How to build an internal comms ROI case that actually wins budget

The digital revolution has reinvented how workers interact with their colleagues, customers, and their employers. But not all workers have felt the impact equally. Most office workers today have access to more digital platforms and tools than they can manage. But for the millions of deskless, frontline workers in industries like healthcare, transit, logistics, and retail, they have the opposite problem, often lacking access to basic corporate tools like email. 

Many employers find themselves in a Goldilocks situation—some workers have too many digital tools to manage while some workers have access to too few. In both cases, the impact can mean employees are more frustrated and less engaged with work. 

In this article, we’ll break down the challenge office workers face with so many tools available to them. Then, we’ll talk about how Blink is helping frontline organizations avoid the same challenges with our “digital front door” approach to our employee app. 

More tools doesn’t always make for a better employee experience

If you ask an economist, they’ll tell you that, thanks in large part to advances in technology, productivity in countries like the U.S. has increased steadily this century. In the U.S., for example, labor productivity is up 1.5% per year since 2000—meaning that workers “produced 60 percent more ‘stuff’ and only increased their hours worked by 10 percent” during that period. As more employees in the workforce come to rely on computers, mobile phones, and applications to get their jobs done, productivity will continue to climb.

But when you ask office workers how the proliferation of technology is impacting their jobs, you’ll likely find a slightly different story. According to research, employees feel overwhelmed by new technology as much as they find it helping them. In fact, 96% say workplace tools aren’t helping them to keep up in their jobs because the “workplace tools are not addressing the root cause of the problems, and employees want tools that help them work smarter, not harder.” 

According to that same research, one of the biggest issues (for 26% of workers) comes from “app switching,” with workers saying that they would prefer to have access to everything they need within one solution. A similar survey from Asana found that “21% of respondents agreed that flicking between apps had made them less efficient at their job.” 

What, exactly, is behind the frustration with app switching, though? Why is productivity up for businesses but office workers themselves feel less productive? Let’s take a look at some of the factors.

1. There are more tools than ever that workers need to manage 

Gartner found that, between 2019 and 2023, the average number of applications that knowledge workers need to do their jobs has nearly doubled, from 6 to 11, with some using 26 or more. That number doesn’t include the HR, scheduling, payroll, survey, and learning tools that workers need to manage as well. All of that adds up to a lot of needless switching between apps and a multitude of passwords to keep track of. 

2. More tools means more notifications

Every tool and application is sending a constant stream of notifications to workers’ phones and email inboxes. Despite—or sometimes because of—the large number of notifications, 36% of workers are still missing or failing to notice important updates because of the number of applications used and the amount of information they’re being exposed to. 

3. Tools don’t work together as seamlessly as workers would like

Whether it’s constantly having to login to different platforms or having to put the same information into multiple tools, workers are feeling frustrated by the challenges of managing so many tools. Sure, there are technological solutions such as API integrations and single sign-on that make juggling so many tools easier for workers. But, it can still feel like the incompatibility across different tools and the constant app switching is negating the productivity benefits of the tools themselves.  

4. Burnout is bringing down engagement and productivity

Despite technology making employees’ jobs easier, the employee experience hasn’t necessarily improved alongside. When workers feel overworked and don’t get personal satisfaction out of their jobs, the end result for many is burnout. In 2023, 65% of employees reported suffering from burnout, which is impacting employee performance and retention for many employers. 

How the “digital front door” makes for a better experience

Blink’s employee app was developed for the frontline organization. We know how challenging it can be to bring a deskless, email-less workforce into the digital age. Rather than developing Blink as a standalone app for frontline workers, we’ve built Blink to be the digital front door for the entire workforce.

What does a digital front door do and why does it matter? 

Think of every app your employees use as a house. When knowledge workers get frustrated with app switching, it’s because they have to travel to a new house, unlock that house, and move stuff between houses. 

Blink takes all of those detached homes and makes them rooms in the same house. Workers only have to walk through one front door to access all of the critical tools and systems they need—from scheduling and pay stubs, to HRIS and benefits, to internal communications and training modules.

That’s why we like to call Blink the employee super-app. It’s not just a place for workers to communicate. It’s not just an intranet. It’s not just a feed for important updates. It puts all of this and more into one personalized app experience that is accessible through any mobile device.  

How Blink makes the digital front door work for frontline organizations

In today’s world, security concerns mean that a lack of a corporate email would typically keep frontline workers from using many corporate tools. Another concern is the added cost: whether it’s the cost of  managing thousands of extra email accounts for frontline workers or the risk of low adoption rates for expensive tools. 

Blink’s solution to these challenges is what creates our digital front door approach and helps elevate Blink from employee app to employee super app. Here are the three things Blink does differently to help bring frontline organizations into the digital workplace:

1. Solving the identity challenge

Identity and access management is critical for a secure technology stack, and it usually revolves around a work email address. No email is no problem for us, however: Blink can act as an Identity Provider. 

By providing an identity to frontline workers, Blink can integrate with any third-party application that supports the SAML 2.0 authentication standard. 

This allows deskless workers to effortlessly authenticate and have their accounts automatically provisioned on third-party applications—without asking workers to juggle multiple usernames, passwords, and applications.

Extra security can be added to Blink through biometric verification and enforcing minimum OS requirements for access to tools via the Blink Hub.

2. Leveraging existing IAM solutions

For companies who have existing identity access management systems like Okta or Azure, employees can still access third-party tools and systems via Blink while using the existing IAM tools to authenticate. 

By linking directly into relevant sections of the workplace tools that are already part of your identity infrastructure, Blink can create a secure and cohesive experience for your entire workforce.

3. Solving the third-party app access challenge

With Blink Hub acting as the digital front door for third-party tools, employees have a consistent, familiar user interface, even as tools come and go. 

Thanks to deep links between Blink and the third-party tools, workers can focus on their task at hand, such as “Request time off” or “View payslip,” without worrying what application they need to open. Blink handles it all and takes them directly to the action in the third-party app. 

See how the digital front door could benefit your frontline workforce

The goal of the digital front door approach is to make a seamless and efficient experience for workers to interact with the digital workspace. For frontline workers who have historically lacked access to many tools and platforms, Blink flattens the learning curve and helps avoid the frustration and burnout that many of their office-based colleagues have experienced.

‍

If you’re looking to bring the benefits of the digital workplace to your frontline workforce, sign up for a personalized demo of Blink’s employee super app today. 

‍

Is your comms still cutting it — or has your strategy fallen behind the times?

Any comms strategy worth its salt is totally up to date — because internal comms trends and employee expectations evolve fast.

What worked even a year ago might already feel tired to employees. That means your messages land with less impact, and the engagement you were counting on slips away.

So how can you tell if your internal communication strategy is still working — or whether it’s time for a refresh?

If your frontline workers are consistently ignoring your updates, your strategy likely needs a serious revamp. However, before you tear everything down and start from scratch, it helps to review highly effective internal communications to see exactly what top organizations are doing right.

Start by watching for these tell-tale signs that your approach needs a glow-up in 2025 and beyond.

6 signs you need to upgrade your internal communication plan

#1. You’re still broadcasting, not conversing

Top-down comms were once the norm. But employees are no longer happy to be the passive recipients of company news. Why? We can point the finger firmly in the direction of social media.

Thanks to the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, we’ve been publishing our own content for decades. We’ve also been interacting with big brands and celebrities who were once completely off-limits.

Employees expect a similar experience in the workplace. To the point that top-down communication now feels like a form of gatekeeping.

When you broadcast information instead of starting a conversation with your workforce, they’re left thinking: What have they got to hide? Are they scared of employee feedback? Is the organization simply uninterested in what we think? 

This lack of trust and transparency harms the employee experience. And if this sounds familiar, you need to flip the script.

How? With a culture of two-way communication — and the communication tools that can facilitate it. Think interactive news feeds, polls, surveys, and leader Q&As.

The C-suite still shares essential information. But employees can reply, react, and respond to messages. They can share their ideas via polls and surveys. They can spark conversations with co-workers and managers.

You make employee communications more interactive, improving comms engagement in the process.

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

#2. Your engagement metrics are mysterious… or missing entirely

You can’t fix what you can’t measure.

If you don’t know who’s opening your messages, which channels are driving the most engagement, or how comms are actually landing across your workforce, you’re working in the dark. And you’ll struggle to make targeted internal comms improvements.

Modern communication tools give you easy access to reliable internal communications metrics. You can:

• Get real-time data on reach, employee sentiment, employee engagement, and more
• Draw links between your comms performance and company KPIs, like customer experience, employee retention, and business revenue
• Segment your data to shine a spotlight on the departments, teams, and locations where comms aren’t cutting through

With the effective tools for analytics and reporting, you can put data at the center of your internal communications plan. Which means less instinct, more insight — and meaningful comms improvements.

{{analytics="/image"}}

#3. Everything sounds like it was written by legal

You know the tone. Overly polished, overly cautious, super-jargony corporate speak. The kind of language that makes every internal message feel like you’re wading through a set of terms and conditions.

This type of language is completely forgettable. It’s unlikely to spark interest, engagement, or interaction — particularly with younger generations within your workforce. And it takes longer for even your smartest employees to read.

So is your comms TOV giving more corporate robot than relatable human? Try reading your messages out loud. If it doesn’t feel like something you’d actually say to someone face-to-face, it’s probably way too formal for your internal communication channels.

To fix it, you can humanize your comms in the following ways:

• Use plain language — no long and complicated words, confusing acronyms, or corporate jargon
• Use a conversational tone — writing more or less as you speak
• Break up long blocks of text — this makes messages less overwhelming and easier to scan and read
• Show a bit of personality — empathy, gentle humor, and the odd personal anecdote go a long way

Above all, remember that the role of comms isn’t just to inform employees — it’s to connect with them. And it’s much easier to do that when you sound real and relatable.

{{less-is-more="/callouts"}}

#4. Frontline workers feel left out

Frontline communication is too often an afterthought. And it’s harming the frontline employee experience.

Most legacy internal communication tools were designed for desk-based workers, so they don’t translate to a mobile format. They also require a corporate email address — something many frontline employees simply don’t have.

You can survey your frontline workers to find out what they think of your comms. And — if they’re feeling left out of the company conversation — this is another sure-fire sign your comms strategy needs some TLC.

The golden rule? If it doesn’t work well on mobile, it doesn’t work for everyone.

So in 2025, you need to go beyond paper memos, personal messaging apps, and word-of-mouth information to embrace mobile-first communication tools, suited to frontline workers.

These tools provide an exceptional experience on desktops and smartphones. And they give all employees easy and intuitive access to company comms, culture, and connection.

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

#5. Your comms channels are working against you

Got a strategy that starts and ends with email? Or SharePoint? Or — on the flip side — so many channels that no one knows where to look?

Both extremes create issues. A one-channel approach makes it hard to reach everyone. But piling on too many platforms without a clear strategy leads to confusion, noise, and missed messages.

Different employees prefer different communication styles. Gen Z might favor short, social-style updates. Other generations may be happy with email. But when there’s no central system or channel clarity, employees are left asking: “Wait — where was that shared?”

Worse still, your internal communications team ends up unsure where to publish updates, and messages get scattered across tools. The result? Diluted impact, clutter, and poor reach.

The fix? Create a unified company communications hub that serves as a single source of truth and supports a mix of clearly defined channels — with audience segmentation baked in.

That might include:

• Instant messaging for real-time collaboration
• A news feed for top-down updates
• Communities for employee-generated content and co-worker conversation
• A content hub or resource center for evergreen info
• Targeted notifications based on role, location, or department

This structure reinforces important messages, helps employees find what they need, and keeps your comms ecosystem organized, strategic, and effective.

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

#6. You’re still treating comms like a service, not a strategy

Your internal comms team deserves a seat at the strategy table. But in many organizations, this still simply isn’t the case.

27% of internal comms professionals surveyed by Gallagher said they lacked leadership buy-in and were left out of decision-making. Many comms teams are still treated like a message delivery service, rather than a strategic partner.

This is one of the biggest comms mistakes you can make. Because when internal communications are involved in corporate strategy from the outset, they can:

• Drive alignment across the entire company
• Improve change communications
• Super-charge company culture
• Connect boardroom and breakroom like never before

With top-level insight and input, your comms team finds it easier to achieve the metrics laid out in your internal comms plan — and achieve metrics relating to wider business performance. We’re talking productivity, employee retention, and employee engagement.

{{get-your-internal-comms-health-score="/callouts"}}

How does your comms strategy stack up?

If you’ve identified one or more of these internal communications issues, rest assured that you’re not alone — and you’re not stuck.

Every one of these challenges is fixable. In fact, just recognizing the gaps in your strategy is the first step toward building a smarter, more effective communications plan.

What next? Upgrade your internal communications strategy and tools to reflect the needs and expectations of the modern workforce.

A modern comms plan is flexible, human, and data-driven. It supports the sharing of relevant, personalized communications to every member of your workforce. It meets employees where they are — over mobile-first tools and a rich mix of communication channels.

Most of all, an up-to-date strategy recognizes that modern internal comms is not just a service but a vital part of your corporate culture, change initiatives, and employee experience.

‍Blink. And give your internal comms strategy the makeover it needs.

What makes him awesome?

Chris has been with Stagecoach since June 2014, making this year his 10th anniversary! Starting out as a driver, he is based on the Lincoln depot.

Chris consistently goes above and beyond in his role, adapting brilliantly to late changes to his working rota and the work contained in it. The nature of the transport industry and staffing needs means no two weeks are the same, as we have to meet demand.

Chris is ultra reliable all the time and never balks at extra work. If Chris says he can't do something for us, there is always a very good reason for that. I feel he deserves recognition for all he gives to both the Training Team, and the drivers he is responsible for.

What does he want to do next?

Anything we want him to do, he will turn his hand to it. The sky’s the limit!

Nominated by: David Earl, Delegated Driving Examiner

HR and employee engagement conferences are more than educational forums for people management insights (although that’s absolutely one of the benefits of attending these events). They are also a gateway to exciting, lucrative networking opportunities — it’s no wonder that huge businesses are built on running conferences for HR and people leaders.

Which employee engagement and HR conferences are best for you to attend in 2023? We’ve put together a list of the events worth your time and the speakers you should be lining up to hear from.

The importance of employee engagement conferences

Every organization strives to engage its workforce, making employee engagement investments and running employee engagement programs. And yet, the latest surveys illustrate that 79% of employees don't feel engaged at work meaning that we’ve still got work to do. 

Disengagement is widespread — particularly when it comes to frontline employee engagement — and every business can take bold steps to improve.

Employee engagement is about inspiring your staff to be the best version of themselves. It requires a proactive attitude, one that picks employees up and motivates them to find their feet and climb higher. 

But the opportunity to engage employees can only be achieved by seeking out the tried and tested advice of experts. And that’s where employee engagement conferences come in.

What's the link between employee experience and employee engagement?

This is a topic we see come up a lot, but there’s an easy way to remember where employee engagement fits within employee experience.

Employee engagement is the target you're trying to hit and employee experience is the means to get you there. 

Employee experience covers everything an individual sees, hears, feels, and believes while at work. It’s made up of countless interactions (or ‘moments that matter’) across the employee lifecycle, from the initial onboarding process to daily tools and responsibilities. Employee engagement, on the other hand, is how demonstrably committed a worker is to their role and your organization.

What are the 4 Cs and 3 Es of employee engagement?

Driving employee engagement is easier when you have a simple guide to follow. Here are the seven key points that will take center stage at employee engagement conferences in 2023:

• Contribution - employees need to feel they have an active role to play in your company and that their work is making a notable impact
• Connection - whether working remotely, on-site, or on the frontline, it's important to avoid working in silos by forging meaningful relationships with co-workers
• Communication - having a management team that’s accessible and approachable offers employees the means by which to speak up and take part
• Confidence - members of staff need certainty in their role, to allow them to perform to the highest of their abilities, without worrying about the health of the company or if their job is at risk
• Empowerment - instilling employees with a sense of trust and authority gives them the motivation to go that extra mile
• Enablement - in order to improve productivity, every employee needs to have the right tool for the job, so ensure their technology needs are met
• Energization - give your staff a reason to act, in an age of unmotivated employees resorting to quiet quitting, incentivize your workers to go above and beyond

The challenges and benefits of frontline employee engagement

Frontline employee engagement challenges

When it comes to frontline employees, there are several unique challenges to consider. And all too often courses, articles, and guides don't feel as relevant or relatable — as if they've been written with one (office-based) employee model in mind.

Frontline workers feel disengagement more acutely than most other professions. For one, there’s the disconnection inherent in their line of work, separating them from their co-workers and the wider organization. This deals a heavy blow to morale and productivity in the process.

The trick is to find an employee engagement solution that suits the frontline’s needs and requirements. It should speak to their inconsistent sense of belonging with the company and offer clear development to help employees build careers with your organization, rather than ‘just jobs’. 

This goes beyond empty investments and initiatives. Frontline employees want to feel listened to, recognized, and included in strategies that directly affect them, rather than being an afterthought.

Frontline employee engagement benefits

The truth is, we all know the benefits of an increase in engagement. Employees that are committed, motivated, and engaged at work deliver more and perform better — and that means your bottom line improves across each and every level of your organization.

Absenteeism and health and safety incidents fall significantly and employee turnover plummets as staff engagement soars. With this, your competitiveness in the industry and attractiveness to prospective new hires is solidified. For CHROs, this is what makes the job feel great and it's understandable to see why employee engagement conferences are so appealing.

Learn more about how frontline organizations can improve employee experience and engagement through Blink’s customer case studies.

11 must-see HR and employee engagement conferences for 2023

UNLEASH America 2023

• Date: April 25-27, 2023
• Location: Las Vegas, USA
• Ticket Price: $1,695

Priding themselves on securing top industry names, you can expect to see representatives from Amazon, Deloitte, Capital One, UPS, Microsoft, and many others, all sharing their invaluable talent management insights.

With a strong focus on HR tech, UNLEASH is the ideal opportunity to explore how technology is changing the future of work across all industries — and the investments you can make to elevate efficiency. It's a must for those in HR and employee engagement.

CIPD Festival of Work

• Date: June 7-8, 2023
• Location: London, UK
• Ticket Price: Free!

This convention is not to be missed. One of the biggest of its kind, the CIPD Festival of Work boasts an impressive roster of guests. Organizations with frontline workers will be particularly interested in hearing from Danny Mortimer, CEO of NHS Employers, Tunde Agoro, Head of ESG at Hydrock, Fiona Brunskill, Chief People Officer of Transport for London, and Toby Culshaw, Global Head of Talent Intelligence at Amazon.

And for that specific focus on employee engagement, CIPD has two keynotes lined up: ‘Maintaining engagement through periods of change’ and ‘Employee listening — the key to retention and employee engagement’.

SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2023

• Date: June 11-14, 2023
• Location: Las Vegas, USA
• Ticket Price: $1,995-$2,495

Energetic, vibrant, and fun — SHRM's annual conferences are well-known in the HR world. SHRM’s mission is to offer the widest possible reach with its events, covering ways to improve every facet of working life.

This gathering of industry professionals from all walks of life guarantees that every organization has something to gain from the expansive four-day HR conference.

HR Summit

• Date: September 28, 2023
• Location: London, United Kingdom
• Ticket Price: TBD

HR Summit is the UK’s home for HR networking. Understanding that your time is precious, their goal is to pair you up with professionals that can answer the burning questions you have and provide the solutions you need.

They achieve this by organizing pre-arranged, face-to-face meetings between delegates and key industry suppliers. The event also features an array of cutting-edge technology, as well as HR products and services, all presented without a pushy hard sell.

HR Vision

• Date: May 9-10, 2023 and October 4-5, 2023
• Location: Amsterdam, Holland and London, UK 
• Ticket Price: £1,499-£2,499

Technology is a main talking point at many HR conferences. The tools we use to manage staff and improve business practices are growing exponentially — and HR Vision dives into the tech that’ll revolutionize your workflows.

The aim of this HR conference is to empower your workforce with the right HR technology and connect People leaders to an impressive set of speakers. Look out for Brady Pyle, Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer at NASA, Stephen Pierce, Deputy MD and CHRO of Hitachi Europe, and Cath Possamai, CEO of Recruiting Group, British Army, and other big names on the HR Vision agenda.

CHROs particularly interested in HR technology should also look at HR Technologies conference in London on 3-4 May.

Western Cities HR Conference 2023

• Date: October 4-6, 2023
• Location: Edmonton, Canada
• Ticket Price: $120

The idea of a sprawling event can feel overwhelming for those new to the employee engagement conference scene. Thankfully, there are more intimate options, such as Canada's Western Cities HR Conference 2023. 

This event is made up of personal interactions with like-minded professionals and is designed to help managers gain a better understanding of their employees’ challenges. And with a focus on improving employee experience to drive employee engagement, this year's Western Cities HR Conference may be the best option for those looking to dip their toe into the HR conference experience.

HR Technology Conference & Expo

• Date: October 10-13, 2023
• Location: Las Vegas, USA
• Ticket Price: $495-$1,825

Delivering the best HR tech on the market is what a lot of HR conferences pride themselves on. But for companies looking ahead to the horizon, they want to know what the next leap is, several years down the line — and how they can get in on the action early.

For those businesses, HR Technology Conference & Expo is where it's at. The organizers certainly know that having your finger on the pulse and investing in HR technology is a reliable way to improve your company’s HR standing.

Gartner ReimagineHR Conference

• Date: September 11-12, 2023, October 23-25, 2023, and December 4-5, 2023
• Location: London, UK, Orlando, USA, and Sydney, Australia
• Ticket Price: $3,700-$4,250

While still too far away for an agenda to have been published, we’re expecting more top-quality content from Gartner’s ReimagineHR Conference in 2023. Attendees of this employee engagement conference will learn how to tackle pressing issues within talent management, such as attrition, while keeping one eye on what’s coming further down the line.

What's more, this is a great opportunity to explore leadership development, culture building, and improved strategic decision-making — all to help your business operate at its highest possible level.

Workday Rising and Workday AMEA

• Date: September 26-29, 2023 and November 14-16, 2023
• Location: San Francisco, USA and Barcelona, Spain
• Ticket price: TBD

Workday’s online employee engagement content was available until April 2023 and it’s bringing the in-person experience to San Francisco and Barcelo towards the end of the year. 

With a rallying cry of “It’s time to rise”, Workday Rising’s conference content is always inspiring — and helps deliver more than a few of those employee engagement 4 Cs and 3 Es. It’s energizing and empowering, designed to enable People leaders to excel in their roles. You’ll also connect with fellow leaders and gain greater confidence in the work that you do.

How to get the most from an employee engagement conference

With so many options in mind, having a clear game plan will result in the best takeaways and ROI from your experience. Here's what you should focus on:

Research and planning

What are the particular challenges your organization is facing? Will improving retention have the most impact or do you need to create a culture of communication? Understanding where you’re at today and where you want to be in the future is a great way to prepare for employee engagement conference season.

While it might not look like it on the surface, each HR conference will have its own niche angle. Research the speakers, investigate the talking points, and read reviews of how engaging and effective their output is. What you want to see are the success stories, so you can become one too.

Organize your time

HR conferences are designed to wow you. There are multiple stands, panels, and events that will draw your attention, but having a clear itinerary will keep you on track. Keep the exact timings and locations of must-see sessions marked down to avoid disappointment. But don't overload yourself either. Make sure you schedule breaks and allow for chance encounters, too.

Network before, during, and after

Speaking of encounters… The best thing about employee engagement conferences is that you’re with like-minded professionals. Hunt down the group chats or hashtags on sites like LinkedIn to build those connections in advance, then make time in your schedule to introduce yourself in person.

And, perhaps most importantly, keep the fire burning. Maintain momentum and keep in touch to convert that conference acquaintance into a strong business connection.

This is particularly important for HR leaders from frontline organizations. As we know, there are very few conferences that cater specifically to the frontline employee engagement challenges, so use the events listed above to find your allies. You can support each other from there!

Meet Blink at an employee engagement conference near you

Here at Blink, we don't just talk about HR conferences — we attend them too. Take a look at the exciting employee engagement conferences we'll be attending this year. And whether this is your first time or you're a seasoned pro, come and say hello.

Bad communication isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a business risk.

In a hybrid, fast-changing workplace, outdated internal comms strategies can lead to disengagement, confusion, and missed opportunities.

It’s time to rethink your approach and measure what truly drives success.

Thanks to evolving internal communications software, comms team leaders increasingly have the tools they need to deliver a modern internal communications plan. They can share important company news, boost workforce resilience, and create a strong company culture. 

They can also measure the impact of your internal communication strategies, proving ROI and finding meaningful ways to improve internal comms and achieve your communication goals going forward.

Let’s look at the hard (quantitative) and soft (qualitative) metrics you should be looking at to get a holistic view of your comms performance.

{{get-your-internal-comms-health-score="/callouts"}}

Key metrics for a modern internal communications plan

Hard metrics

Hard metrics are quantitative. They’re objective measures that don’t rely on opinion or perception. This means they’re easy to measure and track — and they provide clear benchmarks for performance.

Here are the key qualitative metrics you should be using to assess the success of your modern internal communication strategies.

#1. Read and response rates

This metric shows you how often employees open and respond to internal communications. You can gather these metrics via the analytics dashboard on your company intranet.

High read and response rates signal that:

• Your internal key messages are relevant to their target audience
• Your messages contain clear, actionable information
• Employees know where to find internal messages on your internal communications channels

Low read and response rates suggest that employees aren’t engaging with your internal messages — and there are several reasons this could be the case.

Perhaps you aren’t personalizing content to employees in different roles, locations, and departments. As a result, employees receive too many irrelevant messages and have decided — out of overwhelm or frustration — to switch off from employee communications.

Message timing (particularly if you have employees who work shifts), complicated communication channels, and a lack of clarity could also be to blame.

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

#2. Platform adoption rates

This metric shows you what proportion of employees are using your internal communication platform. High platform adoption rates signal that:

• You provide effective communications about platform onboarding and training
• Your communications platform is accessible to all employees
• Your platform is user-friendly

Low platform adoption rates indicate that:

• Employees are having difficulty accessing your comms platform. This could be because you have a desktop-based intranet that your frontline employees can’t access easily. Or because it’s difficult for employees to remember the login details for multiple internal communication tools.
  
• Employees don’t like using your comms platform. Perhaps your platform isn’t intuitive to use. Or employees aren’t aware of all the useful communication tools it provides. Or it doesn’t offer the levels of engagement and gamification they’re getting from shadow IT solutions.

#3. Employee engagement metrics

You can track employee engagement by looking at a variety of data, including the following:

• Survey participation
• Attendance at company events
• How often employees interact with your intranet
• Interactions by target audience, team, and location

Low levels of employee engagement are a cause for concern — especially when engaged employees are more likely to be more productive and stay at their company for longer. So this metric is a useful warning sign that your employee experience — both on and off your internal communication channels — could use some work.

#4. User-generated content (UGC) metrics

UGC is a key part of any modern internal communication plan. It’s also a useful way to judge the effectiveness of your employee comms. With Blink analytics, you can see which employees post most regularly — and identify those who rarely interact with your news feed.

You can also track useful metrics like these:

• Number of user-generated posts
• Number of likes, shares, and comments on news feed posts
• Number of unique contributors

There’s a correlation between high levels of UGC and a thriving workplace culture. So if these metrics are low, consider what you can do to build a strong company culture and foster a sense of togetherness.

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

Soft metrics

Soft metrics capture the emotional and cultural impact of your employee communications. They uncover the opinions and feelings of your employees, revealing the “why” behind the numbers provided by hard metrics.

Here are some soft metrics that will help you to assess the effectiveness of your internal communication strategies.

#5. Employee sentiment

You can measure employee sentiment with the help of focus groups and employee surveys. Include employees from across your organization and ask open-ended questions like:

• What one thing would improve the internal communication function at [your organization]?
• Which communication channels work best for you and why?
• What could managers do differently to improve two-way communication with their teams?

You can then analyze answers — ideally with the help of analytics software — assessing whether employee sentiment is largely negative or positive and identifying recurring themes. Consider deploying pulse surveys in addition to long-form annual engagement surveys to benefit from more frequent and real-time responses.

#6. Observations of employee behavior

Another way to gather soft metrics is by observing employee behavior.

Perhaps there’s been an uptick in cross-departmental collaboration and engagement. Or maybe there’s been a shift in tone and participation during meetings. It could be that employees are now more likely to reference company values and organizational strategy in their online and offline contributions.

Tracking these changes — across all business units, teams, and locations — gives you insight into how your employee communications contribute to a strong company culture.

#7. Quality of feedback and suggestions

Any modern internal communication plan should encourage employee feedback. So the quality of that feedback is another soft metric you can track. 

Alongside qualitative data — like the number of survey responses and the number of questions completed — you can analyze the depth and constructiveness of the employee feedback you receive.

Assess whether suggestions are feasible and aligned with organizational goals — and whether suggestions are coming from all parts of the organization.

If employee feedback isn’t useful, you could try:

• Rewording your survey questions
• Reassuring employees of survey anonymity
• Ensuring surveys are easy to complete, via each employee’s communication channel of choice (this is especially important for frontline workers!)

Also, be sure to close the feedback loop. Inform employees of your survey findings and proposed actions so they retain faith in the feedback process.

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

Bridging the gap: Use hard and soft metrics to assess your internal communications strategy.

When tackling your internal communications planning, combine both hard and soft metrics. This gives you a holistic view of what’s happening within your organization.

Use hard data to validate qualitative observations — and use soft data to provide context for your qualitative findings. Then, break down your data by department, role, and location to identify patterns.

Be sure to make use of advanced analytics software, too. It helps you make quick and easy sense of your data. And you can use it to tie metrics to bigger business goals — like employee engagement levels, productivity, employee retention, and business revenue.

Together, hard and soft metrics give you a deeper understanding of comms performance — and help you make targeted and effective improvements to meet your communication goals.

‍Blink. And modernize your internal comms plan.

The frontline industry is currently facing more challenges than most when it comes to empowering staff.  

The Great Resignation, toxic leadership and the rise of “Quiet Quitting” led to a frontline feeling overworked and undervalued. Today, frontline employees need to feel more supported, confident and empowered in their roles.

And there is hope. Slowly but surely, companies are beginning to realize the importance of empowering their frontline employees. And as more organizations come to see the value of Diversity & Inclusion (DE&I), the frontline sector is starting to transform. Workers are beginning to feel appreciated again, and they are finally able to do their jobs with pride. 

But only if their leaders take charge.

So, how can you better empower frontline employees? What does employee empowerment even mean, anyway? And how does this affect your frontline workers specifically?

Read on to learn everything you need to know about empowering your frontline team, from what frontline empowerment really is, to why it matters and how you can implement it. With the right tools and empowerment strategies in place, your frontline can be more engaged, productive, and empowered than ever before!

Key challenges faced by frontline employees

80% of the global workforce already performs physical or deskless work. In order to keep things running smoothly for the majority of the  global workforce, those on the frontline need to be able to rely on a few things. 

Unfortunately, many of them are currently facing challenges that are making their jobs more difficult than they should be.

• Pay increases have not kept up with inflation: This means that those on the frontline are struggling to make ends meet, and it can be hard to keep morale high when you're not being rewarded for your hard work.
• The frontline are often passed over for opportunities their desked peers are given: This can make it harder for them to advance in their careers and stay motivated or productive on the job, which has led to frustration, disillusionment, and the rise of the Great Resignation.
• If treated like desk-based workers, the frontline can't succeed: Deskless employees need to be given the necessary tools and training to perform their jobs well, as well as access to technology that improves communication and collaboration. Without it, companies will continue to see a lack of productivity and engagement among their workforce.
• Lack of leadership enablement: Leadership needs to let go and resist the urge to try and fix all problems themselves. They need to trust that mid-level managers have the ability to train and support the frontline. When a problem occurs, leaders need to equip managers with the right tools to overcome frontline challenges.  
• Lack of frontline engagement: Without two-way communications, it is more difficult for leaders to make the frontline want to engage. As such, they are struggling to build trust and confidence with their teams. The truth is, if you're good to the frontline, they'll be good to your bottom line. You need to show your frontline you care to earn their engagement.
• No ambassadors: Without frontline ambassadors, there's no way to drive good will, reputation and sales. Frontline employees are the face of your company. If they love their jobs, they'll naturally want to spread the word about what you do.

Because of these industry challenges, many frontline employees have been left unhappy, unmotivated, and leaving companies faster than you can say quiet-quitting.

Today , leaders are facing a limited workforce. Because of this labor shortage, they are looking for more effective ways to reach higher levels of productivity, employee retention and ultimately, success.

What does frontline empowerment mean? 

So what actually is frontline empowerment? What's the substance behind the hype?

At its core, frontline empowerment is about giving your frontline workers the freedom and authority to make decisions and take valuable action on their own. This means providing them with all the resources, information, training, and tools they need to succeed at their jobs.

Of course, empowering your frontline won't happen overnight - it takes time and effort. But by introducing the notion of 'doing more with less', using effective employee tools to drive change and productivity, and committing to ongoing communication and training, you can create a successful and sustainable culture of empowerment that will benefit everyone involved.

Why empowering the frontline is so important

Did you know that almost all (90% of) organizations say success depends on empowering frontline employees to make decisions in the moment?

With a culture of empowerment in place, those on the frontline can bridge the gap between management and the rank-and-file, allowing them to collaborate more effectively and achieve higher levels of engagement. This in turn boosts engagement across your entire workforce, creating a culture where everyone feels valued and motivated to succeed.

Additionally,  there's no lack of research to back the frontline empowerment trend. A 2020 Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey gathered the insights of 464 business executives across an array of industries.The findings were clear: organizations empowering their frontline employees are seeing an array of benefits, and those who are not are falling behind. 

Here are a few reasons why frontline empowerment is vital to your corporate culture and overall company success:

1. Cultivating a sense of belonging to retain the best talent

"The vast majority of deskless workers (97%) report that they would stay in their current roles if their conditions improved. Such conditions go beyond a pay rise, meaning that HR needs to offer deskless workers the same opportunities as their deskbound counterparts."

This means prioritizing your team's mental health, giving them the right technology and resources they need to thrive and investing in their engagement and empowerment to create a true sense of belonging. In order to retain the best talent and build a strong, engaged workforce, empowering your frontline is essential.

It helps to create a collaborative culture where everyone feels like an integral part of the team. This kind of environment reduces turnover rates and builds up a strong sense of camaraderie that drives long-term success for your organization.

2. Improving frontline engagement and morale

Empowered frontline employees are engaged frontline employees. An engaged frontline workforce means better employee morale and cohesion between your frontline teams. 

By empowering the frontline, you are also giving them the authority to make decisions on their own and take action in real-time - something that is vital when dealing with fast-paced, dynamic business environments. In turn, this continuous flow of engagement not only keeps everyone motivated and engaged, but it also creates more transparency and trust between management and those on the frontline.

With engagement as a natural part of your organizational culture, you can also expect to see improved productivity,  performance and results from your frontline teams. On top of this, a disengaged employee costs around 34% of their annual salary, meaning that strong engagement can actually have a direct positive impact on your bottom line.

3. Satisfied staff leads to satisfied customers 

Frontline workers are the first point of call between your organization and your customers, yet they remain an afterthought in many digital workplaces. This causes a lack of motivation in workers and a disconnect from the wider workforce – and their customers.

Simply put: when you empower frontline staff, you improve customer satisfaction.

Customer feedback, whether positive or negative, is extremely valuable to any business. And in order to get that feedback, you need your frontline employees, who are interacting with customers on a daily basis, to feel empowered and engaged to take action.

By giving the right tools and resources to your frontline teams, as well as giving them autonomy over how they do their jobs, you can facilitate better interactions with customers and improve overall customer satisfaction levels.

How to introduce, implement and sustain frontline empowerment

While HR trends state a range of strategies on the horizon for the frontline in 2023, including implementing mobile-first self-service enterprise software, increasing career opportunities and improving working conditions, one thing is clear. HR will drastically increase investment in its deskless workers over the coming months and years.

So how can you keep up with the trend? How can you introduce, implement and sustain frontline empowerment within your organization? Here are our eight top tips:

1. Start a frontline management flywheel to drive success 

As leaders looking to empower their frontline, it's vital to define the standard you want to achieve. Defining this level of performance will help you set a standard to aspire to. A frontline management flywheel - defined by small management wins that accumulate over time to drive overall business growth - can help you map out how to start, implement and sustain successful empowerment initiatives.

Some core components of a frontline management flywheel include setting clear goals, aligning the right resources behind those goals, measuring progress and scaling success as you go.

2. Provide the right training for each level of worker

Ongoing and engaging training is key when it comes to empowering the frontline. This means making sure that your deskless workers have access to the right training programs and resources to be successful in their jobs, as well as investing in regular management training for those at the top of your organization.

For deskless workers, this means providing virtual or on-the-job training, as well as investing in coaching and mentoring programs that can help them to grow. For management-level employees, this means providing opportunities for professional development or leadership training.

3. Give them decision making abilities 

In order for frontline empowerment initiatives to be successful, it's important that your frontline workers are equipped to make important decisions on the spot. Providing them with the right tools, resources and training can help them lead effectively, and empower them to make quick decisions when needed.

Equipping frontline managers to lead, make important decisions with confidence and empower their teams to do the same will help to drive better results for your organization as a whole.

One great example of this is Salutem's SELF initiatives - giving employees opportunities to be part of important decisions by empowering them with a Salutem Employee Listening Forum facilitated by the Blink employee app – an intuitive, two-way, all-in-one solution to employee communications.

4. Provide the right tools and technology

With 52% of frontline workers claiming they would leave their job over tech tools, it’s clear to see the impact that the right employee technology and digital employee experience can have on a company.

Empowering the frontline is not just about giving them more autonomy in their roles – it's also about giving them the right tools, training and resources they need to be successful in these roles.

By investing in key employee technology platforms, you can equip your frontline teams with what they need to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, to reach better performance and results.

This might include employee scheduling software, communication and collaboration tools, or even data analytics software that can help deskless workers make more informed decisions on their own. 

5. Get and give regular feedback

As with any other important initiative in your organization, empowering the frontline requires a commitment from leadership. This means that as a leader, it's important to get regular feedback on how these initiatives are going, as well as giving your frontline managers and employees the opportunity to provide their own feedback about how you can continue to grow and improve their employee experience.

By making a commitment to getting and giving regular feedback, you can stay on top of the changes and challenges that come with empowering your frontline team, and continue to make meaningful improvements along the way.

6. Have a thorough onboarding process

At Blink, we recently held a five-day hackathon where our conversations highlighted that onboarding processes are not only key to a successful retention strategy at our company but also for many of the large organizations that we work with.

Your onboarding process is where your employees get their first impression of what it's like to work at your organization. And so, it's important that this experience is a positive one, and that your deskless workers are set up for success right from the start. Unfortunately, only 12% of employees feel strongly that their organization does a great job onboarding new people.

This might include providing ongoing training and support during onboarding, or making sure that all of the necessary tools, including employee experience tools, and resources are available, accessible and set up from day one.

Blink's Hub - a centralized and secure frontline environment where digital forms, policies, safety guidelines and other relevant documents are stored - allows frontline organizations to store private and secure information that are shareable by teams. These allow frontline workers to access relevant documentation (training, e-learning materials, videos) to accelerate their onboarding process.

Blink's Directory also allows users to know who's doing what and in what team, making onboarding a whole lot smoother for leadership, too.

7. Recognize and reward hard work

To empower your frontline team and create a sense of autonomy and ownership, it's essential to recognize their hard work and reward them accordingly. You can think about offering the right mix of rewards, recognition and incentives that can motivate them. 

Why? Well, 36% of employees say lack of recognition is the top reason to leave their job, while

more than 40% of employees feel that being recognized often means they put more energy into their work.

Addressing this will require regular performance reviews, incentive programs or even creative rewards such as Kudos, personalized gift cards or experiences that can motivate your frontline team to continue doing their best work.

How Blink can help you empower your frontline

Employee Surveys

With Blink's Employee Surveys, you can regularly pulse check your frontline to get a consistent sense of what's going on for your workforce. By gathering reliable, real-time data you can ensure you're doing what's right before it's too late. By maximizing the right initiatives, HR leaders are able to encourage getting and giving regular feedback.

Feed

Create a sense of belonging using Blink's Feed. The Feed opens up multi-directional conversations allowing the frontline to share thoughts and feedback through polls, sentiment through reactions, likes and comments. With Feed, you're able to create a culture of constant improvement, and encourage your frontline to continue putting their feedback forward.

Employee Recognition 

Blink's Recognition feature allows anyone in the company to recognize hard work and achievements, as well as spread positive word of mouth about their team members. By giving your frontline team the opportunity to recognize each other's work, and by providing regular recognition programs and incentives, you will empower your employees.

Blink Champions

Without team members championing your empowerment initiatives, it can be hard to get them off the ground. As such, Blink Champions are the cornerstone of a successful launch for your next frontline empowerment initiative. The role of a Blink Champions includes:

• Working with other Champions to ensure the launch is a success
• Raising awareness of Blink and encouraging others to use the app
• Being active in the Feed
• Educating teams on how to use the app
• Being an advocate for Blink.

Hear from Brittany Schlacter, Communications Specialist and Blink Champion at The Rapid:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pbi0QDbucpY

Final Thoughts

The race is on for frontline leaders to empower their workers. And fortunately, frontline leaders know this is needed and are ready to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

We've highlighted some of the ways that you can empower your frontline team, including investing in your digital transformation efforts, recognising and rewarding hard work, and using Employee Surveys to gather and act on feedback.

By implementing some of these initiatives, you can create a sense of autonomy and ownership among your employees, driving productivity and growth in your organization.

To unlock frontline empowerment to its highest potential, consider investing in the Blink employee app. With tools like Employee Recognition, Hub, Feed and a dedicated champion team, you'll be able to empower your frontline employees in no time!