Meet Chris Long Melton

Employee retention is the art of holding onto your staff once you’ve hired them.

And, in 202w, it’s more important than ever.

Why?

Because companies are finally waking up to the competitive advantages of being a "people" company. A "churn and burn" approach to hiring results in poor customer service.

This is an issue, because customers are placing increasing value on good service. With smartphones, it’s easier than ever to find a competitor company to buy from. Or in the case of consumer goods, to avoid the shop altogether and order online.

Before we start.

You can hold onto employees (more or less) by treating them well. Listening to their concerns, and providing them with a few incentives to stay put.

If you’re an HR professional or a CEO, you don’t need us to tell you that.
What you might find useful is an in-depth guide to employee retention in the modern workforce.

How to maximize your employee engagement efforts. And make sure there were no stones left unturned in creating the most comprehensive guide... we asked some industry-leading experts to contribute.
We’ll cover:

• Detail on the importance of employee retention today.
• How to build effective employee retention strategies.
• The exit interview, and how to turn it into your secret employee retention weapon.

Let’s begin...

Why is employee retention important?

Employee retention means "treating your employees right"; it’s an end in itself, not just the means.

From an ethical standpoint, no company should mistreat their employees. Meeting your colleagues’ basic needs and providing them with a safe and stimulating workplace? It's the right thing to do for its own sake.

But it’s more than that.

Attracting talent to your company—and keeping it once you’ve found it—has so many advantages. According to Herzberg's famous Two-Factory Theory, employee retention and employee motivation are interdependent. You can find out more about this in the Vantage Circle HR blog. A strong employee retention strategy will:

• Reduce operating costs.
• Improve customer service levels.
• Allow you to out-compete your competitors for the best people.

The cost of high employee turnover

Hiring and firing is expensive.

Eye-wateringly expensive, to be precise. Think six to nine months salary as a conservative estimate.

Then you need to consider the impact of not having someone there to do that person’s work. That could slow down a massive project. Cause higher overtime costs as existing staff pick up their work. Or just lead to a reduction in staff morale as they struggle with increased workloads.

Companies tend to get the importance of this for salaried positions and execs. but there’s often a bit of a blind spot when it comes to their non-desk workforce and the real cost of losing an employee.

Sure, replacing a senior-level manager is more expensive than replacing a bus driver. But what happens if your bus drivers’ morale becomes so low that two or three quit per month?

It all adds up.

"Losing talented staff can also have emotional consequences on those who stay. Effectively reducing productivity by decreasing morality and motivation," says Rochelle van Rensburg of the Ezzely Blog.

"Maintaining essential talent is therefore mission-critical to organizational effectiveness for all these reasons. Staff retention puts companies ahead of their competitors, by reducing recruiting and re-skilling costs. But more importantly, by keeping the top performers, which results in all of their specialized knowledge and expertise remaining in-house."

Your mobile workforce interacts most with customers. They are the public face of your company. So, their happiness will reflect in the level of service they give your customers.

Happier, more engaged employees deliver better customer service. They also build up a bank of operational knowledge over time. This helps them respond to queries quicker and more effectively than a steady stream of new hires ever could.

The importance of employee retention in 2020

An active employee retention strategy is more important than ever.
There are two key reasons for this:

Firstly, it's never been easier for customers to look elsewhere if they feel that your levels of service don’t match their expectations. We live in an age where any information you want is available via a few taps of a smartphone screen.

Dissatisfied with a hotel stay? Booking.com can recommend thousands of others.

Bad experience in a taxi? A quick Google gets you all the phone numbers of other local firms.

Poor customer experience at a theme park? TripAdvisor lists other attractions.

You get the idea.

Despite this, customers still want to be loyal. Millennials want to stick around if your brand fits in with their personal values. Don’t throw away this loyal market.

Secondly, it's never been easier to browse jobs via online jobs boards. If your workforce isn’t happy they will move. Don’t assume that they will sit in their job miserable because there aren’t any other options.

Reasons why employees leave and reasons why managers leave aren't always the same.

Your competitors may be waking up to the benefits of being a "people company." They'll more than happily snap up the staff you can't keep.

The best employee retention strategies

A strong employee retention rate is crucial to remain competitive. How you go about doing this is worth examining in some depth.

Remember - you are an employee too! As you create your employee retention strategies, keep asking yourself, "would I be happy with this?" or, "does this seem reasonable to me?"

Here are a few points you’ll need to cover when creating an employee engagement plan. Remember, the employee experience starts before the first day at the interviewing stage. To set each new starter up for success, getting the onboarding right is crucial. Want to learn more? Check out the Definitive Guide to Onboarding.

Let's quickly touch on the foundation of any working relationship: trust. As Kayla Lopez from the recruitment firm Viqtory.com reminds us. "If your employees trust you and the organization they tend to embrace the workplace; this begins before the employee is even hired. Transparency is something that we need to willingly support to gain trust. A workforce that trusts you will be engaged, a workforce that is engaged will retain. Trust is the foundation of all strong partnerships."

Now for the details...

Pay well

We’ll start with the basics.

If your pay rates don’t match with your competitors’, you’re going to have a bad time keeping hold of your high achievers.

Take a quick look at what your competitors pay for equal positions. Try and build a league table of what similar companies to you pay, and where you rank. Glassdoor is a good starting point.

Aiming for the absolute top is ideal if you can afford it, but you don’t have to offer the best salary offer out there. There are plenty of other ways to encourage your staff to stay put (more on that below), as long as you can land in the middle of the table. For someone working in a frontline job, it is difficult to give your best at work knowing you could get $5.00 per hour more for the same job elsewhere. (Even if there’s free pizza every Friday).

It’s also worth noting that even a generous wage packet won’t persuade your employees to stay if you’re otherwise a nightmare to work for.
Consider this step the cornerstone of all your employee engagement efforts. Not enough by itself, but essential in building something lasting and meaningful.

Give competitive benefits

You might not be able to take it to Silicon Valley levels. (Free three-course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, unlimited holidays, and puppy creches).

You can offer a benefits package or a performance bonus scheme tailored to the size of your business, your budget, and your business objectives. The key is to prioritize benefits that would have a tangible difference to the lives of your employees. Add the fancy stuff on if you have money to spare.

Think about:

• Childcare vouchers: we’re all aware of the struggle to find affordable childcare. Help your workforce with their work-life balance (and keep it diverse—most of the people who end up quitting jobs for childcare reasons tend to be women) by offering vouchers to help with the cost.

• Health cover for employees and dependents: an absolute must if you're US-based, although even if you live in a country which has some form of universal health care, giving employees the opportunity to go private is very appealing.

• Flexible working: if the type of work you do accommodates it, flexible working is like gold dust to your staff. A "work your hours however you want" policy helps people manage childcare commitments, fit in dentist appointments, and reduce the stress of trying to juggle work and life commitments.

• Lunch program: Most of the lunch break is spent buying, prepping or reheating food. Offering a tasty and healthy in-house solution, such as the online canteen Smunch, allows your employees to capitalize on their break time and share a meal together. Ultimately, this will improve your company culture and cross-departmental communication as well.

Once you’ve got the basics sorted, some nice-to-have options include:

• Above average PTO allowances
• Free gym memberships and cycle to work programs
• Personal development funds

Develop a feedback culture to empower employees

Your employees know their workplace better than anyone else. Make the most of it.

If your employees feel involved in shaping their workplace and consulted on major decisions then they will be reluctant to leave it.

The key to this is to carry regular, easy-to-complete employee engagement surveys so you know exactly what the mood on the ground is and how to improve it.

Employees will hold an enormous amount of goodwill towards a workplace that listens to their concerns and acts on them. Equally, they will reserve a special sort of resentment for those that send out survey after survey, only to ignore the results.

It’s essential to have a solid plan in place for your employee engagement surveys, or they will backfire spectacularly.

Key pointers

• Small, regular surveys are better than long, annual ones. Only giving your employees one chance per year to raise issues will result in bottled up frustrations spewing out come survey time. Not only does this result in surveys that skew unhelpfully negative, but it also means that your HR team will face an uphill struggle
• Another point about designing surveys that you can respond to effectively: keep it targeted. Focus each of your quick-answer surveys on a specific area—facilities onsite, for example, or about relationships with line managers.
• Use short answer questions: "yes/no" or "on a scale of 1-5" formats make it easier for people to respond immediately. Long-form feedback can be helpful, but having lots of long-answer text boxes on your survey will put people off completing it. A good compromise is to have an optional "any specific comments" box at the end of the survey.

When you’ve processed the surveys, share the results and shout about what you’re doing to act on feedback. Employees will appreciate the transparency, and it’s important to signpost what you’re doing to address the concerns they raise—or they won’t bother to participate in future surveys.

Try and create a "feedback culture" in your company by encouraging people to come forward with suggestions for improvements any time they want. Surveys highlight pain points as they are reactive; an anonymous suggestions box (either digital or real-life), on the other hand, will bring out the more innovative side of your workforce.

These suggestions might be small—a new way of organizing the break room fridge, or the introduction of free coffee Mondays—but the opportunity to improve the workplace in this way will work wonders for your wider staff’s sense of allegiance to it.

Make your workplace a fun place to work

If your coworkers are your friends, spending time at work doesn’t seem so taxing.

This is where the fun stuff comes in—the away days, lunchtime yoga, the free breakfast bar, the Christmas party...

If you have a mobile workforce, don’t forget to include them, too! They might not be in the office that often, so having regular get-togethers or breakfast clubs when shifts change is a great way to build a sense of belonging.

Obviously, base these activities on what your own workforce would like, but some ideas include:

• Regular lunchtime sports clubs (running, yoga, five-a-side, badminton are good starting points)
• Away days and team-building weekends.
• Semi-regular opportunities for free food. Depending on the size of your team, you could offer lunch on the company each Friday, pizza parties when teams hit their targets or just because
• Big events like Christmas parties and family fun days. If you run awareness weeks for things like diversity, mental health and stress, why not run some exciting events for these too?
• Recognition of key milestones. If there are particularly busy periods throughout the year (like the Christmas rush for anyone working in retail or hospitality), put on an event to recognize the hard work your employees put in. This could be a full-on party, or simply just giving your staff the nod to take off after lunch on a quiet day.

This step does, however, come with a big flashing warning sign that says: don’t bother doing any of these without doing the steps listed above first.

Because these are fun and exciting, and sound super trendy when you put them on your Careers page, people often use them in place of paying a decent wage, or offering flexible working hours, or acting on employee feedback.

The exit interview - your employee retention secret weapon

One of the best ways of figuring out what’s going wrong with your employee retention efforts is asking your colleagues when they leave.

Seems counter-intuitive, and rather frustrating, doesn’t it?

And in some ways, it is. No amount of collecting and aggregating exit interview data, tweaking your employee engagement plan and making changes in your company to reduce employee turnover will change the fact that, for that particular employee, your efforts weren’t enough. For HR people and line managers, that stings sometimes.

Still, if you can take your losses on the chin, this is a real opportunity to do better for your colleagues, and identify and fix any major issues that push people to leave.

There are three main reasons why exit interviews are so effective at flagging up things that need to change:

The employee is leaving so won't hold back

Regardless of how many times you reassure your colleagues that your pulse surveys are anonymous and that helpful suggestions are encouraged, they will still be a little suspicious.

The worry that surveys aren’t really anonymous, or that speaking out about a key workplace bugbear will get them labelled as a troublemaker, will be a constant thorn in the side of your employee retention efforts.

(As a side note, if this attitude is pervasive then it might be time to take a look at your workplace culture. A little reticence is natural. An all-encompassing dread of speaking up might indicate something a little more sinister).

The exit interview is a different kettle of fish. They’re leaving. There are no raises or opportunities for promotion in the pipeline. This is their opportunity to "tell it like it really is."

Listen, even if you think they’re being unfair and bitter.

Problems brought up during exit interviews tend to have weighed heavily on an employee’s decision to leave. In other words, they’re big issues you need to address urgently.

Get the whole picture

Multiple exit interviews help build up a better picture of life on the ground.

Of course, there’s always the chance that one particular employee just, for whatever reason, didn’t have a good time.

That’s where keeping data from previous exit interviews comes in.

For example, if an employee complains about their line manager being unbearable, it might just be a clash of personalities. Equally it could be because that line manager is difficult to work for and too demanding. It’s difficult to say without further info.

So. Run some analytics.

How many other employees from that line manager’s team have left over the past year?

Did they say anything in their exit interviews?

Have they been flagged to HR for anything previously?

If so, you might want to investigate further.

This is why it’s important to conduct an exit interview for every single person that leaves the business. If you restrict it to management positions, people based in HQ, or full-time workers, you’re missing key sets of data that could be useful in improving your employee retention strategy.

Find out what went wrong

An exit interview, conducted well, helps you identify wrong turns in your employee journey map.

You’ll probably have some sort of employee journey map already.

You might call it something different. We’re referring to the plan you make that starts at the hire phase and ends with the offboarding phase when the employee leaves. This normally includes guidelines for each stage they go through with your company. For example:

Hiring:

• Offer letter and contract sent
• Start date agreed two weeks in advance

Onboarding:

• First day: tour of premises, fire safety, welcome coffee or lunch
• First six weeks: all e-learning to be completed

You get the idea. Here's a basic template you could expand on:

(Source: Trends in Employee Journey Maps)

The exit interview provides an excellent opportunity to ask your employees about various stages in this plan, to see whether they’ve been carried out to your expectations.

Ask specifically, and don’t be afraid to go right back to the start of their employment. Whether they felt welcomed in their first weeks, for example. If they were given clear and regular feedback on their performance, and compare that to your notes on how your employee journey should pan out.

It could be that, despite your meticulous efforts in planning it, your employee journey map isn’t being adhered to by managers in the wider organisation. This could be why your employees are leaving - this map provides guidelines on how to make sure people feel safe, supported and included at work. If people don’t follow it you’re going to have problems.

Your employee journey map is important. If it isn’t being followed, you need to correct that as soon as you can. Exit interviews are the best way to do this.

How to conduct an employee retention interview

Be flexible around your employees needs

If a lot of your workforce are remote or mobile, don’t insist on a face-to-face interview at HQ.

There are several free video calling apps available, so why not make use of them? An employee is more likely to feel comfortable talking to you if you’ve made accommodations for their situation.

If they’re more comfortable talking to you, they’re more likely to be honest with you, and that’s exactly what you want.

Don’t make it overly formal

Go for a relaxed vibe. Making things too formal will only stifle conversation.

If you’re conducting a face-to-face interview, it’s a nice touch to provide some sort of refreshments; hot drinks and a pastry, maybe. The employee will appreciate the gesture, and it will encourage a more conversational feel, which is exactly what will get them to open up.

Identify the specifics to touch on

You will know, from previous exit interviews if there are any particular pain points in your employee experience.

Ask about them. You’ll then be able to establish:

• Whether these are still issues
• What progress you’ve made on them, and how effective your efforts to tackle them have been.

...But allow them to express their opinion too

If the structure of the interview is entirely created by you, you could miss something important.

By allowing employees space to expand on their own concerns, you give yourself the opportunity to pick up on potential issues that aren’t on your radar. Sure, a lot of this could be specific to that particular individual, but you should investigate nonetheless—otherwise you’ll never know whether it’s the iceberg tip of something bigger.

Remember: your relationship with the employee isn't over

People leave for all sorts of reasons—not all of them negative.

You might want to leave the door open for talented employees, in case they want to return at some point. Also consider that talented former employees can be great source of referrals.

These can be your company’s cheerleaders, even after they’ve left. A good exit interview can make this relationship. A poor one can ruin it.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that the employee leaving has been less than stellar. In this case you should see the exit interview as a chance to smooth things over, and divert potentially negative Glassdoor reviews or social media mentions.

Final thoughts

To summarize:

• An employee retention strategy is important because it makes your employees happier. Happier, more engaged employees perform better in general, and deliver better customer service.
• The cost of employee turnover is measured in increased operational costs and decreased institutional knowledge.

Bearing this in mind, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t "can we afford to expand our employee retention efforts?"

It’s "can we afford not to?"

An engaged, happy workforce with a low churn rate isn’t just a nice thing to have.

It’s not just something you can boast about on your Careers page.

It’s a competitive advantage—and people are only just waking up to this fact. Because now more than ever, people value good customer service. If you can provide that, you’ll have a serious head start on your competitors.

Blink is an internal communications tool that’s does everything your intranet does, but better. Try it out today! Request a free demo to get started.

Blink. And your finger's on the pulse.

Say hello to Surveys from Blink: the quick and easy way to gain actionable feedback from your frontline workforce, helping you deliver your best employee experience.

Solving a uniquely frontline issue

The frontline connection gap — a failure to enable frontline workers to communicate with the same ease, scale, and speed as desk-based workers — is real, and so too are the risks it carries. But closing it is easier than you might think.

With Blink's new in-app survey tool, you can create a connected workplace culture by getting real-time data from your employees themselves.

What's so powerful about surveys through Blink?

Employee survey tools like Peakon and CultureAmp made it easy for leaders of desk-based teams to access employee engagement insights. But for frontline organizations, it's a very different story:

• Paper problems: many frontline workers are still asked to complete paper surveys, which are easy to ignore and even easier to lose  
• Desktop friction: completing online surveys using a shared desktop terminal or tablet demands time from a frontline worker's busy shift — and there are only so devices to share around
• One too many tools: even when frontline workers are given mobile access to survey tools, many still struggle with the complexity of bad user experience and a new set of log-in details to remember 

All of this leads to incredibly low response rates, which make for datasets that aren't insightful or actionable. That's what Blink has set out to solve.

Introducing Surveys on Blink

Surveys are now available to use on Blink's frontline app, transforming your ability to capture crucial information from your frontline teams. It's incredibly simple to use:

1. Select your target audience
2. Choose a best-in-class survey format
3. Launch to your frontline in minutes (one-question surveys can be live in 30 seconds!)
4. See your findings within Blink's Frontline Intelligence reports

What kind of surveys can you run?

• Employee engagement surveys - engaged employees are more productive and loyal. Find out how engaged your teams are today and how you can improve their experience
• Pulse survey - ask one burning question frequently to track changes and identify patterns
• 0-10 eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) - get a 'North Star' metric for your employee engagement
• Onboarding surveys - the first few months of a new starter's journey are critical, and these types of surveys reveal whether the process is running as it should.

Every single answer in a Blink survey is anonymous — and that anonymity is made clear to your frontline workers. This ensures they have the confidence to be candid and, in turn, means that you get a true read on current performance with clear opportunities for improvement.

How Blink triples your survey response rate

Our customers have seen their response rates increase by 300% by using Blink to deliver them. Here's why it works:

• We're mobile-first. With Surveys on Blink, you can transition away from paper surveys and shared desktops to having surveys appear seamlessly in the palm of every frontline employee's hand
• It's all-in-one. Decrease the friction caused by having to remember another password by embedding your in one frontline app
• Surveys are co-located with the other tools your frontline needs. Unless you make life easier for the frontline you can’t expect them to engage. With Blink, you're delivering exactly what the frontline needs — from paystubs to scheduling and access to critical documents. This means your surveys are in an app that gets opened an average of seven times a day
• Guaranteed anonymity. By offering anonymity, frontline workers feel safer giving genuine feedback, leading to better quality results

What's next?

If you're interested in getting started with Surveys on Blink, either talk to your Customer Success partner or request a Demo.

In the coming months, we'll be announcing even more data-focused features to help you better understand your frontline, empowering your 2023 strategies with insight. Stay tuned!

Diversity and inclusion aren’t just HR trends. They’re strategic issues.

Studies show that lack of inclusion in the workplace costs U.S. businesses up to $1.05 trillion. Insights highlighting the costs of poor diversity measures are forcing companies to reevaluate existing policies and practices.

Specifically, the COVID-19 global pandemic has shined a light on diversity and inclusion issues affecting frontline workers.

On the flip side, companies that implement diversity and inclusion strategies are reaping benefits such as increased employee engagement, better retention, and more creative problem-solving.

Here’s what you’ll learn

• Current state of diversity in the workplace for frontline workers
• How a lack of diversity in the workplace affects frontline workers
• Business benefits of providing diversity in the workplace
• What diversity in the workplace looks like
• Obstacles to diversity in the workplace
• How to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace
• Final thoughts: championing diversity in the workplace for frontline workers

In this post, we’ll discuss the current inclusion challenges facing frontline workers. We’ll also outline how businesses can better promote diversity in the workplace – and how to include it in your internal communications.

Current state of diversity in the workplace for frontline workers

Frontline workers in the United States are employed in the following six industries:

• Grocery, convenience, and drugstore
• Public transit
• Trucking, warehouses, and postal service
• Building cleaning services
• Health care
• Child care and social services

When the U.S. government issued mandated business shutdowns, these essential industries remained open. The frontline workers who keep these businesses running experienced pandemic-related stress and risk of exposure to the COVID-19 virus.

Here’s a quick look at the demographics of the more than 31 million frontline workers in the United States:

• 64.4% female / 36.6% male
• 58.8% white
• 17.0% Black
• 16.3% Hispanic
• 6.7% AAPI (Asian American / Pacific Islander)

Although women make up most frontline workers, they’re underrepresented in the public transit (29.1%) and trucking, warehouse, and postal service (22.7%) industries.

How a lack of diversity in the workplace affects frontline workers

Frontline workers are the face of your company, and they provide valuable insights into your customers’ needs and pain points. However, if you don’t prioritize diversity and inclusion in your frontline workforce, you could risk losing many of these high-impact team members.

Here are a few ways lack of inclusion and diversity in the work environment creates a negative experience for frontline workers:

Poor communication

Communication between team members with different native languages or cultures can be challenging. Add to that the fact your frontline employees aren’t necessarily in the office every day; they’re out in the world facing customers.

Without communications systems in place that cater to all of your employees, your frontline workers can feel confused or disconnected from the greater team. In more extreme cases, poor communication channels can lead to conflict between team members.

Increased chance of discrimination

A lack of diversity creates a workplace environment with a higher chance of discrimination.

When companies have a clear majority profile, it’s more likely for an employee who doesn’t “fit the mold” to experience harassment and discrimination. If you don’t have diversity in management positions, it’s harder for employees to speak up about harassment or other negative experiences.

Less incentive to feel engaged at work

Even if frontline employees don’t experience harassment at work, lack of diversity leads to lower employee engagement. A frontline employee who’s different from the workplace majority can experience isolation and feel they’re not seen or heard.

And if your company tends to promote only those who fit the majority, then employees who feel different won’t see room for long-term growth that keeps them engaged.

Ultimately, employees who don’t feel safe or valued in your organization are more likely to leave. Over time, the cost of continually replacing alienated and dissatisfied employees will cost your business.

Business benefits of providing diversity in the workplace

Creating a more diverse place and inclusive culture doesn’t just benefit your frontline employees; it’s a competitive business advantage too.

Here are the top benefits that businesses report after investing in diversity and inclusion programs:

Increased perspectives and creativity

A diverse workforce brings unique perspectives to the table, which increases creativity and problem-solving. According to a Boston Consulting Group study of more than 1,600 companies, teams with diverse leadership drive almost 20% more innovation revenue than their counterparts.

Image source

Increased profits

According to the Wall Street Journal, the 20 businesses ranked the highest in diversity and inclusion scores recorded 12% operating profit margins. Companies who ranked low on diversity initiatives, on the other hand, only generated operating profit margins of 8%.

Bringing together people from different backgrounds gives you a broader customer perspective, results in better decision making, and helps you avoid tone-deaf features or marketing campaigns.

Different perspectives in your business help you identify and capitalize on more market opportunities.

Reduced employee turnover

Higher employee engagement remains one of the top benefits of hiring diverse teams — businesses with better employee engagement experience less turnover in their workforce.

What diversity in the workplace looks like

It’s clear that successful workplace diversity and inclusion efforts can give businesses a strategic advantage.

But what exactly does diversity in the workplace look like?

It turns out that diversity is, well, diverse. Business owners and leaders must consider several types of diversity, including:

• Cultural background diversity
• Religious diversity
• Gender identity diversity
• Race and ethnicity diversity
• Age diversity
• Neurodiversity
• Disability diversity
• Sexual orientation diversity

Modern diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) programs need to go further than race and gender diversity.

Companies also need to think about embracing diversity in all departments and at all levels of their organization. Diversity initiatives are most successful when they include leadership and management.

Obstacles to diversity in the workplace

While the benefits of workplace diversity may seem clear, many companies struggle to implement effective diversity programs.

The primary obstacles businesses face when creating a diverse and inclusive environment are:

• Leadership buy-in
• Manager training
• Lack of awareness
• Encouraging honest feedback from employees

How to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace

1. Expand where you post job notifications
2. Train leaders and managers
3. Allow employees to take off cultural and religious holidays
4. Offer on-site daycare
5. Extend options for flexible hours
6. Use an app with on-demand translation
7. Solicit feedback from your employees

1. Expand where you post job notifications

Fostering a diverse workplace starts with the hiring process. Hiring managers can reach a more diverse talent pool by expanding where they share job openings. Your hiring department can build relationships with outreach groups, community hiring offices and chambers of commerce, and job fairs that cater to minority groups.

2. Train leaders and managers

You can’t assume that your managers know the value of diversity. To successfully implement diversity and inclusion efforts into company culture, both leadership and frontline managers need to buy into the idea of creating diverse teams.

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As you make changes in your hiring process, conduct manager training sessions that underscore the benefits of an inclusive workplace. Give them tools to implement your initiatives on their teams.

3. Allow employees to take off cultural and religious holidays

When you hire diverse talent, demonstrate that your company honors and celebrates the various cultural backgrounds and points of view your team brings to the workplace.

One simple way to do that is by letting employees take off work for religious or cultural holidays that aren’t observed by the entire office. By creating a culture that empowers all workers to observe important holidays, you can increase employee engagement and retention.

4. Offer on-site daycare

Many diversity initiatives focus on race and ethnicity, but gender diversity is an equally important facet. Although gender roles are expanding, access to quality childcare presents a significant challenge to working mothers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.9 million women left the workforce between March and September 2021, when schools closed.

According to Care.com, over 60% of parents would be more loyal to their company and have better job performance if they had access to employer-subsidized child care.

Let’s face it: your employees’ lives don’t revolve around their jobs. Many of them want to start families and raise children. If you consider child care a business issue, you can improve retention and job performance.

5. Extend options for flexible hours

If you can’t offer employer-subsidized child care, then consider expanding your flexible work hour options. Telecommuting, remote work, part-time positions, and job sharing help you provide equal opportunity to a more diverse talent pool.

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Flexible work hours will grow increasingly important as more baby boomers move into retirement and old age. Minorities rely less on professional care for the elderly. So, many millennials are entering an era where parent care and child care compete with work for their attention.

Offering remote work or even hybrid work models means your diverse employees won’t have to choose between work and parent care. You’ll have a more engaged team that feels seen, heard, and supported.

6. Use an app with on-demand translation

It’s not enough to focus on hiring people from diverse backgrounds; you have to ensure that your workplace culture feels inclusive to everyone. If you create a recruitment process that succeeds in cultivating a diverse workplace, consider using an app with on-demand translation.

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Image source

Make it possible for everyone at the company to access your internal communications in their native language.

7. Solicit feedback from your employees

Bottom line, fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace is an ongoing process. You can’t do it all in one fell swoop. To ensure your entire team feels heard, consistently ask for feedback from employees.

That’s helpful when starting, and it lets you measure your success as you roll out changes to company culture. Keep in mind that change doesn’t happen overnight. Diverse employees may not feel comfortable voicing concerns to managers or other leaders in person. So, consider using an internal communications app to let employees submit feedback.

Final thoughts: championing diversity in the workplace for frontline workers

Implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives helps you create a workplace where your employees feel included and empowered. When you have an engaged team of diverse employees, your business performs better.
Explore Blink today to learn more about technology solutions that improve engagement and retention for everybody on your team.

Internal communication isn’t just about messages — it’s about impact

Too often, internal comms teams focus on sending the right messages through the right channels. But what if that’s not enough?

With workplace expectations evolving — especially among Gen Z and Millennial employees — internal communications leaders need to do more than inform. They need to engage. Influence. Inspire action.

That’s where the 3 C’s of internal communication come in: Curiosity, courage, and catalyst.

“We know that with younger generations, it’s so much more important for them to feel that they are a part of things. Old fogies like myself, you just get your head down, do the work, hope that you get a paycheck… It’s so different these days.”

This framework, developed by author and keynote speaker Shola Kaye, transforms internal comms teams from messengers into strategic influencers. In a recent podcast, the Blink team sat down with Shola to explore the 3 C’s — why they matter and how comms leaders can put them into action.

Building a solid strategy is the first step to connecting with your frontline workers. However, before you finalize your rollout, looking at a few real world internal communication examples can help you understand exactly how to apply these concepts effectively. To get started, you need to master the 3 Cs.

Let’s break it down.

Curiosity: Don’t make assumptions right off the bat

The first C you need in your internal communications toolkit is curiosity.

Curiosity prevents us from making assumptions, which get in the way of empathy. By being curious, we get to know and understand the people around us.

“If you want to engage people, you’ve got to really know who you’re speaking to. What is on their minds? Where are they coming from? Because otherwise, how will you know how to pitch your content?”

That means listening before you speak. And creating a company culture of psychological safety where employees feel confident that their thoughts and opinions will be taken on board.

Why it matters:

Too often, comms teams assume they know what employees want or need — but a strong company culture of employee engagement starts with listening.

It’s also worth remembering that internal comms trends and employee expectations are always evolving. What worked last year might not work today. So it pays to stay curious, listening to the voices of your target audience on a continuous basis. 

How to apply it:

• Use pulse surveys and real-time employee feedback loops. Uncover what’s resonating and implement two-way communication practices. Be sure to acknowledge and act upon employee input or employees will start to doubt the process.

• Let employees shape your internal communication strategy. Ask them: What’s missing? What do they need? How do they like to receive company communications? You can then craft more effective and engaging messages.

• Create conversational hooks. Ask informal questions. For example: What did you do on the weekend? What’s a great movie you watched recently? This creates conversational hooks, which lead to connection, trust, and collaboration within the workplace.

• Go beyond small talk. Ask “big talk” questions. Instead of simply asking “How are you?” try asking, “How are you feeling about these changes?” These deeper-level questions encourage meaningful dialogue and bottom-up communication.

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Courage: Own your voice so people can’t help but listen

Internal communications teams are the unsung heroes of the workplace. It takes real courage to be the voice of a company — sharing tough news, listening to hard feedback, and taking bold risks to build a better employee experience.

“To be empathetic, you’ve got to open yourself up to what is going on for someone else. That can press buttons. It can be triggering. It can be exhausting. So it takes some courage to develop empathy and this level of communication in the workplace.”

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Courage means having difficult conversations in the knowledge that you’ll come out the other side “stronger, better, more confident at communication.” It means taking your comms beyond the internal communication tools, styles, and channels you’ve used traditionally to deliver something more engaging and authentic.

Why it matters:

Internal comms teams often walk a tightrope between corporate messaging and employee advocacy.

But great communicators don’t just share what’s safe — they push for transparency, honesty, and authenticity. They speak in an open, human way that sets the tone for the whole organization.

How to apply it:

• Advocate for direct, no-BS communication. Employees respect transparency over corporate jargon so don’t be afraid to speak honestly, as long as you approach tricky subjects with tact and sensitivity.

• Take a stand on employee well-being and inclusion. Don’t sit on the fence. If it matters to your workforce, it should matter to senior management. Clearly communicate your business goals and what your company stands for.

• Encourage business leaders to be real and visible. Align your internal communication plan to where senior leaders are on the “audacity scale.” For one C-suite member, that might mean recording a video message or running a listening tour, while the more gregarious may be happy to run a Q&A session with employees.

• Be open to new channels and formats. For comms leaders, courage can mean experimenting with new internal communication channels and formats. Video updates. Mobile-first and social tools. Insta-grade storytelling. You don’t always know how these changes will go down with employees. But the reward may be worth the risk.

Catalyst: Make change happen

Being a catalyst for change is easier than you might think. Asking the right questions at the right time — and directing employees toward the collaboration tools and resources they need — can be all it takes.

However, to be an effective catalyst, inspiring others to do and be more, you need to put the other C’s — curiosity and courage — into action first. 

“If we’re being empathetic and truly listening to others, we start to learn what they need to grow, to move forward… So then we can step into this role of catalyst to help facilitate that growth.”

Why it matters:

Internal comms isn’t just about informing employees. Done right, your internal communication strategy can inspire action. It can cultivate a motivated and engaged workforce. It can drive cultural change.

Effective communications help employees feel more connected and valued — and engaged in the company’s mission. And when employees understand how they contribute to organizational goals, they become more invested in their own growth and development, too.

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How to apply it:

• Turn communication into action. Don’t just inform. Invite employees to share ideas in town hall meetings or employee surveys. Provide clear steps and resources that make it easy for them to shape company culture.

• Set an inspiring example. Leverage storytelling to highlight employee success stories, frontline employee contributions, and company impact. Show, don’t tell — using formats like short videos, photos, and quotes — how individuals are driving change.

• Amplify unheard voices. Actively seek out perspectives from underrepresented teams, then amplify their contributions and elevate them as internal influencers so they reach a wider audience.

• Champion new digital tools. Be the change you want to see. Advocate for technology that makes internal communication more accessible and inclusive. Think mobile-first apps, AI-powered chat tools, and one-stop digital hubs. 

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Put the three C’s into action for next-level internal comms

Curiosity, courage, catalyst — three simple words that provide a blueprint for next-level internal communications. The 3 C’s can help you take your internal communications strategy from a function to a force for connection and change.

By staying curious, you uncover what truly matters to your workforce, across all generations. By leading with courage, you create space for honest, impactful conversations. And by stepping up as a catalyst, you empower employees to shape their futures — and that of the organization.

Internal communicators, it’s time to share the mic with your employees

There are an estimated 50 million content creators worldwide. Alongside the A-listers and sports stars, there are lots of regular people posting videos, sharing stories, and creating content that connects.

The social media giants have tapped into something. They know that people don’t just want to consume content. They want to contribute. And in 2025, this creator mindset deserves a place within your employee communications strategy.

An internal creator culture allows employees to react, comment, and share their own stories — you turn spectators into storytellers. Give the green light to employee-generated content (EGC) and you give your entire workforce a voice while taking engagement on your internal communication channels through the roof.

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Want to drive this kind of mindset at your organization? Here, we look at the benefits, risks, and tips you need to know when building an internal creator culture.

Why internal communications needs creators, not just consumers

Your comms pros are great at what they do, right? So what does EGC have that traditional comms doesn’t?

#1. Authenticity

Trust in leadership teams is down. In fact, Gen Z and Millennial workers are some of the least trusting in the workplace.

Humanizing your executive communications helps. But when someone has their guard up, it’s tough to make a human connection.

Real stories from real employees hit different. Like Iman Pabani recently said in Fortune: “Credibility today isn’t about expertise but about who tells the most compelling story.”

It’s not always slick and polished. But EGC is genuine. It reflects the real experiences of your workforce. Unscripted moments stick in the mind and spark conversations.

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#2. Diversity

When your internal comms team creates every piece of content, it can start to sound…well, like internal comms. Perspective and tone become repetitive and employees start to switch off.

But hand the mic to your employees and you reflect your entire organization — not just the C-suite office.

You can create Insta-worthy internal comms that resonate with your digital natives. You can post frontline-focused and relevant content created by frontline employees. You can respond with agility to the latest events and trends. 

EGC helps you showcase a more diverse range of voices and create a sense of community across your internal communications channels.

In a nutshell? By sharing diverse and authentic voices, EGC improves employee communications and employee engagement. It helps you build connection and trust across your organization — and develop a vibrant company culture.

Busting the myths about employee-generated content

Here at Blink, we’re big champions of EGC. But we know that not every organization approaches this topic with the same level of enthusiasm.

Large companies are often a little wary about opening up their comms channels to employees. But their concerns don’t always reflect how EGC works in practice.

So — in the hopes of settling a few nerves — here are some common EGC misconceptions and the reality behind them.

“It’s risky.”

Giving employees free rein to post on your internal communications platform can feel risky. But with the right guardrails in place, it’s empowering and effective.

Here are some ideas for managing the risks associated with EGC:

• Assign moderators to take down any content that fails to meet your creator guidelines
• Only allow content online once it’s been approved by your comms team
• Make an employee’s content visible to just their team — not the whole organization
• Do a trial run to see how EGC fits within your content ecosystem

With the right internal communication tools, there are lots of levers you can pull. You can fine-tune permissions and oversight to minimize the risks of EGC while maximizing the benefits.

“People won’t participate.”

Build it and they will come? But what if they don’t?

Many comms pros are worried that they’ll enable and encourage an internal creator culture only for there to be tumbleweed — they’ll find that their employees simply aren’t interested in posting to company channels.

If you have an organizational culture of open communication, this is unlikely to be the case. You’ve already created the psychologically safe conditions that make content-sharing feel normal and fun.

What’s more, remember that many of your employees are already creating content for their social media profiles. All it takes is a small shift in mindset and easy-to-use digital tools to harness their creative talent for your comms platform.

“It’s just fluff.”

Of course, your employees won’t be posting company news or financial forecasts. But their lighter style of content still brings a ton of value to your organization.

Birthday shoutouts make employees feel seen. A behind-the-scenes video instills pride and morale. That “meet my team” post builds bridges between departments.

With the help of EGC you can create a digital water cooler — a place where employees gather, connect, and find enjoyment in their work day. And its impact on your business shouldn’t be underestimated.

EGC boosts culture and engagement — and moves the dial on big business metrics like employee satisfaction and retention. It’s not about jumping onto the latest internal comms trends and it’s far from “just fluff.”

The building blocks of a creator culture

Convinced that a creator culture can benefit your business? Here are the four pillars you need to put in place to make it happen:

• Tools. The best workplace communication tools make life easy for employee content creators. They’re mobile-friendly, so creators can upload photo and video content straight from their smartphones. They provide in-built templates and AI support that guide employees to create the best possible posts. These comms tools also inspire interaction by giving your EGC audience a range of emojis, GIFs, and reactions to choose from. 

• Permission. Beyond the permission settings on your employee communication platform, you should aim for a company culture of psychological safety, where employees know that showing up and sharing is celebrated. That means normalizing imperfect content — the kind filmed on a hand-held smartphone screen. And leading from the top by getting business leaders to post personal or informal content first.

• Inspiration. Kickstart creativity by showing employee content creators what’s possible on your internal comms platform. Showcase early EGC examples from real employees. Also, create content prompts, asking employees to share their content around a particular theme or hashtag. Give them inspiration and employees are much more likely to get involved.

• Feedback. Positive reinforcement fuels more great content. So like, comment, and repost EGC on your networks. Encourage employee feedback. Give kudos publicly, celebrating creators and maybe even crowning a Creator of the Month. Also, share content stats, telling employee creators which types of communication are resonating and why — so they can create more of the same.

How to start small and scale with EGC

Still unsure how to get your EGC initiative off the ground? Here are some ideas for getting started.

Start with a pilot

Before you go all in, test the waters. Start an EGC pilot with a small group — how about your frontline employees, remote workers, or a group of culture champions?

Give this group a clear brief. Allow them to post and view EGC. Then, after a month or so, dive into the top metrics to gauge effective communication.

How has this content performed in terms of likes, shares, and comments? Is this group logging onto the platform more often? Are employee engagement stats improving?

If your pilot is a success, you can roll out your EGC initiative to the wider organization.

Create a series

Get the ball rolling and content creation brains ticking by launching a series. How about one of these ideas:

• A day in the life (a behind-the-scenes look at employee workdays)
• My why (insight into the things employees love about their jobs)
• Work hacks (tips on how to bring your A-game and get the most from workplace tools)
• Weekly win (one thing that went really well this week)

Provide a few strong examples, regularly promote your series across employee communication channels, and keep the momentum going with reminders and reactions.

Offer incentives

When you’re just getting started with EGC, incentives can be useful.

Gamification works well. Features like leaderboards, badges, and points for content creation can awaken employees’ sense of competition. Which means lots of great EGC for your news feed.

Another idea? Offer tangible rewards, like gift cards, lunch vouchers, and professional opportunities. Perhaps a top content creator could represent their team in a leadership Q&A. 

But you don’t need to overthink it. Sometimes a few words of appreciation do more than any points system. Thank employees for their content creation efforts and you’ll inspire them to do more.

Using EGC to elevate employee communications

Employee-generated content is a breath of fresh air for your employee communications. It adds authenticity, fosters two-way communication, and builds a real sense of community — all things traditional messaging can struggle to deliver.

Employees enjoy logging onto your comms platform to see what their peers have shared. And once they’re there, your core messages are more likely to cut through.

EGC also works wonders for company culture. A social feed full of real voices and relatable moments helps everyone feel seen, heard, and connected — which means a better employee experience and a workplace people genuinely want to be part of.

If you’re just getting started with EGC, it needn’t be a mountain to climb. Start small, share content inspiration, and give employees the essential tools they need to be the voice your comms has been missing.

Blink. And build an internal creator culture at your organization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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