Fernando has been with Holcim since October 2022. Until earlier this year, Fernando's position was a RMX driver at the Bannock location in Denver. The summer of 2024 proved a challenge for staffing levels, and Fernando stepped in across a multitude of environments to keep the business marching forward. Fernando was task-trained, cross-trained, and utilized as an instrumental resource for operating skid steers, front end loaders, water trucks, shovels, and concrete batch plants across the Denver metro.
Plant managers as well as plant operators have welcomed Fernando’s support from operations in Aurora, Castle Rock, Centennial, Denver, Franktown, and Littleton, comprising seven ready-mix plants and both central and dry batch facilities. While every site was different, it was Fernando's attitude and willingness to learn that strengthened our teams’ ability to have a successful year in concrete production. We thank Fernando for being such a valuable member of the Denver RMX business.
How has Blink helped in his role?
Were it not for the Blink platform, I’m not sure Fernando would have the same level of peer recognition that Blink offers. In order to appreciate the opportunities within our business, sometimes allowing others to understand what is available is as simple as sharing a story of success!
What does he want to do next?
Fernando has recently transitioned from a driver to a plant operator at the Bannock RMX plant, and continues to develop his production skills to sharpen our business’s performance within a very competitive market. I look forward to seeing his continued growth within the organization.
Nominated by: Michael Galbraith, Operations Manager
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Exploring alternatives to Beekeeper? You’re not alone.
Since Beekeeper was acquired by LumApps last year, there’s been uncertainty over the future of the platform.
The stated intention? To blend the features of Beekeeper and LumApps tools. But what this means for users during the transformation process (and beyond) is still to be seen.
That’s why some organizations are viewing this as the perfect opportunity to move away from Beekeeper and find a new employee communication app. A more intuitive and scalable platform — a solution with more customization options, better search functionality, and an improved backend experience for admins.
We’re here to help — with a shortlist of 11 Beekeeper alternatives for 2026.
From modern intranets to all-in-one employee experience (EX) platforms, these software tools can help you improve internal comms, unify dispersed teams, and upgrade digital employee experience.
Features include real-time messaging, content management, social news feeds, and analytics. You can also expect robust integrations that ensure a streamlined and productivity-boosting experience for employees.
Ready to find your Beekeeper alternative? Take a look at the best employee communication platforms for 2026, along with their pros and cons.
Best for: Companies with frontline and desk-based workers looking for unified communication, engagement, and operations.
Blink is the leading alternative to Beekeeper. It’s an employee experience platform that combines communication, engagement, and productivity tools in one easy-to-use app.
These tools are available via one unified dashboard, which — crucially — contains exactly the same features and functionality across both desktop and mobile devices.
As a joined-up solution, Blink drives engagement and transparency while reducing noise and tool overwhelm. Its intuitive UX, rapid deployment, deep integrations, and enterprise-grade security make it ideal for large-scale organizations across industries.
And you don’t need to take our word for it. Blink customers — including McDonald’s, JD Group, Children’s of Alabama, and Go North West — report high app adoption rates and measurable improvements in employee engagement, retention, and operational efficiency.
Pros:
All-in-one platform for two-way communication, resources, and operations
A social-style news feed, co-worker communities, surveys, and recognition tools
Intuitive mobile-first design with high employee adoption
Integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365, Workday, ADP, and more
Includes analytics, AI automation, and broadcast tools
Trusted by global brands including McDonald’s, JD Group, and Domino’s
Cons:
Enterprise plan required for advanced customizations
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#2. Staffbase
Best for: Large or global enterprises with formal comms teams
Staffbase is a popular internal communication platform that caters primarily to enterprise businesses — those with complex communication needs across multiple regions. It provides branded employee apps, newsletters, and intranet tools and places a strong emphasis on content distribution and corporate messaging.
While its visual editor and content scheduling features are a plus, some users find the platform content-heavy. Its pricing model is geared towards larger organizations, and the platform may take a while to configure and fully roll out.
Pros: Strong branded experiences
Cons: More focused on top-down messaging than interactivity
#3. Workvivo
Best for: Large, multilingual organizations
Workvivo blends communication features with a social media-style interface. It allows employees to post updates, engage with leadership, and access key resources in one space. Workvivo excels at driving culture and engagement, especially in hybrid or dispersed workplaces.
The platform is backed by Zoom and integrates with major HR and collaboration tools. But there are a few downsides to bear in mind. Workvivo can be hard to customize when it comes to operational use cases like task management or process automation.
Pros: Highly engaging UI, good for culture-building
Cons: Limited operational features compared to all-in-one platforms
#4. Simpplr
Best for: Companies looking for a modern intranet and a centralized knowledge hub
Simpplr positions itself as a modern intranet with a focus on employee communications and engagement. It provides a clean UI, AI-powered content recommendations, and analytics to help internal comms teams measure impact.
It’s especially effective in large enterprises with a high proportion of knowledge workers. Smaller organizations may find that some features are unnecessary and that prices are higher than budgets allow.
Pros: Streamlined UI and good customer support
Cons: Limited customization options
#5. Firstup
Best for: Global enterprises looking for advanced audience targeting and automated message delivery
Firstup is a digital employee experience platform designed to deliver personalized content at scale. It focuses on intelligent content delivery, helping large enterprises reach the right people with the right message at the right time.
With AI-powered targeting, automated employee journeys, and email tools, Firstup works well for complex internal comms strategies. However, the platform is heavily focused on broadcast and campaign-style messaging, with limited collaboration features.
Best for: Large and complex organizations looking for an AI-native intranet
Unily is a platform that combines intranet functionality with employee experience tools. It supports rich content creation, content translation, and broadcast email across a user-friendly interface.
Unily is often praised for its design flexibility and advanced features, but it takes time and developer expertise to set up. This Beekeeper alternative is best suited to companies with dedicated IT and comms teams.
Pros: Powerful and customizable
Cons: A steep learning curve; a time-consuming setup process
#7. Microsoft Viva
Best for: Microsoft-centric organizations looking to improve employee experience
Microsoft Viva is a suite of employee experience tools within Microsoft 365. It includes modules for insights, learning, and communications, and it’s a strong choice for knowledge-worker companies already using the Microsoft ecosystem.
As you’d expect, Microsoft Viva integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft products, including Outlook and SharePoint. But it can be overly complex — and overly corporate for those wanting to develop a dynamic company culture.
Pros: Deep integration with Microsoft 365
Cons: Can feel fragmented; requires additional configuration
#8. Haiilo
Best for: Culture building, employee advocacy, and brand amplification
Haiilo is another Beekeeper alternative that provides employee communication and intranet capabilities. It features multiple communication channels, plus tools to amplify employer branding and build a more connected culture.
Despite the platform’s strengths, some users state that it’s overly complex, particularly for smaller businesses and less tech-savvy teams.
Pros: Great for advocacy and culture building
Cons: A complex tool with a steep learning curve; expensive for smaller companies
#9. Happeo
Best for: Google-centric organizations
Happeo is a Google-based, AI-powered intranet that acts as a centralized hub for all internal comms. It puts company news, documents, and collaboration tools in one easy-access location.
Key features include pages, channels, a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, and an intuitive user interface. But this platform lacks several useful communication tools — like direct messages, audio and video messages, and @mentions.
Pros: Easy and intuitive interface; easy integration with Google Workspace
Cons: Limited integrations beyond the Google suite; limited search functionality
#10. MangoApps
Best for: Mid-sized businesses seeking to connect dispersed teams
MangoApps provides a unified platform for communication, collaboration, and HR workflows. Key features include instant messaging, file sharing, task tracking, and employee recognition.
Users praise the platform’s ease of use but complain that the user interface — particularly on the platform’s mobile app — feels outdated compared to more modern tech tools.
Pros: Comprehensive comms features in one place
Cons: Less intuitive UI compared to newer competitors; integrations are limited
#11. Speakap
Best for: Frontline-only teams
Speakap is a communication app built for non-desk workers. It focuses on reaching employees who don’t have a corporate email or regular access to company systems. The app supports secure messaging, announcements, and integrations with payroll or scheduling tools.
Speakap is a good fit for retail or hospitality environments but offers fewer features for knowledge-based collaboration or enterprise-scale analytics.
Pros: Tailored for frontline teams
Cons: Limited scalability for enterprise-level requirements; limited team messaging functionality
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Which Beekeeper alternative is right for your organization?
The right Beekeeper alternative will depend on your organization's size, structure, and goals. But if you're looking for a platform that goes beyond messaging to deliver a truly unified employee experience, Blink stands out as a top choice.
Blink meets the needs of both frontline and desk-based teams, by bringing communication, collaboration, and productivity tools into a centralized, mobile-first hub.
With social-media-style comms tools, a consumer-grade smartphone app, and proven impact on employee engagement, it has everything you need to improve internal comms and employee experience.
Other tools on this list each offer value in specific areas — from top-down communication to culture-building to knowledge management — but Blink leads the way as a complete, scalable solution for internal comms and employee experience in 2026.
Why teams choose Blink over Beekeeper
Beekeeper's 2025 acquisition by LumApps has left many customers asking what's next for their roadmap and support. Blink offers a stable, purpose-built alternative — mobile-first, no corporate email required, and already trusted by McDonald's, Domino's, and Chick-fil-A. See our full comparison, including what the acquisition means for Beekeeper customers.
IM Flash Technologies, a semiconductor factory with a large frontline workforce, was struggling with its worst turnover in decades.
As a last resort, they turned to employee engagement surveys.
Senior leaders spent the next year collecting insights and making the changes their employees asked for.
By the next year, they'd reduced turnover by 50%.
Clear, actionable data is the key to making informed decisions about your workplace culture and internal communications: the good, the bad – and the ugly.
And what’s your best bet to get this data? Extract it straight from the source: your people.
Senior managers have been using the trusty annual employee engagement survey for the past 30+ to ask workers how they really feel.
And fair enough. When done right, an annual employee survey can get you some solid insights. But it’s not going to cut it in today’s world. At least not on its own.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of conducting an employee engagement survey, why it may or may not work for your company, and the employee survey alternatives you can start using right away.
What is an employee engagement survey?
An annual employee engagement survey is a set of questions shared with workers once a year. The answers help gauge employee sentiment, identify issues, and contribute to (possible) solutions.
mployee engagement is crucial for any organization’s growth. Teams with highly engaged members sell over 20% more than groups with low engagement, according to a PeopleMetrics study. Engaged workers have the potential to get your company more customers, while disengaged workers increase expenses and reduce profits.
So an annual employee engagement survey measures the extent to which workers feel valued at your organization.
With that in mind, here’s a rundown of how you’d typically go about conducting a yearly employee engagement survey in an organization.
How to run an employee engagement survey
Figure out your goal
Before creating and distributing a survey to your workers, you need a crystal clear idea of what you want to measure and why. This will help you generate the right questions and get data you can actually use.
For example, your purpose for conducting an annual employee engagement survey could be:
Help find ways to transform a toxic workplace culture
Identify how to increase employee engagement throughout the company
Come up with ways to improve employee retention
Develop two-way communication between managers and workers
Plan your survey questions
Asking great questions is the key to getting to the heart of workplace issues. The right questions will get better answers from workers. And the better responses you get, the easier for your company to identify areas of improvement.
Here are the best questions for an annual employee engagement survey. These are a baseline – but a solid one!
What is your favorite thing about working at our company?
What is your least favorite thing about working at our company?
What’s the most important thing we should do to make things better at our company?
Do you feel like a valued member of our company or just a number? Why?
What can we do to foster better internal communication at our company?
Do you get constructive feedback from your seniors on a regular basis?
Do you see your career growing in this company?
Is the number of tasks assigned to you reasonable?
Are you satisfied with our rewards and recognition policies?
Don’t overwhelm your readers
If you conduct an employee engagement survey only once a year, it’s tempting to combine multiple surveys or ask a wide range of questions.
Give in to this temptation, and you’ll likely end up with a survey that confuses workers and doesn’t generate actionable feedback.
That’s not what you want, right? So keep it simple. Only include the most important and specific topics to keep your survey from turning into an SAT exam. And make sure to use plain language that all the employees can easily understand.
Ideally, your survey should include around 30 questions. Go more than 40 and it’s overkill. 30-40 questions are just enough to cover all the key aspects as per your objective without putting too much burden on the workers.
Build and distribute your survey
The next step is execution. How will you create the survey and share it with the employees? The good news is there are many intuitive tools at your disposal. Take Blink for example.
Our employee experience platform helps you share anonymous polls and surveys with your employees. These surveys get high completion rates and honest feedback.
Now comes the fun part — getting workers to fill the survey. Just like charity begins at home, survey advocacy begins with senior management. Here are the key steps that will help maximize the reach of your annual employee engagement survey.
Get the senior leaders and managers to complete the survey first. This way, you can get feedback on the overall experience of filling the survey. So you can make any amends, if needed, before sharing the survey with the whole workforce.
Use an employee app to provide resources that may come in handy when a worker sits down to complete a survey.
Promote the survey at every opportunity. Boost participation by mentioning the survey in employee newsletters, posting flyers, announcing prizes, and reminding workers about the survey in meetings and conferences.
Are annual employee engagement surveys dead?
Now you know how to conduct surveys. But you should also know that an annual employee engagement survey has certain shortcomings.
An annual employee engagement survey can help gauge your work culture only to some extent. So when used on its own, it’s not the best way to learn more about your employees. Often, it may not reveal any solid insights into your organization’s core issues.
Before you decide on planning a survey, also consider the drawbacks below.
It’s impersonal
An annual employee engagement survey, by its nature, is a cold way to get feedback. When you send a set of questions once a year to be answered by your workers, the unspoken message they may hear is:
"We want your inputs, but only in a certain format and confined to the questions we have developed. We're not attempting to build or nurture a relationship or anything! Don’t think too much and just check a few boxes. No big deal!"
An annual employee engagement survey can make workers feel that their employer doesn’t take feedback seriously. So neither should they.
It doesn’t provide valuable data
An annual employee engagement survey doesn’t encourage honest feedback. Many of the workers may not trust the system. They might think that being too honest in an annual employee engagement survey - like slamming their manager - can get them in trouble.
It relies on fluffy metrics
HBR once reported in a case study that United Parcel Service faced a huge loss because its annual employee survey didn’t uncover problems associated with a surge in part-time jobs. So when workers went on strike, it cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
Most commonly-used questionnaires make use of “percent favourable” metrics. So the data you get consists of inflated scores and blind spots, giving you the illusion of high engagement when it’s the opposite in reality.
It’s not regular enough
For anything that matters, measuring your progress just once a year is not enough. Whether it’s your personal health, financial investments, or employee engagement, you’ll be wise to keep tabs regularly.
An annual employee engagement survey is a snapshot in time. And the feedback you get from employees in a singular moment can’t accurately reflect their feelings for the whole year.
Since organizations using annual surveys don’t get the data they need to act, they don’t. They finish conducting the survey like it was just a formality and move on, further tarnishing whatever trust workers had in the employer.
For these reasons, many HR leaders believe that annual employee engagement surveys are dead. While we won’t go as far, it’s evident that once-a-year surveys alone aren’t enough to get accurate and comprehensive insights, which brings us to the next part.
Employee engagement survey alternatives
Gone are the days when workers were happy just to have a job. And before you counter — Yes, even if it provides standard benefits like health insurance and retirement savings. The ingredients that make your employees engaged, satisfied, and happy are now more nuanced and sophisticated.
To find out how successful your recipe is, you need comprehensive techniques that can capture worker sentiment in a timely and relevant manner. Let’s see what those are.
1. Tracking company-wide metrics
The tools and technologies that you use for employee management and collaboration can give you a ton of real-time and continuous feedback from the workforce.
Most modern systems these days come with built-in analytics to drill down into worker behavior and identify areas of improvement. For example, you can view:
Performance appraisal and evaluation ratings
Number of discrimination complaints and legal claims
Number of workers on a leave of absence
Employees who have filed compensation claims
Number of workers who resigned in the last 12 months
Number of training hours workers attended voluntarily
Average employee commute time (the shorter, the better)
Number of workers on zero-hour contracts
By understanding such people trends, you can get an accurate sense of engagement across the organization. And you can do all this without directly involving your employees.
2. Pulse surveys
Research shows that 77% of employees want to provide feedback more than once per year. And that most employees prefer to provide feedback four times a year.
That’s where Pulse surveys come in. Pulse surveys get employee feedback using short, frequent check-ins that are not confined to specific content or topics. When you ask quick questions at short intervals, the feedback you get will be more authentic and practical.
3. Town-hall meetings
Townhalls are another viable alternative to annual surveys. If you manage a team that’s too large for a conference table, organize a Town Hall meeting to spark discussions and learn about team members’ concerns.
Don’t want to put yourself on the spot? Easy. Ask employees to submit questions in advance so you can be better prepared to answer them.
4. An open-door policy
Why wait for a formal process or tool to get feedback? You can create an environment in which spontaneous feedback is encouraged.
Make your employees feel safe and comfortable with two-way communication mechanisms. When they can talk openly about their concerns, you’ll always have a string of things you can improve in your repository. So you won’t have to go hunt for good ideas once every year.
Final thoughts
If you really want to have a lasting impact on your culture, you must consult your employees regularly and consider alternatives to a once-a-year survey. By pairing surveys with alternative ways to get employee feedback, you’ll be on your way to shaping a work environment where workers feel more productive and content.
If you’re in internal communications, you’ve heard that sentence more times than you’ve heard “quick question” (which, as we know, is never actually quick).
The shift is real. Five years ago, a lot of comms tech lived in the “nice to have” bucket. In 2026, it’s a boardroom conversation — and boardrooms don’t buy “nice.” They buy outcomes: efficiency, reduced risk, better retention, higher adoption of expensive tech investments, and measurable operational wins.
In our recent webinar, Proving internal comms ROI in 2026: Lessons from the other side, Ricky Sickelmore shared what he learned after 24 years in transport (including launching Blink at Stagecoach and introducing it at Arriva) — and what consistently held up when leadership came knocking for ROI.
Here are the six takeaways internal comms teams can apply immediately.
1. Ditch vanity metrics for outcomes
Email opens. Page views. Likes.
They’re not useless… they’re just not convincing.
Ricky’s rule: stop leading with activity metrics and start leading with business value. Executives don’t want to hear that “people saw the message.” They want to know: did anything change, and did it matter?
So translate comms problems into operational and financial realities:
Safety reporting increases (e.g., digital near-miss reporting vs. “find the form somewhere and hope someone bothers”)
Turnover movement (not because comms magically fixes attrition — but because comms can remove friction, improve onboarding, and drive consistency)
A useful gut-check: If your metric can’t be repeated in a budget meeting without you adding a 3-minute explanation, it’s not your headline metric.
Executives aren’t interested in open rates. They’re interested in the financial reality.
- Ricky Sickelmore, Blink
2. Start with hard costs and operational efficiency
If you want CFO attention, lead with the stuff they can smell from three floors away: tangible savings.
Ricky shared a simple example that’s painfully common in frontline-heavy orgs: printing and distributing documents at scale. One organization saved over £200,000 by moving payslips from print-and-post to digital distribution.
But don’t just stop at “printing costs.” The strongest ROI cases widen the lens:
Printers and maintenance
Paper, postage, distribution
Staff time to print, collate, deliver, reprint
Support tickets created when things go wrong
And when you talk about “time savings,” make them real. Not “we saved time.” Instead:
“We reclaimed 10 hours per week of manager time previously spent manually filling shifts.”
“We reduced password reset requests because employees access systems through one authenticated front door.”
Pro tip from Ricky: Do a basic “time and motion” study. Follow one process end-to-end and document every human touchpoint. That one form might bounce across 8–10 people, with delays that never show up on a neat process map.
3. Build a cross-functional case, not a “comms case”
One of the biggest mistakes internal comms teams make is trying to win budget alone — with a comms-only story.
Ricky put it bluntly: ROI gets easier when internal comms stops being “the comms team’s project” and becomes an operations, safety, engineering, and HR win.
That means stakeholder interviews early — not once the deck is already written.
Ask department heads:
What’s your biggest friction point right now?
What manual work is wasting your team’s time?
Where do you have compliance risk?
What’s the cost of not fixing this?
Example Ricky gave: if a safety leader can’t reliably get 20 drivers in a room for a briefing, that’s not a comms problem — it’s an operational risk. A digital “mandatory read” gives you trackable compliance without the logistics circus.
Make it tangible: Form a small steering committee with reps from the functions that will benefit most. When you go for sign-off, you’re not walking in alone — you’re walking in with allies.
You’re not in it alone — get the right stakeholders in the room early.
Ricky Sickelmore
4. Prove time-to-value through onboarding
Want a metric that operations leaders actually care about? Onboarding efficiency.
Ricky called this one “underestimated” — and he’s right. Onboarding is where friction shows up immediately, and where improvements are easy to translate into time, money, and productivity.
If employees can receive policies, procedures, training content, and day-one essentials before they even start, you can often get people productive an entire day sooner.
That’s not “engagement.” That’s time to value.
And onboarding improvements have a bonus effect: they reduce downstream errors, reduce manager time spent repeating the same information, and improve early retention (again — comms isn’t the sole driver, but it’s a meaningful part of the system).
5. Position your platform as the digital front door
One of Ricky’s biggest reflections: early on, it’s easy to think you’re buying “a comms tool.”
But the strongest ROI cases position the platform as the gateway to your digital estate — the place employees actually start their day.
This matters because most organizations are already paying for expensive systems (HRIS, scheduling, payroll, benefits, learning, etc.). The problem isn’t always the tool — it’s access and adoption.
If your internal comms platform:
Uses SSO
Reduces password resets
Gives employees one place to find and access tools
Increases self-service
…then your comms investment is also protecting and amplifying other investments.
Ricky shared a real pattern: Once access is simplified through a single front door, usage of other systems can jump dramatically — and suddenly your internal comms platform isn’t “another tool.” It’s the tool that makes the rest usable.
6. Establish a baseline — and sell the cost of inaction
You can’t prove improvement if you don’t know where you started. And you can’t create urgency if you can’t show what “doing nothing” costs.
Ricky’s advice: Baseline early — and don’t just baseline comms metrics.
Baseline business realities that leadership recognizes:
Turnover / attrition
Survey participation rates
Safety reporting volumes
Time spent on manual processes
Printing, distribution, and support costs
Operational delays caused by information gaps
Then translate that into the cost of inaction: the money currently leaking from the business because processes are manual, access is fragmented, and frontline teams can’t reliably get what they need.
When you can credibly say, “Here’s what it costs us to do nothing,” the investment stops feeling optional.
Common mistakes to avoid when proving internal comms ROI
A few “don’t step on this rake” moments that came up in the conversation:
Don’t lead with outputs. “We sent 12 newsletters” isn’t ROI.
Don’t build the case in isolation. Cross-functional pain points = stronger case.
Don’t ignore hard money. The “soft” story matters, but hard savings gets you in the door.
Don’t skip the frontline reality check. Spend time with frontline teams. Watch the work. Learn the friction.
Don’t assume leaders know what to ask for. Often the first job is clarifying the real question behind “prove ROI.”
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Be the change maker
Internal comms ROI in 2026 isn’t about becoming a finance team overnight. It’s about learning to translate.
Translate comms into outcomes.
Translate friction into cost.
Translate “this would be helpful” into “this will reduce risk, save time, and speed up productivity.”
ClearBox validates Blink’s leadership in the future of the intranet market
For the fourth year running, Blink has been recognized as a standout platform in the annual ClearBox intranet market report — and this year’s results come with an even stronger signal.
The ClearBox Consulting Intranet and Employee Experience Platforms Report 2026 confirms what Blink customers already know: the intranet market may be mature, but it hasn’t converged. And Blink continues to lead where it matters most.
In fact, Blink is the only vendor in the entire report to achieve a perfect 5/5 score in any category, earning top marks for Mobile & Frontline Support.
Here’s how ClearBox summed it up:
“Blink is an engaging, social and truly mobile-first platform, ideal for organizations with a high percentage of frontline and deskless employees.”
Let’s break down what the report assessed — and what this year’s findings mean for buyers.
About ClearBox
ClearBox Consulting is an independent intranet and digital workplace consultancy that helps organizations select, design, and evolve the right intranet and employee experience platforms.
Trusted by global brands including Unilever, PlayStation, GlaxoSmithKline, and Bayer, ClearBox is known for its rigorous, vendor-agnostic evaluations and practical buyer guidance.
Each year, ClearBox reviews 20 leading intranet and employee experience platforms, scoring them across eight core criteria and sharing detailed insights into where each vendor truly excels.
What does the ClearBox report assess?
ClearBox evaluates platforms against eight key criteria, including:
User experience and visual appeal
Community and engagement
Publishing and communications management
Mobile and frontline support
Governance, administration, and vendor maturity
The research also incorporates customer feedback, pricing considerations, and product roadmaps — giving buyers a clear picture of both current capability and future direction.
Mobile and frontline support — perfect score, category leadership
Once again, Blink leads the market in mobile and frontline delivery — but this year, the result is definitive.
Blink is the only platform to receive a perfect 5/5 score for Mobile & Frontline Support across the entire vendor landscape.
This isn’t incremental improvement. It’s category leadership in the fastest-growing, most underserved segment of the workforce.
Blink was built mobile-first from day one — not retrofitted for frontline teams later. Employees can access everything they need through a single, secure app, without a company email address or desktop login. Offline access, frontline-native UX, and intuitive navigation ensure that critical information reaches everyone, everywhere.
ClearBox highlights Blink’s structural advantage here, noting that desktop-led intranets consistently under-serve frontline workers — a gap Blink was designed specifically to solve.
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User experience built for adoption — not training
Blink continues to earn top marks for user experience and visual appeal, thanks to its clean, social-style interface that mirrors the consumer apps employees already use.
ClearBox notes:
“Blink delivers an engaging, social experience and practical tools for communication, collaboration and productivity, without overwhelming users with complexity.”
From a feed-first experience and Stories to rich multimedia content and communities, Blink makes communication feel familiar, fast, and engaging — driving adoption without heavy change management.
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What ClearBox is really telling the market in 2026
Beyond individual scores, this year’s report delivers a clear message to buyers: the intranet market is mature, fragmented, and outcome-led.
There is no longer a single “do everything” platform that wins across every category. Instead, vendors lead by solving specific problems for specific audiences.
For Blink, that market context matters.
ClearBox’s findings validate Blink’s long-standing strategy of not chasing feature sprawl, and instead focusing relentlessly on communications effectiveness, frontline reach, and measurable engagement.
Key signals from the report include:
Internal communications teams are increasingly the primary buyers — not IT
Mobile and frontline delivery is no longer optional
Governance, moderation, and trust are critical as platforms become more social
Buyers want practical AI embedded into real workflows, not hype
Blink aligns with each of these shifts — by design.
Enterprise governance, without killing engagement
As platforms become more social, ClearBox notes that governance and risk management are back in focus — especially for large, complex organizations.
Blink balances engagement with control through:
Community permissions and moderation tools
Timed log-outs for frontline safety and compliance
A relevancy-based, algorithmic feed that balances reach with oversight
The result is social communication that scales inside the enterprise — not in spite of it.
What this means for buyers
If your priorities include:
Communications effectiveness
Frontline reach
Mobile-first delivery
Governed, measurable engagement
The ClearBox 2026 report shows that Blink consistently outperforms broader, heavier platforms where it counts most.
Blink isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. It’s focused on helping organizations reach 100% of their workforce — and prove the impact of doing so.
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Some more highlights from the ClearBox report
Here’s what else ClearBox had to say about Blink:
“Today, Blink continues to stand out for its mobile-first design and intuitive user experience, making it a strong choice for organizations with frontline workers.”
“The platform’s personalised feed and simple navigation give employees quick access to relevant content.”
“Blink also excels in onboarding and adoption support, offering practical features like QR code access and in-person onboarding events.”
“Overall, Blink is a strong choice for organizations prioritising mobile engagement, particularly those with large frontline populations.”
And here’s what customers interviewed by ClearBox said about their experience with Blink:
“Our users find it easy to use and intuitive, boosting activation and engagement rates.”
“It’s easy to download, the UI is simple and familiar, and it’s been a gamechanger for our company since launch.”
“Blink has completely transformed how we communicate. Our frontline teams finally feel connected and included.”
“Blink makes work feel more connected. It’s like a social hub where everyone — whether in the office, on the frontline, or remote — can share updates, celebrate wins, and find what they need fast.”
“We’ve leaned hard on them to make some changes specifically for us and they have been extremely accommodating to our timelines to make it happen.”
“While they have lots of big clients, they always make you feel like you are their only customer. They are a fantastic bunch!”
“The Blink team has been a true partner from day one. They’re proactive, responsive, and invested in our success.”
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Looking ahead
ClearBox doesn’t just validate Blink’s performance this year — it validates Blink’s direction.
Blink wins when:
Communications is a strategic function, not a broadcast channel
Frontline workers are first-class citizens, not an afterthought
Mobile is the primary experience, not a companion app
Outcomes matter more than feature checklists
Bottom line: The ClearBox 2026 report confirms that Blink isn’t chasing the past of the intranet market — it’s aligned with its future.
We slip words like these into conversations with ease. New technology has become part of our bread-and-butter vocabulary, without quotation (or question) marks.
Healthtech, on the other hand – that feels a bit more niche. Or it did, until Covid-19 made us sit up and pay attention.
24 months into the pandemic, nobody needs a lecture on the importance of healthtech; it’s staring us in the face. But health tech didn’t emerge on-the-fly in response to the Covid crisis. It’s been around for a long time.
And it’s big business. In 2017, Forbes valued the digital healthcare industry at an astounding $25 billion globally. They believe that number will skyrocket above $379 billion by 2024.
We all know that healthtech helps predict the spread of diseases, track pandemic outbreaks, and contain them. But there are other new developments in the future of healthcare that will change the way we live.
What is healthtech?
Right now, healthtech (also known as digital health) is the fastest-growing verticle in healthcare. It refers to any product or service that's enabled, or revolutionized by, technology. So far, so Sci-Fi. But healthtech is all around us already...
Wearables
Yep, you’ve already got this one. Fitness trackers (like FitBits) are health wearables. We like knowing we've put in my 10.000 steps. But other types of knowledge about what’s happening in our bodies can be more vital. For some people, it’s their heart rate; for others, their blood pressure, or their oxygen supply.
Continuously measuring these things makes a huge difference for people with chronic conditions. And these wearables don’t just make the invisible visible; they also act as a kind of coach. They empower wearers to become active participants in managing their health condition. Immediate feedback from a wearable can change habits; habits can change health; and health saves lives.
Wearables are particularly relevant in the time of Covid-19. But they will continue to be so well beyond it, as part of a bigger drive towards preventative or pro-active health care.
3D-printed prototypes
3D-printing technology still sounds far-fetched. But it’s here, and it’s a quiet revolution in healthcare. Technology like this can create everything from personalized prosthetics to bio-tissues and blood vessels, at a fraction of the past cost. It transforms organ transplants and tissue repair. It can even produce realistic skin grafts for burn victims.
In 2020, researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, managed to develop a method for printing 3D-print living skin, along with blood vessels.
Blockchain for electronic healthcare records
Blockchain and the future of healthcare? Not obvious at first. But think of electronic health records, and how important it is to keep those accurate and safe.
Blockchain technology can play a key role in ensuring that medical records are 100% accurate. It also makes them significantly harder to hack. Conflicting information is automatically detected, thanks to a decentralised network of computers. And blockchain not only helps prevent data breaches; it also cuts costs.
So it’s no wonder that many health and pharmaceutical companies are investing in blockchain technology. A recent report put the blockchain health market at $890.5 million by 2023.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a key driver in health tech. We already see it in chatbots and virtual health assistants that act as diagnostic tools, and even as therapists.
But the real power of AI becomes clear in areas like precision medicine. In the past, many cancer patients received cookie-cutter treatments with high failure rates. Because of AI, we now have more personalised treatments, based on individual genetics and lifestyle factors, amongst other things.
And finally, two of the things AI is exceptionally good at is Pattern Recognition and optical character recognition. That means it can analyse large amounts of cancer images that help recognise and diagnose cancer. One famous example of this is Google’s DeepMind, which created an AI for breast cancer analysis. The algorithm outperformed human radiologists on pre-selected data sets to identify breast cancer, on average by 11.5%.
The market value of AI for future of healthcare worldwide? $34 billion by 2025.
VR/AR
Most of us are already familiar with this technology. Immersing yourself in a simulated environment is fun. But it can also be a therapeutic tool. For instance, VR environments help train people to deal with mental health triggers safely. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Bipolar Disorder. Covid-related Stress and Anxiety are now being treated this way.
The training potential of VR is – well, awesome. Take surgeons, for instance. A recent Harvard Business Review study showed that VR-trained surgeons had a 230% boost in their overall performance.
Compared to their traditionally-trained counterparts, they were both faster and more accurate. At Case Western Reserve University, students learn via a VR-based HoloAnatomy app. This offers detailed and precise experience without the need for real bodies.
Top 4 emerging healthtech trends for 2022
In light of the Covid pandemic and rapid growth in remote work, safeguarding your workers has become a mandatory part of doing business. This means you’re now also looked upon to bring in measures like:
By making these types of smart technologies accessible to your workforce, you can give way to improved safety standards and early alerts that reduce the risk of contagious threats. Keep track of these trends to keep your employees safe in 2022 and beyond.
identify opportunities to leverage them for your organization going forward.
Virtual care and remote medicine are on the rise
You drive to the doctor. You sit in a waiting area for ages until your name's called. When your appointment finally happens, it's a few questions, a prescription, and you're sent on your way. You wonder why you spent so long commuting for a matter of minutes.
Sound familiar?
That's why virtual care is replacing minor in-person appointments. The past two years have further accelerated this trend, leading to an increase in virtual visits or telephone consultations.
According to a recent McKinsey study, the number of people using telehealth rose from 11 to 46% during the pandemic. It further predicts that telehealth would account for $250 billion — 20% of the US healthcare spending in near future.
Virtual care not only reduces the risk of spreading contagious diseases but allows healthcare professionals to fit more consultations into their daily schedules. This is a vital factor for highly populated nations facing a shortage of medical professionals, such as India and China.
Genomics and gene editing lead to further breakthroughs
Before you get all excited — no, we haven’t figured out how a spider’s bite can turn a normal kid into spiderman.
But the good news is that there've been significant breakthroughs in gene editing, accelerating the development of different types of "precision medicine."
This means drugs can be tailored to the genetic profile of each patient, enhancing their effectiveness and minimizing side effects.
Precision medicine is already used in many ways, one of which is 'lab on a chip' — a technology that allows fast detection of Covid. It’s a hand-held device that can detect if someone is infected with better accuracy than conventional signals such as fever and coughing. So, it can go a long way in getting our lives back to normal.
Data and AI drives shift to fairer healthcare insurance and coverage
With all the strain that the coronavirus pandemic has put on our healthcare resources, you’d think it must have grown the bottom line too. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. In the US, healthcare revenues fell by 50% as patients avoided surgeries and hospitals.
But the silver lining in midst of all this is the revelation that people are willing to share their personal data when it’s a matter of their health. This is evident from how much people have engaged with track-and-trace systems.
The more data people share with health services, mobile apps, and online systems powered by AI, the more accurate picture healthcare providers will have of their well-being, along with a sense of when they should intervene. Not just that, it helps healthcare providers forecast the most efficient way to deliver their services.
This also matters from a financial perspective because other entities such as insurance companies can use advanced predictive technologies to measure risk and set premiums more accurately.
AI, IoT, and Smart Cities improve our ability to detect and respond to future outbreaks
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we were embarrassingly unprepared to deal with an outbreak. And we should have a collective, predetermined strategy if something similar happens in the future.
A key part of this strategy is the concept of “Smart Cities," powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT). According to Statista, global revenue from smart city projects is estimated to reach $129 billion in 2021.
The idea of a smart city is based on incorporating digital connectivity and data-driven decision-making at our respective locations. And its applications extend to many areas such as:
Energy distribution
Public transportation networks
Refuse collection
Environmental health initiatives
It’s not just the organizations that are becoming health-care oriented, but also city planners and municipal authorities. These government bodies are now allocating resources to develop technologies that can help us predict, detect and prevent pandemics.
Another major focus is environmental health. Tech-driven initiatives are being put in place to reduce air pollution and build resilience to the effects of climate change, including the rise in sea level and temperature..
Conclusion
Even if most of your workers are remote, don’t think for a second that your health concerns are over. They now require even more attention because you don’t have the luxury of regular, face-to-face contact. It’ll be hard for you to tell when your employees are burning the candle at both ends. So you still need to support the mental health of employees as they perform their duties in the field, or from home.
That’s where the healthcare technology trends we outlined can help. There are several health apps available for professionals to monitor physical activity, practice meditation, set reminders for breaks, water and exercise, and so on.
The only way to avoid setbacks that can take you by surprise is to stay on top of the latest trends and innovations. The faster you can respond to relevant changes in your industry, the better for your organization.
How you complete that sentence could speak volumes about your leadership skills.
Good leadership in the workplace is crucial for the long-term success of your business and superb employee experience.
In fact, there's a 1674% chance of an employee having a strong perception about your leadership when you connect them to their purpose, accomplishments, or each other.
Great leaders inspire and motivate their team members. But it's easier said than done.
Being a good leader can be challenging. It takes a lot of practice and focus. But like any other skill, you can learn to be an effective leader.
If you don't know how to be a good leader, you're in luck. We'll explore 10 qualities of a good leader to give you tips to become a strong leader at work.
What makes a good leader in the workplace?
A good leader engages in open communication, motivates their team members, leads by example, listens to feedback, and is open to new ideas in an ever-changing workplace.
Anyone can sit in a corner office and boss people around, but there's more to effective leadership than that.
Learning the traits of a good leader will help you significantly impact your company's success.
With that in mind, here are 10 attributes of a good leader and how to use them effectively to your advantage.
1. Good leaders engage in open communication.
Employees want to be heard — whether it's an issue that needs resolving or ideas they believe would improve the business or better serve clients.
When you don’t communicate well with your team, they may feel discouraged, resulting in poor morale and lower production. Project.co shared that 35% of businesses have lost an employee due to poor communication.
The best leaders customize their communication styles to suit each situation and team members' preferences — which means they take the time to learn which communication mode each team member prefers.
Do your employees prefer email or phone conversations? Or maybe face-to-face?
You can also use a straightforward mobile app like Blink to turn your employees into a close-knit group by enabling communications between them.
Effective communication decreases misunderstandings and employee errors, builds trust among team members, and improves morale. Pumble backs that up, stating that effective communication can increase a team's productivity by 25%.
As long as it's done respectfully, you should maintain a work environment that promotes honest communication.
Promoting a judgment-free environment sinceyour employees are likely to give their opinions more often when they don’t fear discrimination.
Giving undivided attention to your team members when they’re speaking.
Asking your employees for suggestions to increase their engagement. You'll aim to implement employee engagement strategies that work.
Asking (not demanding) your employees to do stuff for you.
2. Great leaders encourage professional and personal development.
One of the most critical leadership qualities you can have is nurturing your staff by giving them personal development opportunities.
That can include anything from leadership training or teaching them a new skill to encouraging them to pursue a passion that inspires them in and out of the workplace.
In 2021, Lorman shared that 70% of employees are likely to leave their current job to work for an organization that invests in employee growth and development.
Employees value learning opportunities, so it's no surprise that companies with successful training programs typically see a significant increase in employee retention.
Picture a company culture where every team member receives training according to their interests. In such a case, every employee will feel you care about their goals, dreams, and overall well-being.
When that happens, your employees will go above and beyond to help you achieve your goals and vision.
Here are four strategies you can use to encourage professional and personal development in the workplace:
Encourage mentoring and coaching between managers and employees.
Identify and develop soft skills such as time management, active listening, and delegation.
Implement cross-departmental training programs to increase the efficiency of your entire company.
3. Successful leaders lead their employees by example.
One of the characteristics of a good leader is their ability to ‘walk the talk.’
Here’s an instance of a true leader leading by example:
Jane is a manager at a local bank with a team of seven employees (you can pretend that’s Jane and her team in the above picture). She shows up to work a few minutes early to plan her schedule.
When her team starts to arrive, she greets them warmly and inquires about their families.
She then calls her team members into a morning meeting. And instead of leading with her plan, she gives each person a chance to voice their ideas. She appreciates their input and asks them to create proposals to bring their ideas to life.
When it’s time to start working, Jane attends to clients like the rest of the team.
As a result, Jane gets high levels of employee engagement since she demonstrates that she’s invested in her team's initiatives and business.
Leading by example means guiding your employees through actions instead of words. The saying ‘do as I say, not as I do’ has no place in today’s world.
Nowadays, employees want to see your actions match what you say. That means showing them what’s required instead of just telling them.
Here are four ways to lead by example:
Be a role model to your employees by walking the talk.
Give clear instructions to your staff.
Avail yourself to answer questions your employees might have.
Make employees feel part of the team by letting them know why you're giving them specific instructions.
Use respectful words like ‘please’ when giving instructions to your team members.
4. Strong leaders give constructive feedback to employees about their performance.
Employee feedback is an incredibly effective tool. Offered well, it can grow your employees, strengthen bonds between staff and managers, and improve trust levels.
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” — Bill Gates
Direct, honest feedback is the best way to steer your team in the right direction.
Don’t wait for monthly or quarterly assessments to give your employees feedback. Give them right after an event has occurred. It will have the most significant impact on their performance.
Here are four tips to help you give employees effective feedback that gets the results you need:
Give individual feedback privately.
Avoid sandwiching corrective feedback between two positive feedbacks. It will create confusion, undermine the feedback, and decrease trust levels.
Focus on your employees' behaviors (what they do) rather than their personality traits (what they’re like).
5. Secure leaders ask for feedback from employees about their leadership style.
The saying goes: there’s always room for improvement. That’s especially true when you're a good leader.
Who can point out these growth opportunities better than your employees?
After all, they work with you every day, so they know your strengths and weaknesses.
“Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions.” — Ken Blanchard
However, getting honest feedback isn’t always easy.
Employees may feel awkward revealing their true thoughts. They may not want to offend anyone's feelings or face future consequences for harsh criticism. That may cause them to give you fluffy feedback or avoid the request.
Use these tips to ask your employees for feedback and increase the likelihood that they give honest, actionable feedback:
Ask your employees specific questions instead of vague questions such as, “What do you think?”
Tell your staff not to hold back on their feedback and make them feel they’re doing you a favor by being honest.
Give them time to think about your questions and develop helpful answers.
Ask employees about what you can do better in the future rather than what you did wrong in the past.
6. Transformational leaders are open to change and new ideas.
Change is hard — even if the change is for the better. Successful leaders are aware of this and don't pretend otherwise.
They also understand that embracing change with the right mindset is critical to creating an environment where change is integral to their company's DNA.
A great leader never wants to be the smartest person in the room. They surround themselves with a team of experts with more ideas and experience without feeling threatened.
And when these experts are led well, they can be a powerful force in driving strategy, making changes, and enhancing the company's bottom line. They’ll perform at a high level with little oversight and push you to grow continually.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” — Steve Jobs
Whether you're leading a team of two or five thousand, below are four ways to embrace new ideas and get your employees on the ‘change-wagon’ faster:
Surround yourself with a committed team of experts.
Understand why you need the change and clearly express the desired outcome.
Include your employees in decision-making from the get-go to strengthen their commitment to change.
Make sure your beliefs and behaviors support the change. Be resilient, persistent, and willing to step outside your comfort zone.
7. Effective leaders set clear employee goals and delegate work.
A good leader makes sure their employees are doing what they’ve assigned them to do to achieve the company's mission and goals.
The instructions you give should be measurable and quantifiable. Use existing data to develop a baseline for employees to do their best work.
Moreover, 2021 research by Bi Worldwide showed that 31% of employees said their manager set attainable goals for them, but they weren’t challenging. So be sure to have goal-setting discussions with your employees to set goals that will challenge them to grow.
An effective leader also knows what tasks to delegate. They know they can’t accomplish everything alone, so they assign tasks to team members they’re confident will complete them.
As a result, they empower and boost their employees’ morale. And in the process, they free up their time to focus on what will yield the highest returns and grow the business.
Here are three tips to help you delegate tasks to your team members:
Look for opportunities to delegate tasks based on your teams' strengths and weaknesses.
Walk your employees through the project you're delegating and clarify when you need it done.
Give continuous feedback and be specific on what they did well and what they need to improve on.
A good leader has the right motivation and passion. They’re not driven by money or prestige but genuinely want to inspire others to do their best.
Passionate leaders increase productivity and make sure workers are committed to the company's values, mission, and vision.
“A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” — John C. Maxwell
Most successful leaders have a passion (not a job) and know how to rally others around that passion.
In short, passionate leaders lead with heart.
Here are seven qualities that set passionate leaders apart from the crowd:
They're open-minded and respect differing opinions.
They have a positive attitude and superb problem-solving skills.
They’re great communicators and listen with the intent of genuinely understanding rather than advancing their agenda.
They're future-focused and capable of engaging others to achieve their goals.
They look at the big picture and embrace challenges.
They're risk-takers and put in the hard work to execute ideas.
They're self-aware, surround themselves with like-minded people, and sustain collaborative relationships.
Your ability to inspire, motivate, and create a magnetic vision needs commitment and perseverance. But it’s worth the effort, whether your goal is productivity, employee retention, or project management.
9. Successful leaders have a positive attitude even when things go south.
Most people tend to associate good leadership with smooth sailing.
After all, what can go wrong if you build and nurture a great team and generate excellent ideas?
…. a lot.
But whether it's a minor misunderstanding or a significant error, how you handle a negative situation reveals a lot about your emotional intelligence and leadership abilities.
“Great leadership usually starts with a willing heart, a positive attitude, and a desire to make a difference.” — Mac Anderson
When things go south, your words and actions as a leader are critical. Here’s what you can do during those times:
Take time to evaluate the situation and know what the problem is.
Face the problem with positivity and look for solutions.
Be flexible and adaptable and make adjustments along the way.
Remain persistent and determined to solve the issues.
10. Good leaders are always learning.
All successful leaders have one trait in common — a hunger for learning. They enroll in relevant online courses, read great books, use the best tools, and constantly improve.
Great leaders have an innate sense of curiosity that often drives them to learn more, which helps them perform better for their businesses and provide personal fulfillment.
“Leadership is not an expertise. Leadership is a constant education.” — Simon Sinek
Learning helps great leaders challenge their assumptions and bring clear understanding to the table.
In contrast, failure to keep learning means you won't adapt to the ever-changing work environment. And depending on your industry's competition, this can be a significant issue that spells the death of your company.
Here are three ways to keep learning and become a better leader:
Embrace an open mind to see things from different perspectives.
Read relevant books, industry publications, and blogs.
Take advantage of consultants, personal networks, industry events, and other organizations and learn from them.
How to be a good leader at work: your checklist
Openly communicate: Make sure your team always know what's going on and what is expected of them.
Develop your team: Push each team member in their personal development. Make sure you each team member has a clear and robust personal development plan.
Lead by example: Easier said than done, but be the example your team can learn from. Show them the type of employee you want them to be.
Give constructive feedback: Don't be afraid to give constructive feedback. 1-1's are normally the place for this.
Ask for feedback: You won't always get things right, and not everyone will agree with you. Ask for feedback from your team on your management style and how you can improve.
Be open to change and new ideas: If a team member has an idea or a new way of doing things, be open to it. Don't stick to the way things are just because "that's how it's always been".
Set goals & delegate: You can't do everything on your own, give your team responsibility and delegate tasks appropriately. This can help with point 2 as well.
Show your passion: If you love your job, show it. This passion can be infectious and help motivate your team.
Keep positive: Things won't always go to plan, but you can weather the storm. Keep positive and let your team know you have their back with whatever road bumps you hit.
Don't stop learning: Your development also doesn't stop. If you want to lead by example you need to make sure you are up to date with the latest techniques and strategies for your role.
Wrapping up: What makes a good leader in the workplace?
Most people aren’t born with the ability to get things done and inspire others every day. And that’s okay — you don’t have to be born with that ability to succeed.
Although it takes time to be a good leader, you can learn strong leadership skills. But like any other skill, it takes a lot of practice and focus.
Just keep in mind it also requires you to grow and engage your team. Blink’s Employee Engagement App can help you keep employees engaged and connected. Try it out today.