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

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

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

But only if their leaders take charge.

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

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

Key challenges faced by frontline employees

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

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

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

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

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

What does frontline empowerment mean? 

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

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

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

Why empowering the frontline is so important

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Improving frontline engagement and morale

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

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

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

3. Satisfied staff leads to satisfied customers 

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

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

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

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

How to introduce, implement and sustain frontline empowerment

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

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

1. Start a frontline management flywheel to drive success 

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

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

2. Provide the right training for each level of worker

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

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

3. Give them decision making abilities 

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

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

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

4. Provide the right tools and technology

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

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

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

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

5. Get and give regular feedback

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

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

6. Have a thorough onboarding process

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

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

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

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

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

7. Recognize and reward hard work

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

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

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

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

How Blink can help you empower your frontline

Employee Surveys

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

Feed

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

Employee Recognition 

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

Blink Champions

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

A record 50.5 million people living in America quit their jobs in 2022 — and a further 40% of US employees considered leaving their jobs. Organizations need to step things up a notch if they want to start engaging both their desk-based and frontline staff.

The good news is there are many employee engagement strategies, tactics, and ideas you can implement to turn around the situation. The 12 strategies we discuss in this guide will help you create an engaging workplace experience and drive employee engagement for both desk-based and frontline employees.

Frontline Employee Engagement in 2024

Blink created this guide after working with hundreds of frontline organizations. Now, these insights can help other leaders prepare for a year that promises both challenge and opportunity.

Download to learn more: The top eight frontline engagement trends to watch out for and the six key strategies for success

A quick recap: what is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels:

• Emotionally connected to their job, coworkers, and organization as a whole
• Satisfied with their job role and function
• Aligned with your company’s values
• Able to give 100% during work hours

Industry statistics cite employee engagement as a key factor in employee satisfaction, retention, and even company profitability. Employee engagement should be a number one priority for businesses globally — and yet, as of 2023, only 23% of employees globally are engaged.

You can use a number of methods to measure employee engagement levels in your business. Think surveys, metrics, and other engagement KPIs that will help determine how motivated, satisfied, and fulfilled your employees are in their work.

Remember, employee engagement is often the byproduct of a great employee experience. If you provide a fulfilling, enjoyable, and inspiring workplace experience, you enable and encourage engagement.

With this in mind, you need to tailor and adapt your employee engagement strategies to meet the needs of different types of employees, including frontline workers. This will make their overall experience positive and rewarding.

The foundations of effective employee engagement strategies

Engaged employees can be your greatest business asset. They are more focused and committed than disengaged workers, encourage their coworkers, and positively impact your bottom line.

But improving employee engagement is not about what you do. It’s about what you are as an organization, the culture you cultivate, and the values that you live by.

So before we jump into the employee engagement strategies, it’s important to look at the key values of employee engagement that form the foundation for those strategies. Those core values are:

Respect

Respect is an essential consideration for all your high-level decisions about managing employees. For your workers to be engaged at work, they should be able to trust that they are being treated with fairness and respect.  

So how do you convey this in your processes and policies? You pay competitive wages, allow enough breaks, listen to their ideas, and formally recognize excellent performance and value-abiding behaviors.

Transparency

If your employees aren’t aware of anything about your organization that’s beyond their scope of work or immediate team, you can’t blame them for feeling like an outsider. Sooner or later, they’ll feel isolated and disengaged.

Being in the loop doesn’t just help them do their jobs in a better way, but also makes them feel like they belong. So it’s essential to communicate openly and regularly with all your employees.

The more transparent your communication, the higher level of trust you’ll build with your workers. And the more comfortable they’ll feel sharing their thoughts and concerns, which brings us to the next pillar of employee engagement.

Two-way communication

Most organizations follow a top-down approach to employee communication in which frontline employees hardly ever have a say. But these workers often have the best insights because they work directly with customers day in and day out.

So one of the best values to nurture and cultivate for high employee engagement is two-way communication. Give your workers ample opportunities to raise their voice and share what they think. Then act on this feedback to take your employee engagement to the next level.

12 actionable employee engagement strategies

Here are 12 employee engagement strategies & tactics you can implement today:

1. Foster co-worker relationships

When employees have friendly relationships with immediate team members and other people in the organization, they are more likely to enjoy the day-to-day.

Workplace relationships don’t just help with networking, they also provide the guidance and motivation a worker needs to succeed in their role. And creating opportunities to build and nurture these connections is one of the best employee engagement strategies.

Co-workers don’t always cross paths throughout the working day — especially in frontline organizations. It might be up to you to encourage better intra-department connections through organized events. You could create a program to encourage workers to collaborate, socialize, or train each other on the parts of the job that they know best.

Workers from different departments can connect, share notes, and exchange best practices. This way, they can also try out a recently learned skill or explore different options they might want to pursue in the future.

In fact, there are many cases in which employees consider leaving their organization to pursue a different career path. This program will help you facilitate the lateral moving of an employee to a different department, so they aren’t forced to look elsewhere. This way you hit two goals with one stone: high employee engagement and better employee retention.

2. Have a thorough onboarding process

Onboarding is essential for setting the right tone and expectations when a new employee joins your team.

As the statistics in the video above highlight, around 20% of new hires leave in the first seven weeks of employment, but organizations with a strong onboarding process have improved retention rates by 82%.

A strong onboarding experience is achieved by:

1. Making sure your onboarding process covers not only organizational policies, but also the company’s core values, mission, and vision
2. Giving your new employees mobile access to relevant materials and resources to learn from, and encouraging all employees to provide their feedback
3. Acknowledging the importance of connection during onboarding. Introduce new hires to their team members, leadership, and coworkers. For a dispersed workforce, this can be done by ensuring your employees have the right digital tools and channels to connect from wherever they are

A sense of belonging from day one is integral in order to improve employee engagement — particularly for the frontline, where 80% of workers feel they have few connection opportunities at work.

See how Go North West is using Blink to make new team members feel part of the organization right from day one.

3. Rethink physical spaces

Frontline employees power the global workforce. With no central break room or day-to-day opportunities for office chat, dispersed workers can become increasingly disconnected from the rest of the organization.

While team building and other social events may be organized with the best of intentions, they often miss the mark for frontline workers, putting more pressure on employees instead of providing a channel for enthusiastic engagement.

If you’re a frontline leader, you need to rethink your social spaces and channels to meet the engagement expectations of all your employees. This might mean creating dedicated digital channels, Feeds, or groups for frontline workers who would otherwise never have a chance to interact.

Deliberately creating space for accessible social interaction can help build relationships, increase engagement, and create an environment of inclusion and positivity throughout your organization.

4. Clarify career pathways

Results of a recent Frontiers report show that:

1. Career growth has a positive impact on knowledge workers’ organizational engagement
2. Career goal progress and professional ability development promote job engagement
3. Career growth has a positive effect on affective commitment, which in turn influences employee engagement.

If you can make workers feel that they can advance their careers without leaving your company, you’ll see a big boost in employee engagement. Workers at every level of your company should be able to view a clear-cut career path ahead and the map to follow that path.  

So when formulating employee engagement strategies for your company, see how you can help workers get in complete control of their careers. The more assured they are about achieving their future goals, the more engaged you’ll find them to be.

How to accomplish this? Take your workers’ input on where they see themselves in the future. Here’s a career development plan template that might come in useful, as you do.

When you empower employees to take charge of their goal setting in alignment with team objectives, they’ll be more invested in working hard to hit those goals. And they won’t need tight schedules to do the same, leading to an improvement in overall satisfaction.

5. Provide training and learning opportunities

Helping workers learn new skills and investing in their professional development is crucial to their engagement.

In fact, 35% of millennial employees (who also make up around 35% of the US workforce) said they were attracted to employers who offer excellent training and development programs for this reason and saw it as the top benefit they wanted from an employer.

There are many measures you can take to facilitate employee education:

• Conduct online workshops that support employees’ learning goals
• Make educational content easily accessible through a central repository
• Provide reimbursements for courses workers enroll in

When you invest in employees’ learning and development, you are sending a message that your company is committed to them for the long term. And this demonstration of commitment makes them far more likely to give their 100% on the job.

6. Clear and consistent communication

Dispersed staff need a tool that allows them to interact with each other as if they were in the same room. This is key for breaking down barriers, unifying teams, and working productively, no matter where your team is located.

Secure 1-1 and Group Chats, a News Feed for communicating organizational updates, and team or departmental channels are all essential.

At Blink, communication is part of our culture and we are strong believers in its power. This is something that you must emphasize too if you wish to engage your employees. When you build a culture of trust and open communication, you help create an environment of transparency, respect, and collaboration.

You also need to make sure your team members are able to communicate with each other. Every team member should be aware of the communication channels that the organization uses and how to use them.

As leaders, don’t forget your own role in communication, either. Simply providing employees the channels to communicate and actually engaging employees through these channels are two different things.

To ensure a clear and consistent communication strategy, consider:

1. Frequent News Feed updates to keep team members in the loop
2. Regularly scheduled 1-1s and ongoing two-way feedback loops
3. Targeted posts in group chats and forums for sharing ideas and gaining insights
4. Frequent Employee Recognition or shoutouts in the company channels

7. Improve internal branding

When someone asks where they work, your workers can feel absolute pleasure, cold apathy, or even disdain or embarrassment answering that question. It all depends on your company’s reputation inside and outside the premises.  

Money is undoubtedly a strong motivator, but employees also want to feel proud of where they work. The strength of your organization’s brand and what it stands for is directly related to your workers’ level of engagement.

That makes internal branding one of the most crucial employee engagement strategies. It means you need to ensure that your workers understand, support, and feel connected to your mission, vision, and values. The more convinced they are of what your brand stands for, the more likely they are to emulate behaviors that speak to the same values.

The supermarket chain Trader Joe’s is a great example. It has designed a fun and quirky environment for both workers and customers, with the workers conveying its brand values through different aspects of their job. The way they name products, design signage, décorate the store, and interact with customers — everything aligns with the Trader Joe’s brand.

The checkout process is just as warm, friendly, and casual. Workers display enthusiasm and a genuine desire to help with their feedback and expertise on the products.  

This goes on to show that when done correctly, internal branding can create a virtuous cycle. It will attract workers who love your brand, who will further communicate their passion to your customers and partners, thereby enhancing the brand and attracting more top talent.  

8. Encourage diversity and inclusion

D&I initiatives are crucial to the overall employee experience, making them a great place to focus your efforts for improving engagement levels. Research by ADP states:

“Studies have shown that employees who are satisfied with their organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I) are twice as engaged as dissatisfied employees. Changeboard adds that diverse and inclusive organizations work 12% harder, are 19% more likely to stay longer with the organization, and collaborate 57% more effectively with peers.”

What does this look like in action? Bentley University highlights some key actions that can help you better promote diversity in the workplace, including to:

1. Address implicit bias: Make sure everyone in the company, starting with your C-suite and leadership teams, is aware of their unconscious bias and take proactive steps to address it
2. Acknowledge intersectionality: D&I initiatives must not ignore or sidestep the fact that all individuals have nuanced social identities and backgrounds that can confer or deny privilege in accordance with cultural norms
3. Invest in Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Investing in ERGs, or affinity groups that provide social support for employees with shared backgrounds, interests, and/or experiences is one of the most effective ways to ensure diversity initiatives remain top-of-mind
4. Offer mentorship programs: Mentorships encourage both personal and professional growth, and provide a pipeline for leadership development. For groups with fewer role models in senior positions, mentorship can be crucial to cultivating diverse leadership
5. Communicate with transparency: Be open and transparent about the goals of your D&I initiatives. Communicate progress towards achieving measurable objectives, ensure everyone is informed about key developments in the initiative, and most importantly, be open to feedback from all employees on how you can improve it

In addition to these diversity strategies, every segment and every department of your organization must also feel included to foster true D&I and, in turn, boost engagement.

In fact, studies show that belonging is one of the most powerful predictors of D&I efficacy in the workforce. Organizations with high levels of belonging also have higher employee net promoter scores (eNPS), which are correlated with higher engagement levels.

Frontline workers can experience the very opposite. Warehouse workers, for example, are typically secluded from other employees — and that goes double if they work the night shift as well. If a frontline worker continues to feel left out, then their engagement is likely to suffer. It’s crucial that you take the necessary steps to ensure that everyone has a sense of belonging and inclusion, starting with your frontline employees.

9. Survey, listen, and act

Your employees all have improvements they’d make to their roles, whether it’s a better work-life balance, tools that they can actually use in their roles, or more contact with management. You need to collect these insights — and act on them — to keep your employees engaged long-term.

An employee engagement survey can help you gain this valuable feedback from workers. An employee survey gives you insights into employees’ opinions, attitudes, and experiences — and you can use this data to identify areas for action.

You can also use surveys to recognize areas of improvement and understand what makes employees proud of their work.

Make sure you follow through on survey results with actions that address the employee feedback provided. Additionally, keep your workers in the loop with regular updates on progress and changes made as a result of their input. This will help build trust between your team and management, and demonstrate your commitment to employee engagement.

10. Recognize and reward

Rewards and recognition are essential for employee engagement. In fact, one 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that when an employee says their manager is great at recognizing them, then that employee is 40+% more engaged than those with managers who were not.

Recognition is an effective way to keep employees motivated. It also reinforces the behaviors you want more of in your organization.

For example, if you want to encourage team collaboration, reward teams that work together on a project or present a unified front during client meetings. If you need increased productivity, recognize employees who go above and beyond to get the job done.

Remember, rewards don’t have to be expensive or elaborate. Digital recognition tools or Kudos are both an effective and cost-effective way to show appreciation for your team’s hard work.

11. Provide incentives and perks

While closely related to your rewards and recognition schemes, incentives and perks work slightly differently. Typically, incentives are used to elicit a particular action from your employees. For instance, you might offer bonus pay for completing a project before the deadline or reaching certain on-the-job targets.

Unlike as-and-when recognition and rewards that react to a job well done, with ongoing incentives, workers will often know what they will get for completing the challenge ahead of time, and exactly what is required in order to receive that incentive.

Perks are more general benefits that make working in your organization more desirable. Some basic examples could include flexible work hours, subsidized gym memberships, and free snacks or coffee. You really need to get more creative than this, however, if you want to provide perks that your employees really want.

For example, factors such as compensation, growth through promotion, paid training, and high-value traditional benefits have the largest impact on frontline employee preferences when choosing a new role. However, employers do not value the same factors, according to the same research by McKinsey. The study states:

“When it comes to growth-oriented attributes, employers tend to emphasize a higher job title (among the bottom five attributes for frontline employees) over job growth and learning opportunities (both top-five attributes), which may help explain why frontline employees cite a lack of employer-provided development opportunities as a primary barrier to their advancement.”

To align your company perks with the needs of your frontline workers, you should consider providing opportunities for a yearly raise or promotion, advanced learning and employee development opportunities, and ongoing upskilling.

12. Implement employee engagement tech with analytics tools

Analytics are essential for a successful employee engagement strategy. With the right engagement analytics tools, you can gain insights into how employees are engaging with company messages, what topics they’re most interested in, and how to best tailor future activities to their needs.

For example, use feedback or survey tools on mobile devices to collect real-time data from employees. This data can then be analyzed to reveal the most critical areas of focus for your engagement strategy.

You can also use dedicated analytics features to tailor specific messages or activities that best meet the needs of individual employees. This helps you create a more personalized, effective experience for workers and drive more meaningful engagement within your organization.

Using technology to monitor employee engagement is also one of the best ways to ensure that initiatives are tied directly to overall business objectives. Analytics help you understand if there are any engagement gaps that you need to fill.

Are there certain teams that consistently fail to engage with your content, for example? Tracking open rates, comments, will help you identify any disengaged teams or employees, so that you can work to address and improve their experience.

How to create an employee engagement strategy

Set goals

You need goals that are specific and measurable when creating a successful employee engagement strategy. This provides the foundation for your efforts, ensures everyone is on the same page, and helps you assess progress along the way.

Identify your issues

Once you have established your goals, determine what obstacles stand between you and achieving those objectives. Communication issues, lack of motivation, or a disconnected team can all put your progress at risk. Knowing what might stand in your way will help you tailor activities to your organization’s needs and develop solutions that are relevant and effective.

Build your plan

Next, you need to create a plan of action for achieving your engagement goals. You should include activities such as tailored employee surveys, tech and communication refreshes, and analytics implementation in this plan.

Analyze and adjust

Finally, track the progress of your employee engagement efforts with analytics tools and review how well they worked. Adjust activities based on the findings, and move forward with more tailored initiatives.

Why your employee engagement strategy might fail

Not listening to feedback

If you don’t listen to what your employees are telling you, then your engagement activities will be misguided and ineffective. You need to respond quickly and effectively to feedback in order to ensure that your initiatives meet their needs.

Not having the right tools

Communication and engagement tools are essential in today’s workplace, and even more so if you want an engaged workforce. Without the right tools, you won’t be able to track progress or employee engagement scores accurately — let alone ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Plus, if your tools aren’t fit for mobile, you will be missing out on the chance to engage with your key employees when they are on the move.

Not having leadership buy-in

Employee engagement strategies rely on strong leadership support. Without it, your initiatives can easily be overlooked or deprioritized as other programs take precedence. Make sure that your leadership is involved and invested in the process to ensure success.

But who are your most engaged allies?

How would greater employee engagement help them meet their targets?

How do you bring the opportunity to life for your wider leadership team?

What are the risks they’ll ask you about, so that you can prepare in advance?

We cover this and more in our essential guide to executive buy-in for frontline employee experience.  

Not communicating effectively

Employee engagement strategies only work when teams are communicating effectively. Invest time into making sure that communication channels are clear and regularly updated with relevant content so that everyone can stay in the loop.

Final thoughts

No one wants employee disengagement. It’s costly and damaging to morale. Plus, disengaged workers make errors at a 60% higher rate.

But still, many companies turn a blind eye to the issue. They wait to take concrete action and implement employee engagement strategies until things get out of hand.

The good news is that improving employee engagement is both possible and measurable. You need the right steps, the right engagement tools, and serious execution. So take a good look at your present culture and see which of these strategies will be a good start for you.

Remember, your company is a community. And communities prosper only when every member and segment feels valued, trusted, and respected.

Blink is an internal communications tool that can help take your employee engagement to new heights.

Request a free demo to get started.

At first glance, it seems that internal communications and external communications couldn’t be more different. 

External communication is all about sharing your brand and its messaging with people outside of your organization. This includes customers, stakeholders, and investors.

Internal communication is focused on sharing key company developments with people inside your organization. It gives employees the information they need to do their jobs effectively.

Because of this primary difference between internal and external communication, many companies treat these two forms of corporate comms as separate entities. They fail to see how their approach to external comms can inspire a better kind of internal communication.

Here, we challenge that thinking. We look at the similarities and differences between internal and external comms — and share some ideas for improving internal communication at your organization.

Similarities between internal and external communications

Let’s start by looking at all the things internal and external business communication have in common.

Strategic importance

Both external and internal communications are important to the success of your business.  

External communication is how you share your brand with customers and stakeholders. It’s how you convince people to trust in your brand and buy your products or services — and it has a clear impact on your bottom line.

Internal communication is aimed at your employees. It supports day-to-day operations and helps you build a strong company culture. The link may not be as obvious but internal communication also has a big impact on your company’s profitability.

That’s because, when you communicate effectively with employees, you stand to improve productivity, the customer experience, employee engagement, and employee retention, all of which affect company profits.

Therefore, both types of communication are essential to an organization — and both require a detailed schedule and strategy.

Selling the brand and what it stands for

You can use external and internal communication to sell your brand to respective audiences.

To your external audience, you sell your external brand image. You show customers and collaborators what makes your brand unique — and why they should pick you over your competitors. 

To your internal communications audience, you sell your employer brand and company culture. You remind employees why your company is such a great place to work.    

Comms content differs depending on your audience. But there’s a guiding principle to bear in mind. Selling your brand is easier when you create an emotional connection between your organization and your audience.

To do this, creative visuals and persuasive copy can do a lot of the heavy lifting. But you should also communicate a brand purpose that goes beyond increasing profits. You should highlight your company’s social purpose to both internal and external audiences.  

You can take things further with your internal comms. Clearly communicate your purpose, values, and strategy to employees. This helps your staff find meaning in their work — and understand how their efforts contribute to business goals — which means better motivation.

To align employees with your purpose, values, and strategy, focus some of your internal communications plan on the following:

• Making your senior execs accessible and accountable. Holding monthly Q&As is a great way to align your on-the-ground team with long-term strategy goals. It’s also much easier for employees to relate to the humans behind your company than to a faceless corporation.
  
  
• Highlighting how your company has made a difference in the world. Showcase positive customer case studies to show how your company is making a difference in people’s lives. Also, share any company activities that support people or the planet.
  
  
• Featuring employee perspectives. Interview people from different departments and ask them what they do and what they like about their job. This helps people to build a bigger picture of their workplace and understand how everything fits together.

Two-way conversations

In both external and internal communications, communication used to travel one way. A brand and its leaders would speak. Customers and employees would listen.

But social media changed things dramatically. It’s now easy for customers to interact with brands, comment on their social posts, ask questions, and post their online reviews.

This shift from one-way conversations in external communication has changed expectations around workplace communications — and many organizations are now adopting a two-way approach as part of their internal comms strategy.

Companies are involving employees in the company conversation — whether they work in the office, at home, or on the frontlines of the organization. They’re giving them a voice with the help of employee surveys, two-way communication channels, and meetings where their contributions are encouraged.

Of course, making the decision to embrace two-way conversations can be a big deal for brands. They have to be prepared to respond to questions and criticism — from customers or employees. So why do it?

Involving customers and employees in your communications is good for engagement. It helps to boost trust and loyalty, which benefits both employee and customer attraction and retention.

For employees, two-way communication makes them feel valued and respected by your organization. This means they’re more likely to offer their valuable insights and perspectives — and they’re more likely to do their best work.

The need for engagement

Another similarity between internal and external communication is the need for engaging content.

This is a given in external communication. Marketing and PR teams are tasked with making a brand stand out from the competition. They employ eye-catching visuals and interactive content to grab and hold customer attention.  

Typically, internal communication has lagged behind. But with the "Tiktokification" of internal communications, dry, corporate comms are becoming a thing of the past.

Just like customers, employees are more likely to engage with your content when it’s creative, interactive, and visually appealing. This is why many organizations are now posting social-media-style internal content to user-friendly, mobile-first communication channels.

The need for targeting

You maximize the impact of internal and external communications when you personalize content to your audience.

Send the same external or internal information to everyone and your recipients will start to switch off from your comms. They assume that your messages are irrelevant to them and stop reading or watching them.  

So you need to segment your audiences. Then, create targeted content relevant to each group of customers or employees.

For internal communications, you can segment employees by role, location, department, tenure, and team to ensure each employee only receives information relevant to them.

Of course, there are some messages that all employees need to hear. But with proper segmentation, you don’t give retail staff an in-depth update on your work-from-home policy — or tell office-based staff about the next driver training session. Instead, all comms are appropriate and engaging.

Measuring success

Measurement is another important element of both external and internal communications. If you don’t set and track metrics, you can’t be sure that your communications are effective.

So, just as you measure the impact of your external communication campaigns, you can set internal communication metrics and KPIs. You can identify your best content and assess levels of engagement, finding ways to hone your comms going forward.

Also, in the same way that you’d conduct market research and seek customer reviews, seek feedback from employees. Use surveys to ask them about their employee experience. Find out what they think about your internal communications. Then, make informed improvements. 

Differences between internal and external communications

Internal and external comms clearly have a lot in common — and there are lots of external communication principles that you can apply to your internal messaging. 

However, there are some key differences between internal and external communication that you should bear in mind.

Your audience

Internal and external communications have different audiences:

• Your external communication audience includes customers, stakeholders, business partners, investors, and the media. 
• Your internal communication audience includes your organization’s C-suite, managers, and employees.

There is, however, some overlap. You need to share external messages with frontline employees so they can relay a consistent message to customers.

Your communications team

Usually, different teams are responsible for external and internal communications.

External comms is often run by your PR or marketing teams. You may rely on agency or in-house staff.

To communicate effectively with your employees, you need an internal communications team. This is usually an in-house team that has regular contact with:

• The leadership team
• Marketing and PR
• Operations
• HR

Your internal comms team will work with partners throughout the organization to ensure key messages are communicated consistently and employees have access to the information they need.

Content

The content you share with internal and external audiences is very different.

External communication is all about marketing messages, customer support, and building a brand reputation. Examples of external communication content include:

• A press release discussing the latest company news
• Customer emails detailing a discount
• An industry research report
• An advertising campaign for a new product

Via your internal communication channels, you’ll tend to share business updates, strategy details, operational information, and company culture. Examples of internal communication content include:

• Rota changes
• Health and safety updates
• Details of your next company social
• Recognition for employee success

The content you serve to your internal and external audiences may differ. But there are still some fundamentals that apply to both.

Comms that demonstrate honesty and authenticity are better at building brand trust. So try to communicate openly across both internal and external communication channels.

In internal communications, this means being transparent about company goals and challenges. And it means welcoming questions and ideas from employees.

Communication goals

The goal of external communication is to promote the company. You’re aiming to:

• enhance the company’s reputation
• generate sales and leads
• build relationships with customers and stakeholders

Goals for internal communications are different. Across internal comms channels, you’ll share practical and operational information to ensure the smooth running of your organization.

But effective internal communication does more than convey essential, day-to-day guidance for employees. You can use your internal communications to:

• share company values, goals, and purpose
• strengthen co-worker relationships
• recognize and motivate employees
• facilitate collaboration

Done well, internal communications helps you to build a company culture employees are excited to be part of. This is particularly important for remote, hybrid, and frontline teams.

These employees miss out on the camaraderie of the office. It’s easy for them to feel disconnected from the organization and, as a result, less engaged in their work. Internal communications — and co-worker communication channels — provide a vital link to the organization.

So use internal communications to improve the employee experience, boost employee engagement, and reduce employee turnover. Build these goals into your internal communications strategy and you’ll create a happier, more motivated, and more cohesive organization.

Communication channels

You can use some communication channels to speak to external and internal audiences. You might use emails, webinars, conferences, and newsletters to reach employees, customers — and other company stakeholders.

However, in general, you use different communication channels for each group.

Your external audience gets updates via press releases, your company website, media news, and your social media accounts. You can also grab their attention with marketing campaigns and product launches. 

Internal communication takes place over internal channels. Offline channels include company meetings and notice boards. But the best internal communications strategies make the most of digital communication tools.

Modern intranets and employee apps are a one-stop shop. They consolidate your internal communications and give internal comms teams all the tools they need to communicate with staff.  

Pick a mobile-first solution and employees can access your company comms from their smartphones, which is ideal for frontline and remote workers.

You can also find internal communication platforms that provide social-media-style tools. They allow you to post interactive content on the company news feed and give employees the chance to like and comment.

Whether your comms team wants to post a company-wide update, send out a survey, celebrate team success, or provide self-serve HR functions, it’s all possible with the right comms platform.

Finding the right tool to support your internal communications strategy

There are lots of similarities between internal and external communications — and lots of ways external comms can inspire more effective and engaging internal messaging.

So segment your audience, measure success, embrace two-way conversations, and create interactive, visual content.

Don’t underestimate the benefits better internal communications can bring to your organization. It has the power to improve employee engagement, customer experience, company culture, and employee retention.

Also, remember that embracing the principles of external communication for your internal comms strategy is easier when you use mobile-first, social-media-style, digital communication tools.

Blink is an employee super-app, with all the tools you need to deliver relevant and engaging comms to employees. With Blink you can:

• Create engaging, two-way communication with news feed and instant messaging channels
• Segment your audience so they only receive relevant communications
• Launch a content and HR hub, giving employees everything they need to do their jobs well
• Measure the success of your internal comms with analytics and employee surveys

Improve internal communications at your organization. Request a Blink demo to get started today.

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

London, 1 November 2023 – Bus operator Abellio London has rolled out Blink, a mobile app that connects management with frontline, or deskless, workers.

Abellio, which operates bus services on behalf of Transport for London and serves 430,000 customers across Greater London every day, will connect its 2,800 employees across six depots and Transport UK Rail Replacement services through Blink’s super-app. Employees can connect, share information and communicate with each other wherever they are which, until now, had been impossible.

Abellio’s investment in Blink gives every worker digital connectivity to the organisation and each other, improving convenience, flexibility and inclusion. This investment forms part of Abellio’s ongoing initiatives to support inclusion within the business and tackle the national bus driver shortage. Transport for London recently revealed they were operating with a shortage of 2,510 drivers, and nationwide, many operators are still experiencing significant staff shortages, with bus vacancy rate at 6.8%, resulting in recent calls for bus drivers to be added to the Shortage Occupation List so operators can recruit drivers from abroad.

Due to the nature of their work, frontline teams – such as bus drivers – are often subject to manual processes and paperwork. They might not have immediate access to some of the tools or information that support them to deliver a positive experience to customers. Across the UK, frontline teams can feel disconnected from the rest of the workforce and, in some cases, undervalued: recent research found that only 39% of frontline workers feel heard, and that 42% are considering quitting their job.

Blink tackles these issues head-on. Beyond communication, the Blink app provides seamless, always-on access to external applications across any device. Abellio’s bus drivers only need to sign into Blink once via secure Single Sign On in order to gain access to all the key systems and information needed for their roles, including the driver allocation system (DAS); payslip information and payslips; and company updates and information that have traditionally been shared by depot notice boards, social media groups or via their line managers.

Previously, drivers needed to access multiple systems to complete certain aspects of their role which was time-consuming and required  different passwords and/or access to a computer. Mobile-first with desktop capabilities,Blink brings everything together in one super-app for Abellio’s drivers and management team. Drivers can complete their day-to-day tasks or reports via their phones in real-time and are kept in the loop at the same time as everyone else in the organisation. Crucially, they are able to directly communicate and share feedback with their senior leadership team, giving them a greater say in what’s happening.

“Abellio actively champions inclusivity, as a business that employs 43 different nationalities,  we have always prided ourselves on our inclusive culture,” commented Abellio Operations and HR Director, Lorna Murphy. “Differences are very much valued, and our company's success depends on it.  We needed an inclusive and simple way to bring our teams together and wanted to offer greater access to information and process for our frontline drivers.

“Blink fosters inclusiveness because everyone in the organisation has a mobile phone, meaning they can log in and access everything they need from wherever they are. It enables two-way conversations and brings connectivity to everyone in the business.”

Sean Nolan, CEO and Co-Founder of Blink, added: “Abellio London is on a mission to put a stop to the frontline worker gap and bring a sense of belonging to employees wherever they are. It recognises just how much an engaged frontline directly impacts how successful they are as a team. Amongst our customers we have seen that by fostering a more engaged and inclusive culture, productivity, quality, care, commitment, and retention will surely follow.

“The company is doing this by putting better company information at their drivers’ fingertips, while giving managers real-time access to frontline intelligence on employee performance and engagement. This will save them hundreds of hours, which they had been previously losing to disparate communications channels.”

The Blink app will also replace all the paper-based forms that currently require drivers to return to depot to complete. Thanks to the app’s intuitive interface, drivers can manage their schedules, payment information, and form-filling from wherever they are and whatever their technical ability.

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

“At a time when recruitment and retention in the industry is paramount, we hope that Blink, and tools like it, will support teams to feel connected to the business. Blink will help us to create a vibrant and open culture that champions better employee engagement, and give our drivers a channel through which they can voice their queries, ideas and concerns.”

As well as providing company-wide communications, Abellio can use Blink to create specific groups for supported work conversations, something that has been proven beneficial for employee wellness. Blink’s frontline intelligence and analysis capabilities will also help the leadership team to understand what employees need to perform, and how best to deliver it.

Blink has been proven to reach 95% of employees and reduce employee turnover by 26%. It also triples response rates, sees five times the number of adoption of tools thanks to its single sign-on(SSO), and gets a nine out of ten ‘ease of use’ rating from end users.

‍

Press contacts

For more information or interviews, please get in touch with kate@transatlanticent.com | 07980 921961.

About Abellio

Abellio London is part ofTransport UK and operates 55 bus routes in the capital on behalf of Transport for London (TfL), plus rail replacement and event services across the UK.

The business operates around nine percent of London’s bus network, running over 800 vehicles and employing 2,500staff across six depots in Central, South, and West London. Abellio is a pioneer in EV public transport, operating over 100 no-emission fully electric buses in London.

Abellio London was a double winner in the 2021 Bus and Coach Awards and is a finalist in the British QualityFoundation’s EFQM Excellence awards, following a 5-star rating in the BQF Recognised For Excellence assessment. In 2020 it was named Operator of the Year at the London Transport Awards and also helped bring the first Caetano electric single-deck buses to the UK, which were the safest in London with the inclusion of TfL Bus Safety Standard measures. Since 2019 it has held Earned Recognition status with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), which recognises it as an exemplary operator, and in 2023 earned ISO 45001 accreditation across all six depots.

About Blink

Blink is the world's best super-app for deskless workers, with a mission to revolutionise work life for the frontline, closing the digital divide and enabling distributed organisations to communicate effectively and engage together like never before. Blink is used by over 200,000 frontline workers at industry-leading companies including Stagecoach, Elara Caring and Domino’s. Each user opens the app an average of seven times a day, helping lower frontline attrition by up to 25%.

Founded in 2015 and with offices in London, Boston, and Sydney, Blink is a Leader in the G2 Grid® for Best EmployeeEngagement Software and named in the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 50.

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In today’s modern workplace, finding the right internal communication and employee engagement platform is key to your organization's success. The right software can boost connection, collaboration, and productivity. That translates to better staff retention and better business results. 

Of course, the wrong software can get in the way of company communication and engagement. Some platforms exclude the members of your workforce who don’t sit at a desk. Some complicate comms to the point that employees stop engaging. So finding a platform that meets the unique needs of your organization takes time and research. 

Workvivo has long been a popular internet option. But there’s lots of other software available, each with its advantages and disadvantages — and at a variety of different price points. Here, we take a look at ten Workvivo alternatives to help you find a solution with all the features and functionality your organization needs. 

What to look for in a Workvivo replacement

So what makes a good Workvivo replacement? What should you be looking for? Here are a couple of factors to consider.

Ease of use and accessibility. A user-friendly interface ensures that all employees, regardless of technical ability, can navigate and engage with the platform easily. 

Integration capabilities. Look for a platform that seamlessly integrates with your existing tools and systems, such as HR software or project management platforms, to streamline workflows and enhance efficiency.

Communication channels. The best communication tools provide a variety of communication channels. Look for two-way communication, a social-media-style news feed, polls, 1:1 chats, video conferencing, and a hub of company resources.  

Customization and personalization options. Customization options allow you to tailor the platform to match your technical requirements and branding. Personalization allows you to adapt interfaces and content so they’re relevant to each individual employee. 

Scalability. Your chosen solution needs to grow with you. So choose a platform that can accommodate your organization's expansion without sacrificing performance or user experience.

Analytics. To learn more about employee engagement and platform usage, you need robust analytics and reporting functions. Data should be relevant, easy to understand, and easy to act upon. 

Adoption and engagement. Look at user adoption and engagement figures. If lots of other organizations (like yours) have had a successful experience with a particular software, you can be much more confident that you will too.

Top Workvivo alternatives in 2025

1. Blink

Blink is a mobile-first, modern intranet that supports employee communication and engagement across both desktop and mobile devices.

This platform facilitates two-way communication, surveys, employee recognition, and content sharing. With robust analytics, managers get to know how employees are engaging with the intranet and the organization. And with excellent integrations, you can create a digital hub where both desk-based and frontline employees can access essential workplace tools.

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Benefits

Mobile-first: The Blink platform offers exactly the same features and functionality on mobile as it does on desktop and it doesn’t require a company email address. So all workers get a comprehensive and user-friendly experience.

Personalized internal communications: A tailored news feed ensures employees receive relevant information based on their teams, interests, and roles.

Advanced analytics: Robust analytics capabilities provide actionable employee engagement insights, enabling data-driven decision-making.

Deep integrations: Blink's super-app acts as the digital front door for your organization, so employees can access comms, documents, training, and HR essentials, all in the same place.  

Customer support: Blink customers work with a dedicated customer success manager who helps to optimize the app for the organization and ensure worker adoption.

Challenges

Frontline-first: Blink was primarily designed for frontline workers, though there is a best-in-class desktop application so that all employees can utilize.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.6/5

G2: 4.7/5

2. Slack

Slack is one of the most popular workplace communication apps, especially for organizations that have employees working from home. It’s known for its intuitive interface and a variety of third-party integrations. Slack’s supported platforms include web, iOS, and Android.

Benefits

Real-time messaging: Instant messaging fosters seamless communication and collaboration among team members, while separate ‘channels’ help to keep topics separate and organized.

Integration capabilities: Integrates with over 2,500 third-party tools and services, so you can incorporate the intranet and productivity features that Slack lacks. 

Customization: Offers a range of customization options to tailor the platform to organizational and individual needs.

Challenges

Email addresses required: Employees who don’t have access to an email address will not be able to join Slack.

Limited file storage: Free plans only allow you to access messages and documents for up to 90 days. This may not be enough for organizations with extensive data needs.

Navigation: You can view conversations in the left sidebar but if you have multiple conversations on the go, it can be hard to find the chat you’re looking for.

Notifications: Slack’s constant notifications can be distracting for workers.

Pricing

A free version supports 1:1 meetings and messages. Paid plans start from $7.25 USD per user per month, paid annually.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.7/5

G2: 4.5/5

3. Jostle 

Jostle is a cloud-based intranet software provider for companies looking to streamline their internal communication. It helps organizations align teams, share news, and recognize employee contributions.

Benefits

Easy onboarding: Jostle is a simple platform. Many customers say Jostle is easy to learn and use.

Employee engagement tools: Customers enjoy the ability to share news, documents, and recognition with their team.

Content filtering: You can segment your audience by department, location, and more when sharing content.

Jostle TV: Jostle has a cool feature that allows you to transfer content to TV screens in your workspace.

Challenges

Limited analytics: Jostle's analytics capabilities are less robust compared to other platforms, limiting insights into employee engagement and performance.

Requires a work email: Customers mention difficulty with frontline employee adoption as workers don’t want to use their personal email address to access work platforms.

Lack of customization: You can’t remove features that aren’t relevant to your business, which can make for a confusing and cluttered user interface (UI).

Pricing

Monthly pricing starts at $2.77 USD per user, based on a team of 500 people.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.4/5

G2: 4.5/5

4. Interact 

Interact is one of the top intranet platforms for those looking for something fun and interactive, rather than something corporate. It combines a social feed, internal communication software, and a collaboration tool.

Benefits

Intranet solutions: Interact offers intranet solutions designed to drive employee engagement and collaboration across the organization.

Employee feedback: This platform supports polls and surveys, so you’ll find it easy to get feedback from your workforce.

Customization: Interact has flexibility in how your interface looks and feels, allowing customization for what you are looking for.

User support: Interact provides dedicated customer support and resources to assist organizations in maximizing platform usage and effectiveness.

Challenges

Limited scalability: Interact's capabilities may be limited in scalability and customers don't often have much input into product development or feedback. For this reason, Interact can feel outdated.

Analytics limitations: Interact has limited analytics functions for customers to engage and learn from.

Time-intensive: For SMEs, Interact can prove difficult. You may need a dedicated team to manage this platform effectively.

Cost: Some Interact features — like pulse surveys and advanced analytics — come at an additional cost.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.6/5

G2: 4.6/5

5. Microsoft Teams 

Microsoft Teams is a team collaboration app. It integrates with Office 365 to provide chat, meeting, and document-sharing tools. And it allows remote workers to collaborate in real-time.

Benefits

Office 365 integration: Seamless integration with Office 365 tools enhances productivity and collaboration within teams.

Collaboration features: Features such as chat, video conferencing, and document sharing facilitate real-time collaboration and communication.

Security and compliance: Microsoft Teams prioritizes security and compliance, providing peace of mind for organizations handling sensitive information.

Navigation: Each channel comes with file storage so it’s easy to find the documents related to the conversations you’re part of. 

Challenges

Complexity: Microsoft Teams' extensive feature set may lead to complexity, requiring users to invest a lot of time in learning the platform.

Pricing structure: While basic features are included in Office 365 subscriptions, additional functionalities incur extra costs.

Resource intensiveness: Microsoft Teams may require significant resources for implementation, customization, and ongoing maintenance, particularly for large organizations.

Poor internal communication: You only get a limited number of channels and may find it difficult to get critical messages to cut through. 

Pricing

You can try Microsoft Teams for free for a month. After that, the cheapest plan (the Essentials plan) costs $4.00 USD per user per month, paid annually.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.5/5

G2: 4.3/5

6. Igloo Software

Igloo is a digital workplace experience software that offers a community, recognition, resources, and more to employees.

Benefits

Digital workplace solutions: Igloo Software offers comprehensive solutions for creating digital workplaces, including intranet, collaboration, and knowledge management tools.

Collaboration features: Igloo provides a range of collaboration features such as document sharing, project management, and task tracking to enhance teamwork and productivity.

Powerful analytics: This platform provides excellent analytics that help you to optimize content, find key creators, and understand user flow.

Challenges

Integration challenges: Integrating Igloo software with other systems or tools isn’t straightforward and may require additional development resources.

Learning curve: There’s a learning curve with Igloo that can impact initial usability and adoption.

Lack of customization: Customers sometimes face challenges with customizing pages and a lack of flexibility within the product.

Pricing

Pricing is available upon request. Although Igloo does say that pricing typically starts at around $20,000 USD per year for an organization.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.5/5

G2: 4.2/5

7. Simpplr:

Simpplr is a modern, social-media-style intranet with an attractive interface. It was designed for enterprise and medium-sized organizations and it provides a digital hub where employees can share information.

Benefits

Great customer support: Users appreciate the hands-on support from the Simpplr team, which continues post-launch with training resources and ongoing updates.

A modern, minimal interface: Simpplr looks great but keeps visuals simple, which encourages adoption, reduces the learning curve, and makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.

AI assistance: Simpplr is an ‘AI-powered’ intranet. You can use AI to provide employee guidance, automate HR processes, produce content, and summarize conversations.

Personalization: The platform’s personalization features allow you to target information to specific employees, based on their activity, roles, locations, and interests.

Challenges

Lack of customization: Simpplr doesn’t have as much design flexibility and doesn’t provide as many templates as other software on this list.

Integrations: Some users say they struggled to integrate the intranet with some of their third-party apps.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.8/5

G2: 4.7/5

8. Staffbase

The Staffbase intranet works well for big corporations with both dispersed and desk-based employees. It helps teams communicate more effectively, with the help of content distribution, instant notification, and integrated third-party tools.

Benefits

Easy-access resources: Staffbase makes it easy for employees to publish and access documents, videos, and images via a single portal.

Reporting: The platform has in-built reporting features so you can easily see how many employees use the platform and interact with your posts.

Customization: You can customize the Staffbase interface to match the branding of your organization.

HR functionality: With communication tools, surveys, and employee self-service tools, Staffbase makes life easier for your HR team.

Challenges

Limited analytics: Staffbase analytics isn’t comprehensive enough to tell you how users are searching the intranet.

Cost: Some small and medium-sized business users say that Staffbase is expensive. You also need to pay more if you want to add Content Review and Approval Workflow modules.

Limited mobile functionality: Staffbase does provide a mobile app but there aren’t many out-of-the-box functions for frontline workers.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.8/5

G2: 4.6/5

9. LumApps

LumApps provides intranet software for desk-based organizations. It’s a type of social intranet that promotes effective employee communication, document sharing, and employee engagement.

Benefits

Google and Microsoft integrations: LumApps integrates well with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

Translation capabilities: LumApps makes it easy to translate content into 30+ languages, which is great for multilingual teams.

Customization: This platform offers good customization options, allowing you to tailor UX and content to each region and market within your company.

Employee journeys: You can segment your audience and create a personalized employee journey with automated campaigns.

Challenges

Integrations: While integration with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace is excellent, other integrations are sometimes not as effective.

Slow updates: Users complain that the LumApps team is slow at implementing essential updates and improvements.

Admin user experience: The end-user experience is good. But some admins say that the platform clunky and slow to use.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.1/5

G2: 4.2/5

10. Unily

Unily is an employee experience platform, designed to connect, inform, and engage employees. Aimed at large and more complex organizations, it provides a range of internal communication and intranet features.

Benefits

Good UX: End-users find the user interface (UI) attractive and easy to use. Strong UX aids platform adoption and engagement.

Personalization: Unily makes it easy to target the right information at the right employees, so everyone can enjoy timely, relevant content.

Flexibility: Integrations and customizations mean platform managers have a lot of flexibility to create the design and functionality they need.

Broadcast emails: Unily’s email newsletter feature allows you to create, schedule, and send emails to in-house staff and non-platform users, too. 

Challenges

Complexity: Unily is a comprehensive tool but this means it takes a lot of time to set up. It also requires a lot of management to ensure the front-end experience doesn’t become overwhelming.  

Cost: Unily customers get a lot for their money but it’s one of the priciest platforms on the market.

Learning curve: For admins, the content management system can feel complicated and training is required to get the most out of it.

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

Reviews

Capterra: 4.6/5

G2: 4.5/5

In summary

Workvivo may be a popular choice for employee communication and engagement. But it’s not the only platform out there. There are lots of Workvivo alternatives, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

For frontline organizations, Blink makes an unbeatable alternative to Workvivo. With Blink, you get a user-friendly, mobile-first app that gives every employee access to company comms, connection, and culture.

You put a news feed, group messaging, employee recognition, company resources, and survey functions at the fingertips of your workforce. You also give workers easy access (via single sign-on) to the digital hub and all your workplace tools.  

The Blink app creates a sense of belonging for frontline employees, bringing them closer to your organization while improving collaboration and productivity, too. It also supports high levels of user adoption and platform engagement.

Take a look at our Customer Stories to find out how other organizations have benefitted from using Blink.

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3. Is Blink a good fit for enterprise and hybrid workforces?

Yes. Blink is built for scalability and flexibility, making it ideal for enterprises, hybrid teams, and multi-location organizations. With powerful targeting, analytics, and role-based access, it supports both corporate and distributed teams equally well.

4. Why choose Blink over other Workvivo competitors?

Blink brings communications, resources, and tools into a single hub — improving productivity, reducing app sprawl, and increasing employee engagement. It's intuitive to use, quick to deploy, and trusted by organizations across industries like healthcare, tech, retail, and logistics.

5. How does Blink pricing compare to Workvivo?

Blink offers transparent, scalable pricing based on your organization's needs — often delivering better value than Workvivo, especially at scale. There’s also a free plan for eligible nonprofits and an affordable upgrade path to enterprise-grade features.