Read 5 expert tips to create better employee journey maps. We’ll go over how to use this tool to improve employee engagement and learn from your workers.
Read 5 expert tips to create better employee journey maps. We’ll go over how to use this tool to improve employee engagement and learn from your workers.
New employee journey maps can take time to develop. But when adding more smiley faces isn’t enough, how do you get an employee journey map to work better for your organization?
The concept of employee experience maps has been gaining traction as a way to boost employee engagement and improve your onboarding process.
The template follows a pretty straightforward path from hiring, through training, and eventually exiting, but it’s the way you use these maps that makes them valuable.
You know your workers will have training at a particular stage, but how helpful is it? Do you see an increase in turnover at any stage? These are the types of questions your employee journey maps should help you answer.
Why use an employee journey map?
An employee journey map can be a helpful tool for improving the employee lifecycle. This concept visualizes the entire employee experience through your organization, from onboarding until their last day.
There are a few different ways to name each stage of the journey, but every employee experience map follows the same basic flow:
Recruitment and hiring
Onboarding
Engaging and training
Development
Progress and performance
Exit or offboarding
These employee journey touchpoints describe the main stages a worker might be at within the company.
You can track the average time it takes to complete each step, assign different training and feedback for different stages, and look for patterns within your journey maps.
An employee journey map can help with engagement as you can better address the needs and concerns a worker will have by knowing where they stand in the organization.
Making the most of this tool will help you actually get some use from it.
How to make a better employee experience journey map
Don’t worry. Not all good employee experience journey maps lead to Manchester. They just have to lead to happier workers.
Whether you already use an employee journey map template or are just starting to look into the idea, there are some steps you can take to make your maps work better.
They are the following:
Create different maps for different roles. The map for a frontline manager will look different from a warehouse worker, with different training and onboarding for each position. Depending on your organization, you may need a few maps or a few dozen.
Analyze your employee journey maps and look for patterns. Do many employees have trouble at the same part of the training? That may become more obvious when you compare maps and visualize the issue at hand.
The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows an average tenure of 4.1 years, and 22% of workers had been with their current employer for a year or less.
Looking up industry-specific numbers can help you further pinpoint areas to focus on when planning out your journey maps.
Time feedback to the stage in the journey your employee is at. Look for onboarding feedback while the process is still fresh in their mind.
Provide appropriate feedback to your employees as well. Let them know how they’ve improved after training, or likewise what they could concentrate a bit more on.
Remember, journey maps are a tool that can help predict how an employee’s experience will look, but it’s not set in stone. There can be unexpected events that change their journey map.
Like a global pandemic that reduced working hours by 17.3% in 2020. Most of us are still trying to get back on track after that one.
Make sure your organization learns from the tool. These aren’t coloring book pages for employees to fill in while HR processes their paperwork. Learn from them.
Did you know only 12% of employees strongly agree their company did a good job at onboarding?
Using an employee journey map, you can analyze your new hires at this stage and see why they might feel that way.
Wrapping up — Making employee journey maps better for your workers
Employee journey mapping is one of those tools with lots of potential. It can help you improve different processes in your organization, increase employee engagement, and create an easy-to-follow workflow for various roles.
Or you can spend an entire quarter making everyone fill these in and then promptly lose them in a subfolder that was last opened three years ago.
Just keep in mind that creating an employee journey map is the first step. You also need to make it easy to access for employees and have them provide feedback.
New employee journey maps can take time to develop. But when adding more smiley faces isn’t enough, how do you get an employee journey map to work better for your organization?
The concept of employee experience maps has been gaining traction as a way to boost employee engagement and improve your onboarding process.
The template follows a pretty straightforward path from hiring, through training, and eventually exiting, but it’s the way you use these maps that makes them valuable.
You know your workers will have training at a particular stage, but how helpful is it? Do you see an increase in turnover at any stage? These are the types of questions your employee journey maps should help you answer.
Why use an employee journey map?
An employee journey map can be a helpful tool for improving the employee lifecycle. This concept visualizes the entire employee experience through your organization, from onboarding until their last day.
There are a few different ways to name each stage of the journey, but every employee experience map follows the same basic flow:
Recruitment and hiring
Onboarding
Engaging and training
Development
Progress and performance
Exit or offboarding
These employee journey touchpoints describe the main stages a worker might be at within the company.
You can track the average time it takes to complete each step, assign different training and feedback for different stages, and look for patterns within your journey maps.
An employee journey map can help with engagement as you can better address the needs and concerns a worker will have by knowing where they stand in the organization.
Making the most of this tool will help you actually get some use from it.
How to make a better employee experience journey map
Don’t worry. Not all good employee experience journey maps lead to Manchester. They just have to lead to happier workers.
Whether you already use an employee journey map template or are just starting to look into the idea, there are some steps you can take to make your maps work better.
They are the following:
Create different maps for different roles. The map for a frontline manager will look different from a warehouse worker, with different training and onboarding for each position. Depending on your organization, you may need a few maps or a few dozen.
Analyze your employee journey maps and look for patterns. Do many employees have trouble at the same part of the training? That may become more obvious when you compare maps and visualize the issue at hand.
The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows an average tenure of 4.1 years, and 22% of workers had been with their current employer for a year or less.
Looking up industry-specific numbers can help you further pinpoint areas to focus on when planning out your journey maps.
Time feedback to the stage in the journey your employee is at. Look for onboarding feedback while the process is still fresh in their mind.
Provide appropriate feedback to your employees as well. Let them know how they’ve improved after training, or likewise what they could concentrate a bit more on.
Remember, journey maps are a tool that can help predict how an employee’s experience will look, but it’s not set in stone. There can be unexpected events that change their journey map.
Like a global pandemic that reduced working hours by 17.3% in 2020. Most of us are still trying to get back on track after that one.
Make sure your organization learns from the tool. These aren’t coloring book pages for employees to fill in while HR processes their paperwork. Learn from them.
Did you know only 12% of employees strongly agree their company did a good job at onboarding?
Using an employee journey map, you can analyze your new hires at this stage and see why they might feel that way.
Wrapping up — Making employee journey maps better for your workers
Employee journey mapping is one of those tools with lots of potential. It can help you improve different processes in your organization, increase employee engagement, and create an easy-to-follow workflow for various roles.
Or you can spend an entire quarter making everyone fill these in and then promptly lose them in a subfolder that was last opened three years ago.
Just keep in mind that creating an employee journey map is the first step. You also need to make it easy to access for employees and have them provide feedback.
How engaged your frontline employees are directly impacts how successful they are as a team. If you can encourage engagement then productivity, quality, care, commitment, and retention surely follow.
Yet, no matter how clear the correlation is, it’s not always as clear how to achieve frontline employee engagement.
In this guide, we share expert insights for your employee engagement strategies — helping you create a positive working environment that inspires satisfaction and success.
From understanding the importance of communication and collaboration across the organization to leveraging technology for better team performance, this guide will cover the activities and tools needed to foster an engaging frontline culture.
The current state of frontline employee engagement
Recent employee engagement statistics tell us that only21% of employees are engaged at work.
The percentage is likely lower when it comes to the frontline.
That’s because frontline employee engagement is often handled as an afterthought. There’s a misconception that when workers are out in the field, then they don’t ‘need’ to feel connected to the wider business. Or that because their role doesn’t require a computer, they won’t want digital tools to improve their experience.
We see from our work with frontline organizations that these assumptions are wrong, and that frontline employees do want to feel engaged.
Communication starts to flow much more freely when the right tools are in place (as much as 10x more for certain Blink customers); frontline staff are more willing and able to provide feedback (survey responses increase by 300%); and you can help almost every employee to better connect with the company’s mission and vision.
So why do so many attempts at frontline employee engagement fall flat?
Workers might resist not because they don’t want to engage, but because they have become wise to empty frontline engagement projects and initiatives. The programs that fail are the ones that misunderstand what frontline workers need to succeed — or that ask too much of them while delivering too little.
“Great, another thing to remember”
“It’s not a natural part of my day”
“It’s a one-off thing”
“It’s too hard to use”
To help create frontline employee engagement initiatives that work, we first have to understand why these employees have become disengaged in the first place.
Why frontline employees become disengaged
1. Lack of the right technology
According to Blink research on the health and social care space:
Over one-third (34%) of employees can’t easily access workplace systems on their mobile
Nearly 20% aren’t using their company’s intranet
… and two-thirds of this ~20% aren’t even sure how to log on
Disengagement with — or lack of access to — company platforms leads to missed information and feelings of isolation. At best, this can impede a frontline worker’s ability to do their job (maybe they miss an important update or never receive new guidance). At worst, it distances them so much from the rest of the business that they exist in their own, dissatisfied silo.
52% of frontline workers say they would leave their job over tech tools, making leveraging the right technology a very easy win for keeping your frontline engaged and retained.
But we can’t take the same tech stack that desk-based workers use and apply it to the frontline.
As Ian Gordon, former President of Administrative Operations at Elara Caring, told us in an interview:
“Being a frontline worker can feel like you’re on an island by yourself, and the solutions that you need must be quicker and more succinct. You can’t spend a lot of time signing in and navigating. You need to get to your answer now.”
The ‘right’ technology for frontline engagement will:
Be intuitive and frictionless
Allow the most essential, day-job-critical messages to cut through
Facilitate the workflows that are most important to the ‘deskless’ front line: shift swapping, accessing pay stubs, providing feedback, and so on.
If your frontline tools don’t deliver on the above, then your frontline employee engagement efforts will be wasted.
2. No sense of belonging
Frontline disengagement can also result from a lack of community. 80% of frontline employees say that they are afforded few connection opportunities at work, according to McKinsey research.
And even if these opportunities exist, frontline workers aren’t always engaging with them. McKinsey found that frontline workers were taking part in the below methods of community and connection just once a month or less:
Internal corporate communications (e.g., town halls)
Watercooler talks with co-workers
Employee resource groups
Other work-related events
Touchpoints like these are all essential for building team spirit and rapport within frontline teams. And if workers aren’t engaging with them, then this speaks volumes about the types of community events that frontline leaders should invest in.
The best way to learn what works for your frontline is to ask them.
We touch on the concept of outside-in thinking in our whitepaper, ‘The frontline engagement roadmap: A step-by-step guide to driving transformative change’. Download your copy today.
3. No clear development opportunities
If you think that all engaged frontline workers are ‘rockstars’ — satisfied with mastering the job they have today rather than looking to step up — then think again.
There’s a very good chance you have ‘superstars’ in your frontline workforce as well. When engaged in a role, these employees are further motivated by the idea of career progression and will actively seek out opportunities to advance and develop. 70% of frontline workers apply for advancement opportunities when they are offered, seeking greater financial security, learning, and development.
But how easy is it for these employees to find this professional development?
Lack of development opportunities came up as a theme — and a reason for leaving a role — among the health and social care workers we spoke to in 2021. Further research has found a similar trend in the retail space, where 32% of frontline workers cite a lack of career development as a turnover factor.
“The vast majority of deskless workers (97%) report that they would stay in their current roles if their conditions improved. Such conditions go beyond a pay rise, meaning that HR needs to offer deskless workers the same opportunities as their deskbound counterparts.”
Frontline leaders should strive to offer clear development opportunities to frontline workers, plus training and learning resources wherever helpful. This could include anything from providing access to relevant training courses and a Hub for training materials, or offering them direct opportunities to move into managerial roles.
There’s also something to be said for training and empowering first line managers to help frontline workers develop. 73% of frontline employees agree that having a manager who supports their career progression is key to career advancement.
4. They don’t feel listened to
The 2021 Blink research we mentioned earlier was called our Listen campaign. And it got its name for a reason.
In it, we surveyed 1,000 frontline UK health and social care workers to find out how their day-to-day lives could be improved. And one word cropped up again and again: listen.
Over one-third of the frontline workforce feels their organizations would fail to act on employee feedback — and that needs to change if we want them to keep providing it. To truly empower your frontline employees, you need to show them that you value what they do and that you hear what they say.
No more out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality. No more assuming your frontline is ‘getting on just fine’. If your frontline workers don’t feel heard, your engagement strategy isn’t working. It’s as simple as that.
5. No culture of, or channels for, recognition
Nearly 4 in 10 (37%) frontline workers don’t feel as valued as their desk-based counterparts. We were saddened to learn this from our Listen research, but not all that surprised.
After all, the recognition strategies that work for desk-basked employees can’t be efficiently deployed for the front line. A line manager can’t send a team-wide or company-wide email celebrating someone’s contribution. You can’t all get together at 5pm on Friday to toast the week’s achievements.
As with the tooling and community-building tactics we looked at above, frontline recognition requires a unique approach. How can you bolster both technology and community to give credit where credit is due?
It’s also important to make sure that feedback is given as soon after the event as possible. So ask yourself: what are the platforms that allow a quick turnaround of employee recognition in a fun, engaging way?
Frontline employees deserve to be recognized for the hard work they do: for being the backbone of an organization’s success.
Without this, it’s no wonder they become disengaged.
6. Inefficient communication strategies
In our research, almost one-fifth of workers state that they don’t receive relevant internal communications from their employer organization.
An effective comms strategy combines group and 1:1 Secure Chats, regular Feedupdates, engaging company news announcements, and more — all wrapped up and delivered in a platform or platforms that frontline workers want to engage with.
Given anything less than this, frontline teams can feel left out of the loop and unable to participate fully in their organization’s culture.
Get your frontline-centric communication strategy right and you can expect to see frontline employee engagement pay off in a myriad of ways.
Blink’s best advice for frontline employee engagement
Use tools that work for them
Your frontline staff need digitaltools that work for them: where they need them and when they need them. From seamless integration with your current tech stack, to push notifications, single sign-on capabilities, and more, there are a number of tools that make it easy for frontline employees to engage on the go.
A frontline engagement app like Blink allows your workforce to easily access everything from one single platform. We’re talking company news, training materials and resources, inter- and intra-team communications, feedback surveys — the list of features keeps growing.
No more complex systems to navigate or multiple passwords to remember. Blink provides you with a simple, intuitive mobile app that gives your frontline employees the power to stay connected and engaged.
Your frontline staff are the eyes, ears, and face of your organization. Listen to what they have to say, and you can learn more than you’d realize about your product or service, how happy customers are, and how well your processes are working today.
Pulse surveys offer up a consistent and user-friendly way to gather frontline feedback, no matter where your teams are working.
The data you gather can help identify areas of improvement — both internal and external to the business. This, in turn, will have a positive impact on all the essential metrics: frontline employee engagement, customer satisfaction, plus revenue and ROI.
Remember that statistic about frontline workers not believing their feedback will be actioned? Now is your time to win back their trust.
Remember, employee engagement should be earned. It won’t be given freely.
As a frontline leader, making sure that feedback is heard and put into action should be an essential part of your wider engagement strategy.
Be open and honest with the results of your surveys — and communicate what you’re doing as an organization to action this feedback.
Never present results as better or worse than they actually are, and always encourage an open dialogue about the outcomes of feedback initiatives. If you want your employees to offer their feedback on an ongoing basis, you need strategies that communicate to them how you’re hearing what they say.
You could even share your survey findings in a company-wide Feed announcement, along with specific objectives the organization has taken from the results and when these new initiatives will be put into place.
This doesn’t add any extra pressure to your frontline, but it does make your employees feel heard and valued.
Create engagement champions
Setting off on a frontline employee engagement transformation isn’t easy — or, it doesn’t feel easy at the start, at least.
We look at the power of allies in our frontline engagement roadmap and Ian Gordon also referenced how influential they can be:
“You need to find someone who has the energy, passion, and is empowered enough to lead the initiatives. That person could be the project lead, but preferably it’s someone from the frontline or with frontline experience. The frontline needs to have that relationship with management all the way up and be comfortable to share their concerns.”
Ian Gordon, Former President of Administrative Operations at Elara Caring
These allies, or engagement champions, can help drive initiatives both top-down and bottom-up, facilitating two-way communication between management and staff. They can also support the adoption of new tools, ensuring that frontline workers are comfortable and engaged as new technologies are implemented.
Working with other Champions to ensure the launch is a success
Raising awareness of Blink
Encouraging others to use the app
Being active in the Feed
Educating their team on how to use the app
Being an advocate for Blink
Becoming an expert on Blink
Get commitment from every level of management
Ideally, you’d have engagement allies from the front line to your C-Suite.
If your company’s mission is to boost frontline engagement, then every staff member in an authority position needs to show their support. Yes, engagement should be enabled by managers buying into the right digital solutions, but it should also be held up by your company’s values and all aspects of your leadership.
Our research also demonstrates that frontline staff want senior management to listen to them, communicate with them, and respond to them. A simple, yet frequently forgotten, task.
First line managers could be a particularly interesting group to engage with: making up 50% – 60% of a company’s management and directly supervising as much as 80% of the frontline workforce.
When employees interact with their first line managers daily, it’s essential that those individuals set an example and demonstrate engagement through their behavior.
Managers should also be available to listen to frontline workers and act upon any issues they identify. This will help drive the desired engagement from the bottom up, inspiring the workforce to keep engaging regularly.
Recognition and reward
Forward-thinking companies are already investing in co-worker recognition tools. This helps deliver meaningful recognition and rewards to their employee base, reminding employees how valued they are.
Such approaches can quickly encourage motivation, nurture employee wellbeing, raise employee morale, and boost engagement levels across the board.
You should also consider directly rewarding engagement (interactions with your employee app, for example) to reinforce and reward the behavior, creating a positive ripple effect to inspire more engagement.
What your business stands to gain
Frontline employee engagement = fewer absentees
Teams within the top 20% of employee engagement scores realize a 41% reduction in absenteeism. Imagine what your frontline organization could do with fewer empty shifts and less time spent finding staff to cover sickness — plus the additional revenue this will inevitably create.
The cost of replacing an employee can range anywhere from 50% – 250% of their annual salary. So it’s no surprise that 87% of HR experts consider employee retention one of their highest priorities.
Why are we telling you this in an article about employee engagement? Because engaged workers aremore likely to stay with their employers.
Disengaged workers will either be in an active search for their next role or much easier to sway should a desirable opportunity arise elsewhere. If you can create an engaging employee experience, however, you’ll retain your best talent.
Frontline employee engagement = a healthier bottom line
Engaged frontline employees deliver better quality of service, leading to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
92% of business executives believe that engaged employees perform better. And with engaged frontline workers performing at their best, better business outcomes are a natural development.
Bottom line improvements for highly engaged organizations include:
10% higher customer ratings
18% higher sales
A 23% difference in profitability
In this way, an increase in engagement from frontline employees can be felt by every stakeholder, in every department, and at every level of the business.
What now?
Achieving operational excellence is a challenge on its own. Doing so while also investing in employee experience can leave frontline management teams feeling overwhelmed.
So let’s break it down into simple steps.
If you understand why frontline employees disengage, what motivates them, and how to keep them engaged, then you can establish a frontline engagement strategy that truly works.
Companies can unlock tremendous value from their workforce, demonstrate a real commitment to their employees, and drive positive business outcomes — all by leveraging the power of frontline employee engagement.
How can Blink help?
At Blink, we understand the importance of engaging with frontline employees. We’ve helped over 250 frontline organizations increase engagement and performance throughout their frontline.
Our frontline engagement app helps you measure and manage employee engagement in real-time to drive sustained improvements across your business. With our advanced analytics and tailored solutions, you can quickly identify problem areas, create action plans, and keep your employees engaged.
With our comprehensive suite of solutions, we’ll help you unlock the power of your frontline and achieve the results you’re looking for.
Internal comms teams: It’s time to start thinking like social media managers
In today’s workplace, grabbing attention and building a sense of community is more challenging than ever. As Instagram has demonstrated, there’s immense power in blending visuals, brevity, and engagement-driven features to keep audiences captivated.
By embracing an Instagram-inspired approach, internal comms teams can turn traditionally static and monotonous updates into dynamic, employee-centric experiences, ultimately boosting engagement, experience, and retention.
And when we think about the newest generation of workers, a modern employee experience isn’t just nice to have — it’s a key differentiator: 70% of Gen Z employees would leave their job for better workplace technology.
Let’s dive into how you can create an Instagram-worthy internal comms strategy that truly resonates with — and retains — employees.
#1. #PicsOrItDidntHappen: Lead with visual storytelling
You know that old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words”?
In a corporate environment, where text-heavy comms are the norm and often leave employees feeling uninspired, it might be worth even more. On Instagram, visuals do the talking. They capture attention, convey emotion, and get users to linger. Imagine applying the same idea to your internal comms.
From photos of team achievements to video messages from leadership, visually rich content invites more interaction and gives employees quick ways to engage with company updates. Incorporate more images, infographics, and videos to help distill complex messages, celebrate moments, and build a visually engaging narrative.
Try a “day in the life” photo series from different teams, or showcase milestones with celebratory visuals. This not only humanizes the workplace but also helps employees feel more connected to their colleagues across the organization.
#2. #StorySawItFirst: Share the moments that matter
Stories — on Instagram, Facebook, and beyond — have changed how we consume content by making it quick, timely, and interactive. For internal comms, a similar approach keeps messaging fresh and to the point.
Consider launching an internal Stories feature, with short-form, time-sensitive updates. Whether you use video, images, or brief text, these snippets can recap highlights, recognize employees, or celebrate accomplishments in a way that’s easy to digest.
Launch a weekly Story roundup that features key updates and celebrates wins from across the company. These updates create anticipation and encourage employees to check back regularly for new content.
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#3. #POV: Embrace user-generated content
One of the reasons Instagram is so successful is because it breaks down the barrier between creators and consumers: All users have the power to create, post, and engage with content.
Bringing this into the workplace by encouraging employee-generated content (EGC) adds authenticity and makes employees feel like co-owners of the company’s story.
Consider how your team could prioritize EGC and what makes most sense for your organization. Maybe it’s creating a designated space where employees can post daily photos from their workday, or coming up with an internal hashtag campaign where employees can share short stories that showcase daily victories or moments of pride.
We’ve seen firsthand the power of EGC on building trust on external channels: Content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared on brand channels. Imagine the impact this boost could have on your internal comms strategy.
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#4. #ForYouPage: Personalize your comms approach
If you spend enough time on social media platforms, then you’re deeply familiar with the omniscient algorithm — an underlying intelligence that recognizes which content you watch with most and, with increasing accuracy, serves it up to your news feed to create a more individualized and engaging experience.
Internal comms can take the same data-backed approach by using insights from their employee platform to segment audiences, gauging content effectiveness through metrics like engagement rates, and then tailoring content based on individual preferences
By surfacing hyper-relevant information to the right people — like recommended News Feed content based on team, or custom updates to specific departments and regions — you can make internal updates feel more targeted, help employees feel seen and understood, and prevent information overload.
Instagram is all about mobile-first, short-form content. It’s what makes the platform so easy to navigate and what keeps people coming back for more.
When it comes to modern internal comms, employees are similarly craving updates and content that are quick to access and even quicker to digest, wherever they are.
As you plan out your content strategy, ensure all internal messages are mobile-friendly, concisely written, and formatted for on-the-go reading. For example, consider formatting key announcements as brief bullet-point highlights — we’re talking 200 characters or less — with a link to read more.
By keeping updates short and to the point, complemented with visuals whenever possible, employees can stay informed without dedicating a large amount of time — helping to ensure key messages don’t get lost in the shuffle.
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#6. #Influenced: Embrace the internal influencer
Influencers drive engagement on Instagram by speaking from an authentic, relatable perspective. By empowering internal champions, you can build similar trust and encourage peer-to-peer communication within the company.
Identify influential voices within the organization who can serve as communication champions and lead the charge for two-way communications. This might be leaders, long-term employees, or team leads who can add a personal, credible touch to internal updates and culture-building efforts.
Have these champions share company updates, promote engagement, or even host takeovers of internal channels to drive excitement and reach. Their familiar faces make messages feel more personal and authentic.
On Instagram, highlights create a curated space for special moments. In internal comms, a similar approach can spotlight achievements and milestones in a meaningful way. And this small effort can have a big impact on retention: 79% of employees who quit their job cite a lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving.
Create a virtual “highlight reel” to celebrate employee achievements, team milestones, and other noteworthy moments. This can be part of a monthly or quarterly roundup, creating a sense of shared success and recognition.
These small moments of celebration and success spotlights help employees feel valued and recognized within the larger internal community — and may even result in them staying longer at your organization.
#8. #LetsExplore: Make content easily discoverable
The Explore tab on Instagram allows users to stumble upon new and interesting content. Internal comms can take a similar approach by reimagining the outdated intranets of yore and making helpful resources easy to find and share.
Organize information in a way that allows employees to quickly discover and revisit updates, whether through tagging, keyword searches, or categories. A content hub can help employees catch up on past announcements or discover useful resources.
Create a centralized digital home for all internal updates, organized by topics like announcements, team wins, and resources. This lets employees browse based on their current needs or catch up if they missed a recent announcement.
Think beyond traditional communication channels
As employee communications move into the future, embracing creativity and interactivity — much like social media platforms we all know and use in our personal lives — can reshape the employee experience and build a more connected, motivated workforce.
By incorporating Instagram-inspired features into content strategies, internal comms teams can create a consumer-grade workplace experience that feels inherently familiar to employees, breaking down barriers for adoption and engagement.
Experiment with these tactics, prioritize authenticity, and watch as your employees become more empowered, creative, and excited to contribute to the company culture.
Employee experience (EX) is still top of the agenda in 2025.
84% of businesses see EX as a competitive differentiator — a way to attract top talent and keep them working for your organization long into the future.
But that doesn’t mean all these organizations are getting it right. Crafting an employee experience that engages workers — and has them singing your company’s praises on workplace comparison sites — is no mean feat.
It requires a consistent approach that carries through all departments and across every employee touchpoint. And it requires a deep understanding of worker needs and expectations.
To achieve all this, a solid employee experience strategy is invaluable. This plan will guide your EX initiatives, the workplace tech you use, the company culture you strive to create, and the metrics you use to assess employee experience success.
Here, we take a look at all the ways an employee experience plan benefits your business and outline the steps you need to take to create one.
It encompasses every touchpoint and interaction throughout the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, onboarding, workplace relationships, development opportunities, and the technology you expect workers to use.
Employee experience managers are responsible for shaping EX, creating the kind of company culture and workplace environment that employees enjoy spending time in.
Why every org needs an employee experience strategy
Happy employees are good for business. High levels of employee satisfaction lead to improved talent acquisition, productivity, employee engagement, and staff retention.
The benefits of EX are clear. But many businesses are failing to deliver the kind of employee experience that inspires worker motivation and loyalty.
55% of all workers feel dissatisfied with their overall employee experience and this figure rises to 61% for Gen Z employees.
Why are these figures so high? You may have noticed that the modern workforce has pretty high expectations. Employees expect way more from their place of work than they did a few generations ago.
There are a couple of factors at play. First, we’re accustomed to personalized digital experiences at home — algorithms that know what we want before we do. And we expect the same quality and usability from the tech we use at work.
Second, the baseline for what makes a good workplace has risen. Mental health support, flexibility, and a sense of belonging aren’t perks anymore — they’re must-haves.
And finally, people are thinking bigger. A job isn’t just a paycheck. Employees are seeking growth, transparency, fairness, and purpose — and are willing to switch jobs to find a workplace that provides them.
Meeting these expectations is tough for any company. And — without a clear employee experience strategy — it gets even tougher.
With a solid employee experience strategy, however, you connect the dots between what your people need and what your business wants to achieve. You create the kind of workplace where people bring their A-game — where employees are engaged, productive, and with you for the long haul.
12 steps for building your employee experience strategy
Before jumping into tactics, pause and consider what you’re trying to achieve with your employee experience strategy. You need to understand the business case for improving EX. This will help guide your EX efforts — and get stakeholder buy-in.
Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourself to get the ball rolling:
What pain points do our employees currently experience?
How does this link to business outcomes, like retention, productivity, customer service, and engagement?
What kind of company culture do we want to build — and how does this align with our values?
2. Map the employee journey
From day one to exit, every touchpoint matters. Working out each point in the employee lifecycle can help you uncover areas for EX improvement.
You should look at:
Recruitment
Pre-boarding and onboarding
Career development and growth opportunities
Engagement
Retention
Offboarding
Then, across these employee journey stages, figure out what the employee experience looks like.
Consider employee priorities like recognition and feedback, work-life balance, and any bottlenecks in their daily workflows.
Examine the cultural environment. Things like leadership style, the quality of co-worker connections, and the effectiveness of your internal communication channels.
Also, audit the physical environment, assessing how safe and comfortable employees are when they’re at work. Ergonomic desks and chairs are a given for your office-based staff. But consider the needs of frontline employees and those who work at home, too.
With a clear understanding of the employee journey and the factors that impact EX, you can (at step 4) craft staff survey questions that cover all elements of the employee experience. But first, there’s another key area of EX to get a handle on.
3. Assess your tech-sperience
Tech tools are now a fundamental part of every work day. So the digital employee experience forms an increasingly integral part of EX.
Remember that employees get streamlined, personalized experiences on the software they use at home. So — whether you like it or not — your workplace tech is going to be compared to the very best consumer-grade tools.
Clunky or outdated tech tools create frustration. They harm productivity and employee motivation.
Even the most cutting-edge tools can cause problems if they aren’t implemented with the proper focus on EX. Use too many different tech tools and employees can easily feel overwhelmed. They constantly have to recall login details and toggle between tabs.
So when crafting your employee experience strategy, assess your tech stack — and its impact on employees. Find out where technology is supporting a positive employee experience and where it’s creating friction.
Also, consider tech needs on a team-by-team basis, paying special attention to frontline employees. Without easy access to a desktop computer or a company email address, frontline workers often find workplace tools difficult or impossible to use, which harms the frontline experience.
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4. Ask employees what they want
Every workplace is different. And while you’ll find plenty of articles listing the workplace attributes that employees value most, these can only ever act as a rough guide.
To make a success of your employee experience strategy, you need to understand your workforce and what motivates them. Then, treat them as co-creators of your EX strategy.
That starts by gathering employee feedback. Send out surveys and polls. Launch a listening tour. Find out what employees think of EX at your organization and what would improve it. Work to discover pain points, needs, and expectations.
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This shouldn’t be a one-off event. You should aim to build employee listening and employee voice into company culture. Create two-way communication channels and foster open communication across all levels of your organization. Acknowledge feedback and tell employees what action you plan to take.
By doing so, you encourage engagement with the feedback process and prompt honest responses from employees. You also keep your finger on the pulse, which — faced with ever-evolving employee experience trends — helps you stay ahead of EX issues.
5. Dive into the data
You’ve got feedback. Now what? It’s time to analyze the data you’ve gathered from employees, looking for EX patterns, pain points, and opportunities.
Celebrate the areas where you’re doing a good job. And hone in on areas where EX could be improved.
Use the analytics tools you have access to and combine qualitative feedback with quantitative data on retention, absenteeism, and employee engagement to get a big picture perspective.
6. Get to know EX across the organization
Segment your data and you can also find out what employee experience looks like for different sectors of your workforce.
Perhaps your office-based team is satisfied with the quality of internal communications they receive. But your frontline team has to make do with a patchwork of paper memos and word-of-mouth messages.
It could be that Millennials are loving the option to work from their comfortable home offices. But Gen Z employees, still living in shared housing, are struggling to find a quiet and productive place to work.
Maybe one department experiences higher than average levels of turnover and lower than average instances of employee recognition.
Only by digging deep into the data can you understand how EX at your organization looks for every member of your workforce — and start to see the patterns that will inform your plan of action.
7. Set goals
You’re at the point where you’ve done all your EX research. Time to put down on paper what you hope to achieve with your employee experience strategy.
Create targets that are measurable, time-bound, and based on the EX issues you uncovered during the research phase.
Some examples include:
Increase career development opportunities for employees
Establish better two-way communication channels between employees and managers
Boost news feed comments and reactions by X%
Increase survey response rates
8. Build your plan
Keeping your goals in mind, lay out the actions that will help you achieve them.
For example, if you want to improve career development opportunities, you could launch a new mentoring program.
Or if you wanted to increase your survey response rate, you could look at ways to close the feedback loop, ensuring that employees feel their feedback is listened to and acted on.
You may like to overhaul employee pay and benefits, well-being support, or workplace recognition. You may want to focus on improving the frontline employee experience with better comms and flexible working opportunities.
9. Find the right EX tech
This is a great time to consider the employee experience tech tools that will support your employee experience strategy. The best employee experience platforms can improve EX with the help of:
Internal communication tools — channels that support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer conversations and an engaging company news feed
Integrated software — integrations with the other workplace software you use to create a streamlined digital experience
Automated employee journey tools — features that make it easy for you to deliver the right content to employees at exactly the right time in their employee journey
HR self-service tools — tools that allow employees to swap shifts, request leave, or view their pay stubs right from their user-friendly dashboard
Surveys and analytics — employee survey and analytics tools that help your team keep up-to-date with employee satisfaction and EX
Personalized employee experiences — tools that go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to provide tailored comms, dashboards, and journeys relevant to each individual employee
10. Communicate and roll out
To make a success of your employee experience strategy, you need all hands on deck. Employees should get a consistent experience across the whole lifecycle and that relies on lots of different departments working together.
Get everyone on the same page — including employees — by communicating your EX vision clearly and transparently. Lay out your objectives and the positive outcome you expect. Tell them what will change and why.
If you’re rolling out new employee experience software, think carefully about how you’ll get your workforce to embrace it. Start by picking user-friendly, mobile-first tools that every employee can use. Then, use a marketing campaign, incentives, gamification, and platform ambassadors to encourage employees to log in.
11. Measure and evaluate
Is your employee experience strategy having the desired effect? As well as looking at the specific EX goals you set earlier in the process, measure your success in terms of overarching business goals too.
You can also look at KPIs relating to talent acquisition, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity.
Measure employee experience and you stay ahead of any EX problems that might arise. You see where your EX strategy is bearing fruit — and where you still need to make improvements.
12. Iterate and improve
Improving employee experience isn’t a one-and-done situation. Creating and honing the perfect employee experience strategy is an ongoing task.
Use insights gained from employee surveys and analytics to keep pace with evolving employee expectations. Review your goals. Find new ways to enhance employee experience and keep staff loyal to your organization.
By treating EX as a continuous process, you’re more likely to create a strong culture, happy employees, and the business results you’re looking for.
Using your employee experience strategy to build a better workplace
A strong employee experience strategy can transform your workplace. It impacts company culture and internal communications. It boosts productivity and staff loyalty. And it can put a spring in the step of employees as they turn up to work each day.
And with 52% of employees saying they’re watching for or actively seeking a new job, employee experience strategy isn’t something you can afford to neglect.
The occasional free lunch or mental health day won’t cut it at a time when employees demand more than ever from their places of work — and are prepared to vote with their feet if their expectations aren’t met.
To ensure EX success, you need to consider the experience of every employee. The priorities of your retail staff, for example, are probably very different from those of your office-based team. Then, you need to create personalized experiences that make employees feel seen and valued.
An employee experience platform like Blink can make a huge difference to your employee experience strategy and its success.
With tools that automate elements of the employee journey, improve communication, streamline workflows, and include every employee in the workplace community, it becomes much easier to deliver the kind of employee experience your workforce expects.
A survey conducted by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses reported that 66% of respondents considered leaving their job due to the pandemic.
At first glance, it may seem like the pandemic is what caused frontline workers to feel burned out and leave their jobs, but Amanda Bettencourt, Ph.D. of the association, says,
“This was the stress test for an already stressed system.”
The employee experience for frontline workers has been overlooked for a long time. Finally, businesses are paying attention to how to improve internal communication for their frontline workers.
The truth is that frontline workers love creating a good customer experience. Matthew, a Registered Nurse at Denver Health, says,
“I love what I do. I chose this profession because I wanted to be on the frontline doing this, and there’s nothing else I want to do.”
But how can businesses make the work experience better for frontline workers?
Keep reading to learn how to motivate frontline employees and support them so they can do what they do best – taking care of your customers.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Benefits of empowering frontline staff
How to improve internal communication on the frontline
1. Make communications accessible to everyone
2. Personalize communication
3. Make it easy to give and view feedback
4. Create a single source of truth
5. Streamline manual processes
6. Provide ongoing training opportunities
7. Ask frontline employees for their ideas
8. Check in regularly and in person
9. Celebrate achievements
10. Put yourself in their shoes
Final thoughts: how to improve internal communication on the frontline
Benefits of empowering frontline staff
Many frontline workers love the work they do. Their job satisfaction comes from helping patients and creating a positive impact on customers.
“We get a sense of accomplishment doing our part to keep folks safe. We find the supplies that they need and get it to them as quickly as possible.”
When your frontline staff feels connected and empowered, they can focus on delivering an excellent customer experience.
But, if your frontline workforce feels unsupported and unheard, employee morale can plummet and lead to burnout and a higher employee turnover rate.
If you want to improve customer satisfaction, it starts by caring for the employees who interact with customers and patients every day.
How to improve internal communication on the frontline
Make communications accessible to everyone
Personalize communication
Make it easy to give and view feedback
Create a single source of truth
Streamline manual processes
Provide ongoing training opportunities
Ask frontline employees for their ideas
Check in regularly and in person
Celebrate achievements
Put yourself in their shoes
1. Make communications accessible to everyone
According to a Frontline Employee Workplace Survey conducted by Yoobic, one in three frontline employees feel disconnected from the company. During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies had to make fast changes to business strategies and operations.
While these changes often affected frontline employees, they didn’t feel included or well-informed. More than 75% of respondents say that receiving internal communications through a mobile app would make them feel more connected to HQ.
2. Personalize communication
Including frontline employees in internal communications is an excellent start, but it won’t solve the problem entirely. More messages don’t automatically equate to higher employee engagement. You need to make sure that your messages are meaningful to frontline employees.
When you communicate significant changes to essential workers, make it easy to understand how any new initiatives will affect their daily work. Anticipate possible questions from frontline employees and answer them in your original message. This should be a key part of your internal communication plan anyway.
For example, if you’re implementing COVID-19 precautions in-store, let employees know how you’ll be supporting them with signage or website updates so they feel supported.
3. Make it easy to give and view feedback
Some initiatives look great on paper, but they don’t work in real-time with customers.
Ben Davis, a social worker in New York, told Time Magazine of a time when top-down pandemic precautions like remote contact made it more challenging to work and connect with individuals who suffer from mental illness symptoms like paranoia.
What seemed like a good idea at first was ineffective and became the source of concern for many frontline workers.
According to Davis,
“It was all very different and very confusing. I don’t know how well he – a patient – understood that I was doing it to help keep him safe.”
In this case, Davis’s feedback was heard. His team implemented changes focused on the long-term protection of frontline workers, such as allowing them to stop administering medication if gloves run out.
Employees on the frontline can feel frustrated if they don’t have access to the resources they need to do their jobs.You must give frontline workers a place to provide feedback and ensure they see that the feedback has been taken and processed.
4. Create a single source of truth
Consider using a mobile app to deliver your intranet or knowledge Hub so your deskless employees can access the right resources.
5. Streamline manual processes
A whopping 71% of frontline workers feel bogged down by repetitive manual tasks and paperwork. One part of motivating frontline employees involves letting them focus on work that creates impact, such as working with customers.
It may sound small, but spreading your admin work across multiple platforms means your frontline workers have to log into several websites to take care of repetitive work.
Respect your frontline workers’ time by consolidating administrative work into a single portal and automating manual processes.
6. Provide ongoing training opportunities
There’s a direct connection between growth opportunities and employee retention. Team members who see a future with your company are more likely to stay engaged and experience high levels of job satisfaction.
During onboarding, show your frontline workers there’s a clear path to growth in your company. Then, make sure they can easily access resources to help them build the skills they need to advance.
For example, clinic receptionists can develop skills to become Medical Assistants and then continue to advance to higher Medical Assistant levels (MA II, MA III) to earn a higher salary.
7. Ask frontline employees for their ideas
Take time during meetings to let people provide an overview of their projects, goals, and progress.
When dealing with customer feedback issues, you can also show your frontline staff you value their expertise by asking for their opinions and suggestions. Use polls and surveys to stay tuned into the customer experience through your frontline workforce.
8. Check in regularly and in person
Too many business leaders underestimate the importance of frontline workers. A grocery store bookkeeper describes his experience to New America as, “bosses come through. They don’t speak to you. They think they’re better than you…We are the ones that are helping you make this money.”
Leaders must schedule regular site visits, but you have to remember to acknowledge on-site and remote employees and genuinely listen to them.
Treat site visits as an opportunity to build relationships with frontline staff, show them that you’re there for them, and reinforce the idea of teamwork.
9. Celebrate achievements
Employee recognition is an integral part of motivating frontline employees. Take time to celebrate work-related achievements like promotions and personal milestones such as birthdays and anniversaries.
10. Put yourself in their shoes
Learning to empathize with your frontline workers creates a better work environment for everyone. Don’t assume the challenges you face in the office are the same your remote employees deal with every day.
Instead of making assumptions, ask your frontline employees questions about their experience and really listen when they tell you. Use questions like “How can I make it easier for you to get your work done?” to get actionable feedback from your frontline workforce.
Lead by providing support and proactively removing the obstacles that make it difficult for frontline workers to succeed.
Final thoughts: how to improve internal communication on the frontline
How many businesses could survive without their frontline workers? And still, they’re often overlooked and misunderstood.
Learning to motivate your frontline employees through empathy, communication, and support can transform your customer experience and overall business. Discover employee engagement for modern workforces with Blink today.
Team building activities get a bad rap. While the intention behind such exercises is to break the ice, they are often seen as embarrassing and awkward.
Leaders are so enthusiastic when conducting these games that they don’t even notice workers looking for the nearest exit.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t conduct team-building exercises. Building collaboration skills in your team is essential, and team-building games can really help you achieve that.
The problem usually lies with the team-building activities managers pick. A quick search for team-building ideas will show you that the web is filled with hundreds of them. But many are unfeasible, difficult, or uncomfortable for workers. They look good on paper but you can’t really implement them in an actual workplace.
So in this post, we are going to solve this problem. Instead of giving you a huge directory of endless activities, we’ve handpicked a few team-building activities that are easy, effective, and enjoyable.
Types of team building activities
Some team-building ideas are more suited for your company than others. Your choices will depend on several factors, such as team size and function.
But you also need to consider where you’re going to conduct the team-building exercises and how the location impacts the mindset of your team members. Based on the location of the team-building games, they can be split into three main categories.
Indoor team building activities
Indoor games take place in the office or another work location. And you’ll likely conduct them during regular work hours. For this reason, indoor activities have a serious, formal overall vibe. If your whole team works from a single location, then choosing indoor team-building exercises is your best bet.
Outdoor team building activities
At a team retreat, you need team-building games that can be played outdoors. Plus, the overall mood is more relaxed and casual than indoor exercises. So the team-building activities you pick should be more fun and energetic.
Virtual/online team building activities
More and more people are working remotely, and many teams are spread out in different locations these days. If that applies to your team too, you need remote team-building activities that can be conducted via web conferencing.
The good news is we’ve covered all the three types in the list below. In fact, some of our team-building ideas belong to multiple categories. For example, you’ll also find exercises that can be run indoors as well as online.
For each team-building activity, we’ve also mentioned its best-suited environments. So without further ado, let’s jump in.
Quick and easy team building activities
Campfire stories
Suitable environments: indoor, online, outdoor
Number of team members: 5-25
Objective: Foster informal communication by encouraging team members to share and identify common experiences
This is one of the evergreen team-building activities. It improves team bonding via inspired storytelling. Team members gather in a circle, as people do in a fireside chat when camping. They share workplace experiences, get to know each other better, and refresh memories.
What makes it great: Storytelling is a time-tested way to pass information informally and shape communities. So a storytelling session with work-related stories can get your team members to loosen up, learn some useful lessons, and feel closer to one another. You can also confine the stories to train people around a certain theme.
How it works: Come up with a list of words that can trigger your employees’ memories and remind them of a previous experience. For example, these could be “demo day,” "on-site trip," "side project,” and so on.
Find a way to display all the words to your team members. If you are conducting the activity indoors, for example, you can use a whiteboard.
Have team members take turns to pick a trigger word and share an experience related to it. Once a trigger word has been taken by a participant, move it to a separate area so it can’t be repeated.
You can also ask workers to share more trigger words that come to mind after they have heard a story. So you won’t run out of ideas for stories.
Blind draw
Suitable environments: indoor, outdoor
Number of team members: 10-25
Objective: Improve delegation skills, communication, and teamwork among participants
This team-building exercise involves drawing an object with just spoken instructions. You can use this team-building exercise as a fun, light activity between two intense sessions.
What makes it great: It looks simple on the surface. But to win this team-building game, team members will have to get many things right. For example, they’ll have to pick the right person to draw, and to give instructions. Plus, they’ll need to communicate well. So the activity teaches them both delegation and collaboration.
How it works: Gather some everyday objects, signs, or shapes. You can print them on sheets of paper, or search for photos on a free stock photography website.
Divide employees into teams of five people. Have each team choose the “artist” who will draw the shape. Assign a different object to each team and give them a time limit of 3-5 minutes.
Each team will then guide the artist on drawing the object. But they can’t say the name of the object. While the artist is drawing, he couldn’t know what the object is, nor can his team know what he is drawing until he’s done. The team with the drawing most similar to their object wins.
You know who
Suitable environments: indoor, online
Number of participants: 10-50
Objective: Introduce team members to one another and establish connections
In this team-building game, employees will map the connections between one another on a whiteboard. Teams can choose their “avatars”, and then draw arrows to map how they are connected to other workers. It’s a great way to break the ice when team members don’t know each other well.
What makes it great: This team-building activity lets you build a small, social-media-style network, but without the technology. It will not just help as a standalone activity, but also allow team members to keep mingling throughout the whole day or event.
How it works: Provide participants with index cards, markers, and tape. Each worker will then write their name, add their job title, and draw an "avatar" on their index card, like how there’s a profile photo on a social network.
Then gather all the index cards and stick them on a whiteboard, with plenty of space between every two cards. Participants will then draw arrows from their card to others who they already know in some capacity.
Plus, they’ll also mention how they know the person. For example, maybe they went to the same university or were part of the same team in the past.
Cross-functional jigsaw
Suitable environments: indoor
Number of team members: 10-20
Objective: Build cross-functional collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills
This team-building activity divides a group of employees into two teams, both of which are asked to solve a jigsaw puzzle in the time limit specified.
But there’s a twist. Some of the pieces required by each team belong to the other team. So both the teams need to work together.
What makes it great: This is a great exercise in improvisation, problem-solving, and collaboration. When the teams start putting the pieces together, they don’t know about the catch. They are surprised by the realization that their success depends on working with the other team, and this lesson remains with them for a long time.
How it works: Simple! Take two puzzles. Replace some pieces in one puzzle with those of the other. Make two teams and give them the puzzles to solve. Ask them to keep communicating with each other while they’re on the task. But don’t tell them that you have interchanged some pieces. Let them figure it out on their own. Also, declare another rule that teams can exchange only one puzzle piece at a time.
Survival priorities
Suitable environments: indoor, outdoor
Number of team members: 5-30
Objective: Inspire participants to solve problems together, demonstrate leadership, and practice negotiation.
Imagine your plane has crashed on an island in the middle of nowhere, and it’s burning. There are only a few minutes to salvage some items from the wreckage. What will you take and what will you leave? That’s what this team-building exercise is about.
What makes it great: This team-building game is great for giving your team a taste of a high-stress situation, and honing their ability to work together under pressure. Their success will depend on negotiating calmly, picking a leader, and planning the whole thing carefully.
How it works: Set up a space with several survival items such as various foods, water, knives, weapons, flares, tarp, matches, and so on. You don't even need to have the actual items. You can use their pictures too.
The quantity of each item should be limited so teams will be forced to trade and collaborate. Divide employees into two or more teams. And they have 30 minutes to rank what they need the most and get survival items from the space.
Coffee standup
Suitable environments: indoor, online
Number of team members: 2-8
Objective: Build rapport and improve team communication
Countless professionals across the globe start their work with daily standup meetings and coffee. So there’s no reason you can’t combine the two. This team-building activity involves daily standups that can be conducted indoors or online. Participants talk about what’s on their to-do list for the day while enjoying a nice, hot beverage.
What makes it great: This team-building exercise is best-suited for remote teams in which workers don’t get to see their team members on a daily basis. Having a light chat while doing something casual can help build camaraderie, improve communication, and know what everyone’s doing.
How it works: Ask workers to grab a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, a coffee shop, or make one at home. Then all the employees in the team join a stand-up chat for 10-15 minutes. Each team member talks about what they intend to do, and if there’s anything they need help with.
Shark tank mania
Suitable environments: indoor, online
Number of team members: Up to 30, split into teams of five
Objective: Encourage innovation, collaboration, and skills to sell your ideas
This activity is inspired by the popular TV series — Shark Tank. In this team-building game, participants create a product pitch for investors. The product and the investors both don’t need to be real. Your team will just create a mock version of the show.
What makes it great: Getting your team members to participate in their own version of Shark Tank goes a long way to instill entrepreneurship, innovation, and the ability to think big. Since there can be multiple cofounders and others behind a startup, this activity also promotes teamwork.
How it works: Divide employees into teams of 3-5 people, and ask each team to prepare their pitch for an imaginary product. The pitch could include product name, brand tagline, marketing plan, financial projections, and so on.
Choose some people to be the investors with an imaginary pool of money. You can also give them fake backgrounds. Every team will then present their pitch to these “Sharks.” The team that gets the most funding wins.
Over to you: team building activities to engage your workforce
Running an organization is not easy. It’s hard to get hundreds of workers on the same page, let alone get them to take collective action towards business goals.
Hard, but not impossible. With the right collaboration strategies and team-building activities, you can build an atmosphere of camaraderie and open communication at work. Plus, these exercises also teach your team valuable soft skills such as leadership, negotiation, and problem-solving.
They might take some time and effort to execute in the beginning, but the results will convince you to keep going. So start putting them into practice and reap the benefits of improved culture and collaboration at your workplace.
Also, the right technology can turbocharge your efforts to build a culture of open communication and collaboration. This is where Blink can help. Consider booking a free Blink demo today.
Say hello to Jackson Mannix — Boston-based Commercial Account Executive, former SDR trail-blazer, and resident champion of all things frontline.
Since joining Blink in late 2022, Jackson has helped shape our SDR program from the ground up, pushed the Southeast market into high gear, and kept the competitive-but-collaborative spirit of our culture alive and buzzing.
This week, he sat down with us to talk startup chaos (the good kind!), scaling a sales engine, and why empowering frontline workers still gets him out of bed every morning. Let’s dive in!
Which Blink office do you work out of?
I work out of our Boston office.
What is your position at Blink?
I’m a Commercial Account Executive covering the U.S. Southeast. I joined Blink in fall 2022 as an SDR.
How long have you been at Blink?
Just over two and a half years.
What initially attracted you to join Blink?
Back then I wasn’t sure which kind of company I wanted to join. I’d spent about six months bartending and serving at a local Boston bar, figuring out my next step. I knew I wanted to get into software sales — I just didn’t know where or how. More importantly, I wanted to work with people who were invested in my growth and who valued the traits I bring to the table.
While job-hunting, I tapped my network and discovered Blink. At that point, Blink didn’t have a Boston presence, but the passion I saw for Blink was contagious. The idea of helping frontline workers, not just businesses, struck a chord. Yes, we deliver huge value to organizations and improve their bottom line — but we also make life less stressful for hourly employees who are raising families and juggling enough already.
Having lived that hourly-wage reality myself, I immediately saw the impact Blink could have. We’re creating real, global change by improving work for people who often get overlooked. That combination of purpose, growth, and the chance to help build something from the ground up drew me in.
What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?
The evolution of our SDR program, hands down. I spent more than two years as an SDR, so it was a true career commitment. The first 4-6 months were pure learning, then — right as I hit my stride — Amanda (our Global Sales Development Director) arrived. Working closely with her and the senior SDRs, we overhauled training, processes, and feedback loops.
Seeing that transformation — from the scrappy early days to today’s structured program — has been incredible. We have a new cohort of SDRs coming in now, and they’ll benefit from a playbook built on both our successes — and our mistakes. Every miscue was a lesson that made the program stronger. I’m proud that leadership trusted me to shape the day-to-day work, give candid feedback, and help steer where the team is going.
How would you describe the company culture at Blink in three words?
Competitive, collaborative and chaotic.
Blink is competitive in the best way: We all push each other — within and across teams — to set a high bar, but never with the hope that someone else falls short. I want to beat my number, but I still want the person next to me to smash theirs, too.
That healthy drive dovetails with a spirit of collaboration that’s almost startling. From day one, people leap in to share decks, brainstorm talk tracks, or hop on a call when something goes sideways. That help hasn’t slowed for me two-and-a-half years later.
“Chaotic” sounds negative, but it’s a positive here. Priorities shift fast, new projects hit your desk with immediate urgency, and if you thrive in that kind of pressure-makes-diamonds environment — learning from the inevitable missteps and bouncing back stronger — Blink is your playground.
What's one thing you’re excited about for the future of Blink?
Landing big global logos will always be a thrill, but what really excites me now is cracking new verticals where we’ve barely scratched the surface.
Billions of frontline workers still lack a modern comms tool, and some operate in highly specific or newly burgeoning industries. Every so often a niche customer pops up — maybe a specialty manufacturer or seasonal service — who shows us Blink can solve problems we didn’t know existed in that space. One unexpected win like that can inspire product tweaks and reshape how we go to market.
The “green grass” feels endless, and the idea that next quarter’s most interesting deal might come from a sector we’ve never targeted keeps the future wide open.
Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
I’m loving the new podcast studio. We upgraded from a basic setup to a full broadcast-quality room, and the content now coming out — clean visuals, tight edits, professional sound — has lifted our thought leadership game. Podcasts may feel crowded, but they work because people already consume information that way. Watching customers plan their own internal podcasts after seeing what we’ve built is proof we’re practicing what we preach. It’s cool to see us invest in a channel, nail the execution, and then hand clients a real-world example they can replicate for their own teams.
Why do you work for Blink?
I believe in our mission and in the people delivering it. Over the past two-and-a-half years, Blink has celebrated my wins loudly and stood by me during the lows.
When a deal closes, teammates are first to cheer; when I hit a rough patch, my teammates and leadership step in without hesitation. Amanda, for instance, showed incredible compassion when I was dealing with serious personal challenges, and the business made sure I felt heard and valued, not just judged by a number.
That genuine, reciprocal support is powerful. It’s why I log in every morning ready to push harder, and why I see a long runway for myself here.