Every leader in an organization that has frontline workforce has likely experienced the 'frontline connection gap' - but what is it?
Jess DeVore
Published:
September 6, 2023
Last updated:
October 8, 2024
This article is part of Blink’s “frontline first” series: content created specifically for leaders of deskless or distributed teams. We know that the job of frontline leadership is entirely different from managing ‘desk-based’ teams, so this is for you and your unique set of challenges.
Every leader in an organization that has frontline workforce has likely experienced the 'Frontline Connection Gap' - it's the root cause of thousands of wasted hours and measurable negative impact on key business metrics like retention and productivity.
But what exactly is this 'gap', and how do you know if your organization is one of the ones experiencing it? And if it turns out that you are, how do you go about closing it (and is it even worth the effort)? In this article, we'll explore all of those questions and give you some simple answers.
What is the Frontline Connection Gap?
In a nutshell, the Frontline Connection Gap is the failure to enable frontline workers to communicate with the same ease, scale and speed as desk-based workers.
If it sounds simple, that's because it is. Think about how the average desk-based worker gets to communicate at work:
Easy access to their co-workers via email, work apps such as Slack and video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams
Easy access to key information and updates via intranets and cloud-based drives
Easy access to key HR processes such as booking time off and downloading paystubs through tools such as Deel or Workday
Easy access to learning and development through dedicated Learning Management Systems
Easy access to other parts of the organization (including leadership) through shared directories
Easy access to feedback portals through tools such as CultureAmp or Peakon
There's more where this came from, but the key point is that desk-based workers have access to a wealth of people, processes and information within just a few clicks.
For deskless workers, the picture looks very different - let's look at those same areas again:
Limited access to co-workers beyond those in the same physical space, often leading to isolation
Limited access to key information, often still delivered through paper memos as many frontline workers don't have access to a company email address.
Limited access to key HR processes such as booking time off and arranging shifts, which often requires making phonecalls or messaging managers via text and WhatsApp. Processes such as claiming expenses often still involve using paper forms.
Limited access to learning and development, as access to computers is infrequent
Limited access to management and leadership, leading to disengagement
Limited ability to deliver feedback or whistleblow on critical problems
The stark difference in these two worlds all comes down to communications infrastructure (or lack thereof): without continuous access to computers and email addresses, frontline workers are in a world that desk-based workers haven't experienced in more than twenty years.
The impact of the Gap
The way to know if your organization has a Frontline Connection Gap is by seeing if anything 'disappears' into it.
For the best examples of this, look to what your Human Resources team are doing. Let's take Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a key case - these critical initiatives are often planned and tracked at board level, and in order for them to be effective they need to impact every single member of an organization. The roll-out of these will often work well for desk-based teams thanks to regular communications such as emails, chat groups, in-person Employee Resource Groups and video calls.
However, getting to the frontline is a different matter. Without reliable channels for communications, People leaders will often find that promoting DEI programs is restricted to a flyer on a noticeboard, curtailing awareness and participation from the very start. In other words, the DEI program has fallen into the Frontline Connection Gap.
So we see just how big a problem the Gap can be: company policies and programs might as well not exist, for all the frontline are able to engage with them. As a result, the impact of the Gap can be felt on almost any core business metric - for example:
Retention drops because frontline employee engagement is low
Recruitment faces challenges as the organization is unable to offer an ideal employee experience
Customer experience is impacted when employees are ill-informed and disengaged
Productivity drops through inefficiencies in processes such as filling empty shifts and inconsistent onboarding and training
Safety is put at risk through failures to communicate critical information at scale
Employee wellbeing suffers as a result of isolation and inability to access support
The list could go on - and it does. If any one of these key metrics looks different in the frontline part of your organization in comparison to the desk-based part, then the likelihood is that you have a Frontline Connection Gap to bridge.
How to close the Frontline Connection Gap
It's important at this point to remember that the Frontline Connection Gap is rarely caused through neglect or intention - in fact, many organizations have tried (and are still trying) to close it. The problem is that the strategies that they employ usually fail, and it's for one important reason: the kind of communications infrastructure that works for the desk-based will not work for the frontline.
A key example of this is using intranets. Many organizations find intranets to be a useful means of sharing information with their desk-based workers, and so attempt to roll these out to their frontline workers through a mobile-based approach. In theory, this should work: most frontline workers have access to a smartphone and are confident enough in using them to download an intranet app.
However, this strategy comes across a number of roadblocks:
Firstly, it requires frontline workers to remember a new login and password (IT teams often find themselves facing high volumes of password reset requests as a result).
Secondly, engagement with intranet apps will usually be disappointingly low - but the reason for this poor uptake will help you unlock the secret of successfully crossing the Frontline Connection Gap (keep reading to find out).
To close the Frontline Connection Gap, there are three simple principles to follow:
Go mobile. With smartphone adoption having reached a critical tipping point, this is a no-brainer.
Consolidate where you can. The more systems and apps you ask a frontline worker to instal, the more you dilute your success. If you're asking your frontline to download and login to separate systems for accessing paystubs, receiving communications, giving feedback and arranging shifts, you're adding friction with every step. Create a single point of access wherever you can.
Put daily value at the centre of your solution. This is the crucial secret behind adoption, and the last mile of closing the Frontline Connection Gap. Busy frontline workers need a reason to engage with HQ, and that's the problem with simply rolling out an intranet on mobile: there's little in it for a frontline worker, so even if they have an app in the palm of their hand, they'll rarely take time out to log in. Success lies in inverting this, by making sure that at the heart of your communications infrastructure are processes that the frontline always need - for example, access to shifts and paystubs. By placing value at the heart of your system, you get the consistent engagement you need to close the Gap (we call this 'Chips and Dip theory'.
Despite the seriousness of its impact, the Frontline Connection Gap is actually a relatively simple problem - which thankfully means relatively simple solutions. If you're ready to get started, check out some of the best solutions on the market over here.
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Demand for home health aides is higher than ever. The job outlook for home health and personal care aides is projected to be 25% between 2021 and 2031 — meaning that, as a workforce, home health and personal care is expected to grow an incredible 20 percentage points more versus other industries.
This poses a significant challenge for home health care providers, not just in recruiting enough carers to answer to demand but in retaining these staff members as well.
The Great Resignation, high employee turnover, and decreasing job satisfaction are all impacting home health organizations in line with the wider healthcare industry. Tackling these issues starts with addressing the factors that cause them in the first place.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the numerous different factors that can influence employee retention, before diving into exactly how to increase employee retention in home health care.
If you're an HR or Operations leader in a home health care organization, keep reading to learn how you can successfully retain your valuable employees — and improve patient care and business outcomes in the process.
What causes attrition in healthcare?
Staff turnover is a natural and necessary process in all healthcare organizations. However, when turnover reaches high levels it can have a detrimental effect on the quality of care as well as being costly. And it's high levels that we're seeing.
Further problems arise when employees leave not only the organization but the health workforce itself.
By understanding and addressing employee retention and the factors that drive it, home health and personal care leaders can minimize staff attrition and the associated impact on cost of, and quality of, patient care.
Below, we’ll take a closer look at each of these three dimensions and how they affect retention, before diving into actionable initiatives leading to improving employee retention throughout your home health organization.
What's important to remember is that each of these factors overlaps to create engaging, positive employee experiences and ensure retention. It's not a case of nailing just one of these categories but creating meaningful change in all three.
1. Employment quality
Employment quality is a key factor in retention and includes aspects like pay and benefits, job security, and working conditions. Other elements of employment quality relate to home health workers having direct lines of communication with their employer and being able to swap and fill shifts easily in order to support the work-life balance they seek.
Getting employment quality right is a particular challenge for home health and personal care organizations. For one, home health co-workers are typically more distributed than other healthcare teams. These are employees who leave their homes in the morning to visit patients at their homes and may rarely, or never, even step foot in a shared office or HQ.
And yet, home health organizations cannot deprioritize employee quality conditions — they can't settle for simply paying staff more in order to boost retention, as many have tried to do. As Gartner states:
"Monetary compensation is important for surviving, but deeper relationships, a strong sense of community, and purpose-driven work are essential to thriving."
That leads us to the concepts of work and organizational quality...
2. Work quality
Work quality includes the levels of responsibility, autonomy, and stress experienced in the workplace.
Without going into any more detail than that, it quickly becomes clear how essential work quality is for healthcare workers. Few roles carry such a degree of responsibility and demand as much from employees. The scope for stressful situations is limitless — and to make matters worse, home health aides often feel isolated from the rest of their co-workers and the organization at large, meaning that when they start to feel stressed they have no one to turn to for support.
Work quality also relates to the technology provided to health professionals to help them succeed in their roles. With52% of frontline workers claiming they'd leave their job over tech tools, it’s clear to see the impact that the right workplace technology has on work quality and employee retention.
3. Organizational quality
Organizational quality also impacts employee retention: the culture of the organization and the way that employees are managed and rewarded (or not) all play a key role here. Organizational quality can also refer to levels of organizational innovation, such as improvement programs or digitization initiatives.
Blink research shows that health and care workers overwhelmingly feel unheard and undervalued in their organizations. Unsurprisingly, the same research showed 50% are considering leaving, or have recently left, their jobs.
Simply put, organizations with a positive culture, good management practices, and fair reward systems are more likely to retain their employees. On the other hand, companies with poor organizational quality are far more likely to experience high levels of turnover.
7 ways to increase employee retention in home health care
Turning attrition trends around is a big task. Businesses need to think bigger than compensation and make bigger commitments to the overall employee experience.
All roles in health and personal care must get the status and respect they deserve. But how can you, as business and HR leaders, provide that?
1. Collect and analyze data
Up-to-date workforce data should be at the center of an effective retention strategy, helping you better target your employment, work, and organizational quality improvements. By collecting and analyzing data and identifying trends in your home health workforce, you can identify the starting point for your activities.
Understanding the profile of your workforce will help you to assess the risk points and ensure that retention issues affecting particular groups are addressed. For example, are retention issues organization-wide or specific to certain staff groups, demographics, departments, or teams?
For a home health provider, this will likely include looking at retention rates between carers employed directly by your organization vs agency staff vs workers brought in through other schemes like CDPAP. Carers indirectly employed by your organization might feel less connected to the company mission and vision — failing to meet their organizational quality needs as a result.
Getting to know the drivers of employee turnover, and who they impact in your specific organization, can help you create targeted initiatives to improve retention. If the data shows heavy attrition after 30 or 60 days, you might focus on creating an effective, engaging onboarding program to help new hires hit the ground running.
Making it happen
One way to improve employee retention is through the use of regular Employee Pulse Surveys. By conducting regular pulse surveys, you can ensure that you have a constant understanding of how your employees feel about their work.
This will help you address any potential retention issues before they become a major problem or spiral into quiet quitting. Additionally, pulse surveys can help to improve employee engagement and job satisfaction, which can lead to improved retention rates.
You can also use tools like Blink’s Frontline Intelligence feature to collect and analyze critical employee engagement data and metrics, helping you to understand exactly where your healthcare workforce is feeling unengaged and unsatisfied.
2. Offer relevant training and development opportunities
Healthcare organizations that offer relevant training and professional development are more likely to retain their most valuable employees. It cannot be underestimated how valued and invested in healthcare workers will feel when their skills are being developed and their careers are progressing.
This answers to all of the three factors explored:
Employment quality (as it opens the doors to higher pay)
Work quality (through professional development)
and organizational quality (as it creates a culture of progress and support)
Making it happen
Training and development programs for home health and personal care workers might include formal training programs, such as classroom-based learning or online courses. It might also include more customized opportunities, such as one-on-one mentoring or job shadowing.
What's essential to identify, however, is how these programs will be delivered. Technology will be crucial to bridge the gap between HQ and home health aides.
3. Lighten the load
An increasing number of health and care workers are struggling to balance the demands of their job with other aspects of their life, such as parenting or caring responsibilities. This often leads to stress and burnout; an early indicator of disengagement, and ultimately attrition. In some instances, burnout in healthcare staff has also been linked to medical errors and patient safety incidents.
To improve retention in healthcare, organizations must commit to creating a working environment where employees feel supported by their home health co-workers and managers — even if they rarely see them face-to-face — and are not overburdened with inflexible workloads.
Making it happen
Organizations can take a number of steps to lighten a home health worker's cognitive load:
Providing more resources to team members and managers in a mobile and easy-to-access Hub for on-the-go support
Implementing intuitive scheduling solutions and shift-swapping tools that can be used for real-time coordination and employee flexibility
Encouraging work-life balance through a culture of peer support, so that co-workers can easily tap into the knowledge and experience of their peers
4. Consistent communication
Another factor that often impacts your employment quality is the consistency of your communication. Consistent two-way communication is essential for lasting relationships — and it can be one of your most powerful tools for encouraging employee retention.
Blink's research found that close to one-fifth of frontline workers don’t receive relevant communications from their organization. Organizations can create a sense of community and trust among their staff to minimize attrition by ensuring that all employees:
Receive updates relevant to them
Are part of the right team chats
Can easily share their ideas and concerns
You can also use regular communication to obtain direct insight into how specific healthcare workers or teams are feeling about their work. This can help you to identify retention issues and create targeted interventions as needed.
Making it happen
Effective communication needs to be tailored to the specific needs of different staff groups. For home health and personal care aides, it will undoubtedly be about regular mobile updates and using Feed and Chat features to create energy and enthusiasm among your distributed workforce.
Read how Blink helped solve a million-dollar communication challenge for the home health organization, Elara Caring. Through deploying a number of transformative digital initiatives through Blink, 95% of Elara Caring's personal care, home health, and hospice care workers now feel more connected to the organization.
5. Focus on employee engagement
Employee engagement can be a powerful tool for improving retention, as it has been linked to higher levels of satisfaction and commitment among workers.
Healthcare organizations can create a work quality that is more attractive to top performers by getting to know the latest employee engagement trends, providing the right digital tools for key workers to engage intuitively, and regularly assessing the effectiveness of their efforts.
Engaging employees ultimately retains them.
Additionally, research by HBR shows that higher employee engagement levels can lead to a number of improved outcomes, not just retention. These include care costs (including legal action taken by a patient against a provider for negligent complications) and treatment effectiveness and patient outcomes (measured by the rate patients are readmitted).
Making it happen
To increase employee engagement, healthcare organizations should focus on creating a culture that values the opinions and input of employees. This might include activities like surveys or direct feedback, regular communications from leadership, and targeted recognition programs.
One transformative way to improve employee engagement in your healthcare organization is to pave the way with Blink, the powerful mobile employee engagement app that frontline workers love. With a suite of features perfect for healthcare, Blink will help you create a culture of engagement and retention in your organization.
"Meaningful recognition can help to motivate and retain our NHS people. Setting in place a holistic reward package, which is relevant to staff needs, can be key to ensuring your organization, and the wider NHS, retains its staff."
But recognition is more than a pat on the back. Driving real recognition for employees needs to be an ongoing, holistic process that inspires your healthcare workforce to feel valued, motivated, and connected to the company.
Making it happen
While some companies may view the idea of regular rewards or incentives as impractical, Blink is a mobile employee recognition solution that makes it easy to provide targeted and consistent recognition to specific individuals or teams.
With features like real-time feedback, team and group chatting, and, of course, Employee Recognition, your healthcare organization can unlock the power of recognition as a retention tool. And with its wider suite of handy features, Blink is the perfect way to engage employees in your healthcare organization and help you retain talent.
7. Listen and action feedback
Over a third (35%) of frontline healthcare workers feel that their feedback will not be acted on by their organization. Unsurprisingly, half of frontline healthcare staff have changed or considered changing their job.
"By taking the time to listen and communicate, we can create a better and more supportive environment within healthcare," says Sean Nolan, CEO at Blink.
Through more effective communication, leaders feel more connected to their frontline, and frontline employees feel valued and listened to. This results in higher retention, increased productivity, and better two-way conversations.
Making healthcare workers feel heard needs to be a priority for any healthcare organization. By listening to their feedback and acting on it, you will be able to create a more supportive workplace culture that retains top talent — leading to reduced costs associated with employee turnover.
Making it happen
To effectively ensure your team is heard and their feedback is acted on, you need the right tech to manage it all smoothly. With the Blink employee app, you can listen to your employees and act on their feedback in real time, meaning they won't feel ignored or undervalued.
By using the powerful features of Blink, you can help create a culture where frontline workers feel heard and respected while focusing on:
Encouraging two-way feedback through regular surveys and communications from leadership
Ensuring feedback is acted on and implemented into business processes, updating employees on the progress of their feedback so they know they’re being heard
Integrating your mobile app with workplace technologies like HR systems, payroll platforms, and more, to streamline the employee experience and implement feedback effectively across your organization
Listen and action feedback - Regularly collect and act on feedback, update employees on actions taken
Retention next steps
Blink is the industry-leading frontline engagement app that connects management and frontline teams to build stronger organizations. With a proven adoption rate of 92% in care sectors, it’s never been this easy to unify the frontline. At Blink, we believe in empowering frontline organizations by helping you enable, engage and understand your workforce.
Our app provides a host of features that support employee retention in home health, such as employee surveys, polls, secure team and group chats and channels, employee recognition, and healthcare-friendly HR tools.
By using the app effectively, you will be able to create a culture where employees are engaged and respected – ultimately reducing employee turnover costs and driving employee retention up. We are experts in frontline engagement and retention and would love to help you achieve your goals.
Effective workplace communication is clear, consistent, and engaging. It produces the desired result, and it helps you avoid misunderstandings.
Organizations with a successful internal communication style are happier and more productive. But effective employee communication isn’t always easy, especially if you manage a frontline workforce.
There are practical challenges to overcome. Frontline employees don’t have a computer. They don’t always have an employee email address. They have changing shift times and locations. And they often lack access to tools their office-based peers have as standard.
Nevertheless, overcoming these barriers to communication is important. Fail to reach everyone with effective workplace communication and:
critical messages are missed
you struggle to develop a strong company culture
employees end up feeling disconnected, demotivated, and more likely to look for other jobs
Essentially, if communication doesn’t reach every member of your organization, we can’t call it effective.
Here we explore the benefits of effective communication, and offer ideas on how to achieve it at your organization.
Benefits of effective workplace communication
93% of business leaders say that workplace communication is the backbone of business. But 3 in 4 say their company underestimates the cost of poor communication.
Here are the things companies miss out on when their communication isn’t up to scratch.
When teams interact openly and inclusively, they develop a shared understanding of goals and processes. This makes it much easier for them to harness team strengths and work together.
Enhanced employee engagement
Employee engagement is how connected and committed your workers feel to their workplace.
It’s something the majority of business leaders plan to focus on in 2024. That’s because high levels of employee engagement are linked to better productivity and staff retention.
There’s a direct link between workplace communication and employee engagement. Improve the former and you improve the latter.
Conflict resolution
Workplace conflicts are natural and inevitable. But you can’t allow mountains to become molehills. You need to get team members in a room to talk it out.
When teams communicate effectively, you resolve conflicts quickly, collaboratively, and conclusively. Good employee communication also prevents conflicts from developing in the first place.
Improved productivity
What could you do with an extra 7.47 hours per team, per week? That’s the time business leaders say they lose because of poor communication.
Employees rely on the right information to complete tasks. When that information is readily available and easy to find, workers get the job done quicker. And employee productivity sees a considerable uptick.
Improved employee morale
According to a Forbes study, nearly 50% of workers say that ineffective communication harms job satisfaction. And 42% say it makes them more stressed.
When communication is poor, workers also feel less confident professionally. And they’re more likely to look for other jobs.
Ineffective communication damages team morale. But when you adopt good communication practices, you find it easier to motivate and retain staff.
Increased innovation
For the best shot at developing innovative new ideas, you need to enlist the help of as many people in your organization as possible.
People have to bounce ideas off of one another. And you need a way to communicate your culture of innovation to the company at large.
Innovation relies on good communication. So with effective communication strategies, your company will come up with bigger and better ideas.
Better decision-making
When communication flows between all members of an organization, leaders make more effective decisions.
That’s because they don’t make decisions in a silo. They take into account the ideas, opinions, and perspectives of all employees. They base decisions on information, not instinct.
It’s the same for employees. An incredible 28% of workers say they don’t understand their company’s goals. So imagine how much more effective their day-to-day decision-making could be with clear communication from leadership.
Traditionally, messages may have been passed to the frontline via word of mouth, a cluttered team noticeboard, or personal messaging apps.
These communication methods are inefficient and time-consuming. There’s also a big risk in terms of reliability. Employees may get the wrong message – or no message at all.
Technology offers an alternative solution. Today’s best communication tech is designed around the modern workplace. It offers:
Top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication: communication moves in all directions thanks to communication channels everyone can contribute to
An intuitive user experience and integrations: it’s easy for employees to find information; tools work well with any other tech you use and don’t add to the noise
Real-time communication:61% of workers prefer real-time communication; moving beyond email, employees get access to instant messaging and video conferencing
Access for every employee – whether they work in the office, on the shop floor, or on the road, all employees get the same access to communications and communication tools
In today’s workplace, communication tech is essential. But the right tech solution looks different for every business.
For desk-based teams, modern company intranets are ticking most boxes. However, frontline teams need a tech tool that isn’t chained to a computer and doesn’t require a company email address for login.
Enter the employee app. For organizations with large frontline teams, an employee app like Blink has all the features and functions you need for effective employee communication.
It’s a mobile-first app so all employees can access Blink from their smartphone. All communication is available in the same place so employees know exactly where to find it.
Blink supports surveys, recognition, and – crucially – allows leadership to communicate with the frontline workforce they’re so often disconnected from.
With leaders and the frontline seeing the value of good tech, implementing this type of tool is one of the primary ways you can improve workplace communication.
7 ways to improve workplace communication
Getting the right tech on your team is central to improving workplace communication. But you can’t stop there. If communication at your workplace is subpar, there’s work to be done.
These tips provide the other pieces of the puzzle. Put them into place and you’ll develop a strong and successful internal communication strategy.
1. Lead by example
Leaders set the tone of your organization. So if you want employees to communicate regularly, openly, and clearly, your leaders have to, too.
Encourage leaders to be active and visible on employee communication channels. And to engage with employees at all levels of the business.
Training may be necessary. There’s a presumption that good communication comes naturally. The truth is it doesn’t. But it can be taught.
By gaining new skills, your leaders can become clear communicators and active listeners. They’ll also find it easier to establish a culture of positive communication.
2. Establish clear communication channels
Lots of noise? Not much being heard?
Channel overload makes it hard for employees to find information that’s relevant to them. This impacts their productivity. It can also lead them to disengage with internal communications.
So establish clear communication channels and consider streamlining, too. When there’s one source of knowledge and information, it’s easier for employees to use it.
Also, share guidelines on how you expect employees to use your chosen channels. Perhaps there’s one space for informal team chat and another for company-wide updates. Maybe some types of messages are only relevant to certain team members.
With clear guidance on where they can find information and how to contribute to the conversation, employees are more likely to get involved.
3. Prioritize two-way communication
Employee communication used to mean leadership speaking to the rest of the organization. But times have changed. And this type of one-way communication now feels outdated.
It’s also ineffective. Organizations with an open communication culture are more inclusive, productive, creative, and collaborative. That’s why the majority of today’s employers strive to give their employees a voice.
To develop a culture of two-way communication, you need:
communication channels that everyone can use easily and intuitively
a company culture where everyone feels able to speak out
When you develop a culture of psychological safety, everyone feels comfortable speaking out. Employees are happy to admit mistakes, ask silly questions, and voice criticism. People say more of what they feel, which aids meaningful communication.
4. Provide regular updates
While two-way communication is important, don’t neglect top-down communication. Regular updates from leadership are still important.
They help employees align their work with organizational goals. They support good decision-making. And they give employees the contextual info they need to do their best work.
In office-based organizations, leaders can share the latest company news in short, face-to-face standups.
But when you’re managing a frontline workforce, company standups aren’t always viable. When people are working different shifts in different locations, it’s nearly impossible to get everyone in the same place at the same time.
This is where your chosen communication tech tool can help. Via a company newsfeed post or a video upload, you can share up-to-the-minute info with your whole workforce and keep everyone on the same page.
5. Establish a feedback loop
According to the Harvard Business Review, around 72% of workers believe their performance would improve if they had open, honest feedback.
But effective employee communication isn’t just about giving feedback. It’s also about encouraging employees to give you theirs.
You can support employees to speak up and give their opinions – on processes, the employee experience, leadership, or anything else – in two key ways.
First, by promoting a culture of psychological safety. And second, by making it easy for employees to have their say.
You can use tech tools to launch surveys. Annual surveys that help you benchmark feedback year on year. And pulse surveys that give a real-time view of your company.
Regular one-to-one meetings also build supportive manager-employee relationships. They’re a safe space in which employees can share any concerns or questions.
However, to make this process truly effective, you need to establish a feedback loop that follows these four stages:
Information gathering – asking your employees for feedback
Analysis – making sense of the data you’ve collected
Action – using the data to make a plan of action
Notification – telling employees what their feedback revealed and what you now plan to do
By creating a feedback loop you keep employees invested in the process. You ensure their participation in future surveys and one-to-ones.
6. Celebrate success
90% of employees find recognition motivating. But celebrating employee success doesn’t just encourage better, harder working.
Peer-to-peer recognition strengthens co-worker relationships. 3 in 4 employees say that the act of giving recognition makes them want to stay at their current organization longer.
And according to Gallup research, employees who regularly get recognition are more engaged, more connected to their culture, and less likely to experience burnout than those who do not.
Gallup also handily outlines the five features of effective recognition. It is:
Fulfilling – appropriate to the accomplishment
Authentic – genuine rather than forced
Personalized – adapted to the preferences of the person being recognized
Equitable – all employees have the chance for recognition
Embedded – it’s part of the value and practices of your organization
For frontline teams, recognition has to be intentional. You can’t always highlight employee work in a company standup or pop by a frontline team member’s desk.
This is another way that a tech tool like Blink can help improve workplace communication. Blink’s recognition feature allows both managers and co-workers to celebrate fellow employees.
They can publish a recognition post in the company newsfeed or send a DM. And wherever an employee is working, they get recognition sent straight to their smartphone app.
7. Address conflict promptly
Workplace conflicts often arise because of miscommunication. So simply putting the other tips on this list into action should reduce the number of disagreements you have to deal with.
But some conflict is inevitable. And how you deal with it is crucial. Unresolved conflict can cause negative workplace relationships – and even a toxic workplace culture.
So it’s always best to recognize and tackle conflict promptly. When managers become aware that a conflict has arisen, they need to get both parties together and bring issues out into the open.
This is another area where tech can make a difference. When you conduct company communication over a tech tool, you get access to lots of data.
This data can help you to visualize workplace relationships. You see where positive and negative relationships lie, who likes to chat and who doesn’t. You can then intervene early to support strained relationships and help everyone feel more connected.
Measuring the effectiveness of workplace communication
As with any initiative, when you want to improve workplace communication, you need a clear way to measure progress.
Start by looking at the qualitative data you gather through employee one-to-ones and surveys. Find out what employees think of workplace communication – and what ideas they have for improving it.
You may also like to track a selection of the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
Content engagement: message open rates; survey response rates; number of post comments and shares
Content channel engagement: communication tool adoption rate; the number of tech tool logins; employee profile completion rate
Business impact: customer satisfaction rates; sales figures; the number of met and overdue milestones; costs saved
Viewed together, these KPIs will show whether new communication channels and strategies are working to improve workplace communication and overall business results. You can then use these findings to optimize your approach going forward.
How Blink can help your organization with effective employee communication
For frontline organizations, it can be hard to find communication tools and strategies that suit your version of the workforce.
Blink is an employee super-app. It allows easy communication between frontline and office-based teams.
With real-time messaging, a company newsfeed, and seamless integrations, Blink is a streamlined communication solution.
Whether you want to ask for employee feedback, notify staff of available shifts, or simply recognize an employee’s hard work, you can do it all within the intuitive Blink interface.
Case study: Elara Caring
Let’s take a look at Elara Caring. They started using Blink because they had a huge communication problem. They were struggling to connect the 32,000 carers who worked for them.
Before Blink:
morale was low
there was no opportunity for peer-to-peer connection
annual staff turnover stood at 65%
managers had to call hundreds of personal phone numbers to book carers onto shifts
Now, 96% of employees say they would recommend Blink. Our app is Elara’s destination for everything – from paystubs to schedules, to the latest company news.
All employees can join the company conversation, receiving critical updates and shift information straight to their smartphones.
They also feel more included in company culture. Employees can connect, share their stories, and learn from each other. They also get regular recognition from peers and managers, plus in-app access to L&D resources.
At Blink, we help companies to improve employee communication. We’re closing the gap between frontline and office-based teams. So organizations can create richer cultures and reach their business goals.
Want to join Elara Caring and lots of frontline businesses like them? Book a personalized demo to see what Blink could do for you.
A paltry 36% of US employees are engaged in their work, as per data from Gallup. On top of that, 11.5 million workers left their jobs in the time period between April and June of 2021.
It’s no secret that engaged employees are less likely to skip work and are much more productive. They are also more likely to stay with their organization.
So with roughly 2% of the entire US workforce quitting on a monthly basis, you can’t afford to ignore the employee engagement challenges in your company. Identifying employee engagement barriers in the workplace and addressing them should be your top priority.
But what should you look for? What might be the issues in your organization hurting employee experience and retention?
This post will help you understand what those barriers are, and what you can do about them.
Let’s begin.
Employee engagement challenges that can make or break your business
A study shows that a highly engaged workforce can reduce a company’s turnover rate by 25 to 59%. And it all starts with identifying the barriers to high employee engagement. These are:
1. Excessive red tape
How many procedures and rules should an employee follow to get basic tasks done in your workplace? If there are too many, it will negatively impact employee engagement.
According to the Employee Outlook Survey from the CIPD, unnecessary rules and procedures are the biggest hurdles to employee productivity.
Your work environment is supposed to provide a smooth work experience where employees can get things done easily with minimum stress. This will require simplifying your work processes wherever possible.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
See which admin tasks are taking the most time for both the admins and workers. Then reduce the number of sign-offs required to approve these tasks.
Implement a tool that can automate common workflows. With Blink’s micro apps, for instance, admins can create and share digital forms, collect data, and automate key workflows.
2. Line managers and supervisors with poor communication skills
If there’s anyone in the position to bring the skills and focus of team members into alignment with the goals of the organization, it’s the middle manager.
In factories and other similar establishments, for example, line managers form a pivotal link between frontline staff and senior leaders. Yet they are often ill-equipped to engage their teams.
The Management Empowerment Report reveals that just one-third of front-line managers received specific training to support employees. Most have been chosen for the role because they were good workers, not because they were good managers.
Inspiration and transparency in communication are critical improvements a leader can make towards solving employee engagement challenges.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Open channels of two-way communication among the line managers and their teams.
Provide managers with resources and tools to collect staff input with methods such as internal surveys and quizzes.
Support with adequate employee engagement training for managers on how to engage and communicate with their teams.
3. Lack of one-on-one time
Only 21% of millennials and 18% of non-millennials meet with managers on a weekly basis. Most say they meet less than once a month.
One-on-ones are essential for managers to get to know employees on a personal level and discuss their needs, concerns, and growth opportunities. They could be considered a key driver of employee engagement.
Not just that.
Without frequent one-on-one meetings, a manager’s ability to communicate effectively with employees about projects and performance is limited. And what suffers as a result? Employee engagement.
So, to avoid barriers to good employee relations, you must make sure that the managers in your company meet regularly with the staff.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Direct managers to schedule regular one-to-one meetings with their team members. And make it a key performance indicator that determines their progress in the managerial role.
Train managers to create an agenda in advance and approach these meetings as a consultant, not an authoritarian. Instead of just discussing technical details of the job, managers should help workers prioritize tasks and understand the big picture.
4. Shortage of growth opportunities
A study by BlessingWhite found a lack of growth opportunities to be the most common reason employees leave their jobs. If you’re serious about removing employee engagement barriers, increasing development opportunities is a must.
Failing to consider workers’ career progression will trigger the feeling that they are stuck in a dead-end job. And sooner or later, they’ll jump ship to discover better opportunities.
In contrast, employers that encourage workers to learn new skills don’t just retain them longer, but also stand to gain from the new insights employees bring to the table.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Have a professional reinvestment budget. Allocate sufficient resources to invest in each employee’s professional growth plan. Case in point: Jake Goldman, from 10up. In his words:
“We provide a dedicated budget accrued at $3,000 per worker per year. And we give managers and employees several ways to use these resources, from self-coaching and online classes to attending and speaking at professional events worldwide.”
Start by outlining a path for growth that will keep employees engaged and help you retain top talent. Plus, offer support and training in the form of stipends or bursaries to help employees get there.
5. Not enough transparency
Research shows the majority of employees (75%) care about the performance of their employer, but only 23% feel they have insight into how well the business operates.
Transparency in the workplace refers to a genuine, two-way openness of communication between the workers and the management. And lack of transparency is an employee engagement barrier that can undermine the trust between employees and managers.
So it’s essential to show your employees the bigger picture — how their work is tied to the goals of the company as a whole. It leads to a high level of communication and trust, which in turn fuels employee productivity and engagement.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Make sure workers are being kept in the loop about small or large matters concerning the organization.
Regarding the decision for which the stakes are high, make it a point to explain the “why” behind them. This is a better approach than just laying down the new rules.
Regularly share business performance reports with the employees, regardless of whether it’s struggling or doing great.
Lack of reward and recognition
According to an Indeed survey, 30% of people who quit their job within the first six months would have stayed longer if they were recognized more for their contributions.
Employee reward and recognition are at the heart of impactful employee engagement strategies and high levels of retention. On the other hand, not having an employee recognition program in place will leave workers demotivated and dissatisfied with the organization.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Recognizing your employees doesn’t have to cost the world. Often a simple (and free) thank you can have a massive impact on engagement. Other ways to recognize your employees without breaking the bank can include a free celebration lunch or a monetary bonus for the employee of the month.
Make sure you celebrate big and small wins with your team, especially when they exceed expectations. Get creative and make the culture of encouragement and appreciation a central part of your organization.
6. Employees feeling unheard
A study found that 82% of employees have ideas to boost business performance. But more than one-third of employees struggle to get these inputs to the upper management.
This is one of the most critical employee engagement challenges because if employees are to be engaged with their work, they need to feel heard.
A 2020 employee experience study found that organizations that act on feedback have double the engagement score of those that don’t. And this kind of engagement is possible only when senior managers listen to workers’ thoughts and opinions.
How to overcome this employee engagement barrier?
Transparent, one-to-one meetings can help workers feel heard, along with anonymous question and answer sessions and employee feedback forms.
Adopt a communication or employee engagement tool that creates multiple channels between managers and workers. Blink, for instance, also lets managers create polls and surveys that can be used to find out what workers really think.
High employee engagement is a big advantage that can help you stay ahead of the competition. But as you can see, accomplishing the same remains a challenge for many organizations.
But that’s not to say it’s impossible.
Top workplaces have been successful at reducing employee engagement challenges with communication and alignment. And there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
These tips and best practices for employee engagement we have shared will go a long way in overcoming employee engagement barriers and creating a workplace where workers feel more included, engaged, and valued.
Kerry Schumann is an Occupational Therapist with diverse experience in the healthcare sector. Currently employed at Ross Care since October 2022, Kerry previously held a similar role at Millbrook Healthcare and worked at the Eastern Cape Department of Health from December 2018 to November 2022, where responsibilities included establishing sustainable services as the sole therapist at a district-level hospital.
Kerry always goes above and beyond her role. She will always reach out to help anyone who needs it. She shows great initiative and is proactive in everything she does — and always has a smile around the office. She has always shown amazing rapport with service users and their family. Kerry is just a general delight to work alongside.
How has Blink helped in her role?
Kerry is our Blink Champion for Chandlers Ford.
What does she want to do next?
She wants to keep doing the best she can each and every day and hopes to progress within the clinical.
The once clunky, desktop-bound relic has been making a comeback in the era of remote work and mobile design with modern intranet features.
Workers need access to the documentation as they step away from the desk. They require a way to communicate with their coworkers securely. To meet the demands of their growing mobile workforce, companies are taking another look at intranets.
While modern intranet features several quality-of-life improvements and productivity hacks, they aren’t always used to their fullest. A recent survey found 57% of employees saw no point in their company intranet.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
The workplace has evolved, and traditional legacy portals simply do not cut it anymore. When evaluating different company intranet solutions, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. Knowing exactly which modern features matter most will help you cut through the noise and find the perfect fit for your frontline workforce.
Let’s go over the best features a modern intranet design offers and how you can use them to increase engagement and boost productivity.
What does a modern intranet look like?
Modern intranets are mobile.
Instead of the old-fashioned office-bound software of yesterday, we have sleek, multipurpose apps. Workers can benefit from these systems on the frontlines or at a desk.
Despite being more accessible than ever, these intranets are more secure. Each employee can be granted access to only the materials they need. Each person has their feed, showing them the information and updates relevant to them.
The design is simple, and the emphasis is on easy-to-navigate, uncluttered browsing. You want your workers to find the required content quickly, so using the app doesn’t feel like a chore.
Finally, a modern intranet isn’t just top-down. Employees can communicate with each other and with supervisors. They can generate content, engage with others’ posts, and develop personal connections.
The 8 best modern intranet features
Newsfeed
CMS
Integrations and micro apps
Single sign-on to integrations
Employee directory
Multi-way conversations
Mobile-first
Analytics
Modern intranet platforms should help you engage your employees and improve your company’s productivity. Here are the key features of a modern intranet.
1. Newsfeed
A company-wide feed lets your employees learn about important issues and share achievements with others. You can configure stories to be shared with all workers or only those affected by a problem.
2. CMS
A content management system (CMS) lets workers access the documents and files they need. Workers can easily find the files and even share the files with others.
3. Integrations and micro apps
A modern intranet isn’t an isolated software system. Your intranet should integrate with the apps and programs you use every day.
You should be able to connect with programs like Microsoft 365 and Slack.
Besides the integrations, your employees will also benefit from micro-apps. Micro-apps are customized programs that let users request time off or provide anonymous feedback, all from the intranet itself.
4. Single sign-on to integrations
Juggling multiple passwords can cause huge delays for employees. 60% of workers surveyed reported that passwords prevent them from doing their job.
Remembering multiple passwords is hard. Single sing-on prevents this issue.
5. Employee directory
Finding the right person to connect with saves time for everyone. With an employee directory, you can find up-to-date contact information for every employee or only the employees you have access to.
6. Multi-way conversations
Communication should be a two-way street. Instead of a constant flow of information from managers, let your employees provide feedback and chat securely with individuals and groups.
7. Mobile-first content
If your intranet is optimized for desktops only, it’ll only help desked employees.
Statista expects the mobile workforce in the United States to grow by 15 million between 2020 and 2024. These workers need a mobile-friendly design to work effectively.
8. Analytics
Using analytics, you can check how each post in your feed performs, how engaged your employees are and compare these levels to previous periods.
You should be able to track individual and group engagement and even see the active periods when your workers use the app.
Final thoughts: 8 modern intranet features your organization needs
A mobile intranet can make a huge difference in how your workers engage.
Sharing information they need and letting them have a platform to connect with others is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity.
You need a platform your workers can access from anywhere to communicate with coworkers and catch up on the news from the head office.
Blink has all of these features and more. Sign up for a free trial today to see just how big a difference a modern intranet can make for you.
Employees power your business, but many are often left behind when it comes to workplace tools and technology.
That’s where Blink and Workday come in.
With the industry’s most comprehensive integration between Workday and any employee experience platform, Blink extends Workday’s powerful capabilities to all employees — whether they’re desk-based, remote, or on the frontline. This unmatched integration ensures every employee can access what they need, when they need it — driving engagement, boosting productivity, and helping organizations unlock the full potential of their Workday investment.
Together, Blink and Workday bridge the employee experience gap, offering the entire workforce seamless, one-click access via their smartphones to the tools and information they need.
Let’s take a closer look at how Blink and Workday work hand in hand to revolutionize the employee experience, creating a more connected and engaged workforce.
Blink and Workday: How it works
Blink is a mobile-first employee experience platform that serves as a digital front door for your organization, giving employees access to all the software you use in just a few clicks.
If you’re already a Workday customer, you benefit from our pre-built, out-of-the-box integration. This means we can take Workday user data into Blink and automatically create user accounts.
Employees can download the Blink app from Android or Apple app stores and use their email or phone number to access.
Through single sign-on (SSO), employees can access third-party apps — like Workday — by simply clicking on the relevant icon. Users can also click on deep links that take them straight to specific Workday functions, like payslips or an address update form.
When you partner with Blink and Workday, you make Workday accessible to all of your employees.
Blink and Workday: The benefits
Here’s what you can expect when you use Blink and Workday together.
#1. Improving adoption of Workday (and other third-party tools)
Persuading employees to download multiple workplace apps is a challenge. But with Blink, there’s just one app to download.
The Blink app acts as a centralized hub. With SSO, employees can access all workplace software — including tools like Workday, SharePoint, and ServiceNow — from Blink. Employees don’t have multiple passwords to remember or reset.
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This explains why Blink customers enjoy a 5x improvement on adoption of third-party tools. Pair Blink with Workday and you’ll get much more value from your Workday subscription.
#2. Easy identity management
Frontline workers don’t tend to have a corporate email address or device. So these employees are often left behind when it comes to workplace tech tools like Workday.
But with Blink, it’s easy to get hard-to-reach deskless employees onto your systems. That’s because Blink serves as your identity provider.
Deep integration between Workday and Blink allows the transfer of rich employee data to Blink systems. Then, Blink verifies user identities, making it simpler than ever to activate employees.
#3. Streamlining the frontline workforce experience
Together, Blink and Workday makes it easy for frontline workers to access all the tools and resources they need, at a time and place that suits them. This makes workers more efficient and effective.
Via Blink, employees can access Workday Skills Cloud, view pay and benefits, pick up shifts, complete employee surveys, submit paperwork, and report safety concerns.
Putting these tools in the hands of frontline workers means you squeeze all possible value from them. You also make life easier for your frontline workforce — so much easier that Blink users give the app a 9/10 ease rating.
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#4. Improving employee communication
Blink takes internal comms beyond the office noticeboard and word-of-mouth messaging. An intuitive news feed gives every employee instant access to up-to-date internal communications, tailored to them.
Admins can use the news feed to highlight Workday-related tasks. You might like to communicate available shifts, signpost training resources, or prompt staff to book their vacation time. You can add links to your posts, directing users to the appropriate place on the Workday app.
Blink’s wide range of employee communication tools supports your workforce in other ways, too. They find it easy to chat with supervisors, coworkers, and leadership. So they feel more connected to your organization and the people within it.
#5. Accessing comprehensive data
When you use Blink and Workday together, you get access to rich analytics and survey data relating to your employees, all via a user-friendly dashboard.
This data reveals how employees are using your workplace tools. It gives you a deeper understanding of employee engagement and staff turnover. It can even help with workforce planning.
Drill down into this data to identify strategic areas for improvement — identifying operational weaknesses and issues with employee experience.
#6. Closing the digital divide
A majority of workers feel disconnected from their organization — and many feel they lack the tools they need to do their jobs effectively.
By improving the digital employee experience, with a combination of Blink and Workday, you close the digital divide. You give all employees equal access to workplace tools and bring them into the company conversation.
This helps to improve employee engagement and satisfaction. It also leads to better staff retention. Blink customers experience a 26% reduction in employee turnover.
Make Workday work harder for your full organization with Blink
Blink helps leading organizations bring Workday to deskless employees. We provide the most comprehensive and effective Workday integration in the industry, which makes for easy setup and a seamless user experience.
