Life at Blink | Noah Brooks

The best employee experience tools support HR objectives.

They improve employee productivity, engagement, and retention. They streamline HR processes and they help you demonstrate measurable ROI.

So how do you find an employee experience tool that does all the above?

By understanding the platform features that really drive HR impact — and knowing what to do to ensure platform success.

Let’s take a look.

What is employee experience?

Employee experience is the combined impact of every interaction an employee has within your company — from their first day to their last, and everything in between.

It’s shaped by company culture, the quality of workplace communication, learning and development opportunities, compensation, and well-being support.

It’s also shaped by the software and resources employees use to do their jobs — whether that’s a dedicated employee experience platform like Blink or tools that support your operations. 

Ultimately, employee experience is not one thing. It’s the accumulation of small, daily moments that determine how employees feel, how hard they work, and how long they stay at your organization. And it has a direct impact on the metrics that matter most to HR.

Why employee experience matters for HR

A positive employee experience improves employee engagement, productivity, retention, and performance — core HR goals.

It helps HR teams to hit their hiring targets. When you’re known as a great place to work, you attract better candidates. It also reduces HR workload because employees can access the resources they need when they need them, and there are fewer avoidable queries.

The organizations that understand this don’t treat employee experience as a culture initiative. They treat it as a business strategy.

Let’s look at some examples.

• Cisco has built an onboarding experience that 90% of employees say exceeds their expectations. Beyond this initial training, the company is committed to helping employees do their best work and progress in their careers.
  
  
• Hilton, named the #1 World’s Best Workplace in 2025, has made employee well-being central to its employee value proposition (EVP). With sabbaticals, benefits for caregivers, and mental health support, Hilton has ensured that 85% of its staff feel balanced and healthy at work.
  
  
• Elara Caring — a provider of personal care, home health, and hospice services with over 32,000 caregivers — has prioritized internal communication and co-worker connection. After implementing a frontline app, 95% of employees say they feel more connected to the company.

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Employee experience in frontline organizations: Key considerations

With over 2.7 billion deskless workers globally, the employee experience gap between frontline and desk-based staff is one of the most significant — and most costly — challenges HR leaders face.

Frontline workers are often disconnected from leadership, colleagues, and company culture. They have limited access to desktop-based tools. And they miss out on development opportunities and workplace perks that desk-based employees take for granted.

When their experience is poor, they leave — at rates that consistently outpace desk-based worker attrition.

Closing this gap requires intentional effort — and in most cases, it requires digital tools that every employee can actually access.

10 employee experience platform features that drive HR success

The right employee experience platform gives you the tools to hit your most important HR targets — whether that’s improving retention, driving engagement, streamlining onboarding, or building a culture that people genuinely want to be part of.

But not all platforms are built equal. And for organizations with a large frontline workforce, you need tools that meet staff where they are — serving customers, transporting goods, and keeping your operations on track.

Here are the features that matter most, and how each one connects to your HR goals.

1. Frontline-friendly features

For organizations with a significant frontline workforce, these frontline-friendly features are a baseline. Every other feature on this list only delivers value if frontline employees can actually access and use your platform.

To ensure your EX platform meets the needs of frontline workers, look for:

• Mobile-first design. Platforms that are built for smartphones from the ground up. Not a desktop platform with a mobile app bolted on.
• Offline capabilities. So employees in low-connectivity environments aren’t cut off from the information they need.
• Intuitive, consumer-grade interfaces. Frontline workers won’t adopt tools that feel clunky or slow. The bar is set by the apps they already use in their personal lives.
• No corporate email required. Access is granted via a phone number or employee ID, so every worker can use your systems from day one.

How will this help me meet my goals?

• Ensure your employee experience investment reaches all employees — not just those who sit at a desk.
• Reduce the friction that causes low platform adoption rates and poor ROI.
• Close the experience gap between frontline and desk-based employees that drives disproportionately high frontline attrition.

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2. Two-way communication tools

Effective internal communication requires two-way channels that give employees access to leadership updates, co-worker conversations, and company news — and give leadership real visibility into what employees are thinking.

Look for platforms that support instant messaging, a dynamic news feed, live streaming, voice and video calling, and pinned updates.

You also need structured channels for different types of communication, so the right messages reach the right people without everything competing for attention in the same feed.

For frontline organizations specifically, those comms channels need to be available on smartphones. Push notifications and mandatory reads also come in very useful. 

How will this help me meet my goals?

• Easily communicate company updates, initiatives, and events to your entire team or specific departments.
• Work toward employee engagement goals by gathering valuable employee feedback through direct one-on-one or group chats.
• Build trust and transparency because employees feel they have a direct line to leaders.

3. Surveys, polls, and real-time feedback

Annual surveys tell you how employees felt twelve months ago. But by the time the results land, the moment to act has usually passed.

Real-time feedback tools — pulse surveys, quick polls, employee sentiment analysis, and manager check-ins — give HR a live picture of how employees are feeling, what’s working, and where action is needed.

This can make the difference between responding to a retention crisis and preventing one.

The best platforms make surveys easy to launch and feedback easy to send. Short, targeted surveys take seconds to complete and get higher response rates — particularly from time-poor frontline workers. 

You should also look for analytics and reports that help you make sense of your findings. That way, you can create a plan of action and employees get to see visible change in response to their feedback. 

How will this help me meet my goals?

• Surface issues before they impact engagement and retention.
• Get the data to make evidence-based decisions on HR initiatives, rather than relying on instinct.
• Demonstrate to employees that their voice matters, driving engagement and belonging in the process.

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4. Audience segmentation tools

While 75% of workplace communicators say tailored messaging is critical, only 20% segment their audiences regularly.

This is a problem. Because a retail associate doesn’t need the same updates as a warehouse operative. A new starter needs different content than a ten-year employee. 

When every employee sees everything, the platform becomes noisy — and people stop paying attention.

Audience targeting allows HR and comms teams to deliver the right content to the right people, based on their role, location, department, and tenure. It helps you reduce overwhelm and land messages more effectively.

What’s more, when staff are confident of finding personalized content on your employee experience platform, they keep logging in. So you reach more employees through the same streamlined channels. 

When choosing employee experience software, look for tools that allow you to create and manage employee groups, and tools that let you customize dashboards on an employee-by-employee basis.

How will this help me meet my goals?

• Improve message cut-through by ensuring employees only receive content that’s relevant to them.
• Enable more targeted feedback collection — surveying specific teams or locations rather than the whole organization at once.
• Reduce the noise that causes employees to disengage from internal comms and EX platforms entirely.

5. Automated employee journeys

Onboarding is one of the highest-stakes communication challenges in any organization. 

When it's inconsistent — when new hires receive different information depending on which manager onboards them or which shift they start on — it shows up in slower ramp-up times, more HR queries, and higher early attrition.

Automated employee journeys solve this by delivering the right content to every employee at the right moment — consistently, regardless of role, location, or manager.

Pre-boarding information before day one. Essential policies and system guides on arrival. Role-specific training in a logical sequence. Check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days to identify and address early disengagement.

The same logic applies beyond onboarding — to role transitions, promotions, returns from leave — any other moment in the employee lifecycle where timely, consistent communication makes a meaningful difference.

Pick an employee platform that supports content automation — and connects with your HRIS — and staff get a more consistent and comprehensive experience. 

How does this help me meet my HR goals?

• Reduce the volume of repetitive onboarding queries that consume HR capacity.
• Ensure every new hire gets the same high-quality experience regardless of manager or location.
• Improve early retention by giving new starters the confidence and information they need to succeed from day one.

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6. Recognition and rewards

Employees who feel recognized perform better and stay longer. But only 61% of desk-based workers feel seen and appreciated at work. And this figure drops to 43% for desk-based teams.

A mobile-first platform with built-in recognition tools changes that. It enables peer-to-peer recognition, manager shoutouts, and company-wide celebrations of employee achievement — visible to everyone, not just the people who happen to be in the office.

The most effective recognition tools fit seamlessly into the work day.

If giving recognition means logging into a separate system and filling out a form, it won't happen consistently. If it takes two taps from the same app employees use for everything else, you embed recognition in company culture.

How does this help me meet my HR goals?

• Drive engagement, belonging, and retention by ensuring every employee — frontline included — feels seen and valued.
• Motivate employees to do their best work, improving performance and productivity. 
• Improve the employer brand, making your organization a more appealing place to work.

7. Digital forms and workflows

HR processes are often still paper-based or scattered across disconnected systems — particularly in frontline organizations. 

Leave requests, incident reports, onboarding paperwork, equipment sign-offs — each of these small administrative tasks consumes significant HR time when multiplied across a large workforce.

Digital forms, accessible from a smartphone, remove that friction. Employees complete forms in the moment they're needed, on the device they're already using. Submissions are tracked, data is captured cleanly, and HR spends less time chasing paper and more time on work that requires their expertise.

The best platforms let you build, customize, and update forms without IT involvement — so HR can respond to changing processes quickly without adding (another) ticket to the queue.

How does this help me meet my HR goals?

• Reduce HR admin burden by digitizing manual, paper-based processes.
• Improve data quality and compliance by capturing information consistently and in real time.
• Free HR capacity for strategic work by eliminating the time spent chasing, collating, and correcting paper-based submissions.

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8. Enterprise-wide search

When employees can’t find what they need, their first port of call is often HR. The people team spends a lot of time answering questions that are already answered elsewhere.

The issue? Information is hard to find — because it’s hidden away in an intranet folder, in an outdated handbook, or in a lengthy chat thread. In the case of frontline employees, it’s often because they can’t access company resources from their smartphones.

A searchable, centralized, mobile-first knowledge hub — with user-friendly content management tools — reduces unnecessary queries. It also empowers workers, because all the information they need to do their jobs well is right at their fingertips.

With the right EX platform, you put policies, procedures, FAQs, a people directory, and training materials within easy reach — across all devices — so your HR team spends less time fielding questions.

How will this help me meet my goals?

• Reduce the volume of routine process and policy queries that consume HR team time.
• Improve employee productivity by reducing time spent searching for important documents or information.
• Support compliance by ensuring every employee is working from the same, up-to-date version of every document.

9. Integrations with your HRIS

An employee experience platform that doesn't connect to your core HR systems creates more work, not less. Employees end up juggling multiple logins. Data lives in silos. HR spends time manually reconciling information across systems.

The right employee experience platform supports deep HRIS integration. It syncs with your HR system — pulling in employee data, org structures, and role information automatically.

Onboarding journeys trigger on the right day. Audience targeting reflects current team structures. Employees can access payroll, shift swap tools, benefits, learning systems, and leave information without leaving the platform. 

Single sign-on (SSO) is essential. But the strongest integrations go further. They provide two-way data sync and automated user provisioning, so you can turn your platform into a digital front door for your entire HR tech stack.

How does this help me meet my HR goals?

• Reduce the manual admin burden of maintaining employee data across multiple systems.
• Give employees a single, trusted place to access HR information and complete HR tasks — reducing queries and improving self-service.
• Improve the ROI of your existing HR tech by increasing adoption through a single, accessible front door.

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10. Reporting & analytics tools

It’s hard to make meaningful improvements to employee experience — or to make the case for HR investment — without reliable data.

An EX tool with strong analytics capabilities gives you real-time visibility into how the platform is being used — who’s engaging, what content is landing, which locations or teams are disengaged, and where communication is falling short.

That data informs better decisions: smarter content strategies, targeted interventions, and a clearer line between HR activity and business outcomes — like retention and productivity.  

Look for tools that track a wide range of KPIs and provide customizable dashboards and metrics. AI-powered data insights and data segmentation tools will also prove useful. 

How will this help me meet my goals?

• Gain valuable insights into employee experience.
• Inform HR initiatives and decision-making by tracking progress and identifying areas for improvement.
• Demonstrate the ROI of HR and communications investment to leadership and finance.

How to choose the right employee experience tool for your business

Choosing an employee experience platform is a big decision. The right tool can reduce turnover, improve operational performance, and give every employee — including those on the frontline — a reliable connection to the information and culture that keeps them engaged.

The wrong one? Well, it adds to tool sprawl, sits unused, and creates more HR problems than it solves.

We’ve explored the features you should be looking for when choosing an employee experience platform that helps you meet HR goals. But what does the process of finding and implementing a new EX tool really look like?

Here’s a rundown of all the steps involved.

Start with your workforce, not your wishlist

Before evaluating any platform, get clear on what your end users need from a new tool. That means talking to people from across your organization — leadership, different departments, office-based workers, frontline employees.

Ask what bugbears they have with the tech tools you currently use — and what features and functionality they’d be looking for if they were picking a new platform. Quiz them on existing workflows and the places where bottlenecks occur.

Get input from your workforce and you’ll find it easier to draw up a list of platform must-haves. Employee buy-in also helps to ensure adoption and usage once your new tech tool goes live.

Define your HR outcomes

Another task to complete before you sit down to a demo? Establish the two or three key outcomes that matter most to your organization right now.

Is the priority reducing frontline attrition? Fixing onboarding consistency? Getting recognition to employees who currently receive none?

These priorities should drive your evaluation. So if a vendor can’t clearly explain how their platform moves the metrics you care about most — with evidence from organizations similar to yours — proceed with caution.

Assess integrations

Before committing, audit your current tech stack and ask vendors specific integration questions:

• Does it integrate with our HRIS — and how deep does that integration go?
• Does it support single sign-on, so employees don't need another set of credentials?
• Can employees access payroll, scheduling, and benefits tools through the platform — or does it just link out to them?
• What happens when one of our existing systems updates — who manages the integration maintenance?

Deep, maintained integrations are what turn a communication tool into a genuine digital front door and help your organization to avoid tool sprawl.

Don't underestimate the adoption challenge

The most common reason employee experience platforms fail to deliver ROI isn't a bad product choice. It's poor adoption — particularly among frontline workers who’ve learned to be skeptical of tools that promise to make their working lives easier…and then don't.

When evaluating platforms, ask vendors:

• What does a typical frontline rollout look like?
• What adoption rates do your existing customers achieve, and over what timeframe?
• How do you support manager activation — since managers are often the critical link between a platform launch and frontline engagement?
• What onboarding resources and tutorials are available to keep adoption momentum high?
• What other support do you provide during platform launch?

A vendor who can point to concrete adoption data is a vendor worth keeping on your shortlist.

Watch for these red flags

Not every platform that markets itself as an employee experience tool is built for the realities of your organization. Watch for:

• Desktop-first design presented as mobile-ready. There's a significant difference between a platform built with a mobile-first mindset and a desktop platform with a mobile app bolted on. Ask to test the mobile experience before making any decisions.
  
  
• Weak or templated analytics. If you can't measure adoption by role, location, and department — and connect communication activity to business outcomes — you can't demonstrate ROI or identify where the platform is falling short.
  
  
• Shallow integrations. A platform that integrates with your HRIS in name only, without real data sync or SSO, won't reduce the friction that drives employees to workarounds.
  
  
• Rigid workflows. Platforms that can’t adapt to your organization’s culture and processes will slow managers and teams down, instead of helping them. Look for platforms that can be customized and personalized to organization and employee needs.

Pilot before you scale

A full-scale rollout might feel efficient. In practice, it simply hides problems until they're really expensive to fix.

Different employee groups — frontline workers, managers, desk-based staff, new starters — have different needs, habits, and access patterns. What works well for one group may not work for another.

Run a structured pilot with a representative group before rolling out to the full workforce. Track adoption rates, ease of use, and qualitative feedback. Use what you learn to refine your onboarding approach, notification settings, content strategy, and governance before scaling.

A phased rollout reveals friction points early, when they’re still cheap to address.

Measure continuously, not just at launch

Implementation isn’t the finish line. The needs of employees change over time. Business priorities shift. Communication strategies that work well at 500 employees may need adjusting at 2,000.

Build regular platform reviews into your HR calendar. Use analytics to track adoption trends, content engagement, survey participation, and the correlation between communication activity and business metrics like attrition and productivity.

The organizations that get the most from their employee experience platforms are the ones that treat them as living infrastructure — not a one-time rollout.

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Next-level employee experience and HR impact

Choosing the right employee experience platform means finding one that works for your people, your processes, and your HR goals.

From frontline-friendly design to analytics, integrations to recognition features, the best platforms make work easier, while improving employee engagement and HR outcomes.

But even the perfect platform won’t deliver ROI on its own. Success comes from understanding your workforce, defining the outcomes that matter most, piloting thoughtfully, and measuring continuously.

Treat your EX tool as living infrastructure, and you’ll see engagement, retention, and productivity rise — making your organization a place employees genuinely want to work.

Another week, another Life at Blink spotlight! This time, we're excited to introduce a key member of our London office — Bhoomi Modi! As our QA Analyst, Bhoomi has been collaborating closely with our Product & Engineering team for just over two years.

Dive into this article to learn more about Bhoomi, her role, and what makes life at Blink so special!

What initially attracted you to join Blink?

When I first learned about Blink, what immediately drew me in was the company’s clear mission to empower frontline workers. The idea of contributing to tools that genuinely make a difference for those on the ground was very persuasive. It wasn’t just about the technology — it was about creating something that could transform the day-to-day experience of so many people.

Another big factor was that from the start I could see that this was a team deeply committed to innovation and making a positive impact. The collaborative environment and the focus on meaningful, purpose-driven work really resonated with me. That combination of mission and culture made it clear that Blink was the place I wanted to be.

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

One project that stands out to me is the automation of our tests. As a QA Analyst responsible for testing most of our features, this was a major initiative that required a great deal of long-term commitment and dedication.

What made this project truly special was the collaboration with our developers. Working closely with them not only helped us achieve our goals, but it also gave me the chance to grow and learn from some really talented people. It was a humbling experience that deepened my understanding of the development process, and it’s made me better at what I do. Knowing that the automation we implemented has made a real difference in our workflow is something that brings me a lot of personal satisfaction.

How would you describe the company culture at Blink in three words?

If I had to pick just three words, I’d say fun, friendly, and fast-paced. There’s a real sense of enjoyment in what we do here—work is challenging, but it’s also genuinely fun. The team is incredibly welcoming and supportive, so you always feel like you’re part of something bigger. And when I say fast-paced, I mean it in the best way possible. Things move quickly here, but that energy keeps everyone engaged and constantly pushing forward.

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

I’m really excited to see how Blink continues to grow and evolve. It’s inspiring to be part of a company that’s making such a meaningful impact, and knowing that I’ve contributed, even in a small way, feels incredibly rewarding. There’s something special about watching the company’s journey and realizing that I’ve played a part in that story. I can’t wait to see where we go next.

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

One initiative that really stands out to me is Blink for Everyone. I’m especially proud of this program because it supports non-profit organizations that are doing incredible work for the community, often with very limited resources. I love to know that we’re helping these organizations strengthen their employee connections and make their teams feel more united and valued. Knowing that we’re making a difference for groups that give so much back to society is something that truly motivates me. 

Why do you work for Blink?

I work for Blink because everything we do is truly centered around the frontline worker. In every session, whether we’re discussing new features or analyzing metrics, the focus is always on how we can better serve our end users. We constantly ask ourselves, "What challenges are they facing, and how can we help?". This dedication to making a real difference for the people on the ground is what keeps our momentum strong and our team closely bonded.

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Missed our Summer 2025 release? Catch up on the details here!

We get it — work communication has never been louder. Too many channels. Too many tools. Too little signal.

That’s why this Fall, Blink’s release focuses on nuance: Smarter alerts, sharper analytics, and cleaner connections that give your teams more signal, less noise.

From notifications that know when to pause to chat that feels more human, these updates help you cut through the clutter without adding complexity.

Because the best employee experiences don’t shout louder — they just make more sense.

#1. Notifications that know when (and how) to talk

Upgrade unlocked. Blink’s new Notifications framework reimagines how messages reach — and respect — your workforce.

This feature puts power and precision back in everyone’s hands. Whether you’re sending critical safety alerts or scheduling downtime for a global team, Blink now balances reach, relevance, and respect — at scale.

People want more control of their communications — and this upgrade delivers it. With a smarter engine that blends personalization, targeting, and flexibility, organizations can now cut through the noise, boost engagement, and rebuild trust between leaders and teams.

It’s not just a new notification system. It’s a new communication philosophy — one that turns alerts into alignment, and messages into moments that matter.

What’s new:

• User autonomy: Employees can now set preferences (All / Important / Mute) and schedule quiet hours by day
• Precision reach: Admins can define who sends notifications and safeguard critical groups from muting
• Instant context: Notifications now include group names and content previews so people instantly know what matters
• Governance by design: Org-level defaults and group-level overrides make communication clean, consistent, and compliant
• Featured flags & quiet days: Highlight key announcements, or give everyone a digital breather, directly from group settings

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#2. Chat that feels more human

Communication shouldn’t feel like a chore. With this release, Blink Chat gets a subtle yet powerful glow-up.

New visual tweaks — from chat bubbles to color updates — make conversations clearer, warmer, and easier to follow. It’s small design detail meets big usability payoff, especially for mobile teams on the move.

What’s new:

• Refreshed bubble and color design for cleaner conversation flow
• Sleeker layout optimized for readability and accessibility

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#3. Surveys that spark smarter action

Data is only as good as what you do with it. This update gives your Surveys a sharper edge — faster setup, better targeting, and smoother participation across teams.

What’s new:

• Improved creation flow and formatting in the Admin Portal
• Trackable surveys that allow you to narrow in on responses from the profile fields you care about most‍
• Cleaner user experience for participants on every platform — especially on mobile
• Detailed analytic exports on engagement and completion rates to boost decision-making
• Question descriptions that enable you to share more question-specific detail with participants

#4. Informational Workday nudges

Workday is great for processes — but people often need reminders to actually complete them. Enter Informational Workday Nudges.

This new feature helps surface important Workday updates — like upcoming reviews or expiring training — directly inside Blink, where employees already spend their time.

Your HR system just got a human touch.

What’s new:

• Automated, context-aware nudges triggered by Workday events
• Fully integrated with Blink’s mobile-first experience
• Informational-only for now — with Actionable Nudges on the horizon

#5. Smart Search with ServiceNow: One query, all answers

Tired of hunting across tools? Blink’s new ServiceNow federated search brings everything into one place.

Employees can now find ServiceNow tickets, knowledge base articles, and internal content without ever leaving Blink. It’s one search bar to rule them all — and a big win for IT and employee self-service alike.

What’s new:

• Unified search results from Blink and ServiceNow
• Instant access to help articles and ticket info
• Reduced system hopping for employees and IT teams

#6. Live stream analytics: Because reach matters

You’ve mastered live streaming — now it’s time to measure it.

With new live stream analytics, you can finally see who tuned in, how long they stayed, and what content resonated most. Use these insights to refine your next event and make every broadcast count.

The result? A full picture of engagement, not just attendance.

What’s new:

• Viewer metrics: Total attendees, average watch time, drop-off points
• Replay and engagement data for on-demand viewers
• Exportable reports for leadership summaries

#7. Agreement center: Simplifying compliance adherence

Ensuring workplace policy compliance is crucial but traditionally time-consuming — especially for frontline workforces.

Our new agreement center lets administrators control and distribute policy agreements and record employee acceptance with ease and precision, right from Blink’s desktop interface.

What’s new:

• Recurring employee prompts with custom CTAs and a selection of set cadences
• Single-click functionality so employees can accept on mobile or desktop just once
• Policy or workplace document links right in the prompt

#8. Coming soon

Because innovation never clocks out. Here’s what’s next on the horizon:

• Algorithmic feed: Personalized, relevance-first content delivery
• SMS alerts microapp: Reach employees even beyond Blink
• Share feed posts via email: Extend reach to non-users and stakeholders
• Actionable Workday nudges: Let employees complete tasks directly from Blink
• Chat read receipts: See when your message hits home
• Save feed posts for later: Bookmark important content for future reference

Blink. And stay one step ahead of what’s next in employee experience.

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Previously published in Healthcare Business Today

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Mass walkouts make headlines. It would not be surprising if 2024 saw an increase in these headlines - particularly in sectors such as healthcare. The recent strike that saw 75,000 Kaiser healthcare workers walk off the job is reflective of the deep level of disengagement among frontline healthcare professionals in general. Unless healthcare leaders can spot rising levels of disengagement, understand what causes it, and take proactive steps to prevent it within their organizations, these worrying trends will continue to persist.

Unfortunately, despite significant and somewhat effective efforts by HR leaders to recognize and reward frontline workers for their contributions, the healthcare industry is struggling to bridge the gap between organizational initiatives and frontline satisfaction. Benefits programs, loyalty initiatives, listening surveys, and wellbeing apps have failed to move the needle, mainly because these initiatives simply don’t always reach those needing them. Technologies such as e-learning and team scheduling platforms, messaging, and collaboration tools - designed to engage employees and encourage a more connected and cohesive organizational culture  - have not had the desired impact on frontline staff. 

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Mismatch Between Technology and Reality 

The problem is that while the pace of digital transformation in the enterprise space has been undeniable, the technologies most healthcare organizations purchase today are designed for desk-based workers who are permanently online and have ready access to IT support and/or relevant training resources; or are another add on to an existing legacy system.

The modern enterprise tech ecosystem is incompatible with the reality of frontline work – where mobile ease of use and accessibility are pivotal to driving impact. These tools simply don’t work effectively when rolled out to hospital staff who are time-constrained, constantly on their feet, and rarely anywhere near a desktop computer, especially for anything nonclinical. 

A survey of more than 500 US healthcare workers reveals that 37% say technology frustrates them. This lack of positivity around technology creates inequality of opportunity and influence within the workplace, as healthcare workers often don’t enjoy the same sense of value and belonging as their office-based peers, nor do they have the same opportunities for career advancement.

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READ MORE: Achieving Employee Techquity: Our guide on why successful digital inclusion in healthcare starts in your teams.

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Purpose-built Technology for Delivering Exceptional Care

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Healthcare workers aren’t averse to using technology. As consumers, their digital world is immediate and enriching, driven by intuitive smartphone apps, instant notifications, and a sense of always having the tools they need at their fingertips. Yet in their jobs, the current digital experience can be slow and disjointed.

To close the digital divide, organizations must deploy technologies specifically designed with the on-the-go frontline healthcare experience in mind. For example, offering single sign-on (SSO), mobile-enabled access to all applications will greatly improve accessibility. Building a hub can make it easy for all workers to access important information and other systems. Simple mobile forms can replace paper trails, help workers improve efficiency, and eradicate convoluted processes so that workers do not waste time on administrative tasks.

Elara Caring, one of the largest US-based providers of personal care, home health, and hospice care, successfully addressed these challenges after experiencing a 65% annual staff turnover rate due to low morale and lack of peer-to-peer connection. The company decided to deploy Blink, the frontline employee super-app, which has transformed its operational landscape and solved its million-dollar challenge. 

Elara, using Blink, streamlined onboarding, enhanced communication efficiency, and created a sense of community among employees, some of whom were never connected to the organization. By leveraging capabilities like SSO and automating daily tasks, Elara centralized operations and increased its productivity. Additionally, they facilitated seamless communication and peer-to-peer networking, fostering a culture of recognition and empowerment within Elara's workforce.

By leveraging Blink's multifaceted capabilities, Elara not only mitigated its turnover challenge but also established a more cohesive, efficient, and connected workforce, reinforcing its commitment to employee well-being and organizational success.  And, now that Elara has been able to connect to this large employee constituency successfully, they are innovating on exciting new opportunities for improving these workers’ work-life and their patients’ experience.

Importance of Organizational Culture Shift  

Creating a digitally inclusive environment for frontline workers goes beyond technology adoption. It requires a cultural shift within organizations – one that values and actively supports the digital empowerment of every employee, regardless of role.  People and HR leaders must champion digital inclusion as a strategic priority, ensuring that frontline workers are not just recipients of technology but active participants in the digital transformation journey.

Organizations can foster this culture by promoting digital literacy programs, encouraging peer-to-peer learning, and recognizing the unique contributions of frontline workers. Understanding the specific pain points of these employees leads to more effective and user-friendly solutions and an increase in technology adoption.

Essentially, closing the digital gap for frontline healthcare workers isn't just about technological advancements, it's about ensuring exceptional healthcare and workplace equity. By investing in the right tools, training, and culture initiatives, healthcare organizations can enable and empower their frontline workforce to better thrive in the digital age.

‍

Employee retention is the art of holding onto your staff once you’ve hired them.

And, in 202w, it’s more important than ever.

Why?

Because companies are finally waking up to the competitive advantages of being a "people" company. A "churn and burn" approach to hiring results in poor customer service.

This is an issue, because customers are placing increasing value on good service. With smartphones, it’s easier than ever to find a competitor company to buy from. Or in the case of consumer goods, to avoid the shop altogether and order online.

Before we start.

You can hold onto employees (more or less) by treating them well. Listening to their concerns, and providing them with a few incentives to stay put.

If you’re an HR professional or a CEO, you don’t need us to tell you that.
What you might find useful is an in-depth guide to employee retention in the modern workforce.

How to maximize your employee engagement efforts. And make sure there were no stones left unturned in creating the most comprehensive guide... we asked some industry-leading experts to contribute.
We’ll cover:

• Detail on the importance of employee retention today.
• How to build effective employee retention strategies.
• The exit interview, and how to turn it into your secret employee retention weapon.

Let’s begin...

Why is employee retention important?

Employee retention means "treating your employees right"; it’s an end in itself, not just the means.

From an ethical standpoint, no company should mistreat their employees. Meeting your colleagues’ basic needs and providing them with a safe and stimulating workplace? It's the right thing to do for its own sake.

But it’s more than that.

Attracting talent to your company—and keeping it once you’ve found it—has so many advantages. According to Herzberg's famous Two-Factory Theory, employee retention and employee motivation are interdependent. You can find out more about this in the Vantage Circle HR blog. A strong employee retention strategy will:

• Reduce operating costs.
• Improve customer service levels.
• Allow you to out-compete your competitors for the best people.

The cost of high employee turnover

Hiring and firing is expensive.

Eye-wateringly expensive, to be precise. Think six to nine months salary as a conservative estimate.

Then you need to consider the impact of not having someone there to do that person’s work. That could slow down a massive project. Cause higher overtime costs as existing staff pick up their work. Or just lead to a reduction in staff morale as they struggle with increased workloads.

Companies tend to get the importance of this for salaried positions and execs. but there’s often a bit of a blind spot when it comes to their non-desk workforce and the real cost of losing an employee.

Sure, replacing a senior-level manager is more expensive than replacing a bus driver. But what happens if your bus drivers’ morale becomes so low that two or three quit per month?

It all adds up.

"Losing talented staff can also have emotional consequences on those who stay. Effectively reducing productivity by decreasing morality and motivation," says Rochelle van Rensburg of the Ezzely Blog.

"Maintaining essential talent is therefore mission-critical to organizational effectiveness for all these reasons. Staff retention puts companies ahead of their competitors, by reducing recruiting and re-skilling costs. But more importantly, by keeping the top performers, which results in all of their specialized knowledge and expertise remaining in-house."

Your mobile workforce interacts most with customers. They are the public face of your company. So, their happiness will reflect in the level of service they give your customers.

Happier, more engaged employees deliver better customer service. They also build up a bank of operational knowledge over time. This helps them respond to queries quicker and more effectively than a steady stream of new hires ever could.

The importance of employee retention in 2020

An active employee retention strategy is more important than ever.
There are two key reasons for this:

Firstly, it's never been easier for customers to look elsewhere if they feel that your levels of service don’t match their expectations. We live in an age where any information you want is available via a few taps of a smartphone screen.

Dissatisfied with a hotel stay? Booking.com can recommend thousands of others.

Bad experience in a taxi? A quick Google gets you all the phone numbers of other local firms.

Poor customer experience at a theme park? TripAdvisor lists other attractions.

You get the idea.

Despite this, customers still want to be loyal. Millennials want to stick around if your brand fits in with their personal values. Don’t throw away this loyal market.

Secondly, it's never been easier to browse jobs via online jobs boards. If your workforce isn’t happy they will move. Don’t assume that they will sit in their job miserable because there aren’t any other options.

Reasons why employees leave and reasons why managers leave aren't always the same.

Your competitors may be waking up to the benefits of being a "people company." They'll more than happily snap up the staff you can't keep.

The best employee retention strategies

A strong employee retention rate is crucial to remain competitive. How you go about doing this is worth examining in some depth.

Remember - you are an employee too! As you create your employee retention strategies, keep asking yourself, "would I be happy with this?" or, "does this seem reasonable to me?"

Here are a few points you’ll need to cover when creating an employee engagement plan. Remember, the employee experience starts before the first day at the interviewing stage. To set each new starter up for success, getting the onboarding right is crucial. Want to learn more? Check out the Definitive Guide to Onboarding.

Let's quickly touch on the foundation of any working relationship: trust. As Kayla Lopez from the recruitment firm Viqtory.com reminds us. "If your employees trust you and the organization they tend to embrace the workplace; this begins before the employee is even hired. Transparency is something that we need to willingly support to gain trust. A workforce that trusts you will be engaged, a workforce that is engaged will retain. Trust is the foundation of all strong partnerships."

Now for the details...

Pay well

We’ll start with the basics.

If your pay rates don’t match with your competitors’, you’re going to have a bad time keeping hold of your high achievers.

Take a quick look at what your competitors pay for equal positions. Try and build a league table of what similar companies to you pay, and where you rank. Glassdoor is a good starting point.

Aiming for the absolute top is ideal if you can afford it, but you don’t have to offer the best salary offer out there. There are plenty of other ways to encourage your staff to stay put (more on that below), as long as you can land in the middle of the table. For someone working in a frontline job, it is difficult to give your best at work knowing you could get $5.00 per hour more for the same job elsewhere. (Even if there’s free pizza every Friday).

It’s also worth noting that even a generous wage packet won’t persuade your employees to stay if you’re otherwise a nightmare to work for.
Consider this step the cornerstone of all your employee engagement efforts. Not enough by itself, but essential in building something lasting and meaningful.

Give competitive benefits

You might not be able to take it to Silicon Valley levels. (Free three-course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, unlimited holidays, and puppy creches).

You can offer a benefits package or a performance bonus scheme tailored to the size of your business, your budget, and your business objectives. The key is to prioritize benefits that would have a tangible difference to the lives of your employees. Add the fancy stuff on if you have money to spare.

Think about:

• Childcare vouchers: we’re all aware of the struggle to find affordable childcare. Help your workforce with their work-life balance (and keep it diverse—most of the people who end up quitting jobs for childcare reasons tend to be women) by offering vouchers to help with the cost.

• Health cover for employees and dependents: an absolute must if you're US-based, although even if you live in a country which has some form of universal health care, giving employees the opportunity to go private is very appealing.

• Flexible working: if the type of work you do accommodates it, flexible working is like gold dust to your staff. A "work your hours however you want" policy helps people manage childcare commitments, fit in dentist appointments, and reduce the stress of trying to juggle work and life commitments.

• Lunch program: Most of the lunch break is spent buying, prepping or reheating food. Offering a tasty and healthy in-house solution, such as the online canteen Smunch, allows your employees to capitalize on their break time and share a meal together. Ultimately, this will improve your company culture and cross-departmental communication as well.

Once you’ve got the basics sorted, some nice-to-have options include:

• Above average PTO allowances
• Free gym memberships and cycle to work programs
• Personal development funds

Develop a feedback culture to empower employees

Your employees know their workplace better than anyone else. Make the most of it.

If your employees feel involved in shaping their workplace and consulted on major decisions then they will be reluctant to leave it.

The key to this is to carry regular, easy-to-complete employee engagement surveys so you know exactly what the mood on the ground is and how to improve it.

Employees will hold an enormous amount of goodwill towards a workplace that listens to their concerns and acts on them. Equally, they will reserve a special sort of resentment for those that send out survey after survey, only to ignore the results.

It’s essential to have a solid plan in place for your employee engagement surveys, or they will backfire spectacularly.

Key pointers

• Small, regular surveys are better than long, annual ones. Only giving your employees one chance per year to raise issues will result in bottled up frustrations spewing out come survey time. Not only does this result in surveys that skew unhelpfully negative, but it also means that your HR team will face an uphill struggle
• Another point about designing surveys that you can respond to effectively: keep it targeted. Focus each of your quick-answer surveys on a specific area—facilities onsite, for example, or about relationships with line managers.
• Use short answer questions: "yes/no" or "on a scale of 1-5" formats make it easier for people to respond immediately. Long-form feedback can be helpful, but having lots of long-answer text boxes on your survey will put people off completing it. A good compromise is to have an optional "any specific comments" box at the end of the survey.

When you’ve processed the surveys, share the results and shout about what you’re doing to act on feedback. Employees will appreciate the transparency, and it’s important to signpost what you’re doing to address the concerns they raise—or they won’t bother to participate in future surveys.

Try and create a "feedback culture" in your company by encouraging people to come forward with suggestions for improvements any time they want. Surveys highlight pain points as they are reactive; an anonymous suggestions box (either digital or real-life), on the other hand, will bring out the more innovative side of your workforce.

These suggestions might be small—a new way of organizing the break room fridge, or the introduction of free coffee Mondays—but the opportunity to improve the workplace in this way will work wonders for your wider staff’s sense of allegiance to it.

Make your workplace a fun place to work

If your coworkers are your friends, spending time at work doesn’t seem so taxing.

This is where the fun stuff comes in—the away days, lunchtime yoga, the free breakfast bar, the Christmas party...

If you have a mobile workforce, don’t forget to include them, too! They might not be in the office that often, so having regular get-togethers or breakfast clubs when shifts change is a great way to build a sense of belonging.

Obviously, base these activities on what your own workforce would like, but some ideas include:

• Regular lunchtime sports clubs (running, yoga, five-a-side, badminton are good starting points)
• Away days and team-building weekends.
• Semi-regular opportunities for free food. Depending on the size of your team, you could offer lunch on the company each Friday, pizza parties when teams hit their targets or just because
• Big events like Christmas parties and family fun days. If you run awareness weeks for things like diversity, mental health and stress, why not run some exciting events for these too?
• Recognition of key milestones. If there are particularly busy periods throughout the year (like the Christmas rush for anyone working in retail or hospitality), put on an event to recognize the hard work your employees put in. This could be a full-on party, or simply just giving your staff the nod to take off after lunch on a quiet day.

This step does, however, come with a big flashing warning sign that says: don’t bother doing any of these without doing the steps listed above first.

Because these are fun and exciting, and sound super trendy when you put them on your Careers page, people often use them in place of paying a decent wage, or offering flexible working hours, or acting on employee feedback.

The exit interview - your employee retention secret weapon

One of the best ways of figuring out what’s going wrong with your employee retention efforts is asking your colleagues when they leave.

Seems counter-intuitive, and rather frustrating, doesn’t it?

And in some ways, it is. No amount of collecting and aggregating exit interview data, tweaking your employee engagement plan and making changes in your company to reduce employee turnover will change the fact that, for that particular employee, your efforts weren’t enough. For HR people and line managers, that stings sometimes.

Still, if you can take your losses on the chin, this is a real opportunity to do better for your colleagues, and identify and fix any major issues that push people to leave.

There are three main reasons why exit interviews are so effective at flagging up things that need to change:

The employee is leaving so won't hold back

Regardless of how many times you reassure your colleagues that your pulse surveys are anonymous and that helpful suggestions are encouraged, they will still be a little suspicious.

The worry that surveys aren’t really anonymous, or that speaking out about a key workplace bugbear will get them labelled as a troublemaker, will be a constant thorn in the side of your employee retention efforts.

(As a side note, if this attitude is pervasive then it might be time to take a look at your workplace culture. A little reticence is natural. An all-encompassing dread of speaking up might indicate something a little more sinister).

The exit interview is a different kettle of fish. They’re leaving. There are no raises or opportunities for promotion in the pipeline. This is their opportunity to "tell it like it really is."

Listen, even if you think they’re being unfair and bitter.

Problems brought up during exit interviews tend to have weighed heavily on an employee’s decision to leave. In other words, they’re big issues you need to address urgently.

Get the whole picture

Multiple exit interviews help build up a better picture of life on the ground.

Of course, there’s always the chance that one particular employee just, for whatever reason, didn’t have a good time.

That’s where keeping data from previous exit interviews comes in.

For example, if an employee complains about their line manager being unbearable, it might just be a clash of personalities. Equally it could be because that line manager is difficult to work for and too demanding. It’s difficult to say without further info.

So. Run some analytics.

How many other employees from that line manager’s team have left over the past year?

Did they say anything in their exit interviews?

Have they been flagged to HR for anything previously?

If so, you might want to investigate further.

This is why it’s important to conduct an exit interview for every single person that leaves the business. If you restrict it to management positions, people based in HQ, or full-time workers, you’re missing key sets of data that could be useful in improving your employee retention strategy.

Find out what went wrong

An exit interview, conducted well, helps you identify wrong turns in your employee journey map.

You’ll probably have some sort of employee journey map already.

You might call it something different. We’re referring to the plan you make that starts at the hire phase and ends with the offboarding phase when the employee leaves. This normally includes guidelines for each stage they go through with your company. For example:

Hiring:

• Offer letter and contract sent
• Start date agreed two weeks in advance

Onboarding:

• First day: tour of premises, fire safety, welcome coffee or lunch
• First six weeks: all e-learning to be completed

You get the idea. Here's a basic template you could expand on:

(Source: Trends in Employee Journey Maps)

The exit interview provides an excellent opportunity to ask your employees about various stages in this plan, to see whether they’ve been carried out to your expectations.

Ask specifically, and don’t be afraid to go right back to the start of their employment. Whether they felt welcomed in their first weeks, for example. If they were given clear and regular feedback on their performance, and compare that to your notes on how your employee journey should pan out.

It could be that, despite your meticulous efforts in planning it, your employee journey map isn’t being adhered to by managers in the wider organisation. This could be why your employees are leaving - this map provides guidelines on how to make sure people feel safe, supported and included at work. If people don’t follow it you’re going to have problems.

Your employee journey map is important. If it isn’t being followed, you need to correct that as soon as you can. Exit interviews are the best way to do this.

How to conduct an employee retention interview

Be flexible around your employees needs

If a lot of your workforce are remote or mobile, don’t insist on a face-to-face interview at HQ.

There are several free video calling apps available, so why not make use of them? An employee is more likely to feel comfortable talking to you if you’ve made accommodations for their situation.

If they’re more comfortable talking to you, they’re more likely to be honest with you, and that’s exactly what you want.

Don’t make it overly formal

Go for a relaxed vibe. Making things too formal will only stifle conversation.

If you’re conducting a face-to-face interview, it’s a nice touch to provide some sort of refreshments; hot drinks and a pastry, maybe. The employee will appreciate the gesture, and it will encourage a more conversational feel, which is exactly what will get them to open up.

Identify the specifics to touch on

You will know, from previous exit interviews if there are any particular pain points in your employee experience.

Ask about them. You’ll then be able to establish:

• Whether these are still issues
• What progress you’ve made on them, and how effective your efforts to tackle them have been.

...But allow them to express their opinion too

If the structure of the interview is entirely created by you, you could miss something important.

By allowing employees space to expand on their own concerns, you give yourself the opportunity to pick up on potential issues that aren’t on your radar. Sure, a lot of this could be specific to that particular individual, but you should investigate nonetheless—otherwise you’ll never know whether it’s the iceberg tip of something bigger.

Remember: your relationship with the employee isn't over

People leave for all sorts of reasons—not all of them negative.

You might want to leave the door open for talented employees, in case they want to return at some point. Also consider that talented former employees can be great source of referrals.

These can be your company’s cheerleaders, even after they’ve left. A good exit interview can make this relationship. A poor one can ruin it.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that the employee leaving has been less than stellar. In this case you should see the exit interview as a chance to smooth things over, and divert potentially negative Glassdoor reviews or social media mentions.

Final thoughts

To summarize:

• An employee retention strategy is important because it makes your employees happier. Happier, more engaged employees perform better in general, and deliver better customer service.
• The cost of employee turnover is measured in increased operational costs and decreased institutional knowledge.

Bearing this in mind, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t "can we afford to expand our employee retention efforts?"

It’s "can we afford not to?"

An engaged, happy workforce with a low churn rate isn’t just a nice thing to have.

It’s not just something you can boast about on your Careers page.

It’s a competitive advantage—and people are only just waking up to this fact. Because now more than ever, people value good customer service. If you can provide that, you’ll have a serious head start on your competitors.

Blink is an internal communications tool that’s does everything your intranet does, but better. Try it out today! Request a free demo to get started.

‍What to look for in a Slack alternative

Choosing the right Slack alternative in 2026 requires understanding how workplace communication has evolved. Today’s teams are distributed, hybrid, and increasingly mobile — so the right platform must go beyond simple chat.

Key things to look for:

1. An all-in-one experience: The best Slack alternatives combine chat, announcements, and engagement tools. Platforms like Blink bring communication, collaboration, and employee experience together, creating a single digital front door for every employee.
2. Support for small and frontline teams: Many businesses now rely on hybrid or deskless workers and need a mobile-first communication tool that employees can use without a company email.
3. Integration with everyday tools: Slack alternatives such as Blink and Microsoft Teams integrate with core systems like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and HR software, ensuring one-click access to essential apps.
4. Ease of onboarding and adoption: Tools with a familiar consumer app UX drive faster adoption across all roles and departments.
5. Customization and security: Look for flexible access controls, branded interfaces, and enterprise-grade data protection.

In short, the best Slack alternatives for small businesses and frontline workforces are those that make communication effortless, keep employees connected wherever they work, and simplify tech stacks — with Blink standing out as a leading choice in this new category of employee experience platforms.

10 Slack alternatives

Slack alternatives include:

• Blink
• Workvivo
• Google Chat
• Microsoft Teams
• WhatsApp
• Staffbase
• Unily
• Mango Apps
• Chanty
• Zoho Cliq

Let’s take a closer look with an in-depth comparison of each of these team communication tools to help you find the right fit.

#1. Blink 

Best for: Organizations with desk-based and frontline employees looking to elevate internal communication and employee experience.

Looking for a Slack alternative that actually works for your entire workforce, including frontline teams? Blink has you covered. With real-time, peer-to-peer chat at its core, Blink makes communication effortless, regardless of role or location.

But Blink isn’t just another messaging app. It’s an all-in-one employee experience platform, packed with seamless communication, collaboration, and engagement features that help connect everyone — from corporate offices to the frontline.

As a mobile-first solution, Blink works on smartphones and desktop computers with equal functionality. Every employee gets easy access to modern intranet features, including real-time conversations, surveys, a content hub, recognition tools, and social networking capabilities.

With deep third-party integrations, Blink becomes the ideal digital front door for your organization. A personalized dashboard provides employees with one-click access to all the workplace software they use, including scheduling, HRIS, project management tools, and other essential applications. 

Benefits

• Real-time chat, for any organization: With peer-to-peer messaging, group chats, and team channels, Blink makes it easy for employees to connect instantly, whether they’re at their desk, on the shop floor, or in the field.
  
  
• Mobile-first: The platform has the same features and functionality on both mobile and desktop devices, and you don`t need a company email address to use it. Enabling all workers to access communication and collaboration tools on the go.
  
  
• Personalized comms: With audience segmentation and a mix of public and private channels, employees only receive communications relevant to their team, role, location, or interests.
  
  
• Multiple communication channels: Blink offers a news feed, content hub, chat, surveys, and recognition tools, making it a complete solution for internal communication.
  
  
• Super-app integrations: Blink integrates with other workplace tools, giving employees access to communications, documents, training, and HR essentials in one place.
  
  
• Dedicated support: Blink pairs you with a customer success manager to maximize adoption and impact.
• In-built AI: Blink’s AI features help employees write, improve, and summarize content, making it faster and easier to share ideas and information.

Considerations

• An all-in-one employee experience platform: Blink includes the tools you need for communication, collaboration, and engagement in a single solution. It may exceed your requirements if you only want to replicate Slack’s messaging functionality.

#2. Workvivo

Best for: Large companies seeking a culture-led comms experience with native Zoom integration.

Workvivo is a product that’s risen to prominence in recent years due to its acquisition by Zoom. Seamless integration with Zoom’s video conferencing software is a major platform selling point. Workvivo also provides a mobile app and a variety of communication channels.

Benefits

• Culture-building communication tools: Workvivo’s channels include a news feed, live streams, and podcasts.  
• A centralized hub: Workvivo can simplify communication and collaboration by cutting down the number of tools you need.
• Translation capabilities: Break down language barriers in multilingual teams by allowing employees to publish and read content in their chosen language.
• Personalized content: A tailored activity feed ensures users only see messages that are relevant to them.

Considerations

• Chat functionality: For instant messaging, Workvivo relies on integration with Zoom Team Chat, MS Teams, or Slack. Because of this, Workvivo might not be the right choice for businesses who want to move away from Slack.
• Cost: Workvivo is one of the more expensive platforms on this list, with additional costs for some features — including Workvivo TV and advanced analytics.
• Overwhelming notifications: Some Workvivo users say that excessive notifications disrupt their work day.

Read also: Top Workvivo alternatives

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Ratings

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.8/5

#3. Google Chat

Best for: Google Workspace users looking for quick, lightweight team messaging.

Google Chat is an instant messaging tool that offers seamless integration with Gmail, Drive, and Meet. It’s perfect for small to mid-sized teams looking for one-to-one and group messaging software. And it’s a good Slack alternative for those keen to stay working within the Google ecosystem.

Benefits

• Google integration: You can jump from Google Chat, to Google Docs, to Google Meet, to Gmail in a click. Google Chat offers easy and extensive Google integration.
• File sharing and spaces: Users can securely share files and create dedicated spaces for specific teams or projects.
• Make announcements: For company-wide announcements, you can create threads that support up to 500,000 members.
• AI functionality: Employees can use Gemini within Google Chat. They can find answers and files, brainstorm ideas, and summarize conversations with ease.

Considerations

• Poor mobile experience: Google Chat offers a better experience on desktops than it does on mobile devices, with users mentioning unreliable notifications and tricky navigation.
• Employee engagement: The user experience offered by Google Chat pales in comparison to leaders in the field. The interface is unlikely to engage employees.
• Functionality and integrations: Users complain that Google Chat lacks the advanced features and third-party integrations provided by other chat tools.

Pricing

Free for Workspace users. Google Workspace plans start at $7 per user per month.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5
• G2: 4.6/5

#4. Microsoft Teams

Best for: Formal organizations already using Microsoft 365 software.

Microsoft Teams is a popular team collaboration software. It allows desk-based, remote teams to collaborate in real-time — and it integrates with Office 365 to provide team chat, meeting, and document-sharing tools. It’s worth noting that, in contrast to Slack’s informal threads, MS Teams has a more corporate and structured feel. 

Benefits

• Office 365 integration: If you already use Office 365 software, it’s easy to add Teams into the mix.
• Video calls: Teams has in-built video conferencing tools. You can launch one-click video meetings, with breakout rooms, recordings, and transcripts.
• Advanced security: Microsoft prides itself on enterprise-level security so it’s a good option if you’re working in a highly regulated industry.
• Easy navigation: Each chat channel comes with file storage. So it’s easy to find documents that relate to each conversation.

Considerations

• Clunky interface: Teams can feel unintuitive for new users. There are lots of tabs, menus, and nested options to get used to.
• Poor mobile experience: If you want to make comms and collaboration available on smartphones, Teams isn’t the best choice.
• Lacks company-wide comms tools: MS Teams isn’t great for culture-building employee communications. You may find it hard to get critical messages to cut through.

Read more: Best Microsoft Teams alternatives

Pricing

Microsoft Teams is free for the first month. The cheapest plan starts from $4 per user per month.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5
• G2: 4.4/5

#5. WhatsApp

Best for: Small teams or informal communication where compliance isn’t a concern.

Let’s start this section with a disclaimer. WhatsApp isn’t designed as an internal business communication tool. But many organizations use it as an unofficial Slack alternative, particularly if their existing comms tech doesn’t fulfill their needs. 

Frontline employees may end up using WhatsApp because the software used by their organizations is only available on desktop and with a company email address — neither of which deskless workers have easy access to.

Benefits

• Simple UX: WhatsApp offers a consumer-grade messaging experience. The app is easy and enjoyable to use — and most employees are already very familiar with it.
• Message, call, and video functions: You can use WhatsApp to speak one-to-one or to the whole team using instant messaging, audio calls, and video chats.
• Engaging functionality: WhatsApp offers a social-media-style experience. Users can leave reactions on posts, send multimedia content, and launch polls.

Considerations

• Security: WhatsApp is associated with data privacy and security concerns. The platform has been vulnerable to hacking, malware attacks, and scams in the past.
• Lack of oversight: Internal comms and IT don’t have access to admin controls or analytics.
• Blurring boundaries: Personal and work messages compete with one another. Mixing personal and work comms can blur boundaries and harm productivity.

Read more: Whatsapp alternatives

Pricing

WhatsApp is free to use.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.7/5

#6. Staffbase

Best for: Large enterprises looking to centralize employee communications.

As a Slack alternative, Staffbase provides everything you need and more. It’s an intranet that works well for large organizations with both dispersed and desk-based staff. Via the app, employees can use one-to-one and group messaging functions, with the option to attach files to messages and enable and disable push notifications.

Benefits

• Great user experience: Staffbase provides an intuitive interface and clear page layouts that are easy for users to navigate.
• An all-round communication tool: With Staffbase, you get tools for top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication.
• A content management system: A full CMS makes life easy for your internal communications team.
• Customization options: You can tailor the Staffbase interface so it matches the branding of your organization.  

Considerations

• Cost: Staffbase is at the more expensive end of the scale. You also have to pay more for advanced add-ons. So it doesn’t tend to make sense for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Limited mobile functionality: The Staffbase mobile app doesn’t provide many out-of-the-box tools for frontline workers.
• Limited integrations: Staffbase integrates well with Microsoft 365 software. But for a wide range of integrations and to give employees access to niche industry tools, you may have to look elsewhere.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.6/5

Read more: Staffbase alternatives

#7. Unily

Best for: Global enterprises focused on top-down communication and intranet-style knowledge sharing.

Unily is another all-round employee experience platform. It goes beyond chat functions to connect, inform, and engage employees across your organization. You can launch polls, update the social feed, and send mandatory content, making everything available on both mobile and desktop apps. But while it excels at broadcasting information, it’s not built for real-time, peer-to-peer conversation.

Benefits

• Strong top-down communication tools: Unily lets you create and distribute targeted content via news articles, social feeds, and mandatory reads.
• An integrated people directory: It’s easy for employees to find co-workers and start conversations with them.  
• Read receipts and notifications: Read receipts tell you when a recipient has seen your message — and notifications ensure that critical comms are never missed.
• Personalization: Unily helps you segment your audience and tailor content so employees only receive relevant information.

Considerations

• Lack of instant messaging: Unlike Slack, Unily doesn’t support real-time chat between employees — limiting peer-to-peer collaboration.
• Complexity: Unily is a comprehensive comms tool. But setup and management will take up a lot of your time.
• Cost: Unily customers say they get a lot for their money. But this is one of the priciest Slack alternatives out there.
• A second-tier mobile experience: Because the desktop version of Unily is so complex, it can be tricky for admins to translate the experience to a small smartphone screen.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5
• G2: 4.5/5

#8. MangoApps

Best for: Organizations who want to create a unified digital workplace.

MangoApps is an employee experience platform that combines document management, project collaboration, and a news feed. It provides audience-targeting tools and some good configuration options.

Benefits

• Easy to use: Both employees and admins will find it easy to use MangoApps and there’s a minimal learning curve.
• A one-stop shop: MangoApps provides many of the tools you need for internal comms, recognition, and employee engagement.
• Comprehensive search: It’s easy for users to find what they’re looking for within the platform thanks to a good search function.
• Built-in knowledge management: MangoApps offers easy document management and knowledge base features.

Considerations

• User experience: UX and the visual appeal of the platform lag behind that of other platforms on this list.
• A poor mobile experience: The mobile app experience is also not up to scratch, with core features for frontline workers relying on integrations.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• G2: 4.2/5

9. Chanty

Best for: Budget-conscious companies looking for a Slack-lite tool.

Taking things back to basics, Chanty is an internal communication app designed to connect office-based and frontline employees in small to mid-sized teams. It provides a centralized hub for messages, contacts, and tasks and an intuitive interface that allows teams to access information and collaborate.

Benefits

• Intuitive messaging: Chanty supports one-to-one and group conversations across a clearly organized interface.
• Create tasks and Kanban boards: You can start task discussions with a click and manage tasks, due dates, and status with collaborative boards.
• File sharing capabilities: Users can share files, uploading and accessing documents and images within the direct messages.

Considerations

• Limited features: Chanty won’t work as an all-in-one internal communication and real-time collaboration solution. You’ll need other tools in the mix.
• Lack of integrations: Chanty doesn’t provide easy integration with many popular software solutions.
• Scalability issues: This platform is designed for businesses at the smaller end of the scale so if you’re likely to grow quickly, you’ll need a new solution before too long.  
• Limited customization: The platform is simple to use but it doesn’t offer advanced customization options.

Pricing

Chanty offers a free plan with paid plans starting at $3 per month per user.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5
• G2: 4.5/5

10. Zoho Cliq

Best for: Businesses already using the Zoho software suite.

Zoho Cliq is another Slack alternative to consider in 2025. It provides a secure chat platform for communication within teams and with external stakeholders. You can use video calls, real-time messaging, and file-sharing tools.

Benefits

• Simple UI: Users say that Zoho Cliq is easy and intuitive to use.
• Comprehensive internal team communication: Teams have all the tools they need to communicate effectively, even when working in different locations.
• A good mobile experience: Users are positive about Zoho Cliq’s mobile app, particularly in comparison to Slack’s mobile experience.

Considerations

• Limited functionality: Zoho Cliq works best as part of the Zoho ecosystem, which includes CRM and project management software. Alone, it has limited functionality.  
• Lack of customization: You have limited control over notifications, status settings, and the Zoho Cliq interface.
• Lack of integrations: Zoho Cliq doesn’t offer the same range of third-party integrations as Slack.

Pricing

Zoho Cliq customers can start with a free trial. Plans start from $2 per user per month.

Reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5
• G2: 4.4/5

What to look for in a Slack alternative

The best alternatives to Slack provide all the communication tools you currently rely on. They also fill the gaps — fixing some of the issues your team experiences with Slack to create a more effective and engaging employee experience.

Beyond the best possible real-time chat and collaboration features, here’s what you should be looking for when choosing an alternative to Slack.

A consumer-grade user experience

A user-friendly interface, simple navigation, and clear communication channels make life easy for employees — and ensure high levels of software adoption.

Easy onboarding

The best Slack alternatives have a minimal learning curve — for both employees and admins. They’re easy and enjoyable to use from day one.

Extensive integrations

To avoid app overload, your communication tech should integrate with the other tools you use, putting everything employees need in one easy-access location.

Customization and personalization

The best internal communication tools are customizable solutions that allow you to put your stamp on them with company branding. They allow you to tailor notification settings and segment audiences so they receive only relevant comms.

Cost-effectiveness

Pick a platform that gets good adoption rates. Also, choose tools that reach all employees — including hard-to-reach frontline workers — so you don’t have to pay for multiple software subscriptions.

Security

The best Slack alternatives keep your data safe and secure. Look for tools that prioritize security with key features like end-to-end encryption (in transit and at rest) and multi-factor authentication.

Find the right alternative to Slack and supercharge workplace communication

So which solution is best for your organization? 

It depends on whether you need a like-for-like Slack replacement or a complete internal communication platform upgrade.

A simple team chat app makes it easy for desk-based teams to message and collaborate. But an employee experience platform takes communication to the next level. 

With built-in surveys, recognition tools, deep integrations, and a social news feed, an employee communication platform connects your team to your organization’s culture and purpose while reducing time spent switching between apps.

When you choose the right Slack alternative, you can create a more engaged, connected, and loyal workforce — something Slack was not designed to deliver.

‍Blink brings this vision to life by turning everyday conversations into real connections through a single, mobile-first employee experience app and platform — software that unites communication, collaboration, and culture across every team.

Blink. And turn conversations into real connection with an employee experience app.
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