The happiest industries to work in (2026)

The intranet software market just got a remix

For years, the intranet market has been quietly humming in the background — necessary, but rarely exciting. Static sites, low adoption, and an “if it ain’t broke” mindset have kept things predictable.

But the rhythm of work has changed. Employees expect consumer-grade experiences that rival modern social platforms, and organizations need platforms that actually connect people — not just store documents.

Enter 2025’s Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions, where Blink made its debut — not just as a newcomer, but as the market’s most exciting Challenger. It’s a milestone that says as much about where the market is heading as it does about where we stand.

The significance of a Challenger debut

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is one of the most respected evaluations in enterprise technology. Each year, Gartner assesses intranet providers on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision, mapping them into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Decision-makers around the world look to this report for support and validation in their platform investments.

Being named a Challenger means two things:

1. We’re executing at a high level.
   
2. We’re pushing the market forward with a bold, differentiated vision.
   

For us, debuting in this position validates years of momentum — from scaling frontline employee engagement to redefining what an “intranet” even means. But more importantly, it signals a broader shift: The industry is ready for something more human, more connected, something more vibrant.

A new rhythm for the digital workplace

The modern intranet is no longer a static homepage. It’s a living, breathing ecosystem that powers communication, culture, and connection across every corner of an organization — from HQ to the shop floor.

This report reflects that evolution. It highlights the growing importance of frontline access, intelligent content, and designing for the employee experience. These aren’t fringe capabilities anymore — they’re must-haves.

That’s exactly where Blink has been leading:

• Frontline-first design that reaches the 80% of workers traditional intranets forget.
  
• Mobile-native experiences that fit the way people actually work.
  
• Analytics and insights that make employee engagement measurable, not mythical.
  
• AI-powered communication tools that help leaders connect with clarity and scale.
  
  

In short: Blink isn’t playing the same old tune. We’re remixing the intranet into something people actually want to use.

Why this matters for buyers and the market

For IT, HR, and communications leaders, Gartner’s recognition offers something invaluable: confidence. It confirms that the market is moving toward solutions that are not only functional but felt — favoring all-in-one employee experience platforms that drive adoption, engagement, and belonging.

Blink’s debut as a Challenger underscores three broader trends shaping the intranet software landscape:

1. People-first design is now non-negotiable: Usability, accessibility, and experience aren’t nice-to-haves; they’re the new foundation. Platforms that feel like consumer apps are setting the bar.
   
2. The frontline workforce is being reconnected: Enterprises are realizing that true culture and communication can’t stop at the office door. The intranet must extend everywhere work happens.
   
3. The era of “static sites” is ending: Modern intranets are dynamic platforms integrating AI, video, and microapps — enabling communication, knowledge, and action in one place.
   
   

Gartner’s report confirms what many leaders already feel: The traditional intranet model is out of sync with how work happens today.

The Blink perspective: Challenger as a mindset

Being named a Challenger isn’t about position — it’s about posture.

At Blink, we see this as validation and responsibility. Validation that our people-first approach is working. Responsibility to keep raising the tempo for what’s possible in the digital workplace.

We’re here to make work feel better — for everyone. That’s why we obsess over adoption. Why we invest in intuitive design. Why we believe that when every employee has a voice, the whole organization moves faster.

As our CEO Sean Nolan puts it:

“We’re not here to play the same tune as everyone else. We’re spinning the future of work — remixing the intranet into something vibrant, exciting, and actually worth using.”

What comes next

The intranet category is in transformation — and Blink’s debut marks a turning point. The market is hungry for connection, simplicity, and meaning at work.

Blink’s vision is to meet that need head on:

• Powering culture with live video and storytelling
  
• Unlocking insight with intelligent analytics‍
• Delivering experiences that feel as good as they perform
  
  

The recognition from Gartner is both a milestone and a launchpad. Because being a Challenger isn’t the end of the story — it’s the start of the remix.

Read the full report

Get your complimentary copy of the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Intranet Packaged Solutions (2025) to explore the full market landscape, compare vendors, and see how the industry’s next chapter is being written.

👉 Download the report

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Great frontline leaders are the unsung heroes of any organization. 

They’re responsible for leading deskless teams, managing resources, and critical processes that can impact health and safety—all while often working long hours and under tight deadlines. 

But they’re also responsible for something just as important: employee engagement. This is mission-critical for frontline organizations in particular, as poor relationships with managers is the fourth-biggest reason for frontline workers quitting (the other three were either related to pay or COVID). 

To compound the challenge, employee engagement is where frontline organizations face even more difficulties than desk-based companies. When workers are dispersed, rarely engaging with email (let alone surveys) and sometimes even with each other, how would you know if they’re engaged or not?

This is why employee engagement KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are so important for frontline leaders, and need to be carefully thought-out for feasibility within the constraints of frontline life. 

In this guide, we'll explore what employee engagement KPIs are, why they’re important, and which ones you should be tracking as a frontline leader.

We'll also show you some easy-to-implement strategies to help boost productivity and morale among your team members - so let’s get started… 

What Is an Employee Engagement KPI?

First, the basics. Employee engagement KPIs are metrics that measure how often and effectively employees are engaging with their organization. 

They provide insight into how teams and departments are working together, how motivated and productive team members are, and what factors contribute to better employee engagement.

Do you need Employee Engagement KPIs?

If you’re leading a frontline team, the short answer is yes.

Workday Peakon Employee Voice data shows that an employee’s engagement metrics will typically reveal warning signs nine months before they actually leave an organization.

Measuring employee engagement allows you to pinpoint when and where problems originate, and gain specific insights into your team’s current strengths and weaknesses, so you can implement employee engagement strategies to increase retention, drive productivity and motivate employees to stay with you for longer.

In other words, tracking this data regularly and consistently lets you spot patterns - and those patterns unlock the ability to be proactive, rather than reactive, on employee issues. 

7 Of The Most Important Frontline Employee Engagement KPIs

1. Absenteeism 

Absenteeism is an important KPI for frontline leaders because it reflects how often team members are taking time off, which can be costly. In fact, in just one large organization almost 11,000 hours are spent by line managers dealing with absence annually, which costs the company £98,458. 

Within this amount, conducting disciplinaries costs £41,149 alone. HR administration time concerned with absence represents £44,882, and £93,193 is spent on Occupational Health Services. The remaining £1,815 is spent on line manager training.

Absence rates are vital when assessing engagement, as high rates could be indicative of a lack of motivation, engagement or even employee wellbeing, while low absence rates can mean that employees feel more connected to their work and colleagues.

For example, 70% of frontline workers have either suffered from burnout or felt at risk of burning out. So if, as a frontline manager, you notice that your dispersed team members are frequently taking sick days, it could be a good sign that they are feeling overworked or disengaged. You can then take the necessary steps such as introducing Intuitive Scheduling policies to help improve morale, boost engagement and reduce absenteeism.

2. Turnover rate

In short: an engaged workforce has higher employee retention rates and lower employee turnover rates.

Measuring annual employee turnover rates across departments can help you identify any patterns that could indicate a lack of engagement. For example, if one particular department has a higher turnover rate than the rest, it could be a sign that those employees are feeling undervalued or disengaged in their role.

In this case, leaders can take action to address the issue by introducing team-building and employee engagement activities, investing in more professional development opportunities, and creating better employee support systems, such as easy-to-access employee apps.

3. Employee net promoter score (eNPS)

Evaluating employee sentiment is a great way to measure engagement: employee net promoter score (eNPS) can help as a metric that measures how likely employees are to recommend their company as a place to work.

By using eNPS, leaders can receive direct feedback from both current and previous employees and use this to take the necessary steps to improve engagement. 

By collecting eNPS data across departments and tracking how it changes over time (doing this at regular, consistent intervals is critical), frontline managers can get a better sense of the overall sentiment in their workforce, as well as any areas of improvement. 

4. Employee survey results

Frontline leaders can use regular Employee Surveys to identify what creates satisfied employees, and how to increase job satisfaction among their team members. 

Those managers who are particularly ambitious can even use these surveys to collect data on employee engagement levels and calculate an ‘Employee Satisfaction Index’ across different departments in the organization. Having this metric at your fingertips can help you identify any areas of improvement, as well as keep tabs on the overall level of engagement in your organization.

This is another area where things are much tougher for frontline organizations in comparison to desk-based teams. Employee survey response rates for frontline workers are notoriously low, because accessing a desktop computer during the work day is rare (and paper surveys are often lost). It’s therefore critical to adapt the experience to frontline life through ensuring a mobile-first survey experience. 

5. Successful hires

On the frontline, the first few months of employment are critical - ‘year one attrition’ being a common and costly problem in hourly roles. 

By measuring the number of successful hires versus unsuccessful ones, frontline leaders can track the success of their onboarding process and identify areas for improvement.

Frontline managers should also pay close attention to employee feedback during exit interviews, which can provide insight into why employees are leaving the organization. This information can be used to make tweaks in the recruitment process to ensure that future hires are more successful.

6. Internal promotion rate

By tracking internal promotion rates, leaders can identify how many employees have been successful in their current roles and have moved up within the organization.

This metric gives insight into areas of success among your team members and demonstrates that employees are being recognized for their hard work and achievements. It also highlights any areas of improvement, such as lack of opportunity for career development or limited resources available to employees.  Providing management training, upskilling staff or putting managers on even employee engagement training programs can support in this area.

Promotion (or lack thereof) plays a key role in frontline employee turnover, so tracking this data can be extremely useful for retention efforts.

7. Active users

Frontline managers can use active users of employee engagement tools as a quantitative measure of engagement. By tracking these numbers, you can determine how many employees feel motivated to engage with their manager, HQ - and each other.

By having access to these Employee Analytics, frontline managers can also gain insight into which types of engagement content are most effective, and make adjustments in order to ensure that all teams are on track.

How To Use Employee Engagement KPIs

Benchmarking

Benchmarking employee engagement KPIs is essential for any frontline manager looking to make improvements in the workplace. By benchmarking your team against other similar teams, you can identify areas for improvement and set goals for future development.

For example, by looking at the internal promotion rate of your team versus another similar team within your organization, you can see how successful each team has been in terms of developing employees and creating opportunities for career progression. This type of benchmarking helps frontline managers identify areas of strength as well as weakness and make informed decisions about how to improve employee engagement in the long-run.

Track metrics over time

To gain the most value from employee engagement KPIs, it’s important to track them over time. This will help frontline leaders identify trends in their team and put plans into place to tackle them.

For example, tracking active users over time can give insight into which communication types are the most popular among employees, enabling frontline managers to make informed decisions about what inspires the most engagement.

By tracking employee engagement KPIs on a regular basis, frontline managers can not only identify areas of improvement but put plans into place to ensure that employees stay engaged and motivated in the long-term, too.

Focus

Employee engagement KPIs can help frontline managers identify areas of focus - particularly key when there might be numerous challenges to tackle at once. By looking at internal promotion rate, active users and other data points, frontline managers can get an accurate picture of which areas they need to focus on in order to provide employees with the best opportunity for progression and retention.

Hiring process

Employee engagement KPIs can also be used to inform the hiring process. By looking closely at active users, internal promotion rate and other metrics, frontline managers can get an accurate picture of which traits or skills have been most successful within their team in the past.

This information can then be used to assess new candidates during the hiring process, and to attract the right type of talent to the team. This ensures that employees are being hired with the same values in mind, further supporting employee engagement and collaboration within teams.

By making informed changes to your recruitment processes and using employee engagement KPIs to guide decisions, frontline managers can ensure that their teams are made up of the most productive and engaged individuals possible.

Final Thoughts

With this guide, you now have a better understanding of how employee engagement KPIs can be used to measure the success of your team and identify areas for improvement.

By tracking these metrics over time and using them to inform decisions related to recruitment, development and more, frontline managers can ensure that their teams remain motivated, productive and engaged in the long-term.

How can Blink help?

Blink’s Frontline App helps frontline managers track and measure employee engagement KPIs in real-time, enabling them to make informed decisions about recruitment, development, communication and more. Our interactive Frontline Intelligence dashboard allows you to quickly assess active users and other engagement metrics all at once.

And for your frontline workforce, our app provides everything in one easy-to-use platform. From Secure Chats and Employee Recognition to a Hub for critical documents and the Blink Feed for company or team updates, Blink ensures that your frontline teams have everything they need to stay engaged and collaborative in the long-term.

Get started today and see how easy it is to start tracking and improving employee engagement with Blink!

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Employee recognition programs can be one of your top tools in the war for talent. Done right, they increase employee retention, build workplace morale and have a major impact on productivity.

If you’re new to employee recognition, don’t worry – the principles are simple. Ultimately, your employees like to be thanked for all the work they put in. If you do this, they will be happier and work more productively. 

You might have some form of employee recognition in place already, such as bonus schemes. Right now, however, it pays to go a little deeper with your employee recognition processes. Here’s what you need to know about recognition and rewards in the workplace. 

Employee recognition programs: what are they? 

There are quite a few definitions of ‘employee recognition’ floating around right now. We like Perkbox’s for its simplicity: 

“Employee recognition is when a company acknowledges its staff for great work.”

It’s that easy. An employee recognition program is any set of processes you have in place to facilitate this. This could be: 

• Peer to peer gifting schemes
• Employee award ceremonies
• Formalized career pathways and regular salary review schemes
• Target-based financial bonus schemes

Why do you need employee recognition programs? 

‘Underappreciation’ has always been a key driver of high employee turnover and low employee engagement. If you take your employees for granted, they are more likely to leave and less likely to perform well at work. 

On the other hand, a simple ‘thank you’ just once per month to your employees doubles employee engagement, halves risk of them leaving and triples the likelihood of them sticking with you in the long term. 

And if that’s the impact of one ‘thank you’, imagine how much positivity a fully thought-out employee recognition program can do!

When you make the effort to thank your employees for their hard work, you: 

• Create a positive work environment where everyone feels valued 
• Incentivize staff to go the extra mile and boost their performance
• Reduce absenteeism – and, just as importantly, reduce presenteeism
• Increase employee engagement, job satisfaction and productivity

Why employee recognition programs are so important now

Recognizing your employees keeps them with you. And that’s more important than ever. 

‘Lack of appreciation’ has consistently been named as a major reason behind so many people quitting their jobs right now. In fact, a recent survey found it to be the second most popular reason for quitting, behind inadequate pay. 

With a record number of open vacancies in the US right now and major competition to fill them, you can’t afford to be letting talent go – particularly when employee recognition programs are so effective for relatively little input. 

It’s the small things that make a difference, now more than ever. 

Ideas for employee recognition programs 

Different types of recognition are appropriate for different occasions. Only recognizing employees at key workplace milestones (e.g. anniversaries, promotions) isn’t enough. 

Instead, aim to create a staff recognition program that works as well for everyday acts of recognition as it does for those big occasions. You could try: 

• Monetary rewards: this doesn’t have to be a big end of year bonus or salary increase! Smaller, more everyday options include extra days of PTO and meals on the company or a personalized t-shirt with your logo design.
• Public recognition: shout outs on the company app, wall of fame, on social media or at a company award ceremony are all good options here
• Private recognition: creating a peer to peer gifting system builds camaraderie and good feeling. Keep a stock of vouchers, chocolates and bottles of wine that employees can send to their colleagues to thank them
• Celebration of lifetime events: show you care about your employees as people by celebrating their life milestones – cakes and collections for weddings, birthdays and new family additions are always appreciated

Use these ideas as a foundation to build on. Add in the big work milestones – the salary increases, the bonuses, the promotions – and you’ve got a program that makes your employees feel appreciated every day, not just on special occasions. 

How to create an employee recognition program 

According to Gartner, a well designed employee recognition program can increase productivity by around 11%.

To achieve this, it’s worth spending a little time establishing what your (and your employees’) needs are here. Gathering requirements early will help ensure the effort you spend on your employee recognition program pays off in the long term. Flawed requirements trigger 70% of project failures, so it’s worth spending the time here. 

Here’s a quick five step plan for doing this: 

1. Survey your employees

Different things work best for different workforces. For example, a stable, long-term workforce might appreciate recognition of birthdays, marriages and kids, but a workforce made up of short-term contractors might be less invested. Create a survey to gauge opinion on how your employees want to be recognized. 

2. Find the tools that would work for you

For remote and mobile workforces, an employee app with recognition features might hold the key to success. Take that survey info on how your employees want to be recognized, and get started on figuring out which tools you need to do that in your specific environment. 

3. Identify your stakeholders

This shouldn’t be difficult – every department in your organization has an interest in retaining top talent and improving productivity. Put together a committee with representatives from each of these groups to guide the implementation, perhaps headed by your HR/People Team experts.  

4. Define your budget for employee recognition

In an ideal world, you’d have an infinite amount of cash to show your employees just how brilliant they are – an HR manager can dream, eh? 

Unfortunately, we live in the real world and this might not be – no, definitely won’t be – achievable. Resources are finite, so you really need to make your case — finding a senior sponsor will help you maximize your chances of a decent budget. Remember: senior execs are broadly numbers people. Show them the real, tangible difference employee recognition programs have on productivity, retention and engagement for best results. 

5. Identify your metrics for success

Once implemented, how can you tell your employee recognition program is working? 

Identify some changes you’d like to see, and set some progress targets around these. You might want to see fewer people leave, for example, or fewer ‘lack of appreciation’ answers on those all important exit interviews. Keep tabs on your progress towards these and tweak your approach as necessary. 

The best employee recognition apps

Here are some of the best employee reward and recognition apps out there right now. 

Blink

Our Colleague Recognition feature is an easy way to make your employees feel valued in a meaningful, personalized way. Anything worth remembering, recognizing or celebrating can be posted to your company news feed in seconds! 

Nectar

Nectar is an all-in-one employee rewards platform that incorporates social recognition, awards, challenges, milestones, discounts, and other kinds of perks.

Reward Gateway

Reward Gateway’s employee recognition features are part of a wider employee engagement suite. With a focus on continuous recognition and celebrating daily success, there’s plenty of scope to build out your program.

Bonusly

Bonusly is simple. You give out points for good performance. Your employees can redeem these for a reward of their choosing – or hard cash, if that’s what they prefer. 

Motivosity

Motivosity’s ‘Thanks Matters’ card is an innovative way of rewarding employees. Like Bonusly, you assign points for great performance. These points directly translate into cash, which employees can access via a special Visa debit card. 

Kazoo

Kazoo’s employee recognition features sit nicely with the app’s overall employee engagement focus, and emphasizes a diverse rewards scheme that works for each employee – choose from experiences, custom swag, gift cards, charity donations and more.

Final thoughts on employee recognition programs 

‘Recognition all day every day’ should be your goal here. It’s about the atmosphere it creates as much as the award certificate or gift voucher your employees go home with at the end of the day. 

Keep your employee reward recognition program simple, meaningful and relevant. It’s not always about the big gestures. Remembering a birthday, putting in a good word with the boss or simply taking the team out for dinner after a difficult deadline can have a huge effect on morale – don’t dismiss their importance. 

Blink makes it easy to recognize great performance. Book your free demo today!

Employee experience (EX) is how your organization makes workers feel at every stage of the employee journey. EX impacts employee engagement, employee productivity, and retention — which means that building a consistently positive employee experience makes a big difference to your business.

Positive EX is particularly important for frontline employees. These people are the face of your organization. The frontline experience directly affects product quality and customer satisfaction.

But the frontline employee experience is falling short: 

• A recent Quinyx report found that 1 in 2 frontline workers have thought about quitting their jobs in the past year due to low pay, stress, and irregular working hours. 
• O.C. Tanner research reveals that 2 in 5 frontline employees say they’re viewed as inferior by employees in the office, and more than a third say their work is not valued as highly as office work.  
• Frontline employees are hard to reach. Working in isolation, away from HQ, they often feel disconnected from company culture and comms — and don’t get access to the same tech tools as their desk-based peers. 

The demands of shift work. A sense of inequality. A feeling of disconnection. There are lots of barriers getting in the way of a positive frontline employee experience. To overcome these barriers, you need a targeted approach that keeps frontline needs front of mind. 

The good news is that there are actionable steps you can begin taking today to create a positive employee experience across your frontline — ultimately helping your organization boost employee engagement, productivity, and retention. 

8 steps to building a positive employee experience for your frontline workforce

To create a positive employee experience for frontline workers, consider these eight areas of opportunity:

• Develop an employee experience strategy
• Create a positive company culture
• Give employees development and growth opportunities
• Establish effective communication channels
• Recognize employee achievements
• Improve the physical and digital work environment
• Hone onboarding and offboarding 
• Ask for employee feedback

Let’s take a closer look at each of these actions. 

Step 1: Develop an employee experience strategy

Gallup looked at companies with a strong workplace culture to find out what they had in common. They found that companies with the best culture were committed to developing a positive employee experience across the whole employee life cycle.

In the most successful organizations, employee experience and employee engagement sit at the center of company strategy, informing how they hire, onboard, and develop talent. It also informs how they motivate their teams, set goals, and communicate to their employees.

Achieving this holistic approach is easier when you have a thoughtfully crafted employee experience strategy — one that tackles all five stages of the employee lifecycle:

• Attraction
• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• Development
• Separation

To create a strategy suited to each of these employee journey stages, use employee feedback to help you uncover weaknesses at each stage. You can then set EX goals that align with organizational goals — and develop initiatives that will help you achieve them. 

Step 2: Create a more positive company culture

A positive company culture supports a positive employee experience. So what can you do to improve the culture within your organization?

Define core values and incorporate them into the workplace

When you get clear on your company’s core values, you unite employees behind one definitive version of company culture and establish how people should work together and the goals you’re all working towards.

Once you’ve defined your values, think about how you’ll express them across every stage of your employee journey. Also, weave them into your internal communications regularly to reinforce their importance.

Foster a supportive and inclusive environment

Employees who feel that they belong at an organization are 5.3 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work. So to build a positive and productive workplace culture, you need to ensure that everyone feels supported and included.

That might mean taking an in-depth look at your diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and how they are lived across the employee journey. It might mean working to create a culture of psychological safety and open communication, where everyone feels able to share their ideas and concerns.

For frontline teams, it could mean ensuring employees get opportunities to build relationships with co-workers — and that they get access to the same tools and resources as their desk-based peers.

Promote wellbeing and work-life balance

Another characteristic of strong and resilient workplace cultures is an emphasis on wellbeing in work and in life. Companies that show concern for the holistic wellbeing of employees — caring about them as people, not just workers — are more likely to create a more engaging employee experience.

Gym memberships, mental health support, financial planning, and volunteer days can all improve the physical and mental wellbeing of employees. For many employees, work-life balance is another key factor — and there are various strategies you can use to bring flexibility to frontline work. 

You can share frontline worker shifts at least two weeks in advance, giving them more time to plan their out-of-work lives. You can give them access to shift-swapping tools so they can exchange shifts with co-workers without manager involvement.

Or follow the example of the Principality Building Society, which made the decision to shut their branches half an hour before the end of retail employee shifts. This allows employees to finish tasks and leave on time, without having to serve customers for those last minutes of the day.  

Step 3: Give employees development and growth opportunities

Frontline workers are often overlooked when it comes to training and career progression. McKinsey research shows that 65% of frontline workers are unaware or unsure of how to achieve advancement. Only 32% say that they receive education or training in the workplace.

But training and development can have a big impact on the employee experience. McKinsey also revealed that frontline employees rank job growth or promotion above pay and benefits. In fact, it’s their top priority in the workplace.  

Make it easy for frontline employees to access development resources by choosing training programs that can be accessed via mobile devices. Micro-learning features are also a good idea, allowing employees to complete short lessons, fitting learning around their busy schedules.

Communication is key, too. The connection between a frontline role and opportunities elsewhere in the organization isn’t always clear. Managers need to make employees aware — very early in the employee journey — of the career progression options available to them.

Step 4: Establish effective communication channels

Good internal communication is the foundation of employee engagement and any successful employee experience strategy. But frontline employees are more likely to miss out on vital and culture-building communications if they’re put on a noticeboard or sent via email.

Frontline workers need communication channels that they can access on the go, on their smartphones. They need streamlined channels, so they know exactly where to find the information they’re looking for. To ensure engagement, they should also only receive content that is relevant to them.

Communication channels should allow frontline workers to connect with co-workers, too. The 32,000 frontline care workers at Elara Caring, working alone in clients’ homes, often felt isolated and lonely. This harmed employee satisfaction.

Now, with the help of Blink, the team can communicate easily over a dedicated company app. This means more knowledge sharing, stronger co-worker relationships, and a more positive employee experience.

Step 5: Recognize employee achievements

Employees experience more job satisfaction when they receive recognition from managers and peers. The act of giving recognition is also good for staff morale.

You can recognize an employee on their birthday or a work anniversary. You can highlight project success or how an employee has demonstrated company values.

But giving rewards and recognition to frontline workers requires more intention: Because frontline employees don’t work in the office, there’s less opportunity for informal thanks.

This is where digital recognition tools can help. By sharing praise and rewards on your digital communication channels, you make recognition a more visible part of company culture — even for your frontline. So you get to boost employee productivity, motivation, and satisfaction across the board.

Step 6: Improve the physical and digital work environment

Design a safe and comfortable workplace

The physical work environment has a big impact on employee wellbeing and productivity. You need to ensure the workplace is safe and comfortable and doesn’t put undue physical strain on your workers.

To improve frontline workplace safety and comfort, you should:

• Provide the necessary personal protective equipment
• Conduct regular mandatory training so everyone knows safety protocols
• Provide channels where employees can communicate safety concerns quickly 
• Run regular safety audits

A well-designed work environment prevents accidents and injuries, reduces stress, and improves job satisfaction. 

Use tools to streamline processes and improve efficiency

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 the digital employee experience is crucial to your overall EX.

Give employees too many tools — or tools that add friction to their workday — and you risk creating frustration and disengagement. Avoid using any tech tools and you’re left with inefficient paper processes. Either way, you end up harming employee satisfaction.  

When choosing tools for a frontline workforce, look for:

• Mobile-first tools, that don’t require a company email address and are available on employee smartphones
• A tool that brings all company software into one hub, so employees don’t have to remember lots of logins and passwords

The best employee apps are built with the frontline in mind. They’re intuitive to use and offer a host of useful features. They allow workers to chat with co-workers, get company updates, select their benefits, view pay slips, complete the onboarding process, and sign up for shifts — all via their mobile device.

Step 7: Hone onboarding and offboarding

To build a better employee experience for your frontline, you need to consider every stage of the employee journey:

Craft an effective onboarding process for new employees

Onboarding is a process that should start before an employee’s first day at your organization and last for at least three months. It should incorporate regular recognition and two-way feedback, along with goal setting, team building, and skills development.

For frontline employees, it makes sense to make onboarding resources available via smartphone. That way, they can read FAQs, complete mandatory training, and learn about company policies at a time and place that suits them.

Conduct exit interviews

Exit interviews are another integral part of any employee experience strategy.

First, because when you treat employees fairly and positively even as they leave your organization, you show other employees that you value the person, not just the worker.

Second, because exit interviews can reveal areas for employee experience improvement. Whether it’s progression opportunities, pay and benefits, company culture, or internal communication, finding out what prompted an employee to leave can give you lots of food for thought.

Step 8: Ask for employee feedback        

Offboarding feedback is important. But don’t wait until employees are leaving your organization to ask what they think of their employee experience. Schedule regular employee surveys to get feedback and learn t how they think and feel about your organization.

Use employee surveys

You can use quarterly employee experience surveys to assess employee sentiment. By asking the same employee survey questions every quarter, you can benchmark your performance and see which of your employee experience initiatives are making the most difference. You can then update goals in your employee experience strategy.

You can also use pulse surveys to get a snapshot of your employee experience at any given moment. This helps to ensure any employee experience issues are identified and dealt with promptly.

For either type of survey, be sure to ask demographic questions. These allow you to segment survey responses by employee journey stage, department, or team — revealing more detailed insights without compromising employee anonymity.

Follow survey best practices

To get the most from your employee surveys, follow survey best practices by:

• Allowing employees to respond to surveys anonymously. That way, you get honest and valuable answers.
• Sending employee surveys in a format that’s accessible to everyone. Mobile-first survey software ensures every member of staff — whether they’re working in the office, at home, or on the frontline of your organization — gets to give their opinion.
• Developing a survey communication strategy. Keep employees in the loop, thanking them for their feedback and clearly communicating how you plan to act upon it. This ensures ongoing engagement with the feedback process.

The role of technology in the frontline employee experience

The digital employee experience is a big part of the employee experience. But it’s particularly important for frontline workers who don’t spend their days at a desk.

With the right technology, you connect everyone — including hard-to-reach frontline employees — to internal communication, co-workers, and vital workplace resources. This helps improve EX, boosting employee productivity and retention in the process.

Many workplace tech tools are designed for office staff. They work beautifully for your team at HQ. But don’t provide the same features and level of functionality for your frontline workers.

To prevent tech from widening the gap between the frontline and desk-based worker experience, you need tech tools and employee experience software with the following features:

• An easy-to-use, intuitive interface with a minimal learning curve
• A mobile-first design, so all features are accessible via an employee’s smartphone
• Single sign-on security, so employees can log into all workplace software with one set of login details
• No email required — some frontline workers don’t have a company email address so it’s important that workplace tech works without them

Blink’s employee app ticks all these boxes and more.

It provides a news feed, group chat, and 1:1 messaging for easy communication. It gives managers EX-boosting tools, like recognition and employee surveys. Blink also integrates with other workplace tech, creating a one-stop shop for your frontline team.  

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s what Lorna Murphy, Operations and HR Manager at transit company Abellio had to say about the Blink experience:

“Using Blink, Abellio bus drivers can access a system of simple pathways that makes it easy for them to report issues, start a conversation with management or colleagues, or go about their day-to-day tasks such as checking shifts and accessing payslips, reconnecting them back to the organization they work for via one simple, easy-to-use app.”

Use Blink to create a positive employee experience across your frontline. Schedule your personalized demo today.

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

Boston – June 11, 2024 – Blink, the leading employee engagement super-app, today announced the next generation of its platform. The latest release introduces AI-driven advanced employee intelligence to reshape how organizations understand and enhance employee engagement, retention, productivity, and overall workplace satisfaction for both deskless and desk-based employees.  This new level of insight and analysis triggers real-time nudges and mobile alerts across all levels of the business to aid in decision-making and prompt action. 

Key Features and Benefits  

• Gather the team - Activation analytics which track employee engagement from day one, help achieve a 95% employee activation rate. Leaderboards pushed to managers to encourage healthy competition and discussion. 
• Optimize operations - Usage analytics provide insights into the use and performance of internal apps, shift booking rates, form completion and critical updates. This improves operational efficiency and user experience across the organization. 
• Captivate with comms - Communications analytics monitor how employees interact with internal comms, helping to identify preferences and needs and create more effective internal comms campaigns.
• Building bonds to shape culture - Engagement analytics track the use of chat and channels, helping to curate effective channel sizes, increase awareness and suggest suitable channels to employees. This fosters engagement and communication across the business.
• Listen to and understand employees - Survey analytics developed with HR experts offer detailed insights from employee surveys.  AI-powered sentiment analysis provides a clear picture of employee sentiment and areas of improvement. This feature also helps to improve participation through real-time participation alerts. 
• Understand turnover risks - By integrating with HR systems like Workday,  Blink tracks highly segmented employee turnover data to identify problem areas. Correlating turnover with other engagement metrics provides a full picture of where, how, and when to act on turnover risks.

Blink’s advanced analytics leverages extensive data from the platform to provide a detailed view of engagement and adoption across an organization. The analytics dashboard allows HR leaders to examine specific metrics and trends, and to clearly understand employee behavior and communication patterns. These insights enable organizations to make informed decisions to improve employee experience and performance. 

For a comprehensive overview of Blink's superapp, click here to explore the full product capabilities.

Elara Caring Implements Blink's Advanced Analytics

Elara Caring, a leading home healthcare provider, has successfully implemented Blink's advanced employee intelligence to enhance its onboarding and retention strategies. By utilizing Blink's new hire surveys and analytics dashboards, Elara Caring gained critical insights into their employees' experiences during the first few months of employment.

"With Blink’s insights powering our ElaraCare Application, we’ve created actionable strategies to improve team member experience," said Thomas Firmani, president, Personal Care Services at Elara Caring. "New caregiver feedback data – obtained through multiple touch points – has enabled us to refine our team member engagement process. Leveraging Blink’s in-app features, we have more personalized posts, enhanced support channels, and improved recognition platforms.”

"People feeling engaged in their work and happy are critical for the success of any organization," said Sean Nolan, CEO and founder of Blink. "Our enhanced platform provides the necessary advanced tools for organizations to gain deep insights into their workforce. By understanding employee sentiments and behaviors, leaders can make informed decisions that enhance the employee experience, productivity and ultimately reduce turnover."

About Blink

Blink is a provider of a leading super-app designed for frontline organizations. The company aims to revolutionize employee work life by bridging the digital divide between deskless and desk-based employees, enabling effective communication and engagement in distributed organizations. Blink is used by industry-leading companies, including RATPDev, Elara Caring, and Domino’s. Each user opens the app an average of seven times a day, helping lower frontline attrition by up to 25%. Founded in 2015 and with offices in London, Boston, and Sydney, Blink is a Leader in the G2 Grid® for Best Employee Engagement Software. Visit Joinblink.com for more information and follow on LinkedIn and X.

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Media Contact

Elyse Familant

Transatlantic 

elyse@transatlanticent.com

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