A survey conducted by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses reported that 66% of respondents considered leaving their job due to the pandemic.

At first glance, it may seem like the pandemic is what caused frontline workers to feel burned out and leave their jobs, but Amanda Bettencourt, Ph.D. of the association, says,

“This was the stress test for an already stressed system.”

The employee experience for frontline workers has been overlooked for a long time. Finally, businesses are paying attention to how to improve internal communication for their frontline workers.

The truth is that frontline workers love creating a good customer experience. Matthew, a Registered Nurse at Denver Health, says,

“I love what I do. I chose this profession because I wanted to be on the frontline doing this, and there’s nothing else I want to do.”

If your frontline workforce is ignoring your company updates, it is definitely time to rethink your approach. However, before you completely overhaul your strategy, it is incredibly helpful to review a few successful internal communication examples to see exactly how top organizations are getting it right. Once you have that baseline, you can begin applying the improvement steps below.

But how can businesses make the work experience better for frontline workers?

Keep reading to learn how to motivate frontline employees and support them so they can do what they do best – taking care of your customers.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Benefits of empowering frontline staff
• How to improve internal communication on the frontline
• 1. Make communications accessible to everyone
• 2. Personalize communication
• 3. Make it easy to give and view feedback
• 4. Create a single source of truth
• 5. Streamline manual processes
• 6. Provide ongoing training opportunities
• 7. Ask frontline employees for their ideas
• 8. Check in regularly and in person
• 9. Celebrate achievements
• 10. Put yourself in their shoes
• Final thoughts: how to improve internal communication on the frontline

Benefits of empowering frontline staff

Many frontline workers love the work they do. Their job satisfaction comes from helping patients and creating a positive impact on customers.

Tina Cummings, Materials Technician at Baystate Noble Hospital, explains,

“We get a sense of accomplishment doing our part to keep folks safe. We find the supplies that they need and get it to them as quickly as possible.”

When your frontline staff feels connected and empowered, they can focus on delivering an excellent customer experience.

But, if your frontline workforce feels unsupported and unheard, employee morale can plummet and lead to burnout and a higher employee turnover rate.

If you want to improve customer satisfaction, it starts by caring for the employees who interact with customers and patients every day.

How to improve internal communication on the frontline

1. Make communications accessible to everyone
2. Personalize communication
3. Make it easy to give and view feedback
4. Create a single source of truth
5. Streamline manual processes
6. Provide ongoing training opportunities
7. Ask frontline employees for their ideas
8. Check in regularly and in person
9. Celebrate achievements
10. Put yourself in their shoes

1. Make communications accessible to everyone

According to a Frontline Employee Workplace Survey conducted by Yoobic, one in three frontline employees feel disconnected from the company. During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies had to make fast changes to business strategies and operations.

While these changes often affected frontline employees, they didn’t feel included or well-informed. More than 75% of respondents say that receiving internal communications through a mobile app would make them feel more connected to HQ.

2. Personalize communication

Including frontline employees in internal communications is an excellent start, but it won’t solve the problem entirely. More messages don’t automatically equate to higher employee engagement. You need to make sure that your messages are meaningful to frontline employees.

When you communicate significant changes to essential workers, make it easy to understand how any new initiatives will affect their daily work. Anticipate possible questions from frontline employees and answer them in your original message. This should be a key part of your internal communication plan anyway.

For example, if you’re implementing COVID-19 precautions in-store, let employees know how you’ll be supporting them with signage or website updates so they feel supported.

3. Make it easy to give and view feedback

Some initiatives look great on paper, but they don’t work in real-time with customers.

Ben Davis, a social worker in New York, told Time Magazine of a time when top-down pandemic precautions like remote contact made it more challenging to work and connect with individuals who suffer from mental illness symptoms like paranoia.

What seemed like a good idea at first was ineffective and became the source of concern for many frontline workers.

According to Davis,

“It was all very different and very confusing. I don’t know how well he – a patient – understood that I was doing it to help keep him safe.”

In this case, Davis’s feedback was heard. His team implemented changes focused on the long-term protection of frontline workers, such as allowing them to stop administering medication if gloves run out.

Employees on the frontline can feel frustrated if they don’t have access to the resources they need to do their jobs.You must give frontline workers a place to provide feedback and ensure they see that the feedback has been taken and processed.

4. Create a single source of truth

Consider using a mobile app to deliver your intranet or knowledge Hub so your deskless employees can access the right resources.

5. Streamline manual processes

A whopping 71% of frontline workers feel bogged down by repetitive manual tasks and paperwork. One part of motivating frontline employees involves letting them focus on work that creates impact, such as working with customers.

It may sound small, but spreading your admin work across multiple platforms means your frontline workers have to log into several websites to take care of repetitive work.

Respect your frontline workers’ time by consolidating administrative work into a single portal and automating manual processes.

6. Provide ongoing training opportunities

There’s a direct connection between growth opportunities and employee retention. Team members who see a future with your company are more likely to stay engaged and experience high levels of job satisfaction.

During onboarding, show your frontline workers there’s a clear path to growth in your company. Then, make sure they can easily access resources to help them build the skills they need to advance.

For example, clinic receptionists can develop skills to become Medical Assistants and then continue to advance to higher Medical Assistant levels (MA II, MA III) to earn a higher salary.

7. Ask frontline employees for their ideas

Take time during meetings to let people provide an overview of their projects, goals, and progress.

When dealing with customer feedback issues, you can also show your frontline staff you value their expertise by asking for their opinions and suggestions. Use polls and surveys to stay tuned into the customer experience through your frontline workforce.

8. Check in regularly and in person

Too many business leaders underestimate the importance of frontline workers. A grocery store bookkeeper describes his experience to New America as, “bosses come through. They don’t speak to you. They think they’re better than you…We are the ones that are helping you make this money.”

Leaders must schedule regular site visits, but you have to remember to acknowledge on-site and remote employees and genuinely listen to them.

Treat site visits as an opportunity to build relationships with frontline staff, show them that you’re there for them, and reinforce the idea of teamwork.

9. Celebrate achievements

Employee recognition is an integral part of motivating frontline employees. Take time to celebrate work-related achievements like promotions and personal milestones such as birthdays and anniversaries.

10. Put yourself in their shoes

Learning to empathize with your frontline workers creates a better work environment for everyone. Don’t assume the challenges you face in the office are the same your remote employees deal with every day.

Instead of making assumptions, ask your frontline employees questions about their experience and really listen when they tell you. Use questions like “How can I make it easier for you to get your work done?” to get actionable feedback from your frontline workforce.

Lead by providing support and proactively removing the obstacles that make it difficult for frontline workers to succeed.

Final thoughts: how to improve internal communication on the frontline

How many businesses could survive without their frontline workers? And still, they’re often overlooked and misunderstood.

Learning to motivate your frontline employees through empathy, communication, and support can transform your customer experience and overall business. Discover employee engagement for modern workforces with Blink today.

‍

More than 80% of the global workforce is deskless. That's more than 2.7 billion people working outside of a traditional office setting, making it more important than ever to have effective communication tools in place.

This guide is designed to help business leaders keep their deskless employees connected and communicating, no matter where they are. We'll cover a variety of topics, from why communication is so important (and often challenging!) for deskless workers, to how to choose and evaluate digital communication tools to engage your deskless workforce with ease.

Why communication is important for deskless workers

With such a strong majority of the global workforce that is deskless, purposeful corporate communication solutions are crucial. This means ensuring all employees feel connected, in-the-loop and heard - even as a deskless team. As such, there are a number of reasons effective employee communication is important for frontline workers and their wider teams.

1. Reduces turnover 

With the Great Resignation still in full swing, all business leaders need to be focusing on employee retention. This becomes even more prominent for the deskless workforce, with 52% of frontline workers claiming they would leave their job over tech tools in 2022.

Additionally, according to a survey of 8,000+ global frontline workers and C-suite executives, 45% of frontline workers were planning on leaving the frontline altogether this year.

With most corporate communications tools not designed for them and frontline engagement projects lacking in substance, deskless workers are showing high turnover rates and low job satisfaction, creating an unstable workforce for your business.

Effective communication can improve job satisfaction by creating a sense of community and increasing transparency from leadership. This also helps to reduce misunderstandings and conflicts among employees, leading to better employee retention rates.

2. Increases profits

Better communication means better engagement. Indeed tells us that improved communication works to connect and keep open lines of communication between employees and other members of the organization, which ultimately works to create better engagement between employees. But did you know that this can have a further positive impact on your company profitability?

Engaged employees, who feel heard, valued and involved in communications, are more productive, and this increased productivity can often result in a more profitable business.

As we highlighted in our recent Employee Engagement Statistics Guide, highly engaged organizations achieve a 23% difference in profitability, alongside a 43% difference in turnover. By driving home your employee engagement with impactful, intuitive communication, you’re investing in the success of your deskless workforce, and the long-term success and overall profitability of your business. 

3. Drives employee experience & empowerment 

Deskless workers often have limited access to traditional channels of communication, such as email or company intranet. Providing alternative means of communication, such as mobile apps designed for the frontline, can help improve the employee experience by giving them a voice and empowering them in their work environment.

This also allows for agile, on-the-go, two-way communication that deskless employees need in their fast-paced work environments, which is where communications for deskless workers often fall short. 

Better employee experience can also boost your bottom line. HBR research shows that a shift in employee experience would result in a 45% increase in profits per person-hour, adding significantly to both individual, team and overall company success.

4. Increases productivity & organization

Effective organizational communication can increase productivity by reducing miscommunications and streamlining processes. It also allows for better frontline organization, as employees have access to important information and updates in real time. 

This helps deskless workers stay on top of their tasks and responsibilities, leading to more productive employees and a more organized frontline.

Without efficient two-way communication solutions, it can be difficult for business leaders to understand, or even acknowledge, the issues their frontline workers are facing. For example, did you know that 70% of frontline workers have either suffered from burnout or felt at risk of burning out?

With great team communication, your leaders can hear and respond directly to workers needs, implementing them into their organizational practices.

Whether that means giving employees an intuitive two-way communication solution such as a mobile employee app, an accessible scheduling tool to prevent miscommunications or an easier way to organize shift swaps, effective communication can improve the productivity and organization of your workforce. 

5. Boosts trust, engagement & morale

A lack of communication can lead to a disengaged and distrusting workforce, as employees feel isolated and disconnected from the larger company culture.

Research shows that nearly all (99%) of C-suite executives believe their frontline workers trust them, while only a quarter (26%) of workers entirely trust their organization to communicate company updates and news transparently.

Clearly, as part of the C-Suite it's important to understand how purposeful internal communications help to build a sense of community among deskless workers. By increasing transparency from leadership, you can drive employee engagement long-term. In turn, this can improve overall job satisfaction, minimize churn and build trust with your workers.

6. Improves worker safety

Proper communication can also improve safety in the workplace. Problems with communication leading to major accidents/incidents are well known, according to HSE.

Proper frontline communication includes informing deskless employees of important safety updates, as well as providing a platform for reporting concerns or hazards. In turn, this can lead to a better quality of work and decrease the likelihood of accidents or injuries on the job.

The Blink frontline engagement app offers a central Hub for storing core company policies, procedures and training documents, ensuring all teams have access to important information and updates in real time. It also includes Secure Chats, giving frontline employees the ability to report concerns or hazards directly to management for swift resolution.

The challenges of communicating with deskless workers

While the benefits are great, it can be a huge challenge to communicate with deskless workers in the modern work environment. Some key challenges of communicating with deskless workers include:

• Budget: When you're under-budgeted and under pressure, finding the right communication channels and tools for your deskless workers can be a complex and costly process for business leaders that don't know where to invest.
• Old software or no access to tech: Deskless workers may not have access to the same technology or software that office-based employees do, leading to communication disconnects, especially when using tech not designed for them.
• Implementing new software: Introducing new communication software can also be a challenge, requiring dedicated training and support to ensure adoption and success for your deskless teams.
• Easy access to the right information: Deskless workers often require easy access to essential information, such as company updates, product knowledge or HR policies. Without proper communication channels in place, there can be a breakdown in sharing important information with these teams.
• Disconnected, disengaged & distributed: With teams spread across various locations, it can be difficult for deskless workers to feel connected and engaged with the company and their coworkers. Effective communication helps bridge this disconnect.
• No sense of community or belonging: Deskless workers may not have the same office community or team spirit as traditional office-based employees, making it crucial for businesses to find ways to build a sense of belonging and connection within their remote or distributed teams.

So – how can leaders overcome these challenges and drive stronger communication between their employees? Let’s take a look.

How to improve communication with deskless workers

Build a digital culture

The pressure’s on for leaders in the frontline sector to digitize their communication efforts with deskless employees. As such, many companies are now developing digitalization strategies that enhance employee experience and drive performance.

WeForum reports:

• One key to business success in a post-Covid world is to embrace a digital culture.
• For digital culture to be successful, it must be driven from the ground up.

Clearly, it's important for business leaders to embrace a digital culture, with communication tools and processes that accommodate deskless workers. This means investing in the right technology solutions, as well as training and support for adoption of more complex tools.

For leaders of a deskless organization, digital communication can reduce the complexity of managing a dispersed team, as well as improve transparency and accessibility for employees in remote locations, making everyone's lives easier. 

Digital transformation and digital adoption are now key concepts for the deskless workforce, and a focus on digital culture can ensure deskless workers feel connected and included in company processes. With your workers able to access important information and comms from the palm of their hand, you'll have no shortage of engaged, on-the-ball and informed employees.

And remember, this digital transformation must be built from the ground up, with impactful input from deskless workers themselves on their communication needs and challenges.

Listen to and act on feedback

As important as it is to have the right communication tools in place, it's also essential for business leaders to implement processes that gather and listen to feedback from their deskless teams. Ask for input on what channels and tools they prefer, as well as how communication processes can be improved, and implement it in your communication strategy.

Direct communication with features such as surveys, polls or secure chats can make it easier for deskless workers to provide their input. And listening to and implementing this feedback can lead to more successful communication strategies with your deskless teams.

When workers know that their feedback is being listened to, and acted upon, they will be more receptive to future engagement strategies and communications. 

With the right processes in place, deskless workers can feel just as heard, connected, included as their office-based colleagues, leading to a more natural, intuitive communication flow within the entire organization.

Provide easy access to key information

By providing an easy-to-access, intuitively designed central Hub for information and communication, deskless workers have easy access to the essential information they need for their roles. This includes company updates, product knowledge, HR policies and more - all in one place, accessible on any device.

A central Hub can also promote a sense of community by allowing deskless workers to connect with their colleagues and share ideas or important information. 

This not only saves valuable time for you and your employees, but can also boost your productivity and improve communication initiatives in the long run.

Focus on building a sense of belonging and connection

Though they may not have the same office community as traditional office-based employees, there are still ways to build a sense of belonging and connection for deskless workers. 

This includes regularly scheduled check-ins with managers or team members, virtual (and meaningful) team building activities, and offering opportunities for professional development.

These efforts can help deskless workers feel included, valued, and connected with their colleagues and the company as a whole, which can improve employee engagement in a way that feels natural and earned.

Keep two-way communication channels open

As we touched on, it’s important for deskless workers to not only receive information, but also have the opportunity to share their ideas and feedback. 

Communication should not be a one way street from the top down. Employees should be engaging in two-way conversations with both each other and management in order to keep communication open and transparent.

This can be done through regular check-ins or meetings, as well as utilizing communication tools that allow for a two-way flow of information - such as Secure Chats or collaboration platforms.

Encourage real employee recognition

Recognition and appreciation are important for all employees, but can be even more impactful for deskless workers who may not have the same opportunities for team praise or company events.

Implementing a recognition program, with features such as virtual badges or “shout-outs”, can help deskless workers feel seen and valued. And don’t underestimate the power of a personalized thank you note or Feed shoutout from leadership - deskless employees can feel just as appreciated through these small gestures.

The role of technology in deskless communication & employee engagement

The right employee technology is vital for your team communication. And as the deskless workforce continues to grow, so does the need for communication technology and tools specifically designed for them.

Reports show that 75% of deskless workers spend most of their work time using some form of technology, yet 60% reported being unsatisfied with the tech they use.

This is where better employee communication and engagement apps come in. By investing in technology that truly supports and engages your deskless team, you’re able to better connect with them, reaping all of the benefits of great communication we explored above.

But what is the exact role of technology in team comms and employee engagement? Here are a few key roles great technology solutions can play:

Easy communication & real-time responses

The right tech should connect your deskless employees with ease, ensuring they have the same access to communication as their desk-based colleagues. With mobile and desktop apps, they can easily communicate no matter where they are or what device they’re using, making one key role of employee tech easy and intuitive communication.

Successful communication also relies on timely responses, and the right employee communication app should support this with real-time messaging and notifications. This helps to keep your deskless team in-the-loop, ensuring they have access to important information as it happens.

Easy access to important information

Employee engagement technology reduces complexity and overhead for your teams by simplifying password management with single sign on to your tools. By centralizing important information, documents and updates on one platform, employees can easily access what they need without having to navigate multiple systems or chase down colleagues, resulting in a better overall employee experience.

Easy implementation & adoption 

A key role of the right technology in team communication and engagement is simple implementation and adoption. Look for a solution that’s easy to set up and navigate, with support available when you need it. This helps make the transition smoother, leading to faster adoption and better results from your tech investment.

It can also be useful to choose a technology that feels familiar to employees in order to drive adoption of your chosen tool. By providing a user-friendly, familiar experience, such as a mobile app, deskless workers are more likely to engage and adopt the technology in their day-to-day work.

{{ www.joinblink.com/callouts/the-complete-a-b-teting-kit-for-designers }}

Develop business value away from BAU IT

One core role of employee communication tech is to help your business leaders focus on driving real change and value, rather than being bogged down by day-to-day IT management. Look for a solution that is scalable and customizable, allowing you to easily adapt your communication strategy as your business grows and changes.

By developing business value away from business-as-usual (BAU) IT and into an employee communication and engagement platform fit for your frontline, you’re investing in your deskless workforce, and ultimately, your organization.

How to measure the impact of communication technology on your workforce

C-suite leaders are starting to catch on to the potential benefits employee communications technologies, tools and apps can have on their workforce. In fact, leadership trends show increased HR support of supervisors and managers with innovative processes and technology. But how can those leaders measure the success of these digital initiatives?

As part of the C-Suite, the CIO will want to see ROI on any investment made in employee communication technology. In fact, data from CIO found that 81 percent of IT leaders agree that CIOs are under extreme pressure to defend their technology investments and prove ROI.

The best way to measure and prove this is through collecting and analyzing engagement data before and after implementing the technology.

This can be done through surveys, pulse check-ins, or feedback from leaders and managers on team performance. Additionally, you should consider investing in a technology that provides real-time employee engagement analytics, like our Frontline Intelligence feature, to get live insights into how your deskless teams are utilizing the tool.

This key data can help inform and improve your internal communication strategy, ultimately leading to better, and more tangible, ROI.

It’s also important to consider other measures of success, such as improved team profitability, communication and collaboration, boosted employee engagement and satisfaction rates, increased productivity, and higher retention rates for deskless employees. These all contribute to the overall impact of employee communication technology on your workforce.

Final thoughts

At Blink, our employee communication and engagement software offers a mobile-first, intuitive solution for your deskless workforce. We support real-time communication, easy access to important information, and simple implementation and adoption – all key roles of technology in team communication and employee engagement.

Our employee app is made for the frontline, to support the needs of your deskless team and drive business value in the process. 

Interested in learning more? Request a demo today to see how Blink can drive value for your deskless organization.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uV1_4ZdjPQ4

How to Manage Employees in a Small Business: Key Areas for Success

‍

Running a small business means wearing a lot of hats. The one that determines whether your business grows or stalls, though, is the people manager hat. You can have the best product, the most loyal customers, and the most enviable spot on one of America’s most booming main streets, but if your team is disengaged, disorganized, or out of the loop, none of it will hit its potential.

This guide covers what employee management actually means for small businesses, why it matters more than most owners realize, and the practical steps to build a workforce that drives real growth.

What is Small Business Employee Management?

Employee management is the collection of practices, processes, and decisions that shape how a business attracts, develops, supports, and retains its people. It covers hiring and onboarding, performance conversations, scheduling, communication, and culture.

For small business owners, it rarely looks like a formal HR function. More often, it's woven into everyday leadership: the conversation you have with a new hire on their first day, how you handle a scheduling conflict, whether your team knows what's expected of them when you're not in the room. Done well, it's the invisible infrastructure that keeps a business running.

Why is Employee Management for Small Businesses Crucial?

Small businesses operate on tighter margins, not just financially but in terms of people. Losing one strong employee in a team of five hits differently than losing one in a company of five hundred. Getting management right isn't optional for small businesses; it's a structural necessity.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 36.2 million small businesses in the United States, collectively employing 62.3 million people. That's nearly 46% of all U.S. employees. The way those businesses manage their teams shapes everything downstream.

1. Improves Productivity

Clarity drives output. When employees understand their roles, know what success looks like, and have the tools they need, productivity follows. The reverse is just as true: ambiguity, poor communication, and inconsistent leadership create friction that costs time and money.

Small business owners who build clear processes (defined responsibilities, regular check-ins, transparent expectations) tend to see measurable gains in efficiency. This matters more when every person on the team is expected to pull their weight.

2. Boosts Employee Engagement and Retention

Turnover is expensive. Recruiting, onboarding, and training a replacement typically costs a significant portion of that role's annual salary, before you account for the productivity dip while the new hire gets up to speed.

Gallup's data shows that 52% of employees in the United States and Canada are not engaged at work. For small businesses, that's as much an opportunity as a warning: there's room to stand out through better management. Employees who feel recognized, heard, and supported are far less likely to leave.

Retention is a particular pressure point for frontline workers: the people in retail, hospitality, construction, and service industries who make up the backbone of many small businesses. Research from Blink found that only 43% of deskless workers feel seen and appreciated at work, compared with 61% of their desk-based counterparts. That gap is one of the highest-leverage things a small business owner can close.

For more on keeping these workers happy without breaking the budget, our guide to creative employee benefits for small businesses in high-growth hubs is worth a read.

3. Strengthens Communication and Teamwork

In a small business, poor communication doesn't just create friction; it causes failures. Missed shifts, wrong information reaching customers, duplicated effort, unresolved conflict: most of it traces back to the same source.

Strong employee management means establishing clear channels: how decisions get communicated, where team members can ask questions, and how feedback flows in both directions. For businesses with frontline teams who aren't at a desk, this takes deliberate investment in tools that reach people where they actually are.

In a small business, that disconnect is easier to spot and fix than in a large organization, provided the owner is paying attention.

4. Enhances Performance and Growth

Individual performance compounds into business performance. When team members are developing their skills, getting useful feedback, and are clear on how their work connects to the business's goals, the whole team gets better over time.

Regular performance conversations help managers catch what's not working before it becomes a bigger problem. They also give employees a sense of progression, which matters a lot for retention. 76% of workers say they're more likely to stay with a company when training and development are in place.

5. Supports Business Success and Scalability

The management habits you build when your team is small become the foundation of your culture as you grow. Businesses that operate reactively (hiring fast, managing inconsistently, fixing problems only when they become crises) find scaling genuinely painful. Those who build sound habits early find growth less chaotic, even if it's never easy.

For businesses in thriving Main Street communities, scalability is a near-term concern. The ability to bring on new staff, maintain quality, and hold your culture together during growth depends on what you've built before the growth begins.

Common Small Business Employee Management Challenges 

These are the challenges small business owners run into most often. Small business owners are stretched thin. According to OnPay's 2025 Small Business Outlook, 66% of business owners handle HR tasks without help, a figure that has risen year on year. Managing people well takes deliberate time, and that's a resource most owners feel they don't have.

Inconsistent communication. Without a dedicated HR infrastructure, communication happens informally and unpredictably. Important information doesn't reach the right people, and team members fill in the gaps themselves, often incorrectly.

Reaching frontline and deskless staff. Most management tools were built for office-based workers with desks and laptops. For small businesses with teams in the field, on the floor, or across multiple locations, keeping everyone informed requires a different approach.

Retention pressure. Over 93% of employers report concern about employee turnover. For small businesses, the stakes are higher, and the margin for error is smaller. Every departure is felt immediately.

Limited career development resources. Workers want to grow, especially younger ones. Small businesses often can't offer formal development pathways, which puts them at a disadvantage against larger employers. Personal mentorship, cross-training, and skill development don't have to be expensive, but they do have to be intentional.

Compliance and labor law. Minimum wage changes, paid leave legislation, and evolving employment law create ongoing compliance demands. Getting this wrong carries real financial and legal risk. For a primer on the business structures that shape your legal obligations, see what the 4 types of small business structures are.

Tips on How to Manage a Small Business

Good employee management comes down to consistent, repeatable practices. Here, we’ve provided some helpful guidance on how to manage a small business successfully.

Hire for the long term, not the vacancy

Every hire is a management decision before the person even starts. Rushing to fill a role with whoever is available creates a problem you'll be managing for months or years. Take time to define what success looks like in the role, what skills actually matter, and whether the candidate's working style fits your team. The cost of a bad hire almost always exceeds the cost of a longer search.

Build a structured onboarding process

First impressions set expectations on both sides. Research shows that 43% of new hires leave within the first 90 days, often because they felt unsupported or unclear on their role. A structured onboarding process covering responsibilities, team dynamics, communication norms, and business goals reduces early-stage turnover and gives new employees a faster path to contributing.

Set clear expectations and revisit them regularly

Employees can't perform well against standards they don't know. Every role should have defined responsibilities and clear measures of success. Revisit these in regular one-to-ones rather than waiting for an annual review. The goal isn't oversight for its own sake; it's alignment. When everyone knows what they're working toward and why, effort doesn't get wasted.

Communicate proactively and consistently

Don't wait for information to trickle out informally. Share business updates, changes, and priorities deliberately. For teams that include frontline or deskless workers, this means investing in tools that reach staff without relying on them to check a desktop email. Mobile-first apps that push updates directly to team members close the gap between what management intends and what the frontline actually knows.

Recognize good work, and do it consistently

Recognition is one of the highest-return things a manager can do. Research from HR Cloud shows that employees recognized weekly are 2.7 times more likely to be highly engaged. In a small business, this doesn't need to be formal or expensive. A specific, genuine acknowledgment of good work, in the moment or in front of the team, makes a real impression.

Create a feedback loop

Management communication shouldn't only flow downward. Employees who feel their input is heard and acted on are more committed to the business's success. Build regular opportunities for team members to raise concerns, share ideas, and give feedback on how things are running. This matters most for frontline staff, who often have the clearest view of what's actually working at the customer-facing level.

Invest in development, even on a small scale

Career development doesn't require a training budget or a learning management system. Cross-training, mentoring, stretch assignments, and honest conversations about where an employee wants to go all count. Workers who see a path forward are more likely to stay and more likely to bring their best.

Use the right tools for your team's reality

Spreadsheets and group texts aren't a management system. They're a stopgap. As your team grows, managing without proper tools shows up as scheduling errors, missed communications, and compliance risks. The right employee scheduling platform, mobile communication app, or HR software doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to work for how your team actually operates.

For context on how your business size affects which tools and structures make sense, take a look at our guide on what's considered a small business in the U.S.

How Blink Supports Better Small Business Employee Management

For small businesses with frontline and deskless teams, the core management challenge is connection: keeping staff informed, engaged, and aligned when they're not behind a desk.

Blink is a frontline employee experience platform built for that specific problem. Rather than taking office-first tools and retrofitting them for a deskless reality, Blink starts from the assumption that most of your team is on the move, working shifts, and checking their phone rather than a laptop.

Blink brings workplace communication, HR resources, IT support and team collaboration together in one mobile app, giving employees access to the tools they need wherever they work. Recognition tools make appreciation visible across the whole organization. Surveys and polls give frontline workers a real voice. Schedules and key documents live in one place, cutting down on the back-and-forth that eats up management time. And new hires can be onboarded properly, so they have the information and contacts they need from day one, rather than piecing it together themselves over the first few weeks.

Get management right, and you don't just retain good people. You build a team that can actually take the business where you want it to go.

Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel motivated and committed to your company. But in today’s organizations — especially in those with a frontline presence — employee engagement is too often overlooked.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace for 2024, just 23% of people are engaged at work. And organizations with low levels of employee engagement are more likely to experience the following:

• High employee turnover
• Reduced productivity
• Poor team performance
• Poor customer experience

For frontline leaders, engagement is a particular challenge. It can be hard to even reach, let alone engage, employees who spend their days traveling, out in the field, or working across multiple sites. 

So what can a company do to motivate and inspire its workforce? As we’ll see in a moment, improving employee engagement requires a holistic approach — one that encompasses all areas of the employee experience.

Here, we look at employee engagement strategy — and the employee engagement best practices — that every company should adopt. 

Employee engagement: understanding the challenge

Employee disengagement is a widespread issue in both desk-based and frontline businesses. Employee engagement scores are low because of:

• Poor internal communication. A lack of transparency and communication within a business leaves employees feeling disconnected from their teams and leaders. Internal communication suffers when leaders and managers are overworked, when internal comms are not made a priority, and when the right communication tools aren’t in place.
  
• Inadequate tech. Technology plays a significant role in employee engagement. You can use it to keep employees engaged, by giving them access to the tools and connection opportunities they need to succeed in their roles. You can also use it to measure employee engagement. A lack of adequate technology tends to be a bigger problem in frontline businesses because most tools are designed around desk-based teams.
  
• Leaders not leading by example. Employee engagement is the outcome of a positive employee experience. And positive employee experience is the responsibility of every leader and manager in your organization. 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. So team leaders need training and support to understand their role in boosting engagement. ‍
• Poor work-life balance. Stress is a huge issue in many industries. According to O.C. Tanner research, nearly a third of employees are living in survival mode. They’re on the verge of burnout with many of their basic needs unmet. When employees aren’t happy and healthy, they’re unlikely to be engaged in their work.

Employee engagement challenges in frontline organizations

Any business looking to get the most from its workforce has to stay up-to-date with employee engagement best practices. But for leaders in frontline organizations, the stakes are particularly high.

Frontline teams already experience a high rate of employee turnover. It’s fair to say that frontline employees are dissatisfied with their employee experience… and for several different reasons.

McKinsey’s EX Factor framework breaks this employee experience down into nine elements across three categories: social experience, work experience, and organization experience.

‍

• Organization experience. Technology is arguably the biggest challenge to resolve in the frontline organization experience. Frontline workers waste significant amounts of time jumping from one not-fit-for-purpose platform to another, and logging in and out of multiple systems in a single shift. It’s no surprise that 52% of frontline workers say they’d leave their jobs because of the poor quality tech tools provided.
• Social experience. Frontline workers don’t spend much time at HQ, if any. And the nature of their work means they spend their days in different locations, often working in isolation. This makes it hard to maintain a sense of community and engagement, and it risks frontline employees feeling on the margins of your organization, particularly in comparison to their desk-based peers.
  
• Work experience. The frontline work experience can be less flexible and rewarding compared to desk-based employees. Few frontline employees are given development opportunities (despite wanting them) and many fail to get the recognition they deserve. On a more practical level, basic tasks like swapping shifts are inefficient at best — and impossible at worst.
  
  

Employee disengagement can have serious consequences in frontline sectors. It can lead to health and safety risks, poor customer care, and compliance issues, as well as employee dissatisfaction and churn.

So how can frontline businesses turn it around? Let’s dive into the employee engagement best practices that will help you improve the employee experience at your organization.

6 best practices for employee engagement in 2025

Employee engagement is a priority in high-performing businesses. These employee engagement best practices are ingrained in company culture and operations. 

Five of the best practice recommendations we’ve included here are based on the 5 C’s of employee engagement:

• Care — show employees you care about their wellbeing as well as the company’s bottom line
• Connect — build relationships and foster a sense of togetherness
• Coach — guide your employees to be the best they can be
• Contribute — encourage employees to contribute their thoughts and ideas
• Congratulate — celebrate employees for the great work they do

We’ve also added a bonus best practice – analyze and optimize — as this is key to evaluating your performance and improving employee engagement going forward.  

So, read on to discover how to implement the 5 C’s and adopt these best practices for employee engagement within your organization.

1.    Care: create a supportive environment

When you show genuine care for your employees and their wellbeing, you foster loyalty and trust, and develop a positive work environment. This works wonders for your employee engagement metrics.

44% of employees experience a lot of stress at work. In supportive environments, employers know how to recognize and respond to stress and burnout in frontline workers. But they also do their best to prevent stress and burnout from occurring in the first place.

Supportive employers offer health and wellness programs, mental health support, and flexible work arrangements. They communicate empathetically and show employees that they value their work and input. Employees know who to turn to if they have a problem or need help.

In 2025, the way companies care for their employees is evolving. And digital tools are becoming a more important part of the picture. 

With an employee app like Blink, you can send important communications straight to every worker’s smartphone. You can point them in the direction of health and wellbeing resources — and reinforce company culture with clear and consistent communication.

You also reduce employee stress by improving the digital employee experience.

Today’s employees expect their workplace tech solutions to be of the same quality as the tools they use in their personal lives. Using technology at work should be as simple as sending a direct message or scrolling a news feed for company announcements.

When workplace systems aren’t intuitive and familiar, it can add stress to the working day and cause employees to feel burdened and disengaged.

So by adopting a digital approach, companies can use technology to ensure all workers — including those who don’t sit at a desk all day — feel cared for and supported by the company.

2.    Connect: foster meaningful relationships

Humans are naturally social. Neuroscientists have found that we crave social connection in the same way we crave food when we’re hungry.

The best workplaces satisfy this craving. They support employees to create a network of strong and meaningful workplace relationships.

Connections like these help employees feel like part of the company team. They bring business benefits too. Employees who feel that they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.

Other advantages? You improve team-building and collaboration. And employees are more connected to the wider aims of your organization, which makes it easier for you to get everyone pulling in the same direction.

Types of workplace connection

When adopting employee engagement best practices, you have to consider and facilitate two different types of connections within your workplace.

Employee–employee connection

What stops a worker from moving from one hospital to another? Or from one bus company to another? More often than not, a company’s values, culture, and sense of community play an important role in people choosing to stay — or to leave.

Dispersed workers need regular connection with their co-workers. They should be able to share their knowledge and connect with like-minded co-workers in workplace communities. Leaders need to provide tools that help team members from across the organization feel part of company culture.  

Employee–leader connection

Meaningful relationships are built on two-way communication and they involve people from all levels of an organization. Employees should hear from their leaders and vice versa.

For dispersed teams, achieving open communication across the company hierarchy requires a tailored approach. You need to find tools that allow the conversation to continue, even when a worker is on the road or based over multiple sites.

Tools for employee connection

In today’s modern workplace, reaching frontline, hybrid, and office-based employees is easier when you have the right communication tools.

A modern intranet

The traditional company intranet doesn’t facilitate the type of communication the modern workforce wants and needs. But upgrade to a modern intranet and you move beyond top-down news and one-way conversations.

With a modern intranet, you can develop internal communication channels that support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer connections.

An employee app

A mobile-first employee app takes intranet features and puts them into the palm of every employee. It provides a user-friendly interface and integrations with lots of other workplace software.  

An app is particularly useful for organizations with a frontline workforce. These employees rarely have access to a desktop device, which means they can’t send and receive important workplace communications.

If you’re still sending paper pay stubs, posting out a paper newsletter, or pinning notices to memo boards, then going mobile could be the best thing you do for employee engagement.

An all-in-one platform

Emails from leadership. WhatsApp messages from co-workers. A noticeboard crowded with posters.  When employees have to look in lots of different places for company communications, things get confusing.

An all-in-one platform provides a range of communication channels, including private chat, a content hub, and a social-media-style news feed. These channels are available on desktop and mobile devices.

Pick a platform like Blink and you also get tools for employee recognition and feedback. You can even integrate the app with your other workplace tools, turning Blink into a digital front door for your organization.

With an all-in-one platform, you give employees the connection they need and streamline the communication process.

{{find-the-right-employee-engagement-tool-for-your-organization}}

3.    Coach: invest in employee development

According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report:

• 7 in 10 people say learning improves their sense of connection to their organization
• 8 in 10 people say learning adds purpose to their work

This is why employee development is another of our employee engagement best practices.

Employee development makes staff more invested in their work and loyal to your organization. And it’s not just for office-based teams. Frontline employees want the chance to learn new skills and earn promotions, too.

70% of frontline workers surveyed by McKinsey said they had applied for career advancement opportunities. But the McKinsey survey also revealed that 65% of frontline employees were unaware or unsure of how to achieve advancement.

To keep employees engaged, companies have to provide equal access to learning and career opportunities, such as training courses or mentorship programs. Again, this may mean using digital tools. 

Employee development case studies

Let’s take a look at two companies that are investing heavily in employee development for their frontline employees.

Amazon

Amazon is keeping a close eye on the future. Through courses and apprenticeships, the company is helping employees to develop technical expertise. New tech skills will benefit both employees and the company over the years to come.

But Amazon isn’t just offering L&D in areas closely linked to business goals. The company recently committed an incredible $1.2 billion to employee L&D. This fund covers all sorts of education.

Frontline employees can use it to pay for college tuition fees. They can use it to fund high school completion and English as a Second Language (ESL) certifications. 

While these courses may not provide direct benefit to Amazon, the employee loyalty and engagement it fosters are well worth the investment.

McDonald’s

Employee L&D is fun and digital at McDonald’s. The company created a cash register training program that looked and felt like a computer game.

Learners had to respond to customer orders under timed conditions. They could use lifelines and win bonuses as they did their best to keep customers happy.

This gamification was successful. A high proportion of employees engaged in the training. McDonald’s reduced the time it took to serve each customer by 7.9 seconds and increased customer spend by an average of £18,000 per restaurant.

4.    Contribute: make employee voices heard

Employees feel a greater sense of belonging and are more motivated to succeed when they’re empowered to contribute their ideas, skills, and expertise.

The company benefits, too. You avoid working in an echo chamber because you get to hear a wide variety of perspectives. You develop leadership skills among your workforce, which can help with succession planning. And you encourage employees to take greater ownership of their work and results.

A frontline business can encourage employee contributions by:

• Providing a dedicated platform for idea sharing. It’s not always easy for frontline workers to share their ideas. Dispersed shift work means they often have little access to office-based decision-makers. But you can use technology to recreate the ‘open door’ experience. With a dedicated employee voice platform, all staff can offer their contributions — and managers can give those valuable contributions the recognition they deserve.
  
  
• Seeking feedback from employees. Surveys are another great way to make employees feel heard. They’re an easy way for you to canvas employee opinion and discover the issues that matter most to your workforce. Regularly request employee feedback on topics like internal communications, employee satisfaction, and company culture to make meaningful improvements in these areas.
  
  
• Acting on employee input. However you receive employee input, be sure to act upon it. Employees only have faith in the process if they feel listened to. So keep employees in the loop. Tell them that you’ve received their contributions. Tell them what plan of action you’ve put in place, giving realistic timescales where possible. And once your plan has produced results, share these with employees, too.

5.    Celebrate: recognize employee achievements

Recognizing and celebrating employee achievements is another of our employee engagement best practices.

Research from Gallup shows that well-recognized employees are 45% less likely to leave their roles within two years — and employees who get valuable feedback are five times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t.

The first thing businesses tend to think of when they hear the word ‘recognition’ is monetary reward. And of course, employees want to be paid fairly for the work that they do. You can use pay raises and financial bonuses to recognize a job well done.

But, in good news for budget-holders, monetary rewards aren’t the only way to recognize employee achievement. McKinsey found that up to 55% of employee engagement is driven by non-monetary recognition. A simple “thank you” goes a surprisingly long way.

Other employee appreciation ideas include fun benefits like a catered lunch, a day of volunteering, or an employee ‘wall of fame’.

To get the most out of non-monetary benefits:

• Get to know employee recognition preferences — and then tailor rewards to teams and individuals wherever possible
• Make it equal — all employees, whether they work in the office or on the frontline, should have equal opportunity for praise and reward
• Encourage peer-to-peer employee recognition — 75% of employees say that giving recognition makes them want to stay at their current organization longer, so encourage co-workers to highlight and celebrate each other

With Blink’s recognition feature, you can shout out employee successes, congratulate someone on a promotion, celebrate team milestones, and even wish your coworkers a happy birthday, all within the company newsfeed.

You can decide who sees your recognition post and have the option to create personalized messages, too.

6.    Analyze and optimize: evaluate employee engagement performance

Once you’ve adopted the 5 C’s and associated employee engagement best practices, it’s time to analyze and optimize the process.

There are various metrics you can track to establish the success of your employee engagement program. These include statistics on employee retention, sick leave, satisfaction, and employee engagement tool usage. You can also gain insight from staff surveys. 

If you’re to make good use of the available data, you have to clarify two things:

1. Your metrics before you made changes to your employee engagement program
2. Your employee engagement goals

Using this information, you can set targets. For example, you may decide that you want to improve your employee retention rate from 60% to 80% within the next quarter. Or that you plan to outshine your competitors by beating the industry average for staff satisfaction within the next year.

By setting goals and regularly analyzing your employee engagement metrics, you learn where you’re making progress. You can also make strategy changes based on insight, rather than anecdotal evidence or gut instinct.

The end result is an employee engagement program that is continually improving, better meeting the needs of your frontline team and your business. 

This is another part of the employee engagement process that Blink can help with. Our app comes with powerful frontline analytics.

You get data on employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction. You can launch in-app surveys to find out how employees are feeling. And you can hone your communication style with insight into your most popular posts and topics.

Employee engagement best practices: key takeaways

extra thought and attention.

Finding ways to connect your team, offer training opportunities, get employee input, and show recognition can be tricky when your teams aren’t spending their days together in the same office environment.

But thinking about the 5 C’s can give you lots of employee engagement ideas. And when you incorporate the 5 C’s into your employee engagement best practice — and also take the time to analyze and optimize employee engagement — you can count on numerous benefits. 

These include:

• Better employee retention
• Improved productivity
• Streamlined operations
• Improved employee and customer satisfaction

Go North West, a transport company in the north of England, used Blink to improve communication between office-based staff and drivers. The app drove employee engagement and moved the company lightyears from the office noticeboard full of old news they’d been using previously.

Take a look at the full Go North West case study here.

Some comms strategies stream seamlessly, while others are stuck buffering with no end in sight

Let’s face it: We live in a world where content rules. We’re constantly streaming, scrolling, watching, and sharing. And just like our favorite shows and platforms, every internal communication strategy has its own vibe — some sleek and polished, others functional but messy, and some… a little too obsessed with rainbows and brand tone.

You wouldn’t launch a new show without a trailer — so why send an update without context, curation, or a hook?

Think about it — your comms platform has viewers (aka employees), admins (your comms team), and its own programming lineup (all those emails, updates, videos, surveys, and shoutouts).

So, here’s the big question:

If your internal comms strategy were a streaming platform… which one would it be?

This is part personality quiz, part gentle diagnosis, and all good fun. And who knows — it might just help you spot a few things to fix, finetune, or completely rethink.

Netflix: The overcommunicator

Tagline: Volume overload. No one knows what to watch.

You’re the king of content volume. Like Netflix, you’re publishing constantly — newsletters, CEO updates, campaign launches, benefits reminders. There’s always something new when employees log in, but just like binge-watchers lost in an endless homepage scroll, your audience is overwhelmed. It’s communication without curation — and everyone’s tuning out.

Pros: Rich, varied content. People know where to find it.

Cons: Information fatigue. Nothing feels urgent, so everything gets ignored.

It’s time to curate like an editor. Use weekly digests, “Top 5 things to know,” or audience targeting to surface the right content to the right people — and give your employees some breathing room.

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

HBO Max: The prestige broadcaster

Tagline: Prestige content — but only for the few.

Your internal comms are prestige TV. Like HBO Max, your content is polished, strategic, and often award-worthy — think slick leadership videos and brand-perfect announcements. But it’s top-down and infrequent, designed more for executives than everyday teams. The result? High production value, low connection on the ground.

Pros: Executive trust, strong brand storytelling.

Cons: Limited accessibility. The “everyday” content is missing.

As your next step, pair your prestige comms with grassroots content. Empower local teams to share stories. Make space for informal, in-the-moment updates alongside strategic comms.

Amazon Prime Video: Functional but frustrating

Tagline: Function over feel.

Your intranet is basically Amazon Prime Video. Everything’s technically there — tools, policies, updates — but good luck navigating it. The interface is cluttered, search is a mess, and the content isn’t exactly curated. Like users lost in Prime’s endless menus, your employees might log in, sigh, and log right back out.

Pros: One source of truth.

Cons: Low discoverability. Employees check out before they find what they need.

The name of the game? Simplify. Highlight most-used tools, audit stale pages, and clean up the homepage. Make your digital workplace feel more like a front door, not a storage closet.

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

Peacock or Paramount+: The niche network

Tagline: Great content. Tiny audience.

Your comms have cult-classic energy. Like Peacock or Paramount+, you’ve got a few loyal fans and some hidden gems — but overall, your platform just isn’t top-of-mind. Maybe it’s an underused email list or a team SharePoint that rarely gets checked. Great content, but a limited reach means employees are missing the message.

Pros: Focused, relevant updates.

Cons: Low visibility. People say, “Wait — that was announced?”

Time to go multi-channel! Promote your channels like you would a new show launch. Use mobile notifications, digital signage, and team huddles to raise awareness. Great content deserves more viewers.

Disney+: Family-friendly and heavily branded

Tagline: All smiles, no spice.

You’ve mastered the brand voice. Like Disney+, everything in your comms world is polished, upbeat, and totally on-message. It’s a clean, curated experience with beautiful visuals and strong storytelling — perfect for onboarding and mission moments. But after a while, employees might start wondering: Where’s the real talk?

Pros: Strong visual identity and consistent voice.

Cons: Lack of vulnerability. Feels too “corporate.”

To take your strategy to the next level, try mixing in unfiltered stories from employees. Showcase real feedback, day-in-the-life clips, or candid shoutouts. People trust people — not just polish.

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

Hulu or NOW: Slightly messy — but people still use it

Tagline: Organized chaos.

You’re Hulu in the US or NOW in the UK — a little bit of everything, with a side of chaos. Your comms live across multiple tools, old and new: Slack threads, SharePoint pages, WhatsApp chats. It’s inconsistent and messy, but it works — because your people have figured out where to look. (Even if they wish it were easier.)

Pros: Content variety, team-specific relevance, enough routine to maintain engagement.

Cons: Fragmented user experience. No single source of truth.

It’s time to unify and streamline. Build a comms hub that feels intentional — not accidental. Keep the local flavor, but tie it all together with a central mobile-first platform.

Apple TV+: All style, not enough substance (yet!)

Tagline: Gorgeous ghost town.

Your comms platform is Apple TV+ — sleek, modern, beautifully branded. It looks amazing and sets a high bar for design. But once you get past the homepage? There’s not much happening. Content is minimal, engagement is low, and employees forget to check in. Pretty isn’t enough — it needs purpose.

Pros: Strong design, great adoption potential.

Cons: Low repeat engagement. Employees say “it looks nice” — but don’t use it.

Try to focus on day-to-day value. Share timely updates, celebrate wins, and surface useful info like shift changes or HR tools. Pair aesthetic with utility.

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

YouTube: The employee-led engine

Tagline: Employee-generated magic (with a dash of mayhem).

You’re YouTube — and you’ve handed the mic to your people. Your internal comms are powered by shift videos, peer shoutouts, team stories, and crew takeovers. It’s authentic, bottom-up, and wildly engaging. Sure, it gets a bit chaotic without guardrails — but that realness? That’s what employees keep coming back for.

Pros: High engagement, peer-to-peer connection.

Cons: Needs light moderation and content alignment.

Our recommendation? Set the stage for success. Spotlight standout creators, guide content themes, and introduce a few soft guardrails to keep things safe and focused.

What’s your ideal mix?

The truth is, no internal communication strategy is just one platform. We’re all working with a blend — a little Netflix here, a little HBO there, maybe even a dash of YouTube energy for good measure.

But thinking about your comms this way? It helps. It surfaces what’s working — and what might need a reboot. So ask yourself:

• Is your content too polished when it should be more conversational?
• Do you only reach a select few — but leave the rest of your workforce buffering?
• Are you focusing on sharing it all when what your people really want is clarity?

Build your “comms bundle” — the perfect mix of trust, relevance, usability, and creativity. And just like your ideal Friday night lineup, it should be easy to find, engaging to watch, and worth coming back to.

‍Blink. And flip the script on internal communication in your organization.

Putting the human voice back into executive communications can transform employee engagement and company culture.

Executive communications often feel impersonal. In a bid to portray knowledge and professionalism, leadership messages can become dry and uninspiring.

This creates a disconnect between leaders and employees. It becomes harder to get your message across and to motivate your workforce. 

But leadership communications don’t have to be this way. You can adopt a more human and less corporate voice — a voice that shows a little personality and expresses care for employees — without losing your authority.

Here, we look at how you can humanize your corporate communications — and why this approach to internal communications supports workplace trust, employee engagement, and a more positive company culture.

We’ll be looking at:

• Why human-centered executive communications matter
• 3 key principles to humanize your internal communication strategy
• Channels that make executive communications more relatable
• Leadership communication: Pitfalls to avoid

Why human-centered executive communications matter

Human-centered executive communications can make a big difference to your organization. Here’s why they matter.

Building trust and transparency

We’re more likely to trust someone — and feel a connection with them — when we understand who they are as a person. The things that make them tick. Their personality, passions, and quirks.

This applies to the employee-executive relationship as much as any other. Employees trust leaders who speak in a human, relatable way. When they see an open communication style modeled by the C-suite, they’re also more likely to replicate it themselves in peer-to-peer communication.

This helps you develop a company culture where transparency is the norm. Everyone feels able to raise concerns and share ideas — which is good for collaboration, innovation, and productivity.

Boosting employee engagement

Relatable leadership communications can be inspiring for employees.

Take the example of Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella. He shared the story of his son, who had cerebral palsy — and how this drove him to develop technology that was more inclusive for people with disabilities.

Nadella wasn’t just motivated by profit or growth. He was emotionally invested in his work. And by sharing his story — and painting a picture of the real-world difference Microsoft products can make — he highlighted the purpose of his employees’ work, too.

Human stories like this one boost employee engagement. They also create a sense of togetherness, which supports a positive employee experience.

Enhancing organizational resilience

Trust, high levels of employee engagement, and a culture of open communication are key features of organizational resilience. And when it comes to change management or crisis communication, a human tone is never more important. 

Executives who speak with an empathetic and authentic voice show employees that their anxieties are understood and will be addressed. They explain to employees what is expected of them and inspire them to rally around the organization.

Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International, showed leaders how it’s done when he addressed Marriott employees via video message as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world.

He showed emotion, shared a personal update, and spoke transparently about the difficult decisions — like layoffs — that the company was having to take. The result was a relatable and somewhat reassuring message for employees during a time of extreme uncertainty.

3 key principles to humanize your internal communication strategy

So now we know what relatable executive communications can do for your organization. But what does a human voice actually sound like? While every leader should bring their own personality to their internal messages, the following three principles lie at the heart of any human-centered communication.

Empathy and understanding

Great leaders are empathetic. They demonstrate their empathy by:

• Acknowledging employee emotions, even when those emotions are negative
• Using inclusive language, like “we,” “us,” and “together”
• Actively listening to employees — and asking clarifying questions — to get to know them better

They also prioritize transparent and effective communication, so employees get the information they need when they need it.

Don’t do this: “The current reorganization is necessary for the company’s growth. The executive team will share more details soon.”

Do this: “I know many of you are worried about your roles. We’ll be holding several Q&A sessions this week to answer your questions about the reorganization.”

Clarity without jargon

Jargon and complex language can be confusing for employees and can lead to misunderstandings. In contrast, clear and simple language creates a sense of trust and approachability. It also helps employees to make better decisions.

To make your messages clear and easy to understand:

• Start by thinking about the key point you want to get across. Put this point at the start of your message. Also, pre-empt and answer the most pressing employee questions.
• Break complicated topics down into smaller parts. Then, explain each part step by step, using a relatable analogy if possible.
• Avoid complicated language. Use everyday terms, avoiding corporate buzzwords, industry terminology, and acronyms. Don’t use a long word when a short one will do.
• Adopt a conversational tone. If you wouldn’t say it when speaking to an employee face-to-face, don’t put it in a written message. It can help to read your messages out loud to find and replace overly formal words.

Don’t do this: “We need to leverage synergies to optimize workflows.”

Do this: “We need to work together to make our processes more efficient.”

Sharing and storytelling

Sharing your own personal experiences and anecdotes makes your messages more relatable and engaging. Likewise, you can use stories about real-life employees and customers to catch attention and convey a message more effectively.  

Weave stories into your employee communications and you also make your messages more memorable. That’s because stories engage both rational and emotional parts of the brain, which supports recall.

To make storytelling part of your executive communications:

• Focus on real people and their emotions. Use personal anecdotes, customer case studies, or employee stories in your internal communications, referencing people by name.
• Use metaphors and similes. Paint pictures with your words. Metaphors and similes can be particularly useful when you want to bring complicated or abstract concepts to life.
• Follow a story structure. When sharing stories, include a beginning (the context), a middle (the challenge), and an end (the resolution).

‍

Don’t do this: “Just the other day, an employee told me about how little things make a big difference to our clients. We want to see this ethos across every client interaction.”

Do this: “Just the other day, I was speaking to one of our care workers, Emma. She’d noticed that her client, Mrs Shah, seemed a little downhearted. Through conversation, Emma discovered that Mrs Shah, because of her reduced mobility, missed going into her beautiful garden.

So that day, Emma went beyond her usual duties, bringing some potted plants in from outside so she and Mrs. Shah could find a place for them in the living room. It made her client’s day. And that’s what our organization is all about.”

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

‍

Channels that make executive communications more relatable

Think beyond just in-person meetings: You probably have a variety of internal communication channels available to you! Some lend themselves to relatable leadership comms more than others. So — if you want to humanize your executive messages — spend some time on the following channels.

Interactive platforms

When we talk face to face, two-way communication is the norm. Explore ways you can transform your traditional top-down communication efforts into opportunities to inspire employee interaction and create a feedback loop.

Share company-wide news on interactive platforms that encourage employee responses. Enable employees to chat with each other via instant messaging. Post to the company news feed. Or run Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions via your company intranet or employee app.

Showing that you have the courage and openness to address employee questions in this kind of forum builds trust and connection.

Videos and live streams

{{mobile-live-stream-poll="/image"}}

‍

There’s a lot to be said for showing the face behind the name. Video and live streaming communication makes it easier for leaders to share their tone, body language, emotions, and intentions.

Bonus: Communicating urgent updates through short-form video content increases the likelihood that your on-the-go workers — especially frontline employees and remote teams — will receive critical messages.

Of course, not everyone is 100% comfortable in front of the camera. So if you could use a little direction before you film your first video, take a look at these tips:

• Know your script but don’t memorize it word for word. When you put things into your own words, your delivery is more natural and authentic.
• Watch your body language. Make eye contact with the camera and avoid crossing your arms. Use hand gestures and facial expressions as if you were in a face-to-face conversation with employees.
• Imagine you’re talking to one person. To bring emotion and connection to your video message, picture one employee. Then, deliver your message to that individual.

Employee-centric channels

Employee-centric communication channels, like the company news feed or modern employee intranets, can provide inspiration for your executive communications.

Here, you can find user-generated content (UGC) that you may like to share. You can also find stories of employees who have demonstrated company values and done great work.

By sharing these stories and recognizing employees by name via easy-to-access digital channels, you create a personal connection with employees. You also create a sense of belonging and appreciation.

Leadership communication: Pitfalls to avoid

Bringing a human voice to your employee communications requires empathy, authenticity, and the ability to listen to your workers. Even with the best of intentions, these things don’t always come naturally. 

So with that in mind, here are a few pitfalls to look out for as you adapt your style of communication.   

Over-sharing

Sharing too much personal information in your executive communications becomes counterproductive. It feels performative, dilutes the impact — and places the focus on you, rather than your audience of employees.

So before you share a personal anecdote, ensure it relates directly to your organizational goals and values. Keep any personal stories short and sweet. And balance things out. For every personal anecdote you tell, share two to three employee or customer stories.

Inconsistent messaging

Employees are quick to spot a leader who says one thing but does another. Your communication is unlikely to achieve the desired results if employees see it as inconsistent and inauthentic.

So back up your words with action. For example, if you show empathy for employee stress, you need to do something to alleviate it. If you share a belief that employees are the backbone of your organization, show you appreciate them with regular recognition and a competitive benefits package.

Ignoring employee input and feedback 

Meaningful conversations are two-way. So to maximize the impact of your human-centric communication style, you need to show that you’re listening to what employees say.

Respond directly to employee surveys, reactions, questions, and concerns — either in person or across your internal communication channels. And keep employee feedback in mind when developing your next executive message.

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

‍

Harness the power of human-centric communications for your entire organization.

When you humanize your executive communications, you make your messages more effective, memorable, and engaging. You show employees that there’s a real person behind the job title. This is great for building trust and promoting transparency across your organization.

To make your employee communications more human, consider implementing more storytelling, empathy, and everyday language in your internal communications strategy. And with the right internal communication tools that enable you to connect with employees in a less formal and corporate way, you can foster an organizational culture of transparency and authenticity.

‍Blink. And humanize your internal comms.