Meet Grant Aylward

Another week, another Life at Blink! This week we are highlighting Ben Willder, a Senior Sales Development Representative located in our London office. This edition comes just in time to celebrate Ben’s one-year anniversary at Blink. Ben describes Blink as a proactive, collaborative and curious place to work.

Now, let's explore Ben’s path at Blink.

What is your position at Blink?

My focus is working within our Sales team as an Enterprise SDR, identifying some of the more critical employee inclusion and enablement challenges for Blink to solve across the largest organizations. 

Another area I’ve started to dig into is our Partnerships team. This is a really fast-evolving function at Blink, and I’ve spent a lot of time building relationships with core partners like Workday in Europe, as well as collaborating closely with some of the leading Meta Consultancies off the back of the news from Workplace. This has been a pretty rewarding passion project and I am excited to have the chance to dive into this more.

What initially attracted you to join Blink?

My previous company also focused on helping frontline employees. I think fundamentally I became aware of the countless challenges facing the frontline worker, and I love how tangible the positive impacts can be.

I want to sell something that I genuinely believe makes a difference. Whilst I know that’s obvious, I do think it’s hugely important, and I love the scope for impact that exists at Blink.

‍What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?

Apart from the incredible work myself and my colleagues have done on reinventing what’s possible with the Lavazza to froth a good coffee, I’m very proud of the Partnerships work we’re doing. 

We’ve really encapsulated the people-first approach that’s needed to differentiate ourselves in the market, and it’s set to be incredibly enabling for the company when you think of the scope for support, opportunity and collaboration it provides. More to come here, too!

What's one thing you're excited about for the future of Blink?

In my opinion it would be optimizing our partnerships with venture partners like Workday. There’s so much scope to support these partners with collaboration and co-creation, and I want to leverage this to ensure we maintain our agility in developing the product, extending our reach and getting as many frontline employees digitally enabled as possible.

Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?

It would have to be our employee intelligence. The scope for businesses to assess business problems at such a granular level through a lens that has never existed (a digitally enabled deskless workforce) is pretty exciting. 

As we conclude this edition of Life at Blink, we're inspired by Ben’s dedication to solving critical challenges for enterprise clients and forging impactful partnerships across Europe. Ben's passion for innovation, from redefining coffee experiences to pioneering initiatives like employee intelligence, reflects Blink's commitment to empowering frontline workers. When asked why he works for Blink, he responded with:

“I like selling a product that has a tangible impact that genuinely makes sense to me.”

Here's to celebrating Ben's first year with us and the exciting milestones ahead at Blink!

Join us in shaping the future of technology and impacting lives. Explore career opportunities at Blink today! https://www.joinblink.com/careers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The most common communication challenges in organizations from big enterprise businesses to small startups are so widespread that dealing with them can start to feel normal.

It’s easy to forget that internal communications issues can have a big impact. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can safely back burner internal comms because communication challenges and barriers are so widespread.

The fact is that poor internal communications can seriously harm your business. It’s a domino effect of frustrating communication, poor morale, lower productivity, higher absenteeism leading to higher employee turnover, and finally, higher costs and smaller profits.

Of course, when you’re in the thick of things, the relationship between poor internal comms and your bottom line might not be very clear. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that communication was thought of as a nice but not necessary soft skill.

We put together this article to lay out some of the ways communication challenges and barriers can sap a company’s resources along with strategies for making your internal comms more effective (also see the best way to improve internal communications).

The deep impact of communications challenges in organizations

The idea that internal communications problems can make a business less profitable can seem overblown.

The statistics, however, show that having a weak internal comms strategy (or having no strategy at all) can have a detrimental impact on everything from employee engagement to your business's bottom line.

Here’s how communications challenges in organizations affect success.

Communication challenges and barriers lead to increased employee turnover

Studies looking into the real cost of employee turnover often show different results.

Some studies show it costs employers 33% of a worker's annual salary to hire a replacement while other research suggests that it costs three times that salary.

What all of the data has in common is that employee turnover definitely costs companies big bucks.

Employee retention and profitability go hand in hand, and the good news is that research shows that 75% of employee turnover is preventable.

Relationships suffer when communication is a problem

Two heads are better than one, but whole teams of heads are necessary for long-term success.

When people can’t communicate with one another effectively because of technical barriers or, worse, can communicate but feel uncomfortable doing so because there’s not a culture of openness at a company, collaboration may slow or even stop.

That means innovation can’t happen and problems languish with no solutions. Your employees just can’t be as productive when relationships with colleagues are strained and everyone feels like they’re working in isolation.

Less productivity means less profit.

Customer service suffers when there are communication challenges

Internal communications and external communications are inexorably linked.

Employees need access to information to answer customer queries, respond to sales inquiries, or help customers get what they need.

When they can’t get that information easily, they’re apt to feel a strong sense of disengagement that can actually lead to everyone—workers and customers alike—feeling frustrated and dissatisfied during encounters.

Dissatisfied employees leave, and as we’ve shown above, that costs money. And dissatisfied customers take their business elsewhere, costing you even more.

Poor communication = stress = higher healthcare costs

This might seem like a stretch, but stress costs the United States $300 billion every year—a figure that includes costs shouldered by businesses that provide insurance to their employees.

While there’s no way to show a hard and fast causal link between frustrations caused by comms issues and increased healthcare costs, it’s worth mulling over the idea that the communications challenges in organizations that stress workers out may also be contributing to expensive physical and mental health issues in those same employees.

Healthcare is expensive, after all, and effective internal comms is cheap in comparison.

Internal communication problems can be a motivation killer

Workers who don’t feel like they have an important role to play, who don’t understand what is expected of them, and who feel like they don’t have a voice literally can’t give their all.

Time that would otherwise go toward productive (and profitable) work is instead spent trying to navigate a confusing company culture or to figure out what that company’s priorities are. There’s no passion among employees because they feel totally disengaged from their tasks and their teams.

The Gallup State of the American Workplace report put it succinctly: “Actively disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work—they are resentful that their needs aren’t being met and are acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers potentially undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.”

Communications challenges in organizations lead to mistakes

Workers who have access to the information they need to really contribute to a company make fewer mistakes because they feel comfortable concentrating on the work in front of them.

Employees who are focused on trying to figure out what their priorities should be or simple emotional management are more prone to error.

In a retail environment, the result of this kind of disengagement may be fewer sales. In industries like healthcare, however, mistakes can lead to hugely expensive regulatory issues or even injury and death.

Poor internal communication makes boosting employee satisfaction impossible

You can’t boost your workers’ overall satisfaction if you don’t have a clear idea of what employees like and don’t like about their day to day.

At companies with strong internal communications strategies, managers regularly touch base with employees to get a sense of what’s working and what isn’t. When comms just isn’t a priority, chances are slim to none that workers will open up about what changes could make your business better.

Absenteeism rates are higher when communications is an issue

Employees who can’t jump ship at the moment may show their communications-related dissatisfaction by simply not showing up.

A Gallup study conducted in the UK showed that disengaged workers miss 10 more working days each year compared to peers who feel a strong connection to the company vision and are clear on what’s expected of them.

The biggest challenges facing internal communications teams

The factors that have contributed to the biggest communications challenges in organizations are well documented at this point. Lack of clarity, platform. and targeted messaging.

The main problem that companies have faced has always been how to address those factors effectively and economically. Email and Dropbox alone are outdated.

Just having a clear vision doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy to share and then reinforce that vision. A company intranet portal that provides a platform for internal comms may not actually facilitate good communication. And getting the right information into the hands of the right people has always been tough.

Luckily, solving the big communications challenges in organizations has become easier with tech tools like an internal communications tool. Intranets have evolved over time from simple information repositories to a kind of mobile base of operations where business happens from anywhere.

Blink, for instance, can help you communicate administrative and benefits information, but is also a platform for collaboration, a place to store and search for data, a way to solicit feedback (including anonymous feedback), and a social hub for employees to share with one another.

It lets internal comms teams curate messaging so employees stay on the same page without getting overwhelmed by emails, meetings, memos, and Slack chatter.

Up-to-date internal comms tools like Blink’s employee app are even more important for businesses with a lot of frontline workers—especially now that nontraditional employees like remote workers and long-term contract workers make up such a large percentage of the workforce.

By automating paper-based processes, microapps like this help increase productivity overall.

How effective internal communications will change your business for the better

Curious about what effective internal communication can really do for your bottom line? Here are some statistics that might surprise you:

• Companies that communicate effectively are 50% more likely to report below average turnover levels.
• A 5-point improvement in employee attitude results in a 1.3% increase in customer satisfaction and an increase in company revenue.
• Higher engagement can mean a 40% reduction in absenteeism.
• Employees who feel fully informed and more engaged may be 21% more productive.
• Companies with effective communication strategies see 47% higher total returns to shareholders.
• Poor communication is cited as the main cause of failure for IT projects.
• 69% of employees say they’d work harder if their contributions were recognized and praised.

Knowing what you know now, we also want to offer you a quick list of steps you can take right away to gauge how your internal comms is currently working and to enhance your internal comms strategy.

1. Assess your current strategy — Assuming you have one, that is. If not, you’ll want to make one. But if you do, take the time to consider your internal communications objectives, who has ownership of comms, if the tools you are using are effective, and whether your current strategies are really getting the job done.
2. Poll your employees — Do they feel like they have a voice in your company? If they have an idea, can they easily share it? When they have questions, can they find answers quickly and easily? Does dealing with administrative tasks take up way too much time? Do they like your communications tech? Let workers answer anonymously and adjust your comms strategy accordingly.
3. Put everything in one place — Make this the year you finally commit to storing your company data in one place so tracking down a file is never again a half-day affair. When you use Blink to store the information your employees need—from HR docs to project guidelines—they can easily find it all.
4. Stop sending so many emails — Lengthy, reply-all type email threads are frustrating and, frankly, easy to ignore. Worse, they interrupt the flow of work and often contain irrelevant information leaving workers feeling resentful instead of informed.
5. Send information to the right people — Use a comms platform like Blink that lets you send information to specific employees and teams instead of the entire company. You can even label posts priority and check to make sure that your messages were received and read by recipients.

The bottom line is that employees at every level of your company will be happier, more productive, and more passionate about their work if they feel informed.

The internal communications strategy you put into place now will not only make it easier for your employees to do their jobs, but will also make your company more profitable in the long run.

Blink makes it easier to overcome the most common organizational communication tool challenges in organizations. Are you ready to tackle the challenges facing internal communications at your company?

What makes him awesome?

Tom has been with Realise Training, a leading provider in the apprenticeship, adult learning and vocational training market, since October 2018. Realise supports people to fulfill their potential and help businesses upskill their workforce, and this year around 16,000 learners benefit from apprenticeship and adult education programs through Realise. Most of their training is done onsite, so their tutors are often traveling and working remotely.

Tom is part of the operational support team. There is not a job he doesn’t do — and if there is, he still gives it a go to try and help someone else out. What makes him awesome? EVERYTHING! He literally keeps the business moving from events to transport to decorating, his talents are endless. He even took up modeling some new Realise-branded clothing at one point… We need more Toms in this world!

How has Blink helped in his role?

Blink really aids in communication, from those quick instant messages when you need some last-minute train tickets to Tom being able to notify the business of operational notifications.

What does he want to do next?

I think building our own driving school sounds like something he would like to participate in! All those vehicle insurance documents and building regulations… he'd love it!

Nominated by: Aimee Mcvittie, Performance Manager

While some things from the 90s are coming back into style - extra baggy jeans, cardigans, bucket hats -  there are also some things that never went out of style that should have, like your employee intranet. In this era of digital transformation, old school intranets are having an (often negative) impact on employee engagement from the office to the frontlines. 

For most HR and Comms teams, relying on a traditional intranet system that came out at the same time as the Playstation 1 to fuel their employee engagement strategy won’t cut it anymore. Let’s dive into the reasons why and what to look for when searching for a better alternative. But first…

What is an intranet?

The advent of a computer and internet-powered workforce in the 1990s made working faster with global teams a reality, but it introduced a new problem: how do you make information accessible to employees without relying on the nascent, unsecured web?  

The intranet solved that problem by giving companies a local, private network for employees to store and share information. Traditional intranets are secure and cost-effective ways to manage sensitive company data, but it comes with many limitations and disadvantages for today’s workplace.

Traditional intranets are sprawling digital file cabinets. With so much information, from policies and benefits packets to corporate updates, it can be hard to find and keep things updated. And because most are relics of a different era, mobile access for frontline employees can be difficult, if not impossible. In short—traditional intranets aren’t doing HR and Comms teams any favors when it comes to getting critical information out to the entire organization.

We’ve broken down the advantages and disadvantages between traditional and modern intranets if you want to learn more. But since you’re here, it probably means you’re familiar with many of the challenges with a traditional intranet because you’re seeing the end result: employees aren’t using it. 

To fix that problem, HR and Comms teams have to understand what’s driving the (lack of) behavior. Then, you can properly search for a solution that addresses the root of your employee engagement challenge. 

7 reasons why employees don’t want to use your intranet

The intranet was designed to be the end-all-be-all source of information at every organization. Over the last three decades of digital workplace transformation, that perception has changed. Now, according to our research, nearly one-fifth of employees don’t use their intranet and a worrisome two-thirds of those are not even sure how to log on. 

With emails and instant messaging tools dominating communications and employees relying on dozens of SaaS-based apps to do their jobs, even the HR and Comms employees who are using the intranet aren’t keeping it up-to-date. There’s just not enough time to manage everything, and oftentimes this means the intranet becomes an afterthought. 

Here are the 7 key reasons that your traditional intranet is no longer living up to your employees’ needs and expectations. 

1. Lack of user-friendly design

Ask your employees to describe your intranet and you’ll probably hear words like clunky, frustrating, and useless. In fact, research shows that nearly half (47%) of workers find their company intranet difficult to use. 

When held up to the standards of modern business tools, traditional intranets fall short in every category. Everyone, from Boomers to Gen Z, is frustrated by the confounding search function, the not-from-this-century navigation, and the top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to organizing and presenting information.   

As a result, users are choosing friendlier, more siloed options whenever possible and leaving the intranet behind.

2. Irrelevant or outdated content

Whether you’ve had an intranet for three years or thirty, it is likely filled with an immense amount of content. And most of that content is not relevant to most people. Keeping your old intranet up-to-date is a monumental task, but it rarely belongs to any one person or organization in particular. As much as HR and Comms teams try, some information must remain there for historical or compliance reasons, further complicating efforts to provide a good information experience. 

However, since traditional intranets struggle to deliver a good search experience for documents and lack the deep personalization of modern apps, many employees skip the intranet and instead just ask others for help finding the information. Or, if the content is able to be found, it can result in redundant work being done.

3. Lack of mobile accessibility

Mobile devices are now a staple for any worker to stay connected and productive. In fact, 87% of companies have policies that encourage personal device usage for work activities. Traditional intranets, however, are not designed — let alone optimized — for smartphones. 

For frontline workers who often rely solely on mobile devices to stay connected, this can mean accessing and using the intranet while at work is impossible. As more work gets done on mobile devices, traditional intranets will fall further out of use in your organization. 

4. Insufficient training and onboarding

Many organizations are caught in a vicious cycle when it comes to user adoption for traditional intranets. As the old intranet becomes less useful for employees in your organization, it becomes less of a focus during training and onboarding, making the intranet less useful for a new round of employees who will then train…. Ah, you get the idea.

Since the clunky interface and search make it difficult for employees to just pick up the intranet on their own, training and onboarding are more important for it than more user-friendly, modern tools. But in reality, that time is being spent on training elsewhere now on other, more relevant things.

5. Limited integrations

At one point, the traditional intranet was the pinnacle of connection in the enterprise. But, as every company has added dozens (if not hundreds) of apps to their tech stack, your old intranet is no longer the center of the corporate information universe. HR, IT, and Comms teams now rely on a variety of tools where employees can access critical information and functionality. 

Without deep integrations with these tools, the intranet becomes just another — even less useful — tool for employees to remember their login for. 

6. Lack of engagement and social features

If an intranet is going to have an impact on employee engagement, it needs to be equipped with features that actually promote engagement. Traditional intranet solutions lack chat, social feeds, and surveys. Without those integrated alongside the content, employees will stick to the channels where they can actually collaborate with peers and stay engaged with leadership. 

The further behind traditional intranet solutions fall behind modern communication apps in engagement and social functionality, the less useful it will be for employees, HR, and Comms teams. 

7. Poor leadership endorsement

Executive teams are driven by high-level goals and KPIs. As the intranet becomes less useful and relevant to everyday life, it becomes less relevant to those goals and KPIs. That makes getting executives to buy-in and endorse using the intranet more difficult. 

It’s the final nail in the coffin for any technology. But a new era of intranets is changing the perception of the technology for employees and executives alike. 

What’s happening in the new “era” of intranets 

The business needs behind the traditional intranet haven’t changed — companies still need a way to securely share information and collaborate across different headquarters and work sites. In fact, the challenge is even greater now as more and more digital content is being created across the organization. Since traditional intranets can’t keep up with the need, they’ve fallen out of favor and into disrepair. 

Without a modern intranet to replace the traditional intranet, employees will find a more fractured information landscape, with documents and information stored in different apps and accounts — if it is accessible at all. In many organizations, email has become the lowest common denominator place for HR and comms teams to share information. But for organizations with frontline workforces, many employees lack a corporate email, which makes sharing sensitive information and corporate updates even more complicated.

The expectations for critical business tools like the intranet have evolved. Traditional intranets were purposely siloed away for security, but workers today expect their digital tools to be easy-to-use, connected, and be accessible anywhere. Most importantly, it should feel like an integrated part of their digital workplace, not a relic or an afterthought. 

Despite the power of today’s digital solutions, employees are increasingly disengaged at work. According to Gallup’s State of the Workplace Report for 2023, just 23% of employees are engaged on the job. Modernizing the intranet experience for your employees is not the only solution, but it is low-hanging fruit if you want to reverse that trend.

Delivering a modern intranet solution that is engaging and accessible to the entire organization is exactly why there are employee apps like Blink. The new era of employee intranets is not only aiming to solve the information problem of yesteryear — it is solving the challenges of the modern workplace. From working remotely on mobile devices to simplifying the number of digital tools needed to do the job, employee apps are revitalizing the intranet as a true, one-stop-shop for communication and collaboration.

What to look for in a modern intranet solution

When selecting an employee app to replace your aging, traditional intranet, there will be some familiar functionality to look for (how content is stored and searched for). But there will also be new features and functionality to consider that make an employee app more relevant to frontline and office-based employees. 

Here’s a breakdown of the key areas to consider when choosing the employee app to improve the impact of your employee engagement efforts.

Design

Often overlooked, a good design can seriously boost engagement. In particular, the design can make adoption easier, ensuring the initial onboarding phase goes smoothly at launch and in the years to come. 

The design of your modern intranet solution should be:

• User friendly: can everyone from the most to least tech savvy employees use it?
• Familiar: is it customizable with your brand look and feel?
• Easy to learn: can anyone pick it up and successfully navigate, search, and engage with others?

Content

One of the biggest challenges of traditional intranets is the clunky content experience for producers and consumers. Your replacement should make it easy for HR and Comms teams to keep content fresh and up-to-date without becoming overwhelming. On the other hand, the employees reading and watching the content should only see what’s relevant to them. Make sure your employee app allows for personalization of the content experience by role, location, etc.

Accessibility

Every employee app needs to be designed for mobile access. Whether you have a frontline workforce or not, every employee should have access to the intranet. If your new intranet solution requires a desktop to use fully, the adoption and engagement rates will suffer as more people access work content and apps on the go. 

Usability

For something as important as an intranet, ease-of-use needs to be a top concern. Your employee app should be intuitive enough that anyone can use it. Apps that cater to tech-y power users can be fun, but everyone from the Gen Z cashier to the semi-retired Boomer bus driver need to feel as confident in using the employee app as the head of IT.

If your future employee app requires a lot of training on just how to use it, it may not be the right fit for a dynamic workforce. 

Integrations

Let your new employee app be a cure for app fatigue. In the SaaS era, employees are being asked to use and remember logins for too many tools. With deep integrations and secure single sign-on, your employee app can be a one-stop-shop tool for everything they need — from the content in the intranet to payroll, timekeeping, benefits and IT tools. 

We call this the “digital front door,” because everything employees need to be successful can be housed in one app. This approach not only makes your intranet adoption skyrocket, but it also boosts the usage of all those other tools as well. 

Flexibility

Your company has unique needs, so your employee app should be flexible. For those with frontline organizations, having features like secure group and individual chats, social-media style news feeds, and built-in surveys gives HR and Comms teams many more ways to engage and inform workers who might otherwise not have access to email or other communications tools. 

The flexibility also allows employees to interact with and engage others in their preferred ways — whether that’s through likes and comments on posts or individual messages to peers. 

Executive buy-in-ability

Replacing something as ingrained as an intranet will need executive buy-in and sponsorship. Your new employee app needs to deliver greater ROI than a traditional intranet to justify the investment and the change in their eyes. (So make sure your next employee app features powerful analytics to measure adoption, engagement, and other KPIs.)

If you’re looking to improve the employee experience by upgrading to a modern employee app, we’ve put together tips to get leadership onboard. Download “The essential guide to executive buy-in for frontline employee experience” now.

Trade in your old intranet for a modern employee app

The intranet still matters — employees still need to securely access and share content internally — but traditional intranets are clunky, siloed relics of a bygone era. Neither employees nor the content are being set up for success today. What was once intended to be a source of truth is now just a source of frustration.

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Blink’s modern employee app gives the intranet a new lease on life. With a mobile-first, user-friendly design, everyone from the frontline to the boardroom can access it anytime. By pairing the intranet’s functionality alongside social features, integrations with other tools, and single sign-on security, Blink simplifies the digital employee experience into one app with one login.   

For HR and Comms teams struggling to keep frontline workers engaged and informed, Blink makes staying connected easier than ever. See it in action with a demo today.

What makes him awesome?

Stephen has been with Go North East since 2013. He has spent time as both a PCV driver and Depot Detailer, and works at the Percy Main depot in Newcastle. Stephen goes above and beyond to help staff everyday, despite the inherent challenges of the job. He spent over 23 of his earlier career with the Royal Air Force, and this strong work ethic and focus on teamwork carries through to everything he does. He never fails to maintain a high level of quality and professionalism in his work, helping to provide a best-in-class service to the people of Newcastle. 

Nominated By: Karl Roper, Operations Supervisor