ranging product. Blink doesn't offer a single path; instead, it encourages exploration and innovation across multiple fronts.
Working at Blink is about being part of a transformative journey. Every day, I strive to redefine how technology can enrich the lives of frontline workers, making work not only efficient but also meaningful.
You can join Isobel at Blink, where data meets purpose, and together, we shape the future of the frontline. Search for opportunities on our careers page: https://www.joinblink.com/careers
A record 50.5 million people living in America quit their jobs in 2022 — and a further 40% of US employees considered leaving their jobs. Organizations need to step things up a notch if they want to start engaging both their desk-based and frontline staff.
The good news is there are many employee engagement strategies, tactics, and ideas you can implement to turn around the situation. The 12 strategies we discuss in this guide will help you create an engaging workplace experience and drive employee engagement for both desk-based and frontline employees.
Frontline Employee Engagement in 2024
Blink created this guide after working with hundreds of frontline organizations. Now, these insights can help other leaders prepare for a year that promises both challenge and opportunity.
Download to learn more: The top eight frontline engagement trends to watch out for and the six key strategies for success
A quick recap: what is employee engagement?
Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels:
Emotionally connected to their job, coworkers, and organization as a whole
Satisfied with their job role and function
Aligned with your company’s values
Able to give 100% during work hours
Industry statistics cite employee engagement as a key factor in employee satisfaction, retention, and even company profitability. Employee engagement should be a number one priority for businesses globally — and yet, as of 2023, only 23% of employees globally are engaged.
You can use a number of methods to measure employee engagement levels in your business. Think surveys, metrics, and other engagement KPIs that will help determine how motivated, satisfied, and fulfilled your employees are in their work.
Remember, employee engagement is often the byproduct of a great employee experience. If you provide a fulfilling, enjoyable, and inspiring workplace experience, you enable and encourage engagement.
With this in mind, you need to tailor and adapt your employee engagement strategies to meet the needs of different types of employees, including frontline workers. This will make their overall experience positive and rewarding.
The foundations of effective employee engagement strategies
Engaged employees can be your greatest business asset. They are more focused and committed than disengaged workers, encourage their coworkers, and positively impact your bottom line.
But improving employee engagement is not about what you do. It’s about what you are as an organization, the culture you cultivate, and the values that you live by.
So before we jump into the employee engagement strategies, it’s important to look at the key values of employee engagement that form the foundation for those strategies. Those core values are:
Respect
Respect is an essential consideration for all your high-level decisions about managing employees. For your workers to be engaged at work, they should be able to trust that they are being treated with fairness and respect.
So how do you convey this in your processes and policies? You pay competitive wages, allow enough breaks, listen to their ideas, and formally recognize excellent performance and value-abiding behaviors.
Transparency
If your employees aren’t aware of anything about your organization that’s beyond their scope of work or immediate team, you can’t blame them for feeling like an outsider. Sooner or later, they’ll feel isolated and disengaged.
Being in the loop doesn’t just help them do their jobs in a better way, but also makes them feel like they belong. So it’s essential to communicate openly and regularly with all your employees.
The more transparent your communication, the higher level of trust you’ll build with your workers. And the more comfortable they’ll feel sharing their thoughts and concerns, which brings us to the next pillar of employee engagement.
Two-way communication
Most organizations follow a top-down approach to employee communication in which frontline employees hardly ever have a say. But these workers often have the best insights because they work directly with customers day in and day out.
So one of the best values to nurture and cultivate for high employee engagement is two-way communication. Give your workers ample opportunities to raise their voice and share what they think. Then act on this feedback to take your employee engagement to the next level.
12 actionable employee engagement strategies
Here are 12 employee engagement strategies & tactics you can implement today:
1. Foster co-worker relationships
When employees have friendly relationships with immediate team members and other people in the organization, they are more likely to enjoy the day-to-day.
Workplace relationships don’t just help with networking, they also provide the guidance and motivation a worker needs to succeed in their role. And creating opportunities to build and nurture these connections is one of the best employee engagement strategies.
Co-workers don’t always cross paths throughout the working day — especially in frontline organizations. It might be up to you to encourage better intra-department connections through organized events. You could create a program to encourage workers to collaborate, socialize, or train each other on the parts of the job that they know best.
Workers from different departments can connect, share notes, and exchange best practices. This way, they can also try out a recently learned skill or explore different options they might want to pursue in the future.
In fact, there are many cases in which employees consider leaving their organization to pursue a different career path. This program will help you facilitate the lateral moving of an employee to a different department, so they aren’t forced to look elsewhere. This way you hit two goals with one stone: high employee engagement and better employee retention.
2. Have a thorough onboarding process
Onboarding is essential for setting the right tone and expectations when a new employee joins your team.
As the statistics in the video above highlight, around 20% of new hires leave in the first seven weeks of employment, but organizations with a strong onboarding process have improved retention rates by 82%.
A strong onboarding experience is achieved by:
Making sure your onboarding process covers not only organizational policies, but also the company’s core values, mission, and vision
Giving your new employees mobile accessto relevant materials and resources to learn from, and encouraging all employees to provide their feedback
Acknowledging the importance of connection during onboarding. Introduce new hires to their team members, leadership, and coworkers. For a dispersed workforce, this can be done by ensuring your employees have the right digital tools and channels to connect from wherever they are
A sense of belonging from day one is integral in order to improve employee engagement — particularly for the frontline, where80% of workers feel they have few connection opportunities at work.
See how Go North West is using Blink to make new team members feel part of the organization right from day one.
3. Rethink physical spaces
Frontline employees power the global workforce. With no central break room or day-to-day opportunities for office chat, dispersed workers can become increasingly disconnected from the rest of the organization.
While team building and other social events may be organized with the best of intentions, they often miss the mark for frontline workers, putting more pressure on employees instead of providing a channel for enthusiastic engagement.
If you’re a frontline leader, you need to rethink your social spaces and channels to meet the engagement expectations of all your employees. This might mean creating dedicated digital channels, Feeds, or groups for frontline workers who would otherwise never have a chance to interact.
Deliberately creating space for accessible social interaction can help build relationships, increase engagement, and create an environment of inclusion and positivity throughout your organization.
Career growth has a positive impact on knowledge workers’ organizational engagement
Career goal progress and professional ability development promote job engagement
Career growth has a positive effect on affective commitment, which in turn influences employee engagement.
If you can make workers feel that they can advance their careers without leaving your company, you’ll see a big boost in employee engagement. Workers at every level of your company should be able to view a clear-cut career path ahead and the map to follow that path.
So when formulating employee engagement strategies for your company, see how you can help workers get in complete control of their careers. The more assured they are about achieving their future goals, the more engaged you’ll find them to be.
How to accomplish this? Take your workers’ input on where they see themselves in the future. Here’s a career development plan template that might come in useful, as you do.
When you empower employees to take charge of their goal setting in alignment with team objectives, they’ll be more invested in working hard to hit those goals. And they won’t need tight schedules to do the same, leading to an improvement in overall satisfaction.
5. Provide training and learning opportunities
Helping workers learn new skills and investing in their professional development is crucial to their engagement.
In fact, 35% of millennial employees (who also make up around 35% of the US workforce) said they were attracted to employers who offer excellent training and development programs for this reason and saw it as the top benefit they wanted from an employer.
There are many measures you can take to facilitate employee education:
Conduct online workshops that support employees’ learning goals
Provide reimbursements for courses workers enroll in
When you invest in employees’ learning and development, you are sending a message that your company is committed to them for the long term. And this demonstration of commitment makes them far more likely to give their 100% on the job.
6. Clear and consistent communication
Dispersed staff need a tool that allows them to interact with each other as if they were in the same room. This is key for breaking down barriers, unifying teams, and working productively, no matter where your team is located.
At Blink, communication is part of our culture and we are strong believers in its power. This is something that you must emphasize too if you wish to engage your employees. When you build a culture of trust and open communication, you help create an environment of transparency, respect, and collaboration.
You also need to make sure your team members are able to communicate with each other. Every team member should be aware of the communication channels that the organization uses and how to use them.
As leaders, don’t forget your own role in communication, either. Simply providing employees the channels to communicate and actually engaging employees through these channels are two different things.
To ensure a clear and consistent communication strategy, consider:
Frequent News Feed updates to keep team members in the loop
Regularly scheduled 1-1s and ongoing two-way feedback loops
Targeted posts in group chats and forums for sharing ideas and gaining insights
When someone asks where they work, your workers can feel absolute pleasure, cold apathy, or even disdain or embarrassment answering that question. It all depends on your company’s reputation inside and outside the premises.
Money is undoubtedly a strong motivator, but employees also want to feel proud of where they work. The strength of your organization’s brand and what it stands for is directly related to your workers’ level of engagement.
That makes internal branding one of the most crucial employee engagement strategies. It means you need to ensure that your workers understand, support, and feel connected to your mission, vision, and values. The more convinced they are of what your brand stands for, the more likely they are to emulate behaviors that speak to the same values.
The supermarket chain Trader Joe’s is a great example. It has designed a fun and quirky environment for both workers and customers, with the workers conveying its brand values through different aspects of their job. The way they name products, design signage, décorate the store, and interact with customers — everything aligns with the Trader Joe’s brand.
The checkout process is just as warm, friendly, and casual. Workers display enthusiasm and a genuine desire to help with their feedback and expertise on the products.
This goes on to show that when done correctly, internal branding can create a virtuous cycle. It will attract workers who love your brand, who will further communicate their passion to your customers and partners, thereby enhancing the brand and attracting more top talent.
8. Encourage diversity and inclusion
D&I initiatives are crucial to the overall employee experience, making them a great place to focus your efforts for improving engagement levels. Research by ADP states:
“Studies have shown that employees who are satisfied with their organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I) are twice as engaged as dissatisfied employees. Changeboard adds that diverse and inclusive organizations work 12% harder, are 19% more likely to stay longer with the organization, and collaborate 57% more effectively with peers.”
What does this look like in action? Bentley University highlights some key actions that can help you better promote diversity in the workplace, including to:
Address implicit bias: Make sure everyone in the company, starting with your C-suite and leadership teams, is aware of their unconscious bias and take proactive steps to address it
Acknowledge intersectionality: D&I initiatives must not ignore or sidestep the fact that all individuals have nuanced social identities and backgrounds that can confer or deny privilege in accordance with cultural norms
Invest in Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Investing in ERGs, or affinity groups that provide social support for employees with shared backgrounds, interests, and/or experiences is one of the most effective ways to ensure diversity initiatives remain top-of-mind
Offer mentorship programs: Mentorships encourage both personal and professional growth, and provide a pipeline for leadership development. For groups with fewer role models in senior positions, mentorship can be crucial to cultivating diverse leadership
Communicate with transparency: Be open and transparent about the goals of your D&I initiatives. Communicate progress towards achieving measurable objectives, ensure everyone is informed about key developments in the initiative, and most importantly, be open to feedback from all employees on how you can improve it
In addition to these diversity strategies, every segment and every department of your organization must also feelincluded to foster true D&I and, in turn, boost engagement.
In fact, studies show that belonging is one of the most powerful predictors of D&I efficacy in the workforce. Organizations with high levels of belonging also have higher employee net promoter scores (eNPS), which are correlated with higher engagement levels.
Frontline workers can experience the very opposite. Warehouse workers, for example, are typically secluded from other employees — and that goes double if they work the night shift as well. If a frontline worker continues to feel left out, then their engagement is likely to suffer. It’s crucial that you take the necessary steps to ensure that everyone has a sense of belonging and inclusion, starting with your frontline employees.
9. Survey, listen, and act
12 best employee engagement strategies & tactics that work 2
Your employees all have improvements they’d make to their roles, whether it’s a better work-life balance, tools that they can actually use in their roles, or more contact with management. You need to collect these insights — and act on them — to keep your employees engaged long-term.
An employee engagement survey can help you gain this valuable feedback from workers. An employee survey gives you insights into employees’ opinions, attitudes, and experiences — and you can use this data to identify areas for action.
You can also use surveys to recognize areas of improvement and understand what makes employees proud of their work.
Make sure you follow through on survey results with actions that address the employee feedback provided. Additionally, keep your workers in the loop with regular updates on progress and changes made as a result of their input. This will help build trust between your team and management, and demonstrate your commitment to employee engagement.
10. Recognize and reward
Rewards and recognition are essential for employee engagement. In fact, one 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that when anemployee says their manager is great at recognizing them, then that employee is 40+% more engaged than those with managers who were not.
Recognition is an effective way to keep employees motivated. It also reinforces the behaviors you want more of in your organization.
For example, if you want to encourage team collaboration, reward teams that work together on a project or present a unified front during client meetings. If you need increased productivity, recognize employees who go above and beyond to get the job done.
Remember, rewards don’t have to be expensive or elaborate. Digital recognition tools or Kudos are both an effective and cost-effective way to show appreciation for your team’s hard work.
11. Provide incentives and perks
While closely related to your rewards and recognition schemes, incentives and perks work slightly differently. Typically, incentives are used to elicit a particular action from your employees. For instance, you might offer bonus pay for completing a project before the deadline or reaching certain on-the-job targets.
Unlike as-and-when recognition and rewards that react to a job well done, with ongoing incentives, workers will often know what they will get for completing the challenge ahead of time, and exactly what is required in order to receive that incentive.
Perks are more general benefits that make working in your organization more desirable. Some basic examples could include flexible work hours, subsidized gym memberships, and free snacks or coffee. You really need to get more creative than this, however, if you want to provide perks that your employees really want.
For example, factors such as compensation, growth through promotion, paid training, and high-value traditional benefits have the largest impact on frontline employee preferences when choosing a new role. However, employers do not value the same factors, according to the same research by McKinsey. The study states:
“When it comes to growth-oriented attributes, employers tend to emphasize a higher job title (among the bottom five attributes for frontline employees) over job growth and learning opportunities (both top-five attributes), which may help explain why frontline employees cite a lack of employer-provided development opportunities as a primary barrier to their advancement.”
To align your company perks with the needs of your frontline workers, you should consider providing opportunities for a yearly raise or promotion, advanced learning and employee development opportunities, and ongoing upskilling.
McKinsey: What frontline employees want—and what employers think they want
12. Implement employee engagement tech with analytics tools
Analytics are essential for a successful employee engagement strategy. With the right engagement analytics tools, you can gain insights into how employees are engaging with company messages, what topics they’re most interested in, and how to best tailor future activities to their needs.
For example, use feedback or survey tools on mobile devices to collect real-time data from employees. This data can then be analyzed to reveal the most critical areas of focus for your engagement strategy.
You can also use dedicated analytics features to tailor specific messages or activities that best meet the needs of individual employees. This helps you create a more personalized, effective experience for workers and drive more meaningful engagement within your organization.
Using technology to monitor employee engagement is also one of the best ways to ensure that initiatives are tied directly to overall business objectives. Analytics help you understand if there are any engagement gaps that you need to fill.
Are there certain teams that consistently fail to engage with your content, for example? Tracking open rates, comments, will help you identify any disengaged teams or employees, so that you can work to address and improve their experience.
How to create an employee engagement strategy
Set goals
You need goals that are specific and measurable when creating a successful employee engagement strategy. This provides the foundation for your efforts, ensures everyone is on the same page, and helps you assess progress along the way.
Identify your issues
Once you have established your goals, determine what obstacles stand between you and achieving those objectives. Communication issues, lack of motivation, or a disconnected team can all put your progress at risk. Knowing what might stand in your way will help you tailor activities to your organization’s needs and develop solutions that are relevant and effective.
Build your plan
Next, you need to create a plan of action for achieving your engagement goals. You should include activities such as tailored employee surveys, tech and communication refreshes, and analytics implementation in this plan.
Analyze and adjust
Finally, track the progress of your employee engagement efforts with analytics tools and review how well they worked. Adjust activities based on the findings, and move forward with more tailored initiatives.
Why your employee engagement strategy might fail
Not listening to feedback
If you don’t listen to what your employees are telling you, then your engagement activities will be misguided and ineffective. You need to respond quickly and effectively to feedback in order to ensure that your initiatives meet their needs.
Not having the right tools
Communication and engagement tools are essential in today’s workplace, and even more so if you want an engaged workforce. Without the right tools, you won’t be able to track progress or employee engagement scores accurately — let alone ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Plus, if your tools aren’t fit for mobile, you will be missing out on the chance to engage with your key employees when they are on the move.
Not having leadership buy-in
Employee engagement strategies rely on strong leadership support. Without it, your initiatives can easily be overlooked or deprioritized as other programs take precedence. Make sure that your leadership is involved and invested in the process to ensure success.
But who are your most engaged allies?
How would greater employee engagement help them meet their targets?
How do you bring the opportunity to life for your wider leadership team?
What are the risks they’ll ask you about, so that you can prepare in advance?
Employee engagement strategies only work when teams are communicating effectively. Invest time into making sure that communication channels are clear and regularly updated with relevant content so that everyone can stay in the loop.
Final thoughts
No one wants employee disengagement. It’s costly and damaging to morale. Plus, disengaged workers make errors at a 60% higher rate.
But still, many companies turn a blind eye to the issue. They wait to take concrete action and implement employee engagement strategies until things get out of hand.
The good news is that improving employee engagement is both possible and measurable. You need the right steps, the right engagement tools, and serious execution. So take a good look at your present culture and see which of these strategies will be a good start for you.
Remember, your company is a community. And communities prosper only when every member and segment feels valued, trusted, and respected.
Blink is an internal communications tool that can help take your employee engagement to new heights.
