Quarterly Unlock: a smarter Hub, frontline-first communication, and a more configurable Blink

Open communication helps you to build a happy, trusting, and efficient organization. Here, we look at all the ways open communication benefits your business.  

Only 7% of workers strongly agree that communication at their workplace is accurate, timely, and open. But open communication can make a big difference to your organization. 

Open communication keeps everyone on the same page. It supports a strong and engaging company culture. It empowers employees to do their best work and inspires their loyalty.

For frontline employees and those working remotely, open communication is particularly important. It keeps them aligned with company goals and connected to co-workers and managers, even if they spend limited time in the office. 

Here, we explain what open communication is — and explore all the benefits it can bring to your business.

What is open communication?

Open communication is a style of communication in which people share ideas and information honestly and transparently. Everyone feels comfortable and confident speaking their mind, without fear of judgment or negative consequences.

In the workplace, open communication means sharing information honestly and transparently at all levels of the organization. This means no one is kept in the dark. Leaders regularly share company updates. Managers have an open-door policy. Employees are encouraged to share their feedback, opinions, and ideas. 

Open communication stands in contrast to closed communication, where information is restricted and communication is limited. This type of internal communication creates ambiguity and uncertainty. Important decisions are made without consulting others and employees are less trusting of their leaders.

Creating a culture of open communication requires the efforts of your entire organization. In today’s modern workplace, it also requires the right communication channels and tools.

For example, a company intranet or employee app provides easy access to company news, two-way chat features, and surveys. These tools help you to involve the whole organization in internal communication, regardless of whether they work in the office, at home, or on your organization’s front line.

Making open, honest communication part of company culture — and finding appropriate tools to support effective communication — brings lots of benefits for an organization. Let’s take a closer look at some of those benefits now.

Why is open communication in the workplace important?

Poor communication is associated with a variety of business pitfalls. According to Grammarly’s State of Business Communication report, these include increased costs, missed deadlines, and eroded brand credibility.

But open communication helps your organization to run more smoothly and successfully. Here are all the ways open, honest communication benefits your business.

Open communication supports employee happiness

Happy employees are 12% more productive than their unhappy counterparts. They’re also less likely to leave your company for a role elsewhere.

Your style of internal communication has a big impact on employee happiness. According to Grammarly, poor communication leads to stress and strained relationships. But good communication is linked to increased employee confidence and work satisfaction.

Foster strong communication skills and an open style of communication within your workplace and you’re more likely to have happy employees who enjoy working for you.

Image Source: Atlassian

Open communication improves employee engagement

Employees who get enough information to do their job well are 2.8 times more likely to be engaged with your organization and their work. This means they’re more likely to be loyal to your organization and to go above and beyond their required responsibilities. 

Gallup research shows that organizations with high levels of employee engagement experience: 

• a 17% increase in productivity
• a 51% decrease in staff turnover
• a 23% increase in profitability

Open communication is a primary employee engagement tactic. It helps to boost employee engagement because it fosters workplace trust, it ensures employees are clear on expectations and goals, and it gives employees a voice. All these things help employees feel more invested in their work.

Open communication boosts productivity

Business leaders estimate that their teams lose an average of 7.47 hours per week to poor communication. That’s almost one full workday per week. The misunderstandings that arise from poor communication clearly take time to clear up.

Poor communication gets in the way of productivity in other ways, too. It harms collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and skills. Without insight into the work of other teams, employees can end up duplicating work — and without information on company goals, employee efforts are sometimes focused in the wrong places.

Open communication, on the other hand, can increase workplace productivity by 25%. It ensures every employee has the information and resources they need to perform their jobs efficiently. Your employees get the right information at the right time.

Open communication clarifies expectations

77% of leaders think the communications they share give employees the context they need to do their jobs well. But only 46% of employees agree. When employees are uncertain about what they need to do — and why — they feel less confident in their roles and become less productive. You also get employees pulling in different directions because they don’t understand the company goals that guide their work.

Make open communication a key part of your communication strategy and you clarify expectations. Managers transparently share goals and targets — and give the required direction. Messaging from leadership is consistent. The desired employee behaviors are recognized and reinforced.

This reduces uncertainty and confusion. It also improves accountability, because employees know exactly what’s expected of them.

Open communication enhances psychological safety

In organizations with a culture of psychological safety, employees feel able to ask questions, admit mistakes, and suggest new ideas without fear of judgment or negative consequences.

Psychological safety is crucial to workplace innovation and workplace safety. It’s also one of the key drivers of employee engagement. But you can’t have psychological safety without open communication.

For example, let’s say your team members feel you don’t adequately consider their workloads when assigning new tasks — and their resentment towards you is growing as a result. If they aren’t allowed to share their concerns openly, they’re more likely to eventually burn out or quit.

In a culture of open communication and psychological safety, this would play out differently. Your team members would feel able to have those difficult conversations with you because they’d be confident that you’d listen and take their concerns on board.

Open communication strengthens team bonding

Open communication makes your employees aware of one another’s preferences, communication styles, challenges, and vulnerabilities. When implemented in the right way, it also shows them that their peers accept and respect them for who they are — and what they bring to the team.

This results in increased trust and stronger team relationships, which support better collaboration, productivity, and employee satisfaction. It’s yet another reason why open communication needs to be a fundamental part of any employee experience strategy.

In contrast, when people are used to withholding information, they find it harder to connect with their teammates. Secrets and rumors swirl. Co-workers are unsure about one another’s thoughts and intentions. This erodes trust within the team.

Open communication fosters creativity and innovation

Imagine you’re running a retail organization. Your frontline retail workforce has daily contact with the customers your company serves. But your company has a culture of closed communication. So you struggle to tap into their valuable customer knowledge. You also miss out on their ideas for improving the frontline and customer experience.

Poor communication creates silos within your organization. It prevents different departments from sharing their knowledge and insights — and it prevents new, innovative ideas from bubbling to the surface.

But with good employee communication, you can seek regular feedback from all workers, inviting their thoughts and suggestions. You involve them in decision-making and problem-solving. You encourage all employees to work together and bounce ideas off one another.

This helps to create a culture of creativity and innovation. You also get to make informed improvements to the employee and customer experience.

The 4 pillars of open communication

There are lots of benefits to open, honest communication in the workplace. To create this type of communication within your company culture, it helps to understand the four foundational principles of open communication.

A lack of ego

Big egos get in the way of open communication. They can lead people to dominate conversations and to hear only the information that supports their existing views. It can create a defensive dynamic where people are afraid of being wrong and have difficulty admitting mistakes.

With egos in play, open communication can feel threatening. So to get your teams to embrace it, managers and leaders have to lead by example. They need to admit mistakes and welcome constructive feedback. They should listen actively and with empathy, respecting differences and including every employee in the company conversation.

Trust

When people are trusting of one another, they’re more likely to show up as their authentic selves. They’re also more likely to share their honest thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Trust helps to create an environment where everyone feels safe, respected, and valued.

This leads to more meaningful interactions and stronger workplace relationships. It also creates a virtuous circle. A trusting company culture communicates more openly — and open communication fosters workplace trust.

Training

Open communication isn’t something that always happens organically within an organization. Leading by example and creating a comprehensive communication strategy will help. But it’s likely that your people would benefit from communication skills training.

You can develop team communication skills in active listening, to ensure people listen as well as they talk. You can support employees to give more tactful feedback and to resolve conflict more effectively. Training will help everyone within your organization get better at communicating openly.

Tools

When your company grows beyond a handful of employees, sharing information with every single member of staff requires a carefully considered communication strategy. You need internal communication tools and communication channels that all employees can access easily.

This means creating communication channels for company updates, anonymous feedback, staff recognition, and collaboration. These channels should be available to everyone, whether they’re working in the office, remotely, or on the frontlines of your organization.  

Final thoughts on the importance of open communication

Open communication is the foundation of every successful organization. That’s because it boosts productivity, employee satisfaction, and company culture. It facilitates knowledge and skill sharing, preventing silos from developing.

It also ensures everyone understands what they have to do and — crucially — why they’re doing it. This means everyone is pulling in the same direction, towards company objectives.

To embed open communication in company culture, you need to leave egos at the door. You need to develop trust and nurture communication skills.

Today’s workforce is more dispersed than it’s ever been. So for effective employee communication, you also need to harness the power of tech tools.

You need communication channels and tools that reach every employee, regardless of where they’re working and whether they have access to a desktop computer. You need an easy way to:

• Share company updates and seek employee feedback
• Ensure critical messages are seen by your workers
• Communicate in real-time, even if co-workers don’t sit in the same office
• Amplify company culture

There are lots of employee communication and engagement tools out there that can help. They allow organizations to communicate across a user-friendly digital interface. They provide quick and easy access to essential information and support everyone to build trusting workplace relationships.

Blink’s modern, mobile-first intranet  is the perfect solution for organizations with a large frontline workforce. With a news feed, survey tools, recognition features, and chat functions available via smartphone, it puts tools for open communication in the palm of every employee.

Want to see what Blink could do for internal communication at your company? Schedule your free Blink demo today.

It’s time for another Life at Blink feature! This week, we’re shining the spotlight on Maggie MacKay-Dunn, our Senior Customer Success Manager based at the London office. Maggie works closely with clients to ensure they get the most out of Blink’s platform, driving success across the board.

Curious about her journey and what makes Blink a great place to work? Read on to find out more about Maggie’s role and her experience with us!

How long have you been at Blink? 

I’ve been at Blink since July 2020 — 4 years and 3 months to be exact. I started in the Customer Success team — in fact, I was CS employee #1 after Florence Hunter. It was just the two of us for a while before we began expanding the CS team. Initially, we oversaw a combination of Customer Success and Implementation, but as the company grew, we separated the departments and expanded both teams.

What initially attracted you to join Blink?

I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada, and I relocated to London in 2018. After some time, I discovered Blink and thought the product was really great — but honestly, meeting the people at Blink was one of the best parts too.

I love that the platform empowers frontline workers through innovative technology. Having worked in frontline roles in hospitality myself, and with both my parents being frontline workers — my dad was a police officer, and my mom was a nurse for many years — this mission really resonated with me.

Blink’s fast-paced company culture, which values both employees and customers, also influenced my decision to join. When I started, I believe I was employee #25, so the company was still quite small back then.

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

There are so many! Since I work closely with customers, I can really see the impact Blink has on their organizations.

I love collaborating on key initiatives, whether it’s improving employee survey response rates, communicating a new campaign or strategy, helping with management communication, or optimizing processes. My favorite part is definitely working on projects, building strong relationships with customers, and being able to measure their success and demonstrate the value Blink brings.

Another great aspect is meeting people in person, attending launches, and seeing customers’ faces light up when they realize how Blink can make their jobs easier — it’s like a lightbulb moment.

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

Innovative, collaborative and passionate.

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

I look forward to seeing Blink’s continued role in transforming workplace culture through better communication tools and enhancing employee happiness and engagement on a large scale. I’m really passionate about recognizing good work across organizations and highlighting those small stories that might otherwise go unnoticed without an app like Blink. Even if something small happens at one site, you can post it on the feed and have more than ten thousand people see it. It makes employees feel valued and engaged.

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

Yes! The launch of advanced employee intelligence was a major milestone and a gamechanger for our customers. It also made a huge impact within customer success, allowing us to gain insights into how the workforce is using Blink. 

This deeper level of understanding helps teams make better decisions and improvements across all areas of the organization. It allows us to identify specific areas to boost engagement, share tips or trends on how to communicate more effectively with employees, and ultimately understand how employees are interacting with the platform.

This knowledge is key to optimizing the experience and creating a more supportive and productive work environment.

Why do you work for Blink?

I think I strongly align with Blink’s mission, and I’m passionate about helping people. I believe Blink fosters a positive environment and a mission-driven culture, which makes it feel like a meaningful place to work.

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Operational communications don’t usually get the spotlight. They’re not flashy. They don’t come with glossy videos or inspirational quotes from leadership.

But they do keep the business running.

Shift changes. Schedule updates. Safety alerts. Policy changes. System outages. Last-minute coverage requests. The messages that tell people what to do, when to do it, and what happens if they don’t.

Every organization relies on operational comms — whether they’ve designed them intentionally or not. And that’s the problem.

Because in far too many workplaces, especially frontline ones, operational communications are scattered, inconsistent, and treated like an afterthought. And when operational comms fail, work fails with them.

Operational comms already exist. They’re just a mess.

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: You don’t have no operational communications. You have too many — spread across too many places.

A WhatsApp group for one team. A text from a manager’s personal phone. An email someone might see three days later. A notice on a bulletin board nobody walks past anymore. An intranet update that assumes everyone sits at a desk.

None of this is malicious. It’s improvisation.

When internal communications aren’t built for how work actually happens, people do what they can to fill the gaps. Over time, that creates a patchwork of communication channels, habits, and workarounds that are impossible to manage — and even harder to rely on.

The result?

Missed company updates. Conflicting information. Managers acting as human routers. Employees unsure which message “counts.”

Operational comms don’t break because people don’t care. They break because the system was never designed to support them.

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What operational comms really are (and what they’re not)

Operational communications aren’t about company culture-building or storytelling. They’re not meant to inspire. They’re meant to execute.

And for many internal communications leaders, operational comms are where strategy meets reality.

At their core, operational comms answer five simple questions:

• What changed?
• What do I need to do?
• When?
• Where?
• What happens if I don’t?

If someone misses a leadership update, it’s unfortunate. If someone misses an operational update, it’s disruptive — or dangerous.

That’s the key difference.

Yet too often, operational communications are lumped in with a broader internal communication strategy that prioritizes tone, cadence, and employee engagement metrics — without enough attention to clarity, speed, and reliability.

This isn’t about “nice-to-have” content. This is about the messages that make or break a shift, a service, or a customer or employee experience.

Why operational comms fail first on the frontline

Frontline environments put operational communications under the most pressure — and expose their weaknesses the fastest.

Frontline work is:

• Shift-based
• Time-sensitive
• Location-dependent
• Often safety-critical

And yet, operational comms for frontline workers are still commonly delivered through digital tools designed for desk-based work.

Email assumes regular access and time to read. Intranet platforms assume a login, a browser, and spare minutes. Manager cascades assume perfect recall and flawless consistency.

That assumption gap is where things fall apart.

When someone is on a shop floor, behind a counter, on a bus route, or moving between patients, they don’t have time to hunt for information. If operational comms aren’t immediate, accessible, and impossible to miss, they may as well not exist.

This is why frontline teams are often the first to experience:

• Confusion around changes
• Inconsistent execution across locations
• Frustration with “yet another update”
• Workarounds that introduce risk

Desk-based internal communications strategies simply don’t survive contact with frontline reality.

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Systems are optimized — communication isn’t

Here’s the irony: Organizations have invested heavily in operational systems.

HR platforms. Scheduling tools. Workforce management software. IT service management systems.

These tools are powerful. They automate processes, standardize workflows, and generate insights. But too often, they stop short of the people who actually need to act on them.

Instead, communication becomes the weak link — handled manually, inconsistently, or as an afterthought.

A system updates, but no one sees it. A policy changes, but not everyone gets the message. A process improves, but adoption lags.

This disconnect creates delays, rework, and unnecessary strain on managers. And it puts internal communications teams in a tough spot — expected to “fix” operational problems with tools that were never designed for the job.

Operational excellence can’t exist without operational communication to match it.

Reframing operational comms as infrastructure

The biggest shift organizations need to make is this:

Operational communications aren’t a channel. They’re infrastructure.

Just like roads or power lines, they should be:

• Always on
• Reliable
• Embedded into daily work
• Designed for clarity and speed

If operational comms only work when someone remembers to check the right place, at the right time, they’re already optional. And optional doesn’t cut it when work depends on it.

This is where internal communications strategy needs to evolve — from publishing updates to enabling action.

That means designing corporate communications for formal channels that meet people where they work, not just where leadership prefers to post.

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Where a mobile-first internal comms platform changes the game

If operational communications are infrastructure, then they need a delivery system built for how work actually happens — not how we wish it happened.

That’s where a mobile-first internal communications platform makes the difference.

Frontline teams don’t work at desks. They work on the move, across shifts, locations, and roles. They need operational updates to reach them in real time, in a format that’s fast, familiar, and impossible to ignore.

A modern internal comms platform creates a single, reliable place for operational communication — without asking employees to jump between digital communication tools or remember where the latest update lives.

And critically, it allows organizations to move beyond “send and hope” communication.

From posting updates to driving action

Operational comms aren’t successful because they’re published. They’re successful because they’re seen, understood, and acted on.

Mobile-first, social media-inspired platforms are designed for this reality:

• Short, visual updates that mirror the consumer apps employees already use
• Time-sensitive messages that surface at the right moment
• Clear signals when something requires attention — and when it doesn’t

Features like Stories help operational updates cut through the noise without adding more of it. They make change management feel timely and relevant, rather than buried in a company news feed or lost in an inbox.

When critical messages actually need to be seen

Not every message is optional.

Policy changes. Safety updates. Compliance notices. Operational shifts that impact how work gets done today.

Mandatory reads ensure those messages are acknowledged — not just sent. That creates confidence for business leaders, clarity for employees, and far less reliance on manual follow-ups or manager guesswork.

In operational communications, visibility isn’t enough. Confirmation matters.

The right message, to the right people, at the right time

One of the biggest reasons operational comms break down is over-broadcasting.

When everyone gets everything:

• Important updates blend into background noise
• Relevance drops
• Attention disappears

Segmented internal communications — by role, location, department, or shift — allow operational messages to be targeted to the people they actually affect.

That means fewer distractions, clearer expectations, and more consistent execution across teams. It also means frontline employees aren’t asked to mentally filter information that was never meant for them in the first place.

Built for frontline reality, not desk-based assumptions

A mobile-first internal comms platform meets employees where they are:

• On their phones
• Between tasks
• On different schedules
• Across multiple locations

Operational communications become something employees can access in seconds — not something they have to hunt for when they finally sit down.

And when comms are embedded into the rhythm of work, rather than bolted on top of it, they stop feeling like “another update” and start feeling like part of how work flows.

The experience layer operational systems need

Operational systems will always matter. But systems alone don’t communicate — people do.

A mobile-first internal communications platform acts as the experience layer between operational systems and the workforce. It surfaces the information that matters, in a way people can actually engage with and act on.

Not as another tool to manage. Not as a replacement for core systems.

But as the connective tissue that turns operational intent into operational reality.

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The question every organization needs to ask

Operational communications don’t usually get the credit when things go right. But when they go wrong, the impact is immediate.

So here’s the question worth sitting with:

If a frontline employee misses an operational update, is that an engagement issue — or an operational risk?

Once you see operational comms for what they really are, it becomes clear they deserve more than improvised fixes and scattered internal channels. They deserve to be designed with the same care as the systems they support.

Because when operational communications work, everything else works better too.

“Prove it.”

If you’re in internal communications, you’ve heard that sentence more times than you’ve heard “quick question” (which, as we know, is never actually quick).

The shift is real. Five years ago, a lot of comms tech lived in the “nice to have” bucket. In 2026, it’s a boardroom conversation — and boardrooms don’t buy “nice.” They buy outcomes: efficiency, reduced risk, better retention, higher adoption of expensive tech investments, and measurable operational wins.

In our recent webinar, Proving internal comms ROI in 2026: Lessons from the other side, Ricky Sickelmore shared what he learned after 24 years in transport (including launching Blink at Stagecoach and introducing it at Arriva) — and what consistently held up when leadership came knocking for ROI.

Here are the six takeaways internal comms teams can apply immediately.

1. Ditch vanity metrics for outcomes

Email opens. Page views. Likes.

They’re not useless… they’re just not convincing.

Ricky’s rule: stop leading with activity metrics and start leading with business value. Executives don’t want to hear that “people saw the message.” They want to know: did anything change, and did it matter?

So translate comms problems into operational and financial realities:

• Safety reporting increases (e.g., digital near-miss reporting vs. “find the form somewhere and hope someone bothers”)
• Compliance improvements (e.g., “mandatory read” confirmation)
• Turnover movement (not because comms magically fixes attrition — but because comms can remove friction, improve onboarding, and drive consistency)

A useful gut-check: If your metric can’t be repeated in a budget meeting without you adding a 3-minute explanation, it’s not your headline metric.

Executives aren’t interested in open rates. They’re interested in the financial reality.

- Ricky Sickelmore, Blink

2. Start with hard costs and operational efficiency

If you want CFO attention, lead with the stuff they can smell from three floors away: tangible savings.

Ricky shared a simple example that’s painfully common in frontline-heavy orgs: printing and distributing documents at scale. One organization saved over £200,000 by moving payslips from print-and-post to digital distribution.

But don’t just stop at “printing costs.” The strongest ROI cases widen the lens:

• Printers and maintenance
• Paper, postage, distribution
• Staff time to print, collate, deliver, reprint
• Support tickets created when things go wrong

And when you talk about “time savings,” make them real. Not “we saved time.” Instead:

• “We reclaimed 10 hours per week of manager time previously spent manually filling shifts.”
• “We reduced password reset requests because employees access systems through one authenticated front door.”

Pro tip from Ricky: Do a basic “time and motion” study. Follow one process end-to-end and document every human touchpoint. That one form might bounce across 8–10 people, with delays that never show up on a neat process map.

3. Build a cross-functional case, not a “comms case”

One of the biggest mistakes internal comms teams make is trying to win budget alone — with a comms-only story.

Ricky put it bluntly: ROI gets easier when internal comms stops being “the comms team’s project” and becomes an operations, safety, engineering, and HR win.

That means stakeholder interviews early — not once the deck is already written.

Ask department heads:

• What’s your biggest friction point right now?
• What manual work is wasting your team’s time?
• Where do you have compliance risk?
• What’s the cost of not fixing this?

Example Ricky gave: if a safety leader can’t reliably get 20 drivers in a room for a briefing, that’s not a comms problem — it’s an operational risk. A digital “mandatory read” gives you trackable compliance without the logistics circus.

Make it tangible: Form a small steering committee with reps from the functions that will benefit most. When you go for sign-off, you’re not walking in alone — you’re walking in with allies.

You’re not in it alone — get the right stakeholders in the room early.

Ricky Sickelmore

4. Prove time-to-value through onboarding

Want a metric that operations leaders actually care about? Onboarding efficiency.

Ricky called this one “underestimated” — and he’s right. Onboarding is where friction shows up immediately, and where improvements are easy to translate into time, money, and productivity.

If employees can receive policies, procedures, training content, and day-one essentials before they even start, you can often get people productive an entire day sooner.

That’s not “engagement.” That’s time to value.

And onboarding improvements have a bonus effect: they reduce downstream errors, reduce manager time spent repeating the same information, and improve early retention (again — comms isn’t the sole driver, but it’s a meaningful part of the system).

5. Position your platform as the digital front door

One of Ricky’s biggest reflections: early on, it’s easy to think you’re buying “a comms tool.”

But the strongest ROI cases position the platform as the gateway to your digital estate — the place employees actually start their day.

This matters because most organizations are already paying for expensive systems (HRIS, scheduling, payroll, benefits, learning, etc.). The problem isn’t always the tool — it’s access and adoption.

If your internal comms platform:

• Uses SSO
• Reduces password resets
• Gives employees one place to find and access tools
• Increases self-service

…then your comms investment is also protecting and amplifying other investments.

Ricky shared a real pattern: Once access is simplified through a single front door, usage of other systems can jump dramatically — and suddenly your internal comms platform isn’t “another tool.” It’s the tool that makes the rest usable.

6. Establish a baseline — and sell the cost of inaction

You can’t prove improvement if you don’t know where you started. And you can’t create urgency if you can’t show what “doing nothing” costs.

Ricky’s advice: Baseline early — and don’t just baseline comms metrics.

Baseline business realities that leadership recognizes:

• Turnover / attrition
• Survey participation rates
• Safety reporting volumes
• Time spent on manual processes
• Printing, distribution, and support costs
• Operational delays caused by information gaps

Then translate that into the cost of inaction: the money currently leaking from the business because processes are manual, access is fragmented, and frontline teams can’t reliably get what they need.

When you can credibly say, “Here’s what it costs us to do nothing,” the investment stops feeling optional.

Common mistakes to avoid when proving internal comms ROI

A few “don’t step on this rake” moments that came up in the conversation:

• Don’t lead with outputs. “We sent 12 newsletters” isn’t ROI.
• Don’t build the case in isolation. Cross-functional pain points = stronger case.
• Don’t ignore hard money. The “soft” story matters, but hard savings gets you in the door.
• Don’t skip the frontline reality check. Spend time with frontline teams. Watch the work. Learn the friction.
• Don’t assume leaders know what to ask for. Often the first job is clarifying the real question behind “prove ROI.”

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Be the change maker

Internal comms ROI in 2026 isn’t about becoming a finance team overnight. It’s about learning to translate.

Translate comms into outcomes.

Translate friction into cost.

Translate “this would be helpful” into “this will reduce risk, save time, and speed up productivity.”

Or, in Ricky’s words: Be the change maker.

“Teams of knowledge workers who collaborate intentionally are nearly three times more likely to achieve high team innovation than teams that do not use an intentional approach.”

Alexia Cambon, Director, Research, Gartner.

How much do your frontline workers collaborate when working? If your answer is a “they do okay,” you’re probably not getting the most out of your workforce.

A 2022 Corel report shares that 64% of surveyed employees claim poor collaboration costs them at least three hours per week in productivity. And 41% have also left their job or would consider leaving their workplace due to poor collaboration.

Team collaboration among employees is a vital skill for every organization, even more so for frontline organizations where employees are often at considerable distance from each other. Those frontline employees who work well together are happier with their jobs, more productive, and less stressed.

With that in mind, here’s what we’ll cover:

• How do you know your frontline workers are collaborating effectively?
• Signs of poor workplace collaboration
• How to improve employee collaboration
• Final thoughts: 5 ways to improve collaboration among employees in 2022

How do you know your frontline workers are collaborating effectively?

Frontline workers who gel well build positive working relationships with customers and team members. They understand how different views can lead to innovative ideas for better outcomes.

That said, here’s how to know if your employees are collaborating effectively:

Clear communication of goals and progress

Clear communication of goals, progress, and needs is the first sign of team chemistry. That’s why 96% of business leaders believe effective communication gets them the desired results from employees.

Frontline workers who collaborate well know who’s responsible for which task. This collaboration among employees saves time and increases productivity.

Healthy conflicts

You don’t always need to shush a conflict. Workplace conflict can be good if you turn it into a healthy debate that leads to business growth.

Healthy conflicts promote stronger ideas, more creativity, and more engaged employees. But it requires workers to understand each other and respect where the others are coming from. In other words, you’ve got yourself a collaborative workforce if you can have healthy conflicts.

Exchange of opinions and ideas

Frontline workers who collaborate well don’t hold back opinions and ideas. They’re free to say, “I don’t think this can work. Why don’t we try this instead?”

Every employee feels free to discuss their point of view. They can all sit together over coffee and discuss the problem and prospective solutions.

This healthy exchange of ideas is what team collaboration achieves. It also leads to creative thinking and overall awareness of critical decision-making elements.

Peer-to-peer recognition

Recognition heavily influences employee satisfaction.

A collaborative frontline workforce recognizes the work each individual does and celebrates them for it. This recognition motivates everyone to work towards the common goal and enables each individual to shine.

In fact, Deloitte shares that organizations with the right recognition program have 14% higher employee engagement, productivity, and performance than those without it

Signs of poor workplace collaboration

Successful businesses have a healthy collaborative work environment, but problems start when organizations fail to see the signs of fading collaboration among employees.

Here are some red flags to assess whether you need to examine your frontline employees’ team dynamics:

Low enthusiasm during meetings

Employees talk freely and even share foolish ideas when there’s team collaboration.

But if employees don’t speak up during meetings, your workplace might lack a culture of team collaboration. Silent meetings mean it’s time to evaluate how well your workers collaborate.

Poor communication among your workers

Poor communication is a clear sign of a dysfunctional team. You may have the best bunch of individual stars in the world, but the team won’t be worth a dime if they don’t play well together.

Project.co shares that over 35% of businesses have lost employees due to poor internal communication.

Signs of poor communication include conflicting goals, missed deadlines, and negative attitudes. If such issues are present in your organization, it could be a sign that your employees lack team collaboration.

High employee turnover

You may be unable to prevent some of your top employees from leaving; Gartner shares that the annual voluntary turnover in the U.S. is likely to rise by 20% in 2022.

But if most of your best employees bid your farewell, there’s a good chance that team dynamics may be contributing to it.

If you lose your best frontline workers, you lose your most effective problem solvers and reliable winners.

Create an exit interview process to learn why employees left. Maybe the workplace culture isn’t conducive to team collaboration and professional growth. Or the pay rates aren’t competitive enough. You’ll only know if you ask.

No accountability

Employees who disagree with a leader’s management style are less likely to take the initiative and responsibility for tasks.

Are you seeing blame games among your employees? Bad behavior? No staff loyalty? Eroded values? Don’t care attitude?

If you notice such patterns, it may be time to tackle the accountability issue head-on.

Chat with individual employees. Ask them what’s wrong and apply that feedback to your processes. Get them involved, so they feel part of the process and work towards the goal instead of against it.

Lastly, talk to your team leaders and ask them to practice accountability. That means owning up to their mistakes and taking responsibility for the team’s actions. If something didn’t get done, they should show the team what they can do differently next time to make sure it gets done.

How to improve employee collaboration

1. Let your employees know what you expect from them

2. Create a safe environment that encourages open and honest communication

3. Use an employee engagement app to transform the workplace experience

4. Have regular team-building activities to solidify relationships

5. Reward team collaboration as you do individual success

Employees collaborate differently depending on their working model, so consider your goals, company size and workers’ needs before implementing these steps.

Here are five ways to create a collaborative environment and improve employee collaboration in the workplace:

1. Let your employees know what you expect from them

“High expectations are the key to everything.” — Sam Walton.

You can’t expect your frontline employees to collaborate if they don’t know you want them to.

What performance level do you want from each person? Communicate it.

Set clear boundaries between each employee’s individual role and what they’re expected to do with their workmates.

Do you want your employees to help one another instead of showing an “it’s not my job” attitude?

Well, communicate it.

Tell your workers to always ask for help needed and be open to constructive feedback without being defensive.

Set your expectation for collaboration from the get-go. Add it to your onboarding process so potential hires know you prioritize teamwork.

Also, let your employees share their opinions about working collaboratively — positive or negative. You can support the positive thoughts and address any concerns openly. That way, you’ll create a judgment-free environment when dealing with issues.

Here are some tips to help you clearly state your expectations when talking with workers:

• Meet your frontline employees face-to-face to communicate with them as often as you can.
• Break down what you want them to do in clear, small tasks and make sure they’re listening.
• Share your expectations via a knowledge base accessible to both desk-based and deskless workers.

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2. Create a safe environment that encourages open and honest communication

The more your employees feel safe to speak out, the more ideas they share and the more productive they become.

Let your workers speak openly — even about political and social issues.

Political and social topics have intense power over people. PwC shares that 65% of employees discuss social and political issues at work. And the benefits of these discussions outweigh the cons:

Encouraging sensitive conversations in the workplace isn’t easy. Just make sure they happen in a safe, no-judgment environment.

Practice active listening. Ask questions to show your employees you understand their opinions or ideas.

Say something like, “What I heard you say is… Is that correct?” That shows you want to understand their point of view. It also enables them to clarify if you misunderstood what they said.

Doing that creates a work environment where your employees feel it’s okay to speak up. And that promotes empathy and openness.

The safer the space for communication, the more collaborative your workers become.

3. Use an employee mobile app to transform the workplace experience

Millennials are a huge part of the workforce now, and their smartphones have come with them. So let employees use the devices already part of their daily lives to make work and collaboration better.

Invest in an all-in-one mobile-first app to encourage communication on all levels and foster an environment of teamwork and engagement. You can even use the app to streamline projects or launch surveys and polls.

The platform you choose will depend on whether you are managing desk-based employees in the office or frontline and remote workers (most of today’s employee apps such as Slack, are designed for desk-bound office workers).

Frontline employees need an app that will go beyond providing traditional top-down communications and will empower staff to have engaging interactions with any member of the company, regardless of where they are working from.

Blink is a mobile employee app which enables frontline workers to connect and collaborate when they’re on the move by combining workplace messaging with access to all the information they need in one place. This opens up two-way conversations, empowers everyone to share feedback, and means company-wide announcements are never missed.

Analyze the results periodically after implementing the collaboration tool of your choice.

How many employees use the tool? What do they engage with most? When do they log in? Do they participate in your published polls or lose it in a cluttered feed?

Make changes to improve the system, reduce workplace communication errors, and increase employee collaboration.

Are your employees missing crucial work-related info? Make sure you pin it to the top of the newsfeed or send a push notification to everyone involved in the project.

Also, instead of deploying tools to frontline workers, deploy tools with them. Involve some of your employees as core project members. Use their experiences and insights to design solutions that’ll support them and their workmates.

You’ll have projects that deliver benefits sooner with less risk, and you’ll face less resistance to change.

4. Have regular team-building activities to solidify relationships

Deskless workers have more time constraints than desk-based workers. They often work part-time or night shifts and spend most of their workday away from screens and the office team.

Schedule time for fun team-building activities. You can even just play football or basketball.

These activities help build new relationships and mend the broken ones. It helps if your employees see each other as people, not job titles.

Team-building activities also motivate new hires (especially the millennials) to gel with employees who are older.

To make the team-building activities even more effective, make sure the games are fun and employees learn the skills they need.

You can have a short conversation at the end of each game. That’ll help each team know what it did well and where it showed weakness. It’ll also help the employees understand what they must work on for better collaboration.

Have your employees create goals to work on as individuals and in collaborative teams. They’ll learn communication and problem-solving skills and how to overcome conflict.

5. Reward team collaboration as you do individual success

“You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.” — Zig Ziglar.

This quote hits right at the heart of employee recognition. Everyone wants to be recognized and rewarded when they do a great job (even you).

Reward individuals where necessary but don’t forget to acknowledge the team’s success.

It’s not always possible to notice every achievement. But look for opportunities to reward your frontline workers. Send them a thank you message and let them know their efforts and hard work matter.

Did you have a successful project?

Invite your staff to your favorite pizza joint (people like to be fed).

Say hats off to the best-performing employees (bonus points if you take a hat with you).

Recognize individual and group achievements using an employee feed: upload photos and videos of their best work. Share stories of frontline workers to help your employees connect.

Doing this boosts their productivity and creates a positive team culture.

It’ll also instill loyalty that reduces employee turnover. Gallup shares that employees are 56% less likely to seek job opportunities when recognition hits the mark.

Here are some tips to help you show appreciation to your frontline workers:

• Consider arranging a pizza party every month and invite a different group to the stage to acknowledge them.
• Celebrate birthdays and ask everyone to add their compliments to a jar.
• Note what you like about an employee and forward that feedback when you get a chance.
• Choose an employee app with an easy to use colleague recognition feature — It will encourage a culture of appreciation.

Final thoughts: 5 ways to improve collaboration among employees in 2022

Highly successful organizations have a well-oiled, collaborative workforce. But even the best employees need the right tools to work well together.

Find an employee app that’s easy to use for the less tech-savvy workers to promote team collaboration.

Choosing a new internal communication platform is one of those decisions that feels simple — right up until it isn’t.

Because once it’s live, there’s no quiet rollback. No easy undo. If adoption stalls, messages get missed, or employees revert to workarounds, you’re stuck fixing the fallout — not just the tool.

Most teams start this process for the same reasons: a legacy intranet no one uses, too many disconnected comms tools, and a growing sense that important messages just aren’t landing. You want fewer channels, clearer communication, and a platform employees actually trust.

The problem? Every internal communication platform promises the same thing in a demo.

So how do you tell the difference between software that looks good — and a platform that actually works in the real world?

That’s what this guide is for.

Below are seven signs you’ve found an internal communication platform that won’t create more noise, more work, or more clean-up later — but will quietly become the backbone of how your organization communicates.

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Signs you’ve found the right internal communication platform

1. It reaches every employee (not just desk workers)

Features to look for: Mobile-first design; a user-friendly mobile employee app; the same features and functionality on both mobile and desktop sites

The best internal comms platforms are mobile-first by design. So what does that mean?

Instead of cramming desktop intranet software onto a small smartphone screen, developers work in reverse. They start by creating an exceptional mobile experience, then scale up.

The result? The same user experience and functionality across all devices. And an internal communication platform that’s accessible to everyone — frontline, remote, hybrid, and office-based teams.

There’s no need for shared logins, VPN gymnastics, or insecure workarounds. You don’t need to maintain different channels of communication for different segments of the workforce.

So keeping everyone on the same page, aligned behind company goals, and connected to each other gets a lot easier.   

✅ Blink

At Blink, mobile-first design is a pillar of our approach. From the very beginning, our platform was designed as a mobile internal communication app. Frontline employees weren’t an afterthought — they were the starting point.

With a mobile and desktop version — both equally feature-rich and functional — Blink improves frontline comms and streamlines internal communications across your whole organization.

2. It brings chat, content, and knowledge together

Features to look for: Real-time messaging tools, a content hub, and a news feed

One of the biggest problems with inherited comms stacks is fragmentation. Chat lives in one tool. Real-time updates in another. Policies are housed somewhere else entirely.

Employees are stuck on a digital scavenger hunt, piecing together information across platforms, tabs, and inboxes. And it’s exhausting.

The right employee experience platform brings everything together. Conversations, company updates, and essential updates all live in one place, as part of a single, coherent experience.

That way, an announcement doesn’t just tell employees what is changing. It links directly to a policy, form, or guide so it’s easy to take action. 

✅ Blink

With Blink, everything is accessible from one intuitive dashboard.

Employees can head to the company news feed for company updates, send an instant message to their manager using real-time chat tools, and access the content hub to view policies and FAQs. They can even hop on a video or voice call when text communication just won’t cut it.

They can do all this without switching platforms and without logging in repeatedly. So teams get a connected, friction-free user experience.

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3. It makes information easy to find (and trust)

Features to look for: User-friendly content management tools; strong search functionality

“Is this the latest version?”

If you hear that question a lot, your internal communication platform isn’t doing its job.

When employees have to hunt for information — or second guess whether what they’ve found is accurate — it wastes time and erodes trust. And when people stop trusting your systems? They stop using them.

When choosing a new platform, look for a clearly structured resource library. A place where employees can find all the documents and resources they need to do their jobs well.

To ensure this space is useful and always up-to-date, you should also look for strong search functions, defined content ownership, and user-friendly content management tools.

✅ Blink

Blink’s content hub acts as a single source of truth. It’s built to house policies, handbooks, standard operating procedures, digital forms — all in one structured, searchable place.

With content management tools, it’s easy to keep hub content updated and relevant. And because Blink is a mobile-first platform, employees can access resources on the go, whenever and wherever they need them.

4. It supports two-way communication

Features to look for: An interactive news feed; employee surveys and polls; consumer-grade chat tools; other real-time collaboration tools

Internal communication isn’t a broadcast — or at least, it shouldn’t be.

If a shortlisted platform only allows leadership to push messages out, without letting employees respond, it’s a big red flag. Because two-way employee communication is essential for a strong culture and employee engagement.

The best platforms support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication. They do this with features like surveys, chat tools, a social media-style news feed, and spaces for employee-generated content.

✅ Blink

Blink is built for conversation. Features like news feed comments and emoji reactions invite participation, while audience targeting ensures spaces never get too noisy. You can create an internal creator culture with the help of moderation and content approval tools — and gather employee feedback using polls and surveys.

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5. It’s secure without being a headache

Features to look for: End-to-end encryption; automated user management; a streamlined login process

Platform security is non-negotiable — particularly when employees are accessing internal communication tools on their own devices. But it’s all about finding the right balance.

If security makes a platform clunky, slow, or frustrating, employees will stop using it. Worse, they’ll find workarounds — WhatsApp groups, personal email, spaces with zero comms team oversight.

The right internal communication software offers enterprise-grade security without killing usability. That includes end-to-end encryption, clear admin controls, and automated user management.

✅ Blink

Blink is secure by design. IT teams get the controls and compliance they need, while employees get an experience that feels intuitive and enjoyable.

Blink also provides secure digital access to other workplace systems. With deep integrations and single sign-on, employees can access all workplace software — without taking risky shortcuts or resorting to shadow IT.

6. It doesn’t just push messages — it helps build culture

Features to look for: Employee recognition tools; co-worker communities; social media-style content tools

If a platform feels cold, corporate, or transactional, it won’t do much for company culture. Today’s dispersed employees are craving recognition, real stories, and moments of connection.

So the right platform makes space for appreciation and informal moments. It acts as a hub for employee experience and employee engagement. It feels less like a corporate noticeboard and more like the apps your employees already enjoy using away from work.

The best internal communication platforms act as a digital water cooler, bringing people together and creating a sense of belonging.   

✅ Blink

Blink makes culture visible. It has all the consumer-grade tools you need to build company culture and improve employee engagement.

Recognition tools weave appreciation into every day. Stories (short-form video reels) capture authentic moments. Communities are a space for employees to connect over shared roles and interests. And the news feed, packed with multi-media content, brings it all together.

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7. It proves its value with real data

Features to look for: Analytics tools; data segmentation; user-friendly reports

Is your internal comms strategy a success? What should you be doing to improve employee communications? When answering these questions, you shouldn’t have to rely on gut feeling.   

The right platform gives you data you can act on and it doesn’t distract you with vanity metrics. It lets you track key internal comms metrics like these:

• Platform usage rates
• Content performance
• Employee sentiment
• Employee advocacy score

✅ Blink

Blink’s analytics and easy-to-action reports show you what’s working and why. You can segment insights by team or location, identify disengaged teams, and identify your best-performing content.

You also have the data you need to demonstrate comms ROI and find ways to make internal comms an even more effective part of your organization.

The right platform = comms without the chaos

The best internal communication platforms bring clarity and connection, while cutting friction and noise. They make it easier for everyone to do their jobs — and feel part of something bigger.

Use the signs we’ve outlined above to guide your decision. Find a solution that ticks all the boxes, and you’ll see a difference from the moment you launch.  

Adoption that comes naturally. Fewer messages missed. Employees who know exactly where to go for information. And internal communications that make a much bigger impact on employee behaviors and organizational goals.   

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