Your frontline workers are checked out. Here’s how an employee experience platform can help.

Gamification = a better employee experience, right?

Gamification sounds like an easy win for employee experience — sprinkle in some points, add a leaderboard, boom: engagement. Right?

Not so fast. When gamification is all gimmick and no grounding, it doesn’t inspire employee motivation. It just causes irritation. But when it’s rooted in human connection, meaningful progress, and the way employees actually work? That’s where the magic happens.

Ready to level up your workplace gamification strategies and really move the dial on employee experience? Let’s explore how.

Why gamification works

At its core, gamification taps into what makes work feel energizing — progress, recognition, and a little bit of healthy competition.

Traditionally, it takes game elements we see in customer experience, social media, and other aspects of our personal lives — like point scoring, badges, leader boards, challenges, and levels — and applies them to workplace activities.

Done right, gamification makes routine tasks more engaging and builds momentum around key goals or behaviors. By celebrating wins, making progress visible, and providing social validation, it helps to drive employee engagement.

In fact, 90% of employees say gamification makes them more productive at work. So how exactly does it work? Time for a little neuroscience.

Gamification fires up the brain’s reward system. When we make progress towards a goal or receive recognition, our brains release dopamine — the “happy hormone.”

We feel good. So we’re more likely to repeat the behavior that gave us that dopamine hit.

This is why Duolingo’s streak counter keeps millions of users practicing languages (and now chess!). It’s why Fitbit’s step goals push people to walk just that bit further. And it’s why many organizations have jumped on the gamification bandwagon.

That same psychology is what makes micro-moments of progress on modern intranet apps — think quick reactions, streaks, and bite-sized challenges — so sticky for today’s workforce.

The best programs boost employee productivity and satisfaction with regular dopamine hits throughout the day. But gamification schemes aren’t always successful.

Without a set purpose and complementary employee experience strategy, gamification can end up feeling like a gimmick and the fun quickly fades from the experience.

When “fun” feels fake: Where gamification falls down 

Gamification can boost everything in the employee lifecycle, from the onboarding experience to performance management — but only when it’s done with empathy and intention.

Not every challenge, badge, or leaderboard adds value to the employee journey. In fact, when gamification is rolled into internal comms without empathy or intention, it can easily backfire.

Here’s where gamification can go wrong:

• Meaningless badges. If employees don’t understand what a badge represents — or if a badge doesn’t feel connected to real progress — it’s just another notification to ignore. Badges should feel earned and reflect achievements that matter to employees and your organization. 
  
  
• Forced competitions. Friendly competition can feel motivating. But forcing it on people who are already stressed and stretched too thin? It becomes a source of pressure, not playfulness.
  
  
• Public shame for low performers. A leaderboard that constantly highlights the team’s “losers” is a quick way to erode morale. Not everyone wants their performance broadcast across the company.
  
  
• Praise for only some personalities. Games skewed to extroverts or competitive types leave large segments of your workforce disengaged. Everybody should have the chance to win points and prizes.
  
  
• Focus on company goals. Gamification can achieve big things for your business. Think better employee retention and improved cultural experience! But make corporate KPIs your only focus and employees see games for what they are — another performance metric, not a genuine engagement tool.

Time to reboot your gamification strategy? Let’s look at what employees really want.

Time to level up with smarter gamification strategies

Great workplace gamification isn’t about tricking people into working harder. It’s about making progress visible, recognition effortless, and participation feel natural — without the noise of points-for-the-sake-of-points.

Strategic gamification gives employees organic recognition and reward within their everyday workflow. Here’s how to improve employee experience by weaving gamification through your workday.

Figure out what you want to achieve

Gamification only works when it’s solving the right problem. Too often, organizations roll out leaderboards or points systems hoping to fix issues that need a very different kind of intervention.

For example, if your people are disengaged because they’re burnt out, they don’t need a competition. They’re more likely to need better workload balance and well-being support.

Start by asking: What’s the real challenge here? And work to fix root causes first.

Then, layer gamified digital experiences that are linked to real business goals and employee needs. When you set clear, measurable outcomes, gamification is more likely to have the desired employee experience results.

Celebrate micro-wins

Not every victory deserves a burst of confetti and a standing ovation. But every small success deserves something. 

Those micro-wins are the secret sauce — tiny jolts of momentum that keep people moving forward without the corporate fanfare. And celebrating these moments in the flow of work creates a steady rhythm of employee recognition.

Aim for something like this:

• Daily. Quick kudos or emoji reactions when small tasks are completed.
• Weekly. Shoutouts for team collaboration or creative problem-solving.
• Monthly. Digital badges or spotlight features for outstanding contributions.

The dopamine boost from these mini celebrations is real. And it adds up. By regularly highlighting micro-wins, you embed organic gamification into your company culture and start building a great place to work from the inside out.

Harness the power of peer recognition

If workplace gamification had a co-op mode, it’d be peer recognition.

Badges and leaderboards are nice to have. But a simple high-five from a co-worker can provide a much more meaningful motivation boost. That’s because public peer recognition is visible, instant, and social — everything good gamification should be.

So give employees the internal communication channels they need to award kudos, nominate co-workers for a reward, or add their congratulations to a recognition post.

These organic moments of appreciation are great for company culture. They work wonders for the motivation of both those receiving recognition and those dishing it out.

And an added bonus? When recognition happens in the moment — not buried in a quarterly award ceremony — it becomes a natural part of how your workplace culture works, not a box to tick.
‍

{{mobile-kudos="/image"}}

‍

Launch news feed challenges

Your intranet platform isn’t just a noticeboard. It can be an employee’s go-to place for connection, interaction, and fun. But only if you venture beyond the standard corporate memo.

Add a few game mechanics to everyday moments throughout the employee journey. Set regular news feed challenges that create friendly competition and a sense of shared achievement. Some ideas?

• Run a caption challenge tied to a weekly theme
• Invite people to share short day-in-the-life clips or “work hacks”
• Let teams submit photos of wins, then vote for the standout moment

These micro-challenges use the same principles as gamification — visible progress, social validation, and small rewards that keep people coming back for more.

Make it interactive

Gamification thrives on interactivity — it’s the difference between reading instructions and actually picking up the controller. You can bring that same energy into your employee communications by designing moments where people see change and impact in real time.

Here are a few ideas:

• Pulse surveys and polls. Let people click and vote. Show engagement survey results instantly or follow up with a summary of employee feedback and a plan of action to show cause and effect. Mix and match employee surveys with pulse survey tools to minimize survey fatigue and better enable 360 feedback.

• Progress bars. Add visual progress indicators — for training modules, or even as an online video story plays. Also, share employee data that others will care about. For example, 82% of you have completed cyber-security training this week — can we get to 100%?

• Countdown timers. Create excitement for live events or new initiatives with a countdown. The ticking timer creates buzz, curiosity, and a sense of employee satisfaction when the new content drops.

Keep it authentic

If there’s one golden rule of gamification, it’s this — never fake the fun.

Nothing tanks engagement faster than games that feel mandatory, corporate, or designed to squeeze a little more output from already-stretched teams. Employees can spot the difference between something genuinely built to improve employee experience and something built with the company’s bottom line as a priority.

People join in when games are fun and playful. So keep things human. Make participation voluntary. And, most of all, keep things simple.

When your gamified moments feel natural — fitting with the flow of everyday work — they make the biggest difference to employee experience.

Play Blink Bonanza today

Our POV? Real engagement, not artificial rewards = employee experience results

Gamification doesn’t need to be flashy. It doesn’t need a complicated leaderboard or digital trophies. Instead, the best gamification feels purposeful and playful — and fits seamlessly within your workflow.

At Blink, we’ve seen how intuitive, mobile-first design turns everyday actions into effortless bursts of engagement. Quick reactions become micro-rewards. Employee surveys act like mini-challenges. Stories feel like new levels unlocking. When these moments are woven naturally into the workday, they spark real connection — without a single gimmicky badge in sight.

And when you base your gamification strategies around social interaction, connection and community become a reward in themselves. It stops being about badges and points, and starts being about people — meaning a more organic and meaningful employee experience.

Old intranets all sound the same.

Out of date, out of sync, out of tune. A corporate soundtrack of forgotten logins, stale pages, and “Is anyone actually using this?”

This year, Blink is changing the track. We’ve been recognized in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions — not just anywhere in the grid, but as a Challenger.

For us, this isn’t just a placement. It’s a remix. For the industry. For the intranet. For every employee who’s ever thought, “Why is this so hard to use?”

Why the Gartner Magic Quadrant matters

If you’re in HR, comms, IT, or procurement, you already know the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ - to us, it’s one of the most influential industry reports in technology.

Every year, Gartner independently evaluates vendors on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision - then categorizes them as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, or Niche Players.

This Quadrant has become the go-to reference for organizations choosing their next digital workplace partner.

We’re proud to debut as a Challenger. But more than that, we see it as a validation that the world is ready for a more human way to work.

Why Blink? Why now?

We built Blink on a simple belief: Work should feel connected.

In a world overflowing with tools but starved of real connection, we’re creating an intranet that people actually want to use. One that unites the CEO’s town hall with the shop floor shift briefing. One that gets frontline and office workers on the same wavelength.

Why we believe Blink was recognized

🎧 Sales and customer alignment: We deeply understand buyer pain points, backed by strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Workday.

🎧 Financial and product strength: Robust growth, an agile roadmap with continuous innovation, and a reliable product strategy built for the future keep Blink ahead of the curve.

🎧 We go beyond software: With specialized onboarding teams, strategic rollout support, and a dedication to long-term success, we’re not just a platform — we’re a true partner.

🎧 From mobile to total experience: Our platform empowers every kind of worker with personalized microapps, powerful social features, and communications that actually cut through.

Challenger energy: More than a position - a mindset

For us, being a Challenger isn’t just about where we land on the grid. It’s about how we move through the world.

We don’t believe “good enough” intranets should do the trick. We don’t do stale or static. We remix the intranet into something dynamic, modern, and centered on people.

Because what good is an intranet that no one uses?

We’re obsessed with adoption: ensuring employees actually engage, communicate, and thrive on the platform. That’s why Blink is designed with every kind of worker at heart, driven by a people-first approach to innovation.

That’s what it means to challenge the status quo. That’s what it means to Blink.

What’s the rest of the market saying?

The intranet packaged solutions (IPS) market is evolving rapidly, moving from static, web-only sites to dynamic, multichannel platforms that are central to the digital workplace.

What used to be dusty web-only portals are now vibrant, multi-channel hubs that power communication, engagement, knowledge, and culture. Today’s IPS offerings go far beyond document repositories - they’re incorporating AI assistants and supporting integrations with Workday, ServiceNow, Microsoft 365, and other leading business systems.

As Gartner puts it, intranets are once again a priority investment as organizations transform their digital workplace, reduce IT complexity, and seek consistent, people-first employee experiences.

Intranets are no longer just “nice to have” - they’re necessary parts of a modern business infrastructure. They’re becoming critical hubs for productivity, connection, and culture across both office-based and deskless workforces.

This isn’t evolution - it’s inflection. And Blink is leading the remix.

Spinning the future of work

For us, being named a Challenger is a milestone. But it’s also just the intro track.

We’re already dropping new hits:

• Broadcast-quality live streaming that gives every employee a front row seat

• Blink Assist, our AI-powered copilot for content creation and communication

• Analytics that actually matter, surfacing predictive insights into how people engage
• “Save for later” offline access, so work doesn’t have to stop when the WiFi does
• Modern social features like Stories that drive adoption and give Instagram a run for its money

Our vision is simple: The future of work should feel intuitive, inspiring, and essential - not invisible. Blink exists to unlock that.

This isn’t just recognition - it’s our statement

We’re not here to play quietly. We’re here to remix the intranet.

Named top Challenger by Gartner, chosen every day by the world’s most ambitious organizations, and powered by a people-first mission - this is only the beginning.

{{gartner-magic-quadrant-for-intranet-packaged-solutions="/callouts"}}

Why do traditional intranets feel so outdated?

At least, that’s how it feels sometimes.

The intranet we think of when we hear the word “intranet” has a bad reputation. For too long, intranets have been static, disorganized, and irrelevant. Clunky design, poor navigation, and buried links have long frustrated employees, turning these platforms into digital wastelands that are more of a hindrance than a help.

But modern intranets are changing the game. Today’s employee experience platforms are dynamic, user-friendly hubs that streamline internal comms, fuel collaboration, and boost engagement. They stand out in three key ways:

• Mobile first: Always accessible from a smartphone, no matter where or how your employees work (with an equally great desktop experience)
• Insta-grade: As seamlessly intuitive and visually engaging as the social apps (like Instagramnand TikTok) that we use every day in our personal lives
• Real-time insights: Built-in analytics, like engagement and sentiment, that empower leaders to optimize employee adoption and productivity

Ready to leave outdated intranets behind? Let’s explore seven steps to designing an intranet experience your employees will love.

How do you modernize your employee intranet?

Follow these seven steps to upgrade your company intranet as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Step 1: Take stock of what’s working (and what’s not)

The first step to improving your employee intranet is auditing the system you’re currently working with. Identify elements that you’d like to keep, as well as those that make sense to get rid of.

Intranet areas to audit include:

• Content quality: Assess your intranet content based on its quality, usefulness, and the level of engagement it receives from employees. This helps you determine which content should be kept or deleted. It may also give insight into the content formats you want to prioritize on your refreshed platform.
  
• Usability: To assess the usability of your employee intranet, you can create and trial a series of scenarios. Base these scenarios around tasks your employees typically try to complete on the intranet — like creating a user account on a business tool, enrolling in annual benefits, or referring someone for a job opening. You can also look at help desk requests and search logs to find out what employees are struggling with.
  
• Mobile access: Don’t forget to audit your intranet across all devices. Ask yourself how user-friendly the mobile version of your intranet is. Assess how easy it is to log in via mobile and whether you can access the same features and functionality across both mobile and desktop.

{{mobile-main="/image"}}

Step 2: Find out what your team really needs

An audit gives insight into how your current intranet is working. Next, it’s time to dig deeper.

Seek feedback from employees across the whole of your organization. Include employees from different departments and levels of the company for a holistic view — and be sure to include frontline workers, who are often left behind when it comes to workplace tech.

Using employee surveys and focus groups, ask employees which elements of the current intranet they find useful. Find out where they experience friction. Also, get their opinion on the new intranet features and functionalities they’d like to see.

With a clear idea of user needs, you can build a comprehensive picture of what your modern employee intranet should look like. You can also establish the goals you want your intranet to achieve.

For example, you may want a news feed function to improve internal communication. Or a recognition feature to boost employee engagement. Maybe you want to find new ways to involve your frontline employees in company comms. Or need easy integration with the workplace software you already use.

{{future-of-internal-comms-2025="/callouts"}}

Whatever your platform needs and goals, get them down on paper before attempting the following step.

{{mobile-survey="/image"}}

Step 3: Choose mobile-first technology that works for everyone

Look at your list of intranet must-haves. It may be that your current platform can be updated or adapted to meet those needs.

Bear in mind that — at a minimum — a modern intranet platform is mobile-friendly and scalable. It integrates with existing systems, providing a seamless digital employee experience. To meet all of these needs, it also tends to be a cloud-based system, with collaboration tools and advanced search functionality.

A modern employee intranet should also provide all the tools you need for effective employee communications. It supports employee engagement and the digital employee experience — and it will make the work of your communications and HR teams much easier.

If your current platform isn’t measuring up, it’s time to look for alternative intranet software. Start by browsing the top intranet software providers. Look at software reviews. Create an intranet shortlist and sign up for platform demonstrations.

Step 4: Put the user experience (UX) front and center

Having chosen the intranet technology best suited to your organization, it’s time to ensure it provides the best possible user experience.

Good intranet UX is critical for employee adoption, engagement, and productivity. Best practices in UX design include:

• Easy-to-find content: Users should be able to complete common tasks and find resources in just a few clicks. To aid this process, categorize and present resources logically and with clear, descriptive labels.‍
• A user-friendly search bar: The intranet search bar should be instantly visible — and when an employee uses the search bar, it should lead to relevant resources.‍
• Customization options: Employees are more likely to engage with your intranet if it feels relevant to them and their roles. So put employees into segmented groups to ensure they get a tailored intranet experience.

Finally, keep in mind that your intranet should be visually appealing and intuitive to use, no matter which device an employee accesses it from. 

Step 5: Create an Instagram-grade experience for every employee

{{how-to-create-insta-worthy-internal-comms="/callouts"}}

Personalized experiences make your intranet more engaging for employees. So when updating your intranet, aim to give users control over their dashboard layout. Use role-based permissions to prevent employees from becoming overwhelmed by content they don’t need.

Also, segment employees based on their role, team, tenure, and where they work. That way, they only receive relevant employee communications. On Blink, platform admins can even create customized employee journeys so the right content is automatically served to employees at the right time.

We also provide a personalized company news feed. Using the “jump back in” feature, employees can head straight for content that is likely to be of interest, based on the content they engage with most.

{{mobile-stories="/image"}}

Step 6: Roll it out gradually — and with ample training

Even with the best UX, employees will need a little time to get used to a new intranet platform. So to ensure a successful launch — and high levels of adoption and usage — it serves to take this step slowly.

You might want to launch a pilot program, where you make your new intranet available to a select group of employees. These workers can test your platform and provide feedback.

Based on this feedback, you can identify and rectify issues before rolling out the platform to the rest of your workforce. Pilot-phase employees can also act as intranet ambassadors, encouraging their coworkers to give the platform a try.

Another approach is the phased rollout. You start by launching a pared-down version of the employee intranet platform. Employees learn how to use fundamental features first. You can then follow up by releasing new features — providing additional training as you go.

This prevents your IT team from being swamped with support and training requests. It also ensures a positive intranet experience from day one, which improves your chances of high user adoption and employee engagement.

Step 7: Keep improving with real-time insights

To ensure your modernized employee intranet is meeting the goals you’ve set, you need to measure its performance. Identify key performance indicators, including:

• Adoption rates
• Engagement levels
• Number of active users
• Message response rates

Also, collect user feedback. Find out what employees think of the new platform. Ask them if there are any points of friction and what improvements they’d like to see.

You can then use your data to make ongoing and targeted improvements. That may mean refining the platform, reorganizing content, providing additional training, or better marketing the benefits of your modernized intranet solution.

Modernize your intranet for today — and prepare for tomorrow

A modern employee intranet has the potential to transform your organization.

As the digital landscape evolves, so will the needs of your employees, and with the right platform, your intranet can adapt to meet those changes seamlessly. But having the right partner is just as crucial. A true partner will work alongside you — from planning and launch to long-term growth — ensuring your intranet not only fits your organization’s needs today but evolves with it for the future.

With the right platform, your intranet can be more than just a repository — it can become a powerful tool for engagement, productivity, and connection.

Future-proof your organization by creating an intranet that connects, empowers and inspires your entire workforce now and for the years ahead.

Blink. And upgrade your employee intranet to the 21st century.

A record 50.5 million people living in America quit their jobs in 2022 — and a further 40% of US employees considered leaving their jobs. Organizations need to step things up a notch if they want to start engaging both their desk-based and frontline staff.

The good news is there are many employee engagement strategies, tactics, and ideas you can implement to turn around the situation. The 12 strategies we discuss in this guide will help you create an engaging workplace experience and drive employee engagement for both desk-based and frontline employees.

Frontline Employee Engagement in 2024

Blink created this guide after working with hundreds of frontline organizations. Now, these insights can help other leaders prepare for a year that promises both challenge and opportunity.

Download to learn more: The top eight frontline engagement trends to watch out for and the six key strategies for success

A quick recap: what is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels:

• Emotionally connected to their job, coworkers, and organization as a whole
• Satisfied with their job role and function
• Aligned with your company’s values
• Able to give 100% during work hours

Industry statistics cite employee engagement as a key factor in employee satisfaction, retention, and even company profitability. Employee engagement should be a number one priority for businesses globally — and yet, as of 2023, only 23% of employees globally are engaged.

You can use a number of methods to measure employee engagement levels in your business. Think surveys, metrics, and other engagement KPIs that will help determine how motivated, satisfied, and fulfilled your employees are in their work.

Remember, employee engagement is often the byproduct of a great employee experience. If you provide a fulfilling, enjoyable, and inspiring workplace experience, you enable and encourage engagement.

With this in mind, you need to tailor and adapt your strategies to meet the needs of different types of employees, including frontline workers. For instance, the tactics required to drive employee engagement in manufacturing industry environments will look entirely different from those used in corporate offices. Tailoring your approach in this way will make their overall experience positive and rewarding.

The foundations of effective employee engagement strategies

Engaged employees can be your greatest business asset. They are more focused and committed than disengaged workers, encourage their coworkers, and positively impact your bottom line.

But improving employee engagement is not about what you do. It’s about what you are as an organization, the culture you cultivate, and the values that you live by.

So before we jump into the employee engagement strategies, it’s important to look at the key values of employee engagement that form the foundation for those strategies. Those core values are:

Respect

Respect is an essential consideration for all your high-level decisions about managing employees. For your workers to be engaged at work, they should be able to trust that they are being treated with fairness and respect.  

So how do you convey this in your processes and policies? You pay competitive wages, allow enough breaks, listen to their ideas, and formally recognize excellent performance and value-abiding behaviors.

Transparency

If your employees aren’t aware of anything about your organization that’s beyond their scope of work or immediate team, you can’t blame them for feeling like an outsider. Sooner or later, they’ll feel isolated and disengaged.

Being in the loop doesn’t just help them do their jobs in a better way, but also makes them feel like they belong. So it’s essential to communicate openly and regularly with all your employees.

The more transparent your communication, the higher level of trust you’ll build with your workers. And the more comfortable they’ll feel sharing their thoughts and concerns, which brings us to the next pillar of employee engagement.

Two-way communication

Most organizations follow a top-down approach to employee communication in which frontline employees hardly ever have a say. But these workers often have the best insights because they work directly with customers day in and day out.

So one of the best values to nurture and cultivate for high employee engagement is two-way communication. Give your workers ample opportunities to raise their voice and share what they think. Then act on this feedback to take your employee engagement to the next level.

12 actionable employee engagement strategies

Here are 12 employee engagement strategies & tactics you can implement today:

1. Foster co-worker relationships

When employees have friendly relationships with immediate team members and other people in the organization, they are more likely to enjoy the day-to-day.

Workplace relationships don’t just help with networking, they also provide the guidance and motivation a worker needs to succeed in their role. And creating opportunities to build and nurture these connections is one of the best employee engagement strategies.

Co-workers don’t always cross paths throughout the working day — especially in frontline organizations. It might be up to you to encourage better intra-department connections through organized events. You could create a program to encourage workers to collaborate, socialize, or train each other on the parts of the job that they know best.

Workers from different departments can connect, share notes, and exchange best practices. This way, they can also try out a recently learned skill or explore different options they might want to pursue in the future.

In fact, there are many cases in which employees consider leaving their organization to pursue a different career path. This program will help you facilitate the lateral moving of an employee to a different department, so they aren’t forced to look elsewhere. This way you hit two goals with one stone: high employee engagement and better employee retention.

2. Have a thorough onboarding process

Onboarding is essential for setting the right tone and expectations when a new employee joins your team.

As the statistics in the video above highlight, around 20% of new hires leave in the first seven weeks of employment, but organizations with a strong onboarding process have improved retention rates by 82%.

A strong onboarding experience is achieved by:

1. Making sure your onboarding process covers not only organizational policies, but also the company’s core values, mission, and vision
2. Giving your new employees mobile access to relevant materials and resources to learn from, and encouraging all employees to provide their feedback
3. Acknowledging the importance of connection during onboarding. Introduce new hires to their team members, leadership, and coworkers. For a dispersed workforce, this can be done by ensuring your employees have the right digital tools and channels to connect from wherever they are

A sense of belonging from day one is integral in order to improve employee engagement — particularly for the frontline, where 80% of workers feel they have few connection opportunities at work.

See how Go North West is using Blink to make new team members feel part of the organization right from day one.

3. Rethink physical spaces

Frontline employees power the global workforce. With no central break room or day-to-day opportunities for office chat, dispersed workers can become increasingly disconnected from the rest of the organization.

While team building and other social events may be organized with the best of intentions, they often miss the mark for frontline workers, putting more pressure on employees instead of providing a channel for enthusiastic engagement.

If you’re a frontline leader, you need to rethink your social spaces and channels to meet the engagement expectations of all your employees. This might mean creating dedicated digital channels, Feeds, or groups for frontline workers who would otherwise never have a chance to interact.

Deliberately creating space for accessible social interaction can help build relationships, increase engagement, and create an environment of inclusion and positivity throughout your organization.

4. Clarify career pathways

Results of a recent Frontiers report show that:

1. Career growth has a positive impact on knowledge workers’ organizational engagement
2. Career goal progress and professional ability development promote job engagement
3. Career growth has a positive effect on affective commitment, which in turn influences employee engagement.

If you can make workers feel that they can advance their careers without leaving your company, you’ll see a big boost in employee engagement. Workers at every level of your company should be able to view a clear-cut career path ahead and the map to follow that path.  

So when formulating employee engagement strategies for your company, see how you can help workers get in complete control of their careers. The more assured they are about achieving their future goals, the more engaged you’ll find them to be.

How to accomplish this? Take your workers’ input on where they see themselves in the future. Here’s a career development plan template that might come in useful, as you do.

When you empower employees to take charge of their goal setting in alignment with team objectives, they’ll be more invested in working hard to hit those goals. And they won’t need tight schedules to do the same, leading to an improvement in overall satisfaction.

5. Provide training and learning opportunities

Helping workers learn new skills and investing in their professional development is crucial to their engagement.

In fact, 35% of millennial employees (who also make up around 35% of the US workforce) said they were attracted to employers who offer excellent training and development programs for this reason and saw it as the top benefit they wanted from an employer.

There are many measures you can take to facilitate employee education:

• Conduct online workshops that support employees’ learning goals
• Make educational content easily accessible through a central repository
• Provide reimbursements for courses workers enroll in

When you invest in employees’ learning and development, you are sending a message that your company is committed to them for the long term. And this demonstration of commitment makes them far more likely to give their 100% on the job.

6. Clear and consistent communication

Dispersed staff need a tool that allows them to interact with each other as if they were in the same room. This is key for breaking down barriers, unifying teams, and working productively, no matter where your team is located.

Secure 1-1 and Group Chats, a News Feed for communicating organizational updates, and team or departmental channels are all essential.

At Blink, communication is part of our culture and we are strong believers in its power. This is something that you must emphasize too if you wish to engage your employees. When you build a culture of trust and open communication, you help create an environment of transparency, respect, and collaboration.

You also need to make sure your team members are able to communicate with each other. Every team member should be aware of the communication channels that the organization uses and how to use them.

As leaders, don’t forget your own role in communication, either. Simply providing employees the channels to communicate and actually engaging employees through these channels are two different things.

To ensure a clear and consistent communication strategy, consider:

1. Frequent News Feed updates to keep team members in the loop
2. Regularly scheduled 1-1s and ongoing two-way feedback loops
3. Targeted posts in group chats and forums for sharing ideas and gaining insights
4. Frequent Employee Recognition or shoutouts in the company channels

7. Improve internal branding

When someone asks where they work, your workers can feel absolute pleasure, cold apathy, or even disdain or embarrassment answering that question. It all depends on your company’s reputation inside and outside the premises.  

Money is undoubtedly a strong motivator, but employees also want to feel proud of where they work. The strength of your organization’s brand and what it stands for is directly related to your workers’ level of engagement.

That makes internal branding one of the most crucial employee engagement strategies. It means you need to ensure that your workers understand, support, and feel connected to your mission, vision, and values. The more convinced they are of what your brand stands for, the more likely they are to emulate behaviors that speak to the same values.

The supermarket chain Trader Joe’s is a great example. It has designed a fun and quirky environment for both workers and customers, with the workers conveying its brand values through different aspects of their job. The way they name products, design signage, décorate the store, and interact with customers — everything aligns with the Trader Joe’s brand.

The checkout process is just as warm, friendly, and casual. Workers display enthusiasm and a genuine desire to help with their feedback and expertise on the products.  

This goes on to show that when done correctly, internal branding can create a virtuous cycle. It will attract workers who love your brand, who will further communicate their passion to your customers and partners, thereby enhancing the brand and attracting more top talent.  

8. Encourage diversity and inclusion

D&I initiatives are crucial to the overall employee experience, making them a great place to focus your efforts for improving engagement levels. Research by ADP states:

“Studies have shown that employees who are satisfied with their organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I) are twice as engaged as dissatisfied employees. Changeboard adds that diverse and inclusive organizations work 12% harder, are 19% more likely to stay longer with the organization, and collaborate 57% more effectively with peers.”

What does this look like in action? Bentley University highlights some key actions that can help you better promote diversity in the workplace, including to:

1. Address implicit bias: Make sure everyone in the company, starting with your C-suite and leadership teams, is aware of their unconscious bias and take proactive steps to address it
2. Acknowledge intersectionality: D&I initiatives must not ignore or sidestep the fact that all individuals have nuanced social identities and backgrounds that can confer or deny privilege in accordance with cultural norms
3. Invest in Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Investing in ERGs, or affinity groups that provide social support for employees with shared backgrounds, interests, and/or experiences is one of the most effective ways to ensure diversity initiatives remain top-of-mind
4. Offer mentorship programs: Mentorships encourage both personal and professional growth, and provide a pipeline for leadership development. For groups with fewer role models in senior positions, mentorship can be crucial to cultivating diverse leadership
5. Communicate with transparency: Be open and transparent about the goals of your D&I initiatives. Communicate progress towards achieving measurable objectives, ensure everyone is informed about key developments in the initiative, and most importantly, be open to feedback from all employees on how you can improve it

In addition to these diversity strategies, every segment and every department of your organization must also feel included to foster true D&I and, in turn, boost engagement.

In fact, studies show that belonging is one of the most powerful predictors of D&I efficacy in the workforce. Organizations with high levels of belonging also have higher employee net promoter scores (eNPS), which are correlated with higher engagement levels.

Frontline workers can experience the very opposite. Warehouse workers, for example, are typically secluded from other employees — and that goes double if they work the night shift as well. If a frontline worker continues to feel left out, then their engagement is likely to suffer. It’s crucial that you take the necessary steps to ensure that everyone has a sense of belonging and inclusion, starting with your frontline employees.

9. Survey, listen, and act

Your employees all have improvements they’d make to their roles, whether it’s a better work-life balance, tools that they can actually use in their roles, or more contact with management. You need to collect these insights — and act on them — to keep your employees engaged long-term.

An employee engagement survey can help you gain this valuable feedback from workers. An employee survey gives you insights into employees’ opinions, attitudes, and experiences — and you can use this data to identify areas for action.

You can also use surveys to recognize areas of improvement and understand what makes employees proud of their work.

Make sure you follow through on survey results with actions that address the employee feedback provided. Additionally, keep your workers in the loop with regular updates on progress and changes made as a result of their input. This will help build trust between your team and management, and demonstrate your commitment to employee engagement.

10. Recognize and reward

Rewards and recognition are essential for employee engagement. In fact, one 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that when an employee says their manager is great at recognizing them, then that employee is 40+% more engaged than those with managers who were not.

Recognition is an effective way to keep employees motivated. It also reinforces the behaviors you want more of in your organization.

For example, if you want to encourage team collaboration, reward teams that work together on a project or present a unified front during client meetings. If you need increased productivity, recognize employees who go above and beyond to get the job done.

Remember, rewards don’t have to be expensive or elaborate. Digital recognition tools or Kudos are both an effective and cost-effective way to show appreciation for your team’s hard work.

11. Provide incentives and perks

While closely related to your rewards and recognition schemes, incentives and perks work slightly differently. Typically, incentives are used to elicit a particular action from your employees. For instance, you might offer bonus pay for completing a project before the deadline or reaching certain on-the-job targets.

Unlike as-and-when recognition and rewards that react to a job well done, with ongoing incentives, workers will often know what they will get for completing the challenge ahead of time, and exactly what is required in order to receive that incentive.

Perks are more general benefits that make working in your organization more desirable. Some basic examples could include flexible work hours, subsidized gym memberships, and free snacks or coffee. You really need to get more creative than this, however, if you want to provide perks that your employees really want.

For example, factors such as compensation, growth through promotion, paid training, and high-value traditional benefits have the largest impact on frontline employee preferences when choosing a new role. However, employers do not value the same factors, according to the same research by McKinsey. The study states:

“When it comes to growth-oriented attributes, employers tend to emphasize a higher job title (among the bottom five attributes for frontline employees) over job growth and learning opportunities (both top-five attributes), which may help explain why frontline employees cite a lack of employer-provided development opportunities as a primary barrier to their advancement.”

To align your company perks with the needs of your frontline workers, you should consider providing opportunities for a yearly raise or promotion, advanced learning and employee development opportunities, and ongoing upskilling.

12. Implement employee engagement tech with analytics tools

Analytics are essential for a successful employee engagement strategy. With the right engagement analytics tools, you can gain insights into how employees are engaging with company messages, what topics they’re most interested in, and how to best tailor future activities to their needs.

For example, use feedback or survey tools on mobile devices to collect real-time data from employees. This data can then be analyzed to reveal the most critical areas of focus for your engagement strategy.

You can also use dedicated analytics features to tailor specific messages or activities that best meet the needs of individual employees. This helps you create a more personalized, effective experience for workers and drive more meaningful engagement within your organization.

Using technology to monitor employee engagement is also one of the best ways to ensure that initiatives are tied directly to overall business objectives. Analytics help you understand if there are any engagement gaps that you need to fill.

Are there certain teams that consistently fail to engage with your content, for example? Tracking open rates, comments, will help you identify any disengaged teams or employees, so that you can work to address and improve their experience.

How to create an employee engagement strategy

Set goals

You need goals that are specific and measurable when creating a successful employee engagement strategy. This provides the foundation for your efforts, ensures everyone is on the same page, and helps you assess progress along the way.

Identify your issues

Once you have established your goals, determine what obstacles stand between you and achieving those objectives. Communication issues, lack of motivation, or a disconnected team can all put your progress at risk. Knowing what might stand in your way will help you tailor activities to your organization’s needs and develop solutions that are relevant and effective.

Build your plan

Next, you need to create a plan of action for achieving your engagement goals. You should include activities such as tailored employee surveys, tech and communication refreshes, and analytics implementation in this plan.

Analyze and adjust

Finally, track the progress of your employee engagement efforts with analytics tools and review how well they worked. Adjust activities based on the findings, and move forward with more tailored initiatives.

Why your employee engagement strategy might fail

Not listening to feedback

If you don’t listen to what your employees are telling you, then your engagement activities will be misguided and ineffective. You need to respond quickly and effectively to feedback in order to ensure that your initiatives meet their needs.

Not having the right tools

Communication and engagement tools are essential in today’s workplace, and even more so if you want an engaged workforce. Without the right tools, you won’t be able to track progress or employee engagement scores accurately — let alone ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Plus, if your tools aren’t fit for mobile, you will be missing out on the chance to engage with your key employees when they are on the move.

Not having leadership buy-in

Employee engagement strategies rely on strong leadership support. Without it, your initiatives can easily be overlooked or deprioritized as other programs take precedence. Make sure that your leadership is involved and invested in the process to ensure success.

But who are your most engaged allies?

How would greater employee engagement help them meet their targets?

How do you bring the opportunity to life for your wider leadership team?

What are the risks they’ll ask you about, so that you can prepare in advance?

We cover this and more in our essential guide to executive buy-in for frontline employee experience.  

Not communicating effectively

Employee engagement strategies only work when teams are communicating effectively. Invest time into making sure that communication channels are clear and regularly updated with relevant content so that everyone can stay in the loop.

Final thoughts

No one wants employee disengagement. It’s costly and damaging to morale. Plus, disengaged workers make errors at a 60% higher rate.

But still, many companies turn a blind eye to the issue. They wait to take concrete action and implement employee engagement strategies until things get out of hand.

The good news is that improving employee engagement is both possible and measurable. You need the right steps, the right engagement tools, and serious execution. So take a good look at your present culture and see which of these strategies will be a good start for you.

Remember, your company is a community. And communities prosper only when every member and segment feels valued, trusted, and respected.

Blink is an internal communications tool that can help take your employee engagement to new heights.

Request a free demo to get started.

Engaged employees are more productive, more collaborative, and more likely to stay working for your company. And with 33% of hiring managers predicting that employee turnover will increase in 2024, there’s never been a better time to get the right employee engagement tech on your team.

Employee engagement apps are intuitive and easy to use. They enjoy high rates of adoption. And they offer a range of features that support employee engagement.

But which are the best of the many employee app options available? In this guide, we look at the seven best employee engagement apps for 2024 and explain a little more about why an app could benefit your business.  

Best employee engagement apps for 2026

The best employee engagement solution varies depending on your industry, the functionality you need, and the engagement metrics you want to improve. Here are our top picks for this year.

Blink: best employee app for frontline workers

Workleap Officevibe: best employee app for EX data

Engagement Multiplier: best employee engagement app for small businesses

Bonusly: best employee app for rewards and recognition

WeThrive: best employee app for mental health support

Culture Amp: best app for performance management

Workvivo: best employee app for large, multi-lingual organizations

1. Blink — best employee engagement app for frontline workers

Blink is an employee engagement app built specifically for frontline workers. It brings employee engagement tools to every employee smartphone.

Frontline workers don’t need a desktop computer or even a company email address to access the Blink app. Instead, a simple sign-on process gives them access to an intuitive, user-friendly dashboard.

Here, they can view employee communications, respond to surveys, read policy documents, and use the newsfeed to take part in the company conversation.

They can also use the Blink Hub to access the other workplace tools you use. With a couple of clicks, they can view their current training module, their pay stub, or their upcoming shifts.  

Managers get lots of useful engagement features too — like recognition and survey tools. They can also use Blink’s workforce analytics to measure engagement and make data-driven decisions.

All in all, the Blink employee app helps frontline teams to connect with each other and with leadership. It ensures they have access to the people, comms, and tools they need to do their jobs well.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5
• G2: 4.6/5

See Blink in action. Get your free demo.

2. Workleap Officevibe — best employee app for EX data

Performance management and recognition tools are part of the Workleap Officevibe employee app. But its most impressive features revolve around employee feedback. This app has a range of tools to help your HR team understand employee sentiment and make data-backed improvements.

Pulse surveys, onboarding surveys, eNPS scores — there are plenty of ways to find out what employees are thinking. You can also launch anonymous surveys so you know you’re getting honest, unfiltered feedback from employees.

Officevibe then helps you make sense of the feedback you’ve gathered. You can use reports to identify trending feedback topics. And use well-presented survey data to benchmark employee experience (EX) results and set targets. 

Pricing

Workleap Officevibe has a free version with limited functionality. Prices for paid plans start at $3.50 USD per user per month.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5
• G2: 4.3/5

‍

3. Engagement Multiplier — best employee engagement app for small businesses 

Engagement Multiplier is a reasonably priced app aimed at small to medium-sized businesses. It’s not as in-depth as some of the other employee engagement software on this list. But it can be really useful for new companies and start-ups wanting to learn more about their engagement levels.

Features include benchmark assessments, anonymous data collection, recommended actions, and the ability to create custom employee engagement surveys.

Pricing

Prices start from $7.20 USD per user per month.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5
• G2: 4.3/5

‍

4. Bonusly — best employee app for rewards and recognition

Bonusly is all about motivating your teams with employee recognition and rewards. The app lets you give each employee an allowance of points. They allocate these points to co-workers, appreciating them for their support, for doing a great job, or just for being an awesome work friend.  

Recipients can then exchange their points for a variety of different rewards, choosing between big brand gift cards, company merchandise, and custom rewards chosen by your company. Employees can also convert their reward points into charitable donations.

Bonusly supports the kind of peer-to-peer recognition that engages employees. It also allows you to share recognition in a company-wide feed, so you improve motivation and amplify company culture to every member of every team.

Pricing

Bonusly offers new users a free trial. Paid plans start from $5 USD per user per month, plus the cost of employee rewards.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5
• G2: 4.8/5

‍

5. WeThrive — best employee app for mental health support 

WeThrive is an employee engagement platform focused on the mental health of your workers. It helps you create surveys to check on employee wellness and take action to safeguard it.

The app’s mental health and wellbeing survey helps you to identify the root causes of stress, burnout, and anxiety. An easy-to-use feedback dashboard segments results by team, location, department, tenure, and manager so it’s easy to see where improvements need to be made.

The app also uses feedback data to suggest wellbeing actions for your managers so it’s easy to decide the next steps.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.6/5

6. Culture Amp — best employee engagement app for performance management

Culture Amp is an employee platform built around employee feedback and analytics. It also has some excellent performance management tools.

You can use 360-degree feedback to find out how employees are doing. You can use goal-setting functions to align employee work with company strategy. And you can use 1-on-1s to encourage meaningful communication between managers and employees. 

With tools that support regular coaching and feedback, Culture Amp aims to provide organizations with everything they need to build a culture of continuous improvement and high employee engagement. 

Pricing

Pricing is available upon request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.5/5

‍

7. Workvivo — best employee app for large, multi-lingual organizations

Workvivo is owned by Zoom. It’s a desktop intranet that comes with a user-friendly employee app.

There are lots of community and social features for employees to engage with. You have the option to live-stream company updates in real-time. And, with Spaces, users can create their own community groups

For large organizations with employees who speak a range of different languages, Workvivo has some particularly useful tools. The auto-translation feature allows you to easily translate posts into a user’s preferred language. There’s also the option to auto-translate video subtitles.

Pricing

Pricing is available upon request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.8/5

‍

What are the advantages of an employee engagement app?

The best employee engagement software meets employees where they are. These days, that tends to be on their smartphones. And that’s why employee mobile apps are an increasingly popular choice.

Apps are inherently engaging and very easy to use. In fact, 53% of frontline workers already use messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for work-related conversations.

When you replace those apps with your own user-friendly employee app, you make communication more secure — and make it a key part of company culture, too.

Here are six other advantages of mobile-first employee engagement tools:

1. An employee app reduces costs and improves profitability

Construction giant Caterpillar found increasing engagement helped save $8.8 million at one of its European factories in just one year. The company also improved customer ratings and increased profits by $2 million.

Gallup research shows that Caterpillar’s cost savings aren’t an anomaly. They looked at thousands of teams and found that highly engaged businesses experience:

• A 43% decrease in employee turnover
• A 10% improvement in customer satisfaction
• An 18% uptick in sales
• A 23% increase in profitability

Employee engagement has a big impact on a company’s bottom line. So an employee engagement app tends to have a high return on investment.

2. An employee app improves communication without adding to the noise

An employee app streamlines company communication by putting everything in one, searchable location.

A social-style news feed. Employee surveys. Messages from management. With an app, teams know exactly where to go to get the information they need.

Managers also get the tools they need to highlight critical messages and ensure employees read them.

3. You connect every member of your workforce — including those on the frontline

To make a success of employee engagement, you need to take every member of the workforce with you. That includes those hard-to-reach employees working on the frontline of your organization.

Deskless workers get the raw end of the deal in terms of engagement tech. Only 10% of frontline workers say they have high access to the tools, tech, and opportunities they need to connect and advance in their workplace. 

But these workers are in greatest need of engagement intervention. Deskless employees are less trusting and engaged, and more likely to experience burnout than their desk-based peers.

An employee app ensures frontline workers aren’t excluded from company comms and culture. You take engagement beyond the office and a desktop computer and put it in the palm of every employee’s hand.

A good app is also easy and intuitive to use. It enjoys high rates of user adoption. So by using an employee app, you make engagement tech more accessible than ever to all employees.

4. You make work more engaging and efficient

The best employee engagement apps put the most effective engagement tools in one, single place. You give employees access to the things we know help to improve employee engagement:

• Training and development
• Recognition
• Two-way communication and collaboration
• Feedback opportunities

You also remove friction and frustration from the work day. Because employees can access all the comms, tools, and resources they need via your employee app, they become more efficient and productive.

Employees can get on with doing their jobs to the best of their ability. Managers save time thanks to improved communication channels and employee self-serve resources. That translates into increased levels of staff satisfaction.

5. Employee engagement apps support frontline safety

Employee engagement makes for better workplace safety and fewer workplace accidents. According to Gallup, companies with high engagement experience 64% fewer safety incidents than those with low levels of engagement.  

An employee app supports frontline safety because workers have all policy documents and safety procedures at their fingertips. They also have a direct line to managers, so it’s quick and easy to report safety or maintenance concerns.

6. Managers get access to data and analytics

When employees engage with your organization via an employee app, managers get access to valuable user data and analytics.

They get insight into how people are using the app and how they’re engaging with company communications. They get to know what engagement looks like for different teams, locations, and managers. Use an app with great integrations and you get insight into how employees are using other workplace tools, too.

The best employee engagement apps present this data in a way that is easy to understand and act upon. So your teams have everything they need to make employee engagement improvements going forward.

Does your company need an employee engagement app? 3 key questions

Staff engagement apps aren’t the best fit for every company. You can figure out if your organization would benefit from this by answering the following questions.

Do we have a communication channel that reaches everyone?

Effective internal communication is the foundation of engagement. So you need a reliable communication channel for all employees, particularly when there’s a time-sensitive update to share.

Email may not be a viable internal communication strategy if some workers don’t have email addresses. Getting managers to make phone calls and send text messages takes up a lot of time. Paper notices up on a board are easy to miss.

If you have a patchwork of different communication channels, an employee mobile app is a great streamlining tool. It saves your comms team time — because they have fewer comms channels to maintain. And it makes communication more efficient, relevant, and reliable.

Are employees treated equally?

Fairness is really important for employee engagement. If an employee feels like someone else is getting preferential treatment, it’s unlikely they’ll bring their A-game. So when it comes to opportunities for engagement, it has to be a level playing field.

Use surveys to find out if frontline staff and office workers enjoy the same level of engagement and the same access to company comms, culture, and connection.

If some workers are feeling overlooked, an app can help you treat employees equally. Ditching a two-tier engagement strategy means everyone feels valued and like they belong.

Do we need to lighten the load for managers and HR teams?

When there isn’t an easy way to share company policies, resources, and comms, managers and HR teams often end up acting as gatekeepers. Employees have to ask for the information they need, which adds to the HR and management workload.

An employee app removes this bottleneck by allowing employees to access relevant information for themselves. They can view their schedule and vacation time. They can read the most recent safety policy and get details of the next company social event.

HR and management spend less time answering the same questions. And employees — with resources in the palm of their hands — feel more engaged with the organization.

Final thoughts: The best employee engagement apps

An employee engagement app can be a game-changer when it comes to your employee engagement strategy.  Whether you’re a small office with a few dozen employees or a multinational corporation with hundreds of stores, the best employee engagement apps help your workers feel more connected.

At Blink, we’re passionate about helping companies connect with their frontline employees. And our frontline employee engagement solution will help your workforce thrive in 2026 and beyond.

Blink’s employee app offers the same great features across mobile and desktop. A company newsfeed, recognition, secure chat, surveys, analytics, and more. So your teams have everything they need to improve employee engagement — along with staff satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

If you want an all-in-one frontline employee engagement solution, get started with Blink today!

Team building gets a bad reputation.

Awkward ice breakers. Forced fun. Activities with very little bearing on the work you actually do. 

But if that’s been your experience, the problem wasn’t team building — it was how it was done.

Done well, team building in the workplace is a valuable investment.

It fosters trust and collaboration, develops communication skills that prevent costly misunderstandings, and helps to create a workplace culture that keeps people engaged and loyal.

Here, we look at the meaning of team building, at all the reasons why team building is important, and at how to make team building activities work for all types of teams.

What is team building?

Team building is a term used to describe activities, training, and initiatives that help employees work well together and achieve shared goals.

It can take many forms. Organized team building sessions. But also social occasions, volunteer days, and informal micro-activities built into the working day.

Done badly, team building is a half-day exercise forgotten by the weekend.

Done well, it creates the conditions for genuine trust and stronger relationships. It helps you build a workforce that can adapt, problem-solve, and perform — together.

Why team building is important

Team building helps improve teamwork in your organization. And that leads to the following business-boosting benefits. Here are all the reasons why team building is important.

It builds trust

Trust is the foundation that makes everything else possible: open communication, team collaboration, the confidence to raise a problem before it becomes a crisis.

Employees working in high-trust companies are 76% more engaged and 50% more productive. They enjoy their jobs 60% more — and they’re much more likely to stay.

Team building helps to create that trust.

A warehouse team working together through a theoretical logistics challenge learns to rely on each other in a low-stakes environment. That reliance translates directly to the real shift, where the pressure and stakes are higher.

It improves communication

Most team-building activities require good communication. Participants have to assign roles, share information, adapt plans in real time, and make decisions under some degree of pressure.

The communication skills developed through team building — active listening, clear information sharing, constructive feedback — transfer directly to the workplace.

This matters to your organization because poor communication is costly — in terms of duplicated work, errors, safety incidents, and customer experience failures.

It increases productivity

Productivity is another reason why team building is important.

A store team that’s practiced working together is faster at solving problems during a busy shift. An office team that knows and trusts each other moves more quickly than one that doesn’t.

When employees are familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, they work together more efficiently. They know when to step back and when to step in.  

It builds workplace friendships

Four out of five employees say workplace friendships are really important to them. Having friends at work increases engagement, satisfaction, and connection to the organization.

Team-building activities create the conditions for those friendships to form. It gives people a reason to interact with each other beyond the transactional demands of the working day.

For remote and frontline workers who don’t share a physical space, this is particularly important. Digital team-building activities that connect employees, regardless of location, reduce feelings of isolation and disengagement. 

It boosts employee engagement and morale

Gallup research shows that effective team working leads to a 23% increase in employee engagement. This reflects the fact that working as part of a team, with shared goals and strong relationships, has a huge impact on how employees feel about their work.

Team-building initiatives reinforce that sense of shared purpose. They remind employees that they’re part of something bigger than their individual task list. And that gives them a reason to show up that goes beyond their paycheck.

It breaks down silos between teams

You can fuel cross-functional collaboration by planning team-building initiatives that deliberately cross departmental boundaries.

Employees from different departments can develop relationships, build mutual understanding, and learn where their skills and remits overlap.

For organizations with a large frontline workforce, cross-functional team building also addresses the sense of separation that can develop between head office and the floor.

Initiatives that bring frontline and desk-based employees together — physically or digitally — reduce the “two cultures” dynamic that so many frontline workers say they experience.

It encourages creativity and innovation

Creative thinking doesn’t thrive under pressure and in isolation. It emerges from the kind of relaxed, collaborative, escape-from-the-norm environment that good team building creates.

This is an environment where employees feel safe enough to suggest ideas that might not work, build on each other’s thinking, and approach problems from new angles.

That mindset goes beyond a team-building session. Employees carry creative thinking back to their everyday work, and can think about problems and situations from different perspectives.

It improves conflict resolution

Workplace conflict is more common than you might think. In the UK, 44% of working-age adults said they experienced conflict at work in a 12-month period, from 2024 to 2025. 

You can’t prevent disagreements. But you can develop employees’ ability to handle them constructively.

The skills at the heart of effective conflict resolution — listening to understand rather than to respond, respecting different perspectives, communicating without defensiveness — are the same ones that good team building helps to develop.

It nurtures and reveals skills

Team building develops team working skills — like delegation, rapport building, and open communication.  

Employees can also learn skills from each other, sharing knowledge earned in different parts of the organization and from different life experiences.

Team building often reveals pre-existing skills, too. Skills that have no obvious outlet in someone’s current role become visible — and can then be put to use.

For example, you may find a great team leader among your frontline crew, or a strategic thinker among your new hires. This is another reason why team building is important, across every team in your organization.

It strengthens company culture

83% of employees say that a positive workplace culture contributes to their productivity. It also encourages them to stay working for your organization.

A positive culture is built through repeated, shared experiences that reinforce what your organization stands for and how it shows up for employees.

Team building creates those experiences deliberately. You can create moments where employees can connect with one another and really get to understand what it means to be part of your organization.

It improves employee retention

The importance of team building is also reflected in your employee retention rates.

When teams work together effectively, the working environment is more communicative and collaborative. Employees enjoy a sense of community and belonging that drives loyalty.

According to Gallup, employees are 29% more likely to stay with their company for the next year and 42% more likely to remain with their company for their entire career when they’re part of high-performing teams.

Team building for every type of workforce

So now we know why team building is important, but how do you ensure those benefits are felt across the whole of your organization? The way you deliver team building has to vary depending on the team you’re leading.

Office-based teams

Office-based teams have the advantage of shared physical space and regular informal interaction. Structured team building supplements what already happens organically.

You can use in-person events to deepen relationships, develop specific skills, and create cross-functional connections that the day-to-day working environment doesn’t always support.

Remote and hybrid teams

When planning team building for employees who spend some or all of their time away from the office, you have to be more intentional.

Limited face-to-face connection with co-workers means the informal relationship-building that happens among office-based teams has to be replaced with structured alternatives.

Virtual team-building activities, digital communities, and regular opportunities for informal communication give distributed employees a way to connect as people rather than just as colleagues.

Read more: 10 online collaboration activities for remote teams

Frontline teams

Frontline teams face the most significant structural barriers to team building in the workplace.

Employees may work across sites and shifts. They don’t always work alongside the same people and they get limited face time with leadership. This makes it difficult for them to build connections with co-workers and company culture.

Effective frontline team building takes these barriers into account. That might mean using:

• Mobile-accessible digital tools to make connection possible, no matter where or when an employee is working.
• Short-form content and activities designed for employees who are on their feet, not sitting in front of a screen.
• Thoughtfully-designed in-person sessions, scheduled with shift patterns in mind and repeated across different shift cohorts.

Read more: 5 tips to improve collaboration among employees on the frontline

Building better teams to benefit your business

The importance of team building shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s an incredibly useful tool — one that shapes how your people communicate, collaborate, and perform.

When it’s done well, the impact is clear: better problem-solving, higher employee engagement, improved retention, and greater productivity.

For dispersed and deskless workforces, who don’t always get the opportunity for informal connection with teammates, the case for intentional team building is particularly strong.

This requires the right approach and the right infrastructure. You need mobile-first tools that make digital team building possible, and that sustain the relationships and culture that in-person sessions create.  

Organizations that understand the importance of team building are investing in employee communication tools, like Blink, that support teamwork across sites and shifts. 

Blink. And give every team member the tools to connect, collaborate, and belong.