Meet Isobel Sanders (fondly known in the office as Izzy), our business intelligence lead in the London office. After being a frontline employee in previous roles, such as retail and hospitality, Isobel was extremely interested in the work that Blink was doing and knew she wanted to be along for the ride!
Izzy has been with Blink for a year and a half where she helped launch Advanced Employee Intelligence, and has also worked on internal business analysis across various topics across the business. This includes marketing analytics, creating a customer health score, sales pipeline coverage, implementation tracking, and more.
“Blink is a collaborative, challenging and fun work environment, where there is not just one direction to go in, but many different ones” says Izzy.
We sat down and asked her some burning questions about what it's like working at Blink, what she's proud of, and things she's looking forward to most during her time at Blink.
So…over to the interview…
What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?
One project that stands out during my time at Blink is the development of customer-facing analytics. I helped create a dashboard that is seamlessly integrated into Blink's platform. What started as an internal tool quickly evolved into a product in its own right, showcasing how our work directly enhances the company's value proposition. I am excited to transform the frontline worker experience, an area that's often ignored.
Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
Recently, I helped Blink launch an initiative called Advanced Employee Intelligence. Advanced Employee Intelligence allows us to influence all levels of the business, whether it's helping the internal comms team optimize the feed experience, connecting employees with their colleagues through channels or allowing employees to easily find what they need through hub analytics. We can also go above and beyond Blink usage and provide AI driven sentiment insights and turnover statistics, while retaining anonymity to create a culture of trust.This initiative promises to leverage data in unprecedented ways, offering insights that not only benefit our customers but also enhance their overall organizational effectiveness.
What are you excited about for the future of Blink?
Looking ahead, I'm enthusiastic about Blink's potential to revolutionize the frontline worker experience. By harnessing data insights, I aim to reduce turnover and foster a sense of belonging among employees, making an impact on workplace dynamics.
Why Blink?
Blink is not just the product itself, but the endless possibilities it presents. As a data person, I enjoy having access to a wide-ranging product. Blink doesn't offer a single path; instead, it encourages exploration and innovation across multiple fronts.
Working at Blink is about being part of a transformative journey. Every day, I strive to redefine how technology can enrich the lives of frontline workers, making work not only efficient but also meaningful.
You can join Isobel at Blink, where data meets purpose, and together, we shape the future of the frontline. Search for opportunities on our careers page: https://www.joinblink.com/careers
Meet Isobel Sanders (fondly known in the office as Izzy), our business intelligence lead in the London office. After being a frontline employee in previous roles, such as retail and hospitality, Isobel was extremely interested in the work that Blink was doing and knew she wanted to be along for the ride!
Izzy has been with Blink for a year and a half where she helped launch Advanced Employee Intelligence, and has also worked on internal business analysis across various topics across the business. This includes marketing analytics, creating a customer health score, sales pipeline coverage, implementation tracking, and more.
“Blink is a collaborative, challenging and fun work environment, where there is not just one direction to go in, but many different ones” says Izzy.
We sat down and asked her some burning questions about what it's like working at Blink, what she's proud of, and things she's looking forward to most during her time at Blink.
So…over to the interview…
What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?
One project that stands out during my time at Blink is the development of customer-facing analytics. I helped create a dashboard that is seamlessly integrated into Blink's platform. What started as an internal tool quickly evolved into a product in its own right, showcasing how our work directly enhances the company's value proposition. I am excited to transform the frontline worker experience, an area that's often ignored.
Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
Recently, I helped Blink launch an initiative called Advanced Employee Intelligence. Advanced Employee Intelligence allows us to influence all levels of the business, whether it's helping the internal comms team optimize the feed experience, connecting employees with their colleagues through channels or allowing employees to easily find what they need through hub analytics. We can also go above and beyond Blink usage and provide AI driven sentiment insights and turnover statistics, while retaining anonymity to create a culture of trust.This initiative promises to leverage data in unprecedented ways, offering insights that not only benefit our customers but also enhance their overall organizational effectiveness.
What are you excited about for the future of Blink?
Looking ahead, I'm enthusiastic about Blink's potential to revolutionize the frontline worker experience. By harnessing data insights, I aim to reduce turnover and foster a sense of belonging among employees, making an impact on workplace dynamics.
Why Blink?
Blink is not just the product itself, but the endless possibilities it presents. As a data person, I enjoy having access to a wide-ranging product. Blink doesn't offer a single path; instead, it encourages exploration and innovation across multiple fronts.
Working at Blink is about being part of a transformative journey. Every day, I strive to redefine how technology can enrich the lives of frontline workers, making work not only efficient but also meaningful.
You can join Isobel at Blink, where data meets purpose, and together, we shape the future of the frontline. Search for opportunities on our careers page: https://www.joinblink.com/careers
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How well does your company engage its employees? Unless you’re running regular employee engagement surveys, you really can’t be sure.
Employee engagement is the process of ensuring your workforce feels invested in their work and your organization. It’s associated with a lot of business benefits, including better employee retention, performance, and productivity.
Regular employee surveys show you how you’re doing in terms of employee engagement. Surveys reveal employee sentiment and help identify areas for improvement.
Depending on the questions you ask, they can tell you how employees feel about their work-life balance and wellbeing. They can reveal insights into internal communications and your training programs. They can also shine a light on company culture.
Surveys are particularly important when we consider the issues many organizations have motivating and engaging their staff. According to Gallup research, only 23% of the global workforce is engaged at work.
For frontline teams, engagement can be an even bigger problem. Frontline employees are less trusting and more likely to experience burnout than their desk-based peers. According to Qualtrics research, they’re also less happy with pay and benefits, less satisfied with career development, and less trusting of leadership than non-frontline workers.
Engaging all employees — including those on the frontline — is a challenge. You’re better equipped to take on that challenge when you have the right data at your disposal. That means getting reliable insights with regular employee engagement surveys.
Here, we take a look at how employee experience surveys benefit your business. We share some survey best practices and some employee engagement survey question examples, too.
We’ll be covering:
Benefits of conducting regular employee engagement surveys
Key ingredients for effective employee engagement surveys
The three types of employee engagement survey question
46 employee engagement survey question examples
Using technology to improve the employee survey process
Benefits of conducting regular employee engagement surveys
82% of HR leaders consider it very important or important to increase the frequency of employee listening over the next three years. 57% say they’re running employee experience surveys every quarter at a minimum.
So should you follow suit? Here’s why taking the time to conduct regular employee engagement surveys is well worth your while.
Track employee sentiment. Regular surveys help you keep your finger on the pulse of your organization. You see how your workforce views employee experience at your company at any given moment. This ensures engagement issues — like low morale and high turnover — don’t take you by surprise.
Identify areas for improvement. Employee engagement surveys take guesswork out of the equation. By drilling down into survey data, you identify the departments, teams, and areas of employee experience that are most in need of work. You learn what motivates employees and which changes to company culture they want to see.
Give all employees a voice. Frontline workers don’t tend to spend a lot of time working alongside managers. So assessing employee sentiment on an informal basis is difficult, if not impossible. A structured survey strategy ensures you hear voices from across the organization. This means more meaningful and valuable insights.
Improve business performance. Higher levels of employee engagement lead to better employee performance, productivity, and loyalty. They also provide a host of other business performance benefits. By incorporating employee surveys into your employee experience strategy, you improve engagement and make your organization more successful, too.
Key ingredients for effective employee engagement surveys
Before you start putting together employee survey questions, it’s important to establish a few best practices. By incorporating these key ingredients, you create surveys that yield meaningful data and encourage employee participation, too.
To build surveys into your company culture, you need the following.
1. A selection of appropriate survey questions
Employee survey questions should be aligned with your organization and its goals. They also need to be worded in such a way that they produce reliable and significant data.
Each employee engagement survey question should be:
Aligned with employee engagement KPIs — so you’re measuring the things that matter to your organization
Based on something you’re prepared to take action on — employees will lose faith in the survey process if you fail to make changes in response to their constructive feedback
Neutrally worded — an employee engagement survey question shouldn’t sway respondents in one direction or another
Centered around one issue — ask about one thing at a time or you won’t be able to draw clear conclusions from employee answers
2. A survey communication strategy
As well as devising surveys with the right employee survey questions, you need to think about how you’re going to communicate with employees throughout the survey process.
Consider the communication channels you’ll use to reach employees, including those working on the frontline of your organization. Also, clarify which information you’ll be sharing with employees.
Regular, open communication is best. Tell employees why you’re doing the survey and what they stand to gain by filling it out. Explain how long the survey will take to complete and give assurances of anonymity. Also, tell them how you’ll inform them of survey results and any subsequent employee experience action plan.
You’ll need messages targeted at reluctant survey respondents, too. A schedule of gentle reminders can work. You may also like to get your leaders involved. When leaders promote surveys, employees see that their opinions are being taken seriously at the highest levels of your organization — and they’re more likely to take part.
3. Anonymity and confidentiality
Without the promise of anonymity and confidentiality, employees tend to get a bit cagey with their survey responses. They may end up telling you what they think you want to hear. Or they may fail to answer survey questions honestly out of concern for their career or workplace relationships.
To encourage employees to answer questions candidly, tell them how you’ll protect their anonymity. Also, use survey tools that make it easy to collect survey responses anonymously.
4. A suitable survey frequency
A lot can happen in a year and annual surveys are far too infrequent. But you don’t want to bombard your employees with survey requests either. It’s all about striking the right balance.
In our experience, the following schedule works well:
an in-depth survey to track employee experience changes each quarter
pulse surveys to gauge real-time employee sentiment each month
This approach doesn’t risk survey fatigue. Nor does it allow for employee experience blind spots to develop. Instead, it successfully makes surveys an integral and valuable part of company culture.
As well as considering how often you expect employees to complete surveys, consider how long you expect them to spend filling them out.
Busy frontline workers are often stretched for time. So surveys should take a maximum of 10 minutes for employees to complete. To ensure high-quality, constructive feedback you don’t want respondents to rush their answers or give up on a survey part-way through.
5. Analyzing and interpreting survey results
Once you’ve gathered survey responses, you can start analyzing and interpreting them.
You can use your data to identify your best and worst performing areas — and to establish benchmarks. You can also segment data, according to employee team, department, or tenure, to find variances in employee experience across your organization.
With the right survey tools, this process is quicker and easier. You get intelligent analysis and recommendations based on your survey findings, without having to process data manually.
The three types of employee engagement survey question
There are three different types of employee engagement survey questions you can ask. Using all three will help you to gather constructive feedback and useful insights.
Qualitative survey questions
Qualitative questions take the form of yes/no, multiple choice, or a rating scale (1 to 10).
Here are a few examples:
Rate the following statement on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 = strongly disagree. 10 = strongly agree.
I enjoy a good work-life balance.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
How often do you get constructive feedback from managers?
1. Once a week
2. Once a month
3. Once a year or less
4. Never
Quantitative questions are quick and easy for employees to answer. They also provide survey results that are easy to analyze. This type of employee engagement survey question is well-suited to both quarterly surveys and pulse surveys.
Quantitative survey questions
Quantitative questions are open-ended. They give employees the chance to write a response in their own words and can reveal unexpected perspectives.
Here are some examples:
What is one thing you’d like leadership to know about your onboarding experience?
What can we do to improve internal communication at [company]?
Qualitative questions give in-depth insight into what employees are thinking and feeling. While a quantitative question can tell you if someone is proud to work for your company, you need a qualitative question to explain why.
Results for qualitative questions are a little trickier to analyze. They also require more time and thought from employees. As a result, qualitative questions aren’t well-suited to short pulse surveys. Instead, they work best as part of your quarterly employee engagement survey — and even then, should be kept to a minimum.
Demographic survey questions
Demographic survey questions help you to segment your survey results while maintaining employee anonymity. Here are some examples:
What team are you on?
How long have you worked at [company]?
These demographic questions are relevant to all employee engagement surveys. They help you understand employee experience across your organization, drawing more detailed conclusions from your results and facilitating targeted interventions.
46 employee engagement survey question examples
Ready to put your first employee survey together? Then start by taking a look at these employee survey question examples.
Company culture questions
A strong company culture prompts high levels of employee engagement — and high levels of employee engagement help you foster a strong company culture. So finding out what employees think of your workplace culture is an engagement survey essential.
I would recommend [company] as a great place to work.
At [company] we value open and honest communication.
[Company] is a safe place to work.
[Company] cares about my wellbeing.
I am valued by [company].
I can raise problems and concerns with leaders and managers.
Leaders keep everyone informed about what is happening at [company].
What can we do to improve communication at [company]?
What could we do to improve company culture?
Morale and engagement questions
Employees are more likely to be engaged when they feel aligned with company goals. Here are some survey questions that help you to assess their sense of motivation and purpose.
I feel a sense of accomplishment most days.
I know what is expected of me to be successful.
I know how my role supports the goals of the company.
I’m inspired by the purpose and mission of the company.
I rarely think about looking for a job at another company.
I see myself working at [company] two years from now.
What do we do well at [company]?
What could we do better at [company]?
Questions about management
70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. So use your engagement surveys to find out what employees think about their team leaders.
My manager leads by example.
My manager cares about my opinion.
I get enough constructive feedback on how well I’m doing my job.
I am given enough freedom to decide how to do my work.
My manager promotes an open and constructive way to deal with problems.
I find my workload manageable.
My manager gives me the support I need to do my job well.
If you were a manager, how would you motivate your employees?
Teamwork and belonging questions
Employees who feel that they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to do their best work. These questions will help you find out whether employees view your workplace as inclusive and supportive.
I make a difference to my team.
I feel like I belong within [company].
I get enough opportunities to collaborate with my team.
People from all backgrounds have equal opportunity to succeed at [company].
I can ask other team members for help when I need it.
Desk-based and frontline employees are treated equally at [company].
How could your team improve communication and collaboration?
Recognition and benefits questions
Recognition along with a fair salary and benefits are crucial for a positive employee experience. Use employee survey questions like these to gauge employee sentiment on these topics.
I receive recognition when I do good work.
I believe my benefits package is good by industry standards.
I understand the benefits available to me.
I enjoy a good work-life balance.
I feel adequately rewarded for my contributions to [company].
Salaries and benefits are awarded fairly at [company].
What benefits would you like to see provided by [company]?
Learning and growth questions
Organizations that don’t provide skills-building opportunities are 72% less likely to have employees saying they want to work there for more than a year. You can find out if your learning and development efforts are up to scratch by asking questions like these.
The information I need to do my job well is available.
I have access to the tools I need to do my job well.
I believe there are strong career opportunities for me at [company].
I have access to the learning and development I need to do my job well.
Training at [company] is effective.
Managers have shown a genuine interest in my career aspirations.
What can we do to better support your development and career goals?
Using technology to improve the survey process
Establishing survey best practices and asking the right questions are essential to a successful employee survey initiative. Having the right technology makes a big difference, too. It makes the survey process quicker, easier, and more effective.
For frontline organizations, a mobile-first employee app, equipped to deliver surveys, works well. You don’t have to rely on inefficient paper surveys or shared devices. Instead, you can send surveys to every employee’s smartphone, increasing adoption and response rates in the process.
With an employee engagement app like Blink, you can launch quarterly and pulse surveys to your entire workforce in minutes. Choose from a selection of pre-prepared employee engagement survey questions or create your own.
Blink allows employees to respond to surveys anonymously, which builds trust with your workforce and ensures you get honest, useful data. Your HR team can also use Blink Analytics, which streamlines survey data analysis and helps you identify the most pressing employee engagement issues in an instant.
When’s the last time you had a work-related question, opened your phone to Google it, and ended up down a rabbit hole of Tasty slow cooker recipe videos on Instagram?
If the answer is, “Not that long ago,” don’t worry. You’re not alone.
Many people consider social networks a productivity killer. Swiping through an endless stream of dog videos can make it hard to get work done.
Social media apps get a bad rap at work, but that’s because they’re so good at keeping people engaged and interacting.
What if you could harness the power of social media and use it to help your employees engage more at work?
You can use a social intranet to make your internal communications as engaging as a playlist of cats riding Roombas (well, almost).
With a social intranet, your employee network becomes more than a dumping ground for company documents — it’s a place where people can collaborate, learn, and feel connected to one another.
A social intranet is a private collaboration platform where workers can access content in one place. It offers social features like commenting and messaging so employees can interact and work together. And unlike traditional intranet solutions, social intranet software uses interactive elements to increase employee engagement and collaboration in the digital workspace.
Since intranets are networks only company employees can access, they serve as internal communications and knowledge management tools.
Why employee apps are the new intranet
Are intranets a thing of the past? In this eBook, learn how to engage with the deskless workforce effectively to build strong, happy frontline organizations.
Traditional intranet setups have more restrictions when it comes to posting and interaction. For most employees, it’s like having “read-only” access to company resources.
Yes, social intranets are still relevant — here's how to use one 1
On the other hand, social intranets give workers permission to create and engage with content. You can use social intranets to share company resources and encourage employees to connect with each other and the content.
Let’s take a look at some of the top benefits of choosing a social intranet over a traditional one.
Deloitte found that improving employee engagement can increase retention by up to 87%. The study also suggests that using social tools internally increases employee satisfaction by 20%.
Socializing intranet with features like instant messaging keeps your employees connected so they’re more likely to feel like they’re part of a team.
Better collaboration
Gone are the days when you had a question at work and you had to walk five desks over to get your answer. With remote working in a digital workspace, your employees may be spread over several states and countries. That can make collaboration a challenge.
Social intranets provide tools that make it easier for your employees to connect and work together by offering features such as status updates and commenting. Activity streams, which are similar to social media news feeds, keep everyone in the loop, and private instant messages (which work like, e.g. Instagram DMs) eliminate the need for lengthy email chains.
Increased productivity
If workplace interruptions get out of hand, they’re a killer on your team’s productivity.
Imagine your marketing department trying to work on a website update, but they keep getting calls from sales reps who can’t find the right assets. Or maybe your website developer is hard at work on that new layout, but they’ve got to field emails from marketing about text updates.
With a traditionally restricted intranet, your employees have to rely on constant calls and meetings to share information.
A social intranet with private messaging and commenting features lets your employees engage with updates on their own time, so they can focus on their priorities without interruption.
Enhanced security
Employees who can’t contribute to their intranet need to find other places to share documents and files. Unfortunately, file-sharing platforms like Google Suite or Dropbox aren’t as secure as your private network.
With a social intranet, you have an added layer of security on your internal knowledge and documents.
What your social intranet platform should include
As you review different social intranet platforms, look for features that help employees connect and collaborate.
Yes, social intranets are still relevant — here's how to use one 2
Here are some standard social intranet features to look for:
Commenting, tagging, and messaging for easy social interaction
Company news feeds and notifications for sharing updates
Information hub with powerful search capabilities for ease of access
Communities and forums for collaboration and knowledge-sharing
Polls and surveys for collecting feedback
Employee directory so people can get to know each other’s faces even if they haven’t met
Social intranet best practices
According to Prescient Digital Media, only 13% of employees use the company intranet every day. Most companies need to work harder to make their intranet useful for employees.
Here’s how you can set up your intranet to make sure your employees love checking in.
Make contribution easy
You can’t force employee engagement from the top down. Everyone in your organization has something to contribute, so make sure they can.
Businesses aren’t run out of a single headquarters anymore. Remote workers and frontline employees who interact with customers don’t always have access to a laptop or computer.
If you want a social intranet that everyone will use, it must be accessible to your entire workforce. Choose a platform optimized for mobile apps so your deskless workers still get the same online employee experience.
Look for a provider with analytics
How do you know if your social intranet is making a difference? Well, you won’t – unless you track its analytics.
Yes, social intranets are still relevant — here's how to use one 3
Marketers use engagement analytics to measure the success of every campaign. You should take the same approach to internal communications.
By tracking your workforce analytics, you can figure out what type of content works for your team and create more of it. Without them, you risk investing a lot of time for a small reward.
Final thoughts: what is a social intranet, and how does it benefit you?
Staying connected in the digital workplace is vital. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Businesses need tools that adapt to ‘new normals’ and still keep employees connected.
The best social intranet is also a modern intranet.
It helps you create an internal comms resource your employees will actually want to use. No matter where your people are, they can log on and feel connected to the company and supported in their work.
Digital signage for frontline workers: what actually works
Walk into any warehouse or factory break room and you'll find a screen on the wall, cycling through safety alerts, shift schedules, or a slide deck frozen since 2019. Screens solve one real problem: they reach workers who aren't at desks and can't check a phone on the floor. But they create another. There's no way to know who actually saw the message, and that gap is measurable.
This guide covers how digital signage works in frontline environments, where it genuinely earns its place in the channel mix, and where mobile-first communication fills the gaps it can't.
What is digital signage for frontline workers?
Digital signage for frontline workers refers to screen-based displays deployed in physical work environments to communicate operational information to employees who don't use desk computers or company email. Common locations include break rooms, production floors, warehouse loading bays, locker rooms, and staff entrances.
Typical content includes shift schedules, safety briefings, KPI dashboards, policy updates, training reminders, and HR announcements. Screens are centrally managed through a content management system (CMS), so communications teams or IT administrators can push updates across every screen in every location from a single dashboard.
The core appeal is reach without requiring a personal device. In environments where smartphones are prohibited, clean rooms, food production, heavy machinery operations, a wall-mounted screen is often the only scalable way to put information in front of workers during their shift.
Where digital signage genuinely earns its place
Not every deployment of digital signage is washing its face. But in specific operational contexts, the case is strong.
Factory floors and production environments are the clearest fit. When workers are operating equipment that demands full attention, and when personal device use is either prohibited or impractical, screens mounted at eye level near workstations or break areas are one of the few viable ways to deliver operational messaging. Safety alerts, shift targets, downtime notifications, and quality metrics all belong here.
Warehouse and distribution environments have a similar profile. Loading bay screens showing today's dispatch priorities, attendance boards, or compliance reminders reduce the relay of information through supervisors, which means fewer distortions and faster response to changing conditions.
Break rooms deserve separate consideration. A screen in a shared rest space reaches workers at the precise moment they have headspace to absorb information. Pre-shift briefings, HR policy updates, benefit enrollment reminders, and company news all perform better in a break room context than they would on a production floor, where attention is split.
Healthcare and public-facing environments use digital signage primarily for wayfinding and patient-facing communication, but staff-facing screens in nurse stations and staff rooms serve a genuine internal communications function, particularly for shift handover information and policy updates that supervisors can't always relay in person.
The real limitations, and why IT directors need to plan around them
None of this means digital signage solves the frontline communication problem on its own. There are four structural limitations that any IT or Operations leader evaluating a digital signage investment needs to account for.
No read receipts, no compliance trail. Digital signage is broadcast communication. You can verify a screen was on. You cannot verify that a specific employee saw a specific message. For regulated industries, healthcare, food production, financial services, where you need to prove that a policy update or safety briefing was acknowledged by named individuals, a screen on a wall doesn't give you that. You need a channel that generates a paper trail.
No two-way communication. Screens push information. They don't enable responses, questions, or acknowledgment. When a policy changes and a worker has a question, that question either goes unanswered until they find a manager, or it goes up through a chain that introduces delays and inconsistencies. In high-regulation environments, unanswered questions about safety procedures have real consequences.
No reach outside the building. Workers who are on their commute, at home reviewing a shift change, or working a split shift across two sites can't see a break room screen. For any communication that needs to land before the shift starts, schedule changes, emergency alerts, pre-shift safety reminders, digital signage arrives too late or not at all.
No data on individual engagement. You can measure screen uptime, content loop completion, and scheduled broadcasts. You cannot tell your CHRO which employees haven't acknowledged the new safety protocol, or show your compliance team a timestamped record of individual engagement. When you need that data, and in most regulated environments, you will, digital signage can't provide it.
Why frontline workers need more than a screen
The communication gap isn't about technology, it's about verification. Research consistently shows that organizations with high frontline turnover cite poor communication as a top driver. Screens don't close that gap on their own because they don't create the conditions for two-way trust.
The pattern shows up in adoption data. When organisations add a mobile-first communication layer alongside physical signage, engagement metrics change substantially. According to Blink's customer data (2024), at easyJet 88% of over 20,000 employees became active users of a single platform. At JD Sports, 87% adoption was reached in 10 days. At Dollar Tree, 96% adoption across a workforce that was never going to be reached through break room screens alone. At Stagecoach, adding a direct mobile channel contributed to a 26% reduction in driver turnover.
That's not an argument against digital signage. It's an argument that signage works best as part of a layered channel strategy, where screens handle broadcast operational messaging in physical spaces, and a mobile-first platform like Blink handles everything that requires reach, verification, and response. Blink's frontline communication solutions are built specifically for the workforce that screens can't fully reach.
Getting your channel strategy right
For IT and Operations leaders evaluating digital signage as part of a broader frontline communication infrastructure, the decision framework matters more than the technology choice.
Step 1: Audit your content types. Not all communications belong on a screen. Separate broadcast operational content (shift schedules, safety KPIs, downtime alerts) from compliance-sensitive content (policy acknowledgments, training completions, HR updates) and personal content (payslips, individual schedule changes, direct manager communication). The first category suits digital signage. The second and third require a channel with verification.
Step 2: Map your compliance requirements. If you're in a regulated industry, establish exactly which communications require individual acknowledgment and a timestamped audit trail. This determines which parts of your channel mix need a verification layer, and where digital signage alone creates regulatory exposure.
Step 3: Establish your integration requirements. A digital signage CMS that pulls shift data from your workforce management system (Workday, Kronos, SAP) reduces manual content updates and keeps screens accurate. Your IT security model, SSO, GDPR compliance, role-based access control, and audit trails for who published what, needs to be defined before procurement, not after.
Step 4: Define the mobile complement. For workers who do carry smartphones, even in environments where phones are restricted during shifts, a mobile-first platform extends your communication reach beyond the building, enables two-way messaging, and provides the individual engagement data that screens can't. This is the layer that turns your signage investment from a broadcast tool into a complete communication infrastructure.
Step 5: Measure what matters. Screen uptime and content loop metrics tell you the technology is working. They don't tell you communication is working. Layer in mobile engagement rates, acknowledgment completion rates for compliance content, and frontline feedback response rates. These are the metrics that connect communication investment to operational and retention outcomes.
How Blink complements digital signage for frontline teams
If you're evaluating the mobile layer of your frontline communication stack, Blink is built specifically for the 80% of workers who don't sit at desks. It handles everything digital signage can't: individual reach, compliance acknowledgment trails, two-way communication, and a personal communication feed that workers actually check.
Pizza Pilgrims reached 96% adoption. JD Sports hit 87% in 10 days. easyJet has 88% active users across 20,000+ employees. The platform integrates with Workday, ServiceNow, and SharePoint, supports SSO and GDPR compliance, and provides the role-based access control and audit trails that IT Directors need before they can sign off on a new communication layer.
If you’re one of the thousands of organizations using Workplace from Meta to power your internal communications, you’re probably in the thick of figuring out what you need to do next ahead of the Workplace sunsetting beginning in 2025. Researching, selecting, and implementing a Workplace alternative is likely taking up the bulk of your time and energy and may feel like an overwhelming project to tackle.
The good news: With the right platform — and technology partner — you can take the stress out of migration and continue to give employees the intranet features they know and love.
Whatever your vision is for your new platform — maybe a familiar format, or something new and improved — it’s important to get migration right. A smooth migration process can set you up for success and minimize headaches for you and your workforce.
In a recent webinar, Blink’s migration specialists outlined their full 5-step guide to a successful Workplace migration. While we (of course) believe there are lots of benefits to choosing Blink as a Workplace alternative, these steps are relevant to any platform you choose to use.
3 key steps to Workplace migration
Migrating to a Workplace from Meta alternative is about more than moving data from one system to another. A successful migration requires meticulous planning and a launch mindset. It keeps disruption to a minimum and supports a seamless employee experience.
Important steps you need to take when migrating from Workplace include:
Scope and plan the migration
Verify data mapping and reconfigure settings
Activate and engage users
Let’s take a closer look at how these can make or break your migration journey.
#1. Scope and plan the migration
Migrating to any of the Workplace from Meta alternatives available is a huge change — and it’s one you want to get right first time by thoroughly scoping and planning your migration.
Bear in mind that while employee communications platforms tend to have a lot in common, no two tools are identical. There are bound to be differences between Workplace from Meta and your new intranet platform.
To ensure each business function is accounted for, bring together people from across your organization. Discuss platform differences. Gather a wide range of perspectives on platform and migration needs. Also, clarify what you want to achieve with regards to user experience and platform capabilities.
As part of the scoping and planning stage, consider incorporating the following tasks:
Analyze data quality: Take stock of the data you have on Workplace. Are all user profiles activated and complete? Are all groups still relevant? Does your content have contextual elements, like author names and publication dates? Assess which data is complete, which needs to be improved, and which should be deleted or archived.
Review mobile vs. desktop strategy: Consider which data you want to feature on mobile and desktop versions of your platform. For companies with a frontline workforce, it’s wise to include exactly the same data on both mobile and desktop devices — ensuring everyone can enjoy the same great employee experience.
Identify champions and trend-setter groups: To boost early adoption and usage, treat your Workplace migration as a new platform launch. Identify champions and trend-setter groups who will be excited for the new communications hub and encourage peers to join them.
#2. Verify data mapping and reconfigure settings
It can take anywhere from days to weeks to run a migration, with timing depending on:
Your chosen platform
The size of your organization
The volume of data you want to migrate
But as soon as you’ve executed the technical migration, you can begin examining the details of your new platform. The first tasks on the list are verification and reconfiguration.
At Blink, we use our own migration matrix that allows us to clearly map Workplace data and content to corresponding Blink content. However, with any technology switch, it’s always good to be prepared for potential hiccups. Data and settings don’t always transfer neatly to the new platform and post-migration tweaks often have to be made.
To ensure the best user experience post-migration, check that your important data — including user profiles, groups, and knowledge base content — has been transferred correctly, imperfect data has been updated, and settings have been reconfigured as needed.
User profiles
Review the user profiles that have been transferred from Workplace. Check that all details — like names, roles, and profile pictures — are correct. Delete any duplicate users. Also, verify that your organizational hierarchy has transferred correctly, with the right employees assigned to the right managers.
This is a good opportunity to check the permissions and notification settings associated with each user profile. Do this during the verification process and you won’t have to revisit each user profile to make changes later.
Groups
Look at the groups that you’ve migrated over from Workplace. Check that their names are correct. View members and admins to ensure nothing has gone awry during the switch.
You should also take the time to look at dynamic team membership rules to ensure that employees are automatically assigned to relevant groups going forward.
Knowledge base content
To ensure a consistent employee experience, it’s important that users can access the resources they need as soon as they log in to your new internal communications platform. Check that content is in the right place and that users will be able to find it easily. Confirm that all contextual information, including author names and publication dates, is visible and correct. Review permissions for publishing, editing, and sharing rights.
And don’t forget about formatting: Check headings, double-check hyperlinks, and make sure your multimedia content, such as videos and images, looks good and works well.
#3. Activate and engage users
If you’re at this step, it means you’re ready to launch your new intranet to the workforce. Congratulations! To maximize engagement and encourage adoption, you’ll want to give employees an incredible experience on your new platform starting day one.
Decide how you’ll build buzz around the incoming platform. That may mean notifying employees that your new intranet is imminent and incentivizing them to log in on launch day. You can consider running giveaways, creating gamified experiences, or planning a launch party — all with the goal of boosting in-platform engagement.
Remember that you’re launching a social platform: Creating an immediate sense of active community will be the difference between delight and disengagement. By going live with a published backlog of engaging content, employees can be welcomed to the new platform with a lively and pre-populated news feed.
Education is another important part of the puzzle. Help employees get the most from your new solution through training sessions, Q&A forums, and dedicated support channels.
This is also a great time to promote the internal champions and trend-setter groups you identified earlier in the migration process. These ambassadors can spread the word about your new platform, drive activation, and offer support where it’s needed.
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Making your Workplace migration successful
Whether you want employees to instantly feel at home or are relishing the opportunity to start afresh, a clear migration plan can help you minimize disruption and keep the company conversation flowing during the transition from Workplace to your new company hub.
By starting the process with a thoughtful migration plan and ending it with a robust rollout strategy, you can supercharge employee adoption on day one and drive engagement long past launch day.
For our full 5-step guide to making migration easy on you — and your workforce — download our on-demand webinar: From Workplace to Blink: Migration Made Easy for actionable advice helpful for any organization exploring alternatives to Workplace.
Another week, another Life at Blink! This week we are highlighting Ben Willder, a Senior Sales Development Representative located in our London office. This edition comes just in time to celebrate Ben’s one-year anniversary at Blink. Ben describes Blink as a proactive, collaborative and curious place to work.
Now, let's explore Ben’s path at Blink.
What is your position at Blink?
My focus is working within our Sales team as an Enterprise SDR, identifying some of the more critical employee inclusion and enablement challenges for Blink to solve across the largest organizations.
Another area I’ve started to dig into is our Partnerships team. This is a really fast-evolving function at Blink, and I’ve spent a lot of time building relationships with core partners like Workday in Europe, as well as collaborating closely with some of the leading Meta Consultancies off the back of the news from Workplace. This has been a pretty rewarding passion project and I am excited to have the chance to dive into this more.
What initially attracted you to join Blink?
My previous company also focused on helping frontline employees. I think fundamentally I became aware of the countless challenges facing the frontline worker, and I love how tangible the positive impacts can be.
I want to sell something that I genuinely believe makes a difference. Whilst I know that’s obvious, I do think it’s hugely important, and I love the scope for impact that exists at Blink.
What's a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?
Apart from the incredible work myself and my colleagues have done on reinventing what’s possible with the Lavazza to froth a good coffee, I’m very proud of the Partnerships work we’re doing.
We’ve really encapsulated the people-first approach that’s needed to differentiate ourselves in the market, and it’s set to be incredibly enabling for the company when you think of the scope for support, opportunity and collaboration it provides. More to come here, too!
What's one thing you're excited about for the future of Blink?
In my opinion it would be optimizing our partnerships with venture partners like Workday. There’s so much scope to support these partners with collaboration and co-creation, and I want to leverage this to ensure we maintain our agility in developing the product, extending our reach and getting as many frontline employees digitally enabled as possible.
Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
It would have to be our employee intelligence. The scope for businesses to assess business problems at such a granular level through a lens that has never existed (a digitally enabled deskless workforce) is pretty exciting.
As we conclude this edition of Life at Blink, we're inspired by Ben’s dedication to solving critical challenges for enterprise clients and forging impactful partnerships across Europe. Ben's passion for innovation, from redefining coffee experiences to pioneering initiatives like employee intelligence, reflects Blink's commitment to empowering frontline workers. When asked why he works for Blink, he responded with:
“I like selling a product that has a tangible impact that genuinely makes sense to me.”
Here's to celebrating Ben's first year with us and the exciting milestones ahead at Blink!
Join us in shaping the future of technology and impacting lives. Explore career opportunities at Blink today! https://www.joinblink.com/careers
By now, you’ve probably heard the news that Workplace from Meta is shutting down. The platform will be read-only starting September 2025 and will cease entirely from May 2026.
If you’re one of thousands of Workplace customers working out what to do next, we know there’s a lot of work to be done. Looking at alternatives to Workplace takes time and energy you hadn’t planned on spending, and planning a successful migration journey doesn’t happen overnight.
But there’s a silver lining to this news: This is a timely opportunity to find a platform for workplace communication, connection, and employee engagement that works better for your workforce.
Blink is making it easy for customers to make the switch from Workplace. Our secure and scalable Workplace alternative provides two-way communication tools, a company news feed, a centralized resource hub, surveys, recognition, analytics, and more — everything you need to upgrade the employee experience at your organization.
But don’t just take our word for it. According to G2 reviews from real users, Blink is one of the best employee intranet software providers and outranks Workplace across several critical areas, making it a top alternative.
Let’s take a closer look.
A comparison of Blink and Workplace from Meta using G2 ratings
G2 ratings are generated from verified customer reviews, which means they’re a reliable way to compare software platforms and providers. Here’s how Blink and Workplace measure up across seven fundamental software performance criteria:
1. Meets business requirements
When ranking and rating software products, G2 asks users whether the product meets their business requirements. Platforms with higher scores advertise their features accurately and address user pain points comprehensively.
As an all-in-one solution for boosting employee engagement, workforce experience, and overall productivity, Blink has the edge over Meta.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.2
Workplace from Meta: 8.4
2. Ease of use
Blink is easier to use than Workplace. This is perhaps because our intranet has been built with frontline organizations front of mind.
We know that frontline employees will only open and use an employee app if it fits seamlessly into their work day. So we made our platform as intuitive as possible for both desk-based and deskless workers, incorporating single sign-on technology and a user-friendly interface — where every tool, resource, and chat is easy to find.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.3
Workplace from Meta: 8.8
3. Ease of setup
A good G2 ease of setup score shows that users enjoy a streamlined onboarding experience. It indicates that the product and its team offer good levels of support, easy implementation, and all the documentation new customers need.
This is another area where Blink outperforms Workplace. With dedicated customer support and easy integrations, it’s quick and simple to get started with Blink.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.0
Workplace from Meta: 8.6
4. Ease of admin
We’ve already seen that end users find it easy to use Blink. But what about the people within your organization who are responsible for managing the social intranet?
Blink again scores more highly than Workplace from Meta when it comes to ease of admin. Communications, HR, IT, and other leaders across the business find it easy to upload content and update platform information independently, without having to contact Blink support.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.0
Workplace from Meta: 8.3
5. Quality of support
To rate platform providers on this criteria, G2 asks users: Is the support team able to answer your questions or support cases quickly and effectively? Here at Blink, we prioritize the customer experience and pride ourselves on fast and effective customer support.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.2
Workplace from Meta: 8.2
6. Has the product been a good partner in doing business?
The best workplace experience vendors serve as not just a platform but a partner, helping their customers to achieve their business goals.
At Blink, workplace communication, employee experience, and employee engagement are our bread and butter. Unlike the big tech companies, like Meta and Zoom, our team isn’t divided between many different and competing projects.
We focus solely on the Blink platform and we care about customer success. So we work to maximize adoption, engagement, and the value organizations get from our employee app.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.4
Workplace from Meta: 8.3
7. Product direction
Lastly, G2 asks users whether they think the product is moving in the right direction and whether recent product roadmap decisions have been positive for them.
Here at Blink, we don’t wait for ratings from G2 or similar review sites to inform our product roadmap. Our product and customer success teams are in constant collaboration with our customers, searching for ways to make our platform work better for them. This helps keep our customers ahead of the curve and helps them achieve organizational goals.
G2 scores:
Blink: 9.8
Workplace from Meta: 7.5
Blink makes Workplace migration easy
When looking at Workplace alternatives, think Blink. Our modern intranet platform consistently outperforms Workplace from Meta across several critical G2 measures, as determined by verified platform users.
Blink also provides a familiar experience for Workplace users. Key Blink features include:
News feed and chats, with multimedia content
A knowledge library
Teams and communities
Employee surveys and recognition
Easy integration with the software you already use
Our user-friendly employee app with single sign-on authentication makes it easy for leaders to engage and communicate with their teams, from the office to the frontline. Powerful analytics help you determine what’s working and what isn’t, and our always-on customer support will ensure you’re maximizing every aspect of the platform.
Our expert team of migration specialists is ready to help your organization transition from Workplace to a new and improved employee engagement platform.