Despite having more technology than ever before, the modern workforce is largely disconnected and divided. We’re working across different locations and juggling with more platforms and logins than ever. These challenges, already hard on desk-based, computer-connected office workers, are amplified for the frontline workforce.
Frontline employees tend to spend their days isolated from both their desk-based coworkers and other frontline colleagues. They don’t always have access to the same communication channels or tech tools as their office-based peers — and even if they do, they have minimal time to check on these platforms in between shifts, travels, and on-the-job work.
This means that the concept of the employee experience varies dramatically from team to team, and sometimes from worker to worker, across the same organization. It makes it harder for HR teams to keep a handle on overall employee engagement and satisfaction — and often inadvertently creates gaps in the workforce culture in different pockets of the company.
Just look at a recent Axios report to see this discrepancy in action: Deskless employees are less trusting of their managers and people leaders, less engaged in general, and more likely to experience burnout than their desk-based coworkers.
Bringing your employees together through a unified frontline workforce experience helps to close and mitigate these experience gaps. And by improving employee engagement, you can also make a positive impact on:
Company culture
Workplace communication and collaboration
Productivity and customer service
Employee satisfaction and retention
Here, we take a look at three primary strategies you can use to build connections between employees and create a unified employee experience.
3 ways to unify your frontline employee experience
To unify the frontline employee experience, you need to:
Provide frontline-facing technology
Communicate over one cohesive channel
Conduct regular employee surveys
1. Provide frontline-facing technology
Bad tech adds friction to the work day. It causes headaches and slows your teams down. This is true for any of your employees — but it’s particularly relevant to the frontline.
Frontline workers need fast, easy, streamlined tech solutions that fit into their busy work days. They shouldn’t have to remember lots of different sets of login details and shouldn’t need a company email address to access essential tech tools.
In instances where your desk-based and frontline staff use the same tech tools — which is an excellent logistical way to unify your workforce — everyone should enjoy the same great digital experience. The same features and functionality should be available on both desktop and mobile devices.
But this isn’t the current reality. Just 10% of frontline employees say they have enough access to the tools, tech, and opportunities they need to connect and advance in their workplace.
The most effective frontline-facing technologies are the ones that have been designed for and with the frontline workforce. Rather than trying to modify the desk-based experience, purpose-built technology can make a huge difference to the employee experience. It brings desk-based and frontline staff onto the same (digital) page and ensures everyone feels valued.
2. Communicate over one cohesive channel
Communicating with frontline employees can be a challenge because they don’t tend to spend a lot of time in the office or working alongside managers.
Frontline organizations have usually tried various methods of internal communications. Paper notices on a board in the break room. Posters left on the seat of every bus driver. Overstretched frontline managers sending messages individually to every employee smartphone.
But they all reach the conclusion that these communication channels are inefficient and ineffective. A piecemeal approach makes it easy for important messages to get missed, messaging to become confused, and conversations to remain one-sided.
Communicating over one cohesive communication channel helps to unify your workforce and improve the frontline employee experience. As well as ensuring relevant communications reach your entire workforce, a workforce engagement app can allow you to:
Engage in two-way communication with frontline employees, with the help of features like a news feed and group chats
Target and tailor communications to specific teams, departments, and locations, ensuring that messages are always relevant
Create mandatory reads that necessitate employee acknowledgment so you know that important messages are being read
3. Conduct regular employee surveys
Top-down communication is essential for company-wide updates and culture-building. But if you want to improve the employee experience and bring your workforce together, you need to truly understand what’s going well — and what isn’t — by giving employees a voice.
For many, that might mean conducting regular employee surveys, including:
Quarterly surveys: More regular than the annual survey, quarterly surveys help you to benchmark and track progress in key areas of the employee experience
Pulse surveys: To ensure employee engagement issues don’t sneak up on your HR team, pulse surveys offer a snapshot of employee sentiment, right here, right now
By using a combination of employee surveys, you can seek employee input on corporate policies and initiatives as well as gauge how loyal employees feel toward your company in order to improve retention, engagement, and professional development.
Having an all-in-one internal communications tool to support this process makes things simple. Built-in feedback tools makes it easier for your HR and communications teams to launch surveys — and it makes it a streamlined process for employees, too. No more long-winded paper process. No logging into a communal computer. Workers can simply open the app on their smartphone, get an alert for the survey, and fill it out on their break.
The valuable data you get from your whole organization — and the reporting and analytics tools that analyze it — gives you the information you need to make targeted improvements to the employee experience.
In summary
When you unify your frontline employee experience, you create a work environment where all workers have the channels and technologies they need to come together. They can share their successes, voice their concerns, and experience a sense of camaraderie.
Create the best workplace experience for your entire employee base, and get their best work — and enhanced engagement and loyalty — in return.
With an employee super-app like Blink, you have everything you need to improve the employee experience for frontline and desk-based workers alike. To see what Blink can do for your organization, schedule a personalized demo today.
Despite having more technology than ever before, the modern workforce is largely disconnected and divided. We’re working across different locations and juggling with more platforms and logins than ever. These challenges, already hard on desk-based, computer-connected office workers, are amplified for the frontline workforce.
Frontline employees tend to spend their days isolated from both their desk-based coworkers and other frontline colleagues. They don’t always have access to the same communication channels or tech tools as their office-based peers — and even if they do, they have minimal time to check on these platforms in between shifts, travels, and on-the-job work.
This means that the concept of the employee experience varies dramatically from team to team, and sometimes from worker to worker, across the same organization. It makes it harder for HR teams to keep a handle on overall employee engagement and satisfaction — and often inadvertently creates gaps in the workforce culture in different pockets of the company.
Just look at a recent Axios report to see this discrepancy in action: Deskless employees are less trusting of their managers and people leaders, less engaged in general, and more likely to experience burnout than their desk-based coworkers.
Bringing your employees together through a unified frontline workforce experience helps to close and mitigate these experience gaps. And by improving employee engagement, you can also make a positive impact on:
Company culture
Workplace communication and collaboration
Productivity and customer service
Employee satisfaction and retention
Here, we take a look at three primary strategies you can use to build connections between employees and create a unified employee experience.
3 ways to unify your frontline employee experience
To unify the frontline employee experience, you need to:
Provide frontline-facing technology
Communicate over one cohesive channel
Conduct regular employee surveys
1. Provide frontline-facing technology
Bad tech adds friction to the work day. It causes headaches and slows your teams down. This is true for any of your employees — but it’s particularly relevant to the frontline.
Frontline workers need fast, easy, streamlined tech solutions that fit into their busy work days. They shouldn’t have to remember lots of different sets of login details and shouldn’t need a company email address to access essential tech tools.
In instances where your desk-based and frontline staff use the same tech tools — which is an excellent logistical way to unify your workforce — everyone should enjoy the same great digital experience. The same features and functionality should be available on both desktop and mobile devices.
But this isn’t the current reality. Just 10% of frontline employees say they have enough access to the tools, tech, and opportunities they need to connect and advance in their workplace.
The most effective frontline-facing technologies are the ones that have been designed for and with the frontline workforce. Rather than trying to modify the desk-based experience, purpose-built technology can make a huge difference to the employee experience. It brings desk-based and frontline staff onto the same (digital) page and ensures everyone feels valued.
2. Communicate over one cohesive channel
Communicating with frontline employees can be a challenge because they don’t tend to spend a lot of time in the office or working alongside managers.
Frontline organizations have usually tried various methods of internal communications. Paper notices on a board in the break room. Posters left on the seat of every bus driver. Overstretched frontline managers sending messages individually to every employee smartphone.
But they all reach the conclusion that these communication channels are inefficient and ineffective. A piecemeal approach makes it easy for important messages to get missed, messaging to become confused, and conversations to remain one-sided.
Communicating over one cohesive communication channel helps to unify your workforce and improve the frontline employee experience. As well as ensuring relevant communications reach your entire workforce, a workforce engagement app can allow you to:
Engage in two-way communication with frontline employees, with the help of features like a news feed and group chats
Target and tailor communications to specific teams, departments, and locations, ensuring that messages are always relevant
Create mandatory reads that necessitate employee acknowledgment so you know that important messages are being read
3. Conduct regular employee surveys
Top-down communication is essential for company-wide updates and culture-building. But if you want to improve the employee experience and bring your workforce together, you need to truly understand what’s going well — and what isn’t — by giving employees a voice.
For many, that might mean conducting regular employee surveys, including:
Quarterly surveys: More regular than the annual survey, quarterly surveys help you to benchmark and track progress in key areas of the employee experience
Pulse surveys: To ensure employee engagement issues don’t sneak up on your HR team, pulse surveys offer a snapshot of employee sentiment, right here, right now
By using a combination of employee surveys, you can seek employee input on corporate policies and initiatives as well as gauge how loyal employees feel toward your company in order to improve retention, engagement, and professional development.
Having an all-in-one internal communications tool to support this process makes things simple. Built-in feedback tools makes it easier for your HR and communications teams to launch surveys — and it makes it a streamlined process for employees, too. No more long-winded paper process. No logging into a communal computer. Workers can simply open the app on their smartphone, get an alert for the survey, and fill it out on their break.
The valuable data you get from your whole organization — and the reporting and analytics tools that analyze it — gives you the information you need to make targeted improvements to the employee experience.
In summary
When you unify your frontline employee experience, you create a work environment where all workers have the channels and technologies they need to come together. They can share their successes, voice their concerns, and experience a sense of camaraderie.
Create the best workplace experience for your entire employee base, and get their best work — and enhanced engagement and loyalty — in return.
With an employee super-app like Blink, you have everything you need to improve the employee experience for frontline and desk-based workers alike. To see what Blink can do for your organization, schedule a personalized demo today.
Yoobic delivers mobile tools for task management, learning, and communication—especially in frontline industries like retail and hospitality. But as organizations grow or diversify, they often find Yoobic limiting in flexibility, integration depth, or user experience. Whether you need stronger communication tools, richer analytics, or a more intuitive interface, there are compelling alternatives worth exploring.
What to look for in a Yoobic alternative
When considering a switch, prioritize platforms that offer:
A mobile-first, intuitive experience for every employee
Unified communication, scheduling, and task tools
Engagement and feedback features to boost retention
Integration with your existing HR, LMS, and ops systems
Scalability across distributed teams and locations
Blink is the employee experience platform built to unify communication, tools, and culture—seamlessly. Where Yoobic leans operational, Blink elevates the full employee experience with a mobile-first interface that actually gets used. From personalized news feeds and embedded forms to secure messaging, digital workflows, and pulse surveys, Blink replaces scattered tools with a single hub for everything your teams need.
Trusted by global brands like McDonald's, Shake Shack, and easyJet, Blink empowers organizations to simplify their tech stack while increasing engagement, compliance, and visibility. It’s designed for both frontline and HQ teams — making it the go-to alternative for organizations seeking more than just task tracking.
Pros: Unified hub for comms, operations, engagement, and integrations Cons: No built-in LMS (but integrates with existing systems) Gartner Rating: 4.7/5
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#2. Axonify
Axonify specializes in frontline learning through microlearning and gamified content. It helps reinforce knowledge retention with bite-sized daily training and works well in retail, grocery, and manufacturing. While it doesn’t replace broader communication or task platforms, it’s an ideal learning companion.
Pros: Engaging training, gamification, strong knowledge retention Cons: Limited communication or task capabilities Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.5/5
#3. Connecteam
Connecteam offers a mobile-first workforce management suite with scheduling, task tracking, and team communication. It’s ideal for operations-heavy sectors like logistics, retail, and construction. The app is easy to deploy, though its focus is more functional than culture- or engagement-driven.
Pros: All-in-one mobile app for scheduling, tasks, and time tracking Cons: Less tailored for engagement and internal brand-building Pricing: Free for up to 10 users; paid plans start at $29/month for 30 users Gartner Rating: 4.5/5
#4. Nudge
Nudge is built for frontline employee engagement, combining surveys, communications, and recognition tools. It helps managers gather feedback and drive adoption of key initiatives. However, it may lack the operational features organizations need for broader workforce execution.
Pros: Great for surveys, recognition, and team feedback Cons: Limited task or scheduling functionality Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.5/5
#5. WorkJam
WorkJam unifies task management, training, scheduling, and messaging in one platform. Designed specifically for the frontline workforce, it’s widely used in retail and food service environments. It’s highly configurable, though it may require a steeper onboarding curve.
Pros: Feature-rich for scheduling, training, and communication Cons: More complex setup compared to lighter-weight tools Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.6/5
#6. Flip
Flip focuses on internal communication for large, distributed workforces, particularly in sectors like retail and manufacturing. It’s known for secure updates, mobile alerts, and simplicity. While not a full operations platform, it works well as a centralized comms tool.
Pros: Effective communication and updates at scale Cons: Lacks scheduling, forms, or deep tasking features Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.5/5
#7. Zipline
Zipline is a go-to platform for retail operations, helping brands streamline execution and communication from HQ to frontline. It ensures that every associate receives the right message with the right task—on time. Zipline’s specialty is bridging strategy and store-level action.
Pros: Excellent for retail execution and compliance Cons: More tailored to retail; less flexible outside that use case Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.7/5
#8. Beekeeper
Beekeeper is a communication and productivity platform built for frontline teams. It enables messaging, announcements, and workflow automation with easy integration into existing HR tools. While it’s strong on communication, some organizations find its analytics and personalization features limited.
Pros: Simple to use, mobile-first, great for large teams Cons: Limited customization and reporting options Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.6/5
#9. Jostle
Jostle is a cloud-based intranet designed to organize company news, documents, and people in one place. It’s more effective for desk-based or hybrid teams, and less suited for field-heavy operations. Jostle focuses on making communication clearer and more accessible.
Pros: Clean design, great for company-wide announcements and directories Cons: Not mobile-first; lacks task or shift features Pricing: Starts at ~$6/user/month Gartner Rating: 4.3/5
#10. Sociabble
Sociabble combines employee communication with advocacy and content-sharing features. It’s especially effective for marketing-driven organizations looking to engage employees while expanding brand reach externally. However, it’s not built for scheduling or operational workflows.
Pros: Strong for engagement, content sharing, and brand advocacy Cons: Not designed for internal task execution Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.4/5
#11. Workvivo
Workvivo offers a modern intranet experience focused on employee connection and engagement. It brings together social feeds, shout-outs, pulse surveys, and communication tools. While it doesn't replace operational platforms, it’s strong in building culture and visibility.
Pros: Engaging UI, social features, great for internal comms Cons: Lacks operational tools like scheduling and workflows Pricing: Custom Gartner Rating: 4.6/5
#12. Microsoft Teams (with Tasks & Shifts)
Microsoft Teams, when paired with add-ons like Shifts and Planner, can be extended to serve frontline teams. It’s best suited for organizations already embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem. However, it often requires extra setup and training to deliver the same out-of-the-box experience as dedicated platforms.
Pros: Secure, widely adopted, deeply integrated in Microsoft 365 Cons: Requires customization and third-party add-ons Pricing: Starts at $4/user/month (Microsoft 365 Business Basic) Gartner Rating: 4.3/5
Final thoughts: Choose a platform that moves you forward
Yoobic helped push frontline platforms forward—but it’s no longer the only player. Whether your team needs deeper engagement, simpler execution, or better integration, there are powerful alternatives available.
Blink stands out for its ability to unify communication, culture, and tools in one platform. It’s modern, mobile-first, and proven across industries. If you’re ready for a simpler, smarter employee experience, Blink is your best next step.
Whatever you want to call them, they’re making waves in the workplace.
This cohort of employees, born between 1997 and 2012, now makes up 18% of the workforce. And by 2030 — as more Boomers and Gen Xers retire — that figure is expected to rise to 30%.
When it comes to engaging Gen Z at work, it’s not a case of business as usual. Zoomers, some of whom have been working for a decade now, are bringing fresh energy — and expectations — to the workplace. And internal communications is one area where this shift is becoming increasingly evident.
Gen Z prefers mobile-first, fast-moving, and highly visual employee communications. They value transparency and authenticity, which means traditional, top-down communications will feel increasingly dated and ineffective.
So how do you get Gen Z to take notice of your internal communications? You learn to speak their language.
Here’s how to craft effective communication that is sure to inspire the interest and loyalty of your Zoomer workforce.
Start by getting to know the communication habits and preferences of your Gen Z employees.
Zoomers are digital natives, used to frequently switching between devices and platforms. They tend to look for answers online first — before they send an email or talk to a coworker face-to-face.
This generation also grew up in the era of social media, where communication is instant, interactive, and highly visual. They’ve known nothing else.
So long-winded emails and PDFs don’t just fall flat — they tend to get ignored. Zoomers expect short-form, snackable content that gets straight to the point. And they like having the opportunity to add their voices to the conversation, too.
Authenticity, inclusivity, and relatability are other Gen Z communication must-haves for your internal communications strategy. Corporate-speak and overly polished messaging simply don’t resonate. Zoomers are more likely to believe in your messaging when it acknowledges challenges and complexities, not just successes.
Key takeaway: Internal communication efforts should be concise, visual, and real to match Gen Z’s digital communication style.
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Crafting messages that stick
Once you’ve gotten to grips with what Gen Z expects from your internal communications plan, it’s time to create messages that grab their attention and stick in their memory. To do that, get creative and try to include at least one of these guiding internal comms principles in your messages.
Tell a story
Stories spark an emotional connection between your organization and employees. They highlight real people and create a positive culture. And they take an audience on a journey — usually from a problem or conflict toward a resolution.
So use real employee experiences, personal anecdotes, customer stories, and behind-the-scenes content to make your messages more engaging for Gen Z workers.
Make it visual
Traditionally, internal communications have been text-based. But that isn’t how Zoomers like to get their information. Incorporate GIFs, emojis, memes, and videos to catch the eye and cut through the noise of internal comms.
With these visual assets, you say more with less, which leans into Gen Z’s preference for concise and straight-to-the-point messaging.
Use humor and personality
Gen Z appreciates informality and wit. So don’t be afraid to show some humor and personality in your employee communications. It’s a way to humanize your brand voice and make messaging more relatable.
Just be sure to strike the right balance: Keep humor inclusive, relevant, and aligned with your company culture. And, of course, when addressing serious or sensitive topics, it’s best to avoid humor altogether.
Leverage interactivity
Posting creative, eye-catching content isn’t enough. Interactivity is another important part of the picture. Polls, quizzes, and reaction buttons ensure high levels of employee engagement and facilitate conversations with two-way communications.
But you can take it even further. By responding to comments and acting upon employee feedback, you show that business leaders genuinely care about the employee experience — helping you foster an even more engaged workforce.
Key takeaway: Think social media, not corporate memo.Make your messages fun and visual — and encourage employee participation, too.
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Borrowing from social media
Love it or loathe it, social media should be your main inspiration for your internal communication strategy in 2025. Digital platforms like TikTok and Instagram are expert at generating engagement and keeping users coming back for more. And they set the standard for how Gen Z consumes content.
So play by the social media rule book, creating fast, visual, and interactive content that wouldn’t look out of place on your employees’ favorite feed. To do that, incorporate the following.
User-generated content (UGC)
For the ultimate in authenticity, encourage employees to create and share their own workplace stories. Facilitate peer communication and recognition posts. Launch a content challenge where employees share content around a particular theme. Encourage employees to film their own day-in-the-life videos.
There are so many options to incorporate UGC into your internal communications strategy — you just need to guide employee content creators in the right direction.
Mobile-first design
Where do Gen Z turn first when they’re seeking information and connection? You guessed it. Their smartphones. Your internal communication platform should mimic the accessibility and ease of use of mobile social media apps. And the mobile experience should match the experience employees are getting on desktop. This ensures that office-based staff, remote workers, and frontline employees get the same seamless user experience.
Ephemeral content
Limited-time posts — like the ones you get on Instagram Stories and Snapchat Snaps — drive authenticity. Because when a post is here today and gone tomorrow, there’s no need for it to be perfect. Ephemeral content also boosts internal comms engagement because it produces a sense of urgency. Employees check in with your platform regularly for fear of missing out.
Algorithm-style recommendations
Think back to the last time you scrolled social media. Chances are you saw a news feed filled with content from your favorite people and about your favorite topics. Gen Z employees are used to getting tailored experiences like these. So your internal communications tools should be capable of personalization. When employees see messages that relate directly to them, their roles, location, and interests, they’re more likely to take notice.
Key takeaway: Take inspiration from social media to draw Gen Z employees to your internal communication channels — and keep them there.
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Turning employees into influencers
Research shows that Gen Z tends toward being skeptical and mistrustful — particularly when it comes to traditional authority figures. In the workplace, they’re more likely to trust their peers over corporate messaging.
Harness the power of peer trust by turning employees into internal comms influencers. Look at your internal communication channels to identify internal content creators who naturally engage their colleagues. Then, give them the time and resources they need to share internal messages.
Over the long term, these influencers can become trusted voices on your intranet or employee app and play a critical role in your company culture.
Key takeaway: Empower employees to be the voice of your internal communications — because Gen Z is more likely to engage with their peers than the C-suite.
Avoiding the “cringe factor”
Like seeing their dad break out his best dance moves at a wedding, “cringey” content will have Gen Z employees backing away from the internal comms dance floor.
Forced trends, outdated slang, and overuse of emojis or GIFs won’t win Zoomers over. They can spot inauthenticity from a mile away. Corporate messaging that tries too hard to be “cool” without understanding the cultural context will likely backfire.
Before jumping on a viral meme or social media trend, ask yourself:
Does this align with our brand voice and company values?
Does it make sense in the context of the message?
Will our employees actually find it relevant and engaging?
If you answer no to any of these questions, let it go.
And — instead of imitating Gen Z’s language or recycling viral posts — focus on what makes their favorite content work. Adopt the principles behind trending content, making your messages short, dynamic, and community-driven, and your content is much more likely to resonate.
Key takeaway: Put your twist on it. Avoid the “cringe factor” by keeping your brand voice and company values front of mind.
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Keeping up with trends
Staying relevant doesn’t mean blindly chasing every online trend — but it does mean keeping an eye on how communication is evolving beyond your internal communication platform.
Social media trends shift rapidly. And internal communications teams need an agile approach to stay relevant. Here’s how:
Take stock: Regularly audit content formats and messaging styles to ensure they align with Gen Z’s preferences away from work. Use analytics to gain valuable insights about which content formats and messaging styles are resonating most with your target audience.
Experiment: Stay creative. Test new content formats with a small group of employees before rolling them out to a wider audience. Gather feedback from employees, measure engagement, and update your strategy as required.
Assess your tech: Regularly assess whether your internal communication tools are up to the task. Your internal communications app should mirror the social media experience, offering similar features and functionality. Because, if your platform feels outdated, employee engagement will suffer.
Key takeaway: Keep testing, iterating, and adapting — because Gen Z communication platforms and preferences evolve at lightning speed.
Can your internal communications plan keep up with Gen Z?
Gen Z is reshaping modern workplace communication, demanding fast, interactive, and authentic messaging — delivered straight to their smartphones.
By embracing social media-inspired strategies, fostering two-way interaction, and adopting the trends that align with what your entire organization cares about most, you can design an internal comms strategy that truly speaks their language and build a strong culture of transparency.
And the best part? These changes don’t just benefit Zoomers. In a world where more and more people expect information to be concise, engaging, and mobile-friendly, this style of communication improves the experience for every generation in your workforce.
Hey! I'm Theo Booth, I am originally from the UK but I have spent the majority of my life trying to travel as much as possible and I have lived in 5 countries.
Before becoming a software engineer I was in the shipping industry, initially as a broker before becoming a trader.
I did a Software Engineering bootcamp during lockdown before joining the Solutions Engineering team at Blink as a Full Stack Developer in September of last year.
The responsibilities of the role are twofold: Firstly, to scope out and build custom integrations that can service our clients needs; and secondly, to work with customers to find solutions to/tailor bespoke apps for the pain points in their current ways of working.
The culture at Blink is second to none and the diverse team is a mix of weird and wonderful people all driving towards the same goal. It’s a lovely place to work!
Employee engagement is a critical focus for People teams— or any other business leader. Learn what it is, why it’s important, and how to improve it in our complete guide.
Employee engagement is the difference between soaring productivity rates and a sense of stagnation. It’s fifty people applying for a single vacancy, rather than fifty vacancies and one applicant.
Yet for all its importance, companies frequently misunderstand what employee engagement is and what it looks like. That's why we’re here to help.
Whether you're looking to better understand the definition and importance of employee engagement, drive employee engagement in your organization, or simply understand examples of employee engagement, this complete guide to employee engagement has something for you.
What is employee engagement? A simple definition
Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels satisfied with their job, aligned with your organization’s values, and supported enough to give 100% during work hours.
Research by SHRM defines the term employee engagement as relating to the level of an employee's commitment and connection to an organization, while Investopedia defines employee engagement as describing the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward their job.
At Blink, we believe true employee engagement is a combination of two equally important parts:
Attitude - the commitment a worker feels toward the company
Behavior - the effort that an employee is willing to invest in their job
Whichever way you look at it, maintaining employee engagement is a key factor in determining how successful an organization will be. It also provides key insights into employee satisfaction and sentiment, which can help identify areas that may need improvement.
To better illustrate what employee engagement looks like, here are some of the key attitudes and behaviors of engaged vs disengaged employees:
What is employee engagement for employers?
HR is all about people. So it makes sense that, if that is your role, you want the best for your co-workers.
Still, there’s more to it than that.
Employee engagement is important because it affects the performance of your company. Think back to a job you’ve not enjoyed in the past — did you give as much to that role as you did to the ones you loved?
Now extrapolate this out across an entire company of unhappy, unmotivated workers. In toxic environments, productivity nosedives. Depending on the type of organization you work for, this could mean a lower output rate, poor customer service, an increase in safety incidents, reduced patient satisfaction, missed deadlines, or any other number of issues.
What is employee engagement for employees?
For employees themselves, engagement isn't so much a daily activity they schedule time for. It's a natural byproduct of a strong employee experience.
Engagement is directly correlated to a positive work environment; when people feel respected, appreciated, and valued for their work, they are more likely to be an engaged employee. It's about being part of something bigger than just your job title — it’s that sense of satisfaction and fulfillment when you know you are making a difference.
Different groups of employees have different engagement expectations — and when those expectations match the day-to-day experiences of their roles, employees are more likely to be engaged.
Whether it’s your dispersed, frontline teams or your first-line managers, it’s worth getting to know what your employees expect from their engagement experience.
Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement efforts don’t need to be expensive, but they do need to be intentional. Issues created by poor employee engagement practices can cost your company thousands.
These include:
Reduced productivity: people don’t work well when they’re unhappy. If teams are consistently falling short of productivity targets you know to be reasonable, there’s a good chance they’re unhappy at work
Absenteeism: unhappy employees stay at home and use more sick days and mental health days than those employees who enjoy their jobs and work environments
Presenteeism: Between May 2021 and November 2022 alone presenteeism rose by 18%. As the cost of presenteeism has historically been found to significantly outweigh the cost of absenteeism, this is one common challenge for engagement leaders to tackle.
High employee turnover: if someone is disengaged, it makes them more likely to leave. Replacing employees is super expensive (think six to nine months’ salary, plus up to 213% of the total annual salary depending on the seniority of the position). Along with being a cost drain, the extra workload will put pressure on your other, potentially unhappy, employees while you find a replacement
Employer brand damage: a stream of employees leaving your organization won’t do your reputation any good. Not only will you end up with a large list of vacancies, but you’ll also struggle to find people to fill them. With more job seekers than ever using online review sites, such as Glassdoor, to screen companies before they apply, a poor reputation for employee engagement has never been so damaging
This creates a cycle that your organization doesn’t want to slip into. Breaking it, or making sure that your company doesn’t start to slip down it, is an essential task that requires time and dedication to tracking — and improving key metrics.
3 core benefits of employee engagement
Gallup provides interesting insights on the benefits of employee engagement. Organizations with highly engaged employees experience:
As you can see in the employee engagement statistics above, there is a vast array of benefits to be gained from increased employee engagement. In the below sections, we’ve found some of the most compelling evidence for three core benefits of employee engagement:
Improved discretionary effort offered by engaged individuals is one huge benefit of employee engagement initiatives.
Those with high engagement levels often perform above expectations and develop meaningful relationships with their peers, contributing to improved outcomes for everyone involved. These efforts are what is known as ‘Discretionary Effort’.
The discretionary effort your employees put in directly impacts the success of your business outcomes, whether it’s your overall employee output rates, your patient safety outcomes and satisfaction levels, or a direct increase to your bottom line.
Improved job satisfaction
Employee engagement has the dual benefit of improving both organizational success and job satisfaction on a personal level.
This is because engagement initiatives themselves provide employees with more development opportunities, better recognition for good work, and better prospects for career growth. When employees reap these benefits offered to them by engagement strategies, they feel like they make a real impact on the success of an organization, and that what they are doing is meaningful.
Don’t underestimate the historic power of meaningful work on your employee satisfaction levels — nine out of ten employees would take a lower salary for more meaningful work.
Increased employee retention
Employees are more likely to stay with the organization when they are more satisfied and engaged.
Research by the IJECM (International Journal of Economics, Commerce & Management) found that job satisfaction is a reliable and relevant predictor of employee retention. Highly engaged employees develop a greater sense of attachment to the organization and become more loyal, resulting in up to a 43% difference in employee turnover according to further employee engagement research.
How to improve employee engagement
There are a number of ways to improve employee engagement, but, at Blink, we like to think of engagement efforts as being split into three key categories:
Delivering on the 10 key drivers of employee engagement
Identifying the employee engagement strategies and tactics that work for your employees
Ensuring the best employee engagement tools and software
Key drivers of employee engagement
In order to improve employee engagement, you must understand what drives it, and focus your efforts there. What coreexperiences and tools do you need to provide to your workforce in order to boost the overall employee experience and drive engagement?
By focusing engagement efforts on enabling these core engagement drivers, you will be much more likely to see significant engagement improvements.
Employee engagement strategies and tactics
An employee engagement strategy is the plan of action you take to bring about an increase in employee engagement levels. On the other hand, tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there. In the context of an employee engagement strategy, this means the tactics are the specific engagement actions your teams take to implement the initiatives outlined in the strategy.
Employee engagement strategies combine a number of tactics, such as the use of team-building exercises, offering career growth opportunities, providing more effective recognition for good work and positive behavior changes, or improving your internal communication processes.
In order to effectively craft an engagement strategy, it’s important to have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to get there.
By having a clearly defined strategy, it is much easier to measure the success or failure of any engagement tactic you try. When you identify which tactics work and which don’t, you can adjust your future strategy accordingly.
Employee engagement tools
Employee engagement tools are products and tech solutions that enable companies to measure, manage, and improve employee engagement levels.
Employee engagement software comes in many forms, from survey software used to collect employee feedback and communication platforms providing a channel for discussion between teams.Engagement analysis tools can also provide insight into how your engagement efforts are faring.
However, if your staff are juggling a number of platforms and tools for different parts of their work, it will be inconvenient and you're not likely to see great engagement results. That's why an all-through-one engagement super-app is the best choice for any business wanting to consolidate engagement efforts.
A super-app brings together all of your employee communications, engagement surveys, recognition programs, and employee rewards into one, central platform.
This will not only make your life easier but will also ensure a more consistent experience for employees while enabling you to get an aggregated view of their engagement levels with just a few clicks.
Examples of employee engagement in action
How Go North West achieved 96% monthly active engagement app users
The challenge
Like many frontline organizations facing a digital inclusion gap, Go North West faced challenges when it came to digitizing processes and communications in their organization. Historically, their internal comms were split across various channels, such as emails, mail to drivers' home addresses, depot noticeboards, and unregulated social media platforms.
With so many paper-based operational processes, Go North West faced high levels of non-adherence and inefficiency. On top of this, they were also facing an industry-wise staff shortage in the wake of the Great Resignation and COVID-19, which made growth for the company more difficult to achieve.
The solution
The first solution to the engagement challenges faced by Go North West lay in using Blink’s Hub — the super-app’s central portal for accessing processes, documents, and tools. Go North West could now use this to share duties,schedule, and running boards for easy access and updating.
After this, the company had to ensure critical information such as route diversions could reach all members of staff quickly and efficiently. This was where the team used the Blink Feed — a company-wide, mobile-first communications channel, supplemented with the use of Chats to fulfill shift swaps and fills and ensure smooth service delivery.
The team at Go North West also needed to streamline how they provided drivers and other members of staff access to critical processes and resources. This was where Blink’s Digital Formsand Custom Apps stepped in to revolutionize how the organization worked.
By moving to digital processes from outdated paper-based processes, drivers were able to:
Request annual leave with a few taps from the app, made easier with functionality such as auto-population and validation
Access their schedules through one-click access to DAS-Web
Submit near-miss reports via a custom app on Blink, allowing them to log incidents quickly and easily, increasing the number of submissions to drive process improvement
The outcome
The outcome of this engagement tech overhaul was a resounding success. Engagement levels, retention, and digitization efforts were all improved.
What did this look like in terms of engagement? Well, alongside achieving 96% monthly active app users, Go North West also saw:
30,000 opens of DAS-Web per month
6,000 Chat messages per month
98,000 opens of Hub content
17 daily app opens per user
186 monthly app opens per user
What a result! Widespread success across the operation, with Go North West achieving its goal of higher engagement.
The use of Blink’s engagement super-app has enabled the team to move into a digital-first future and deliver an efficient service that allows them to better serve their employees — and customers. A win-win for everyone.
It’s not just something you need to focus on when employee morale is down and stop as soon as it reaches manageable levels… it should be a central part of the HR or People team’s day-to-day activities.
So, before implementing any of the below, ask yourself:
How much time should we dedicate to this a week?
Who should be in charge of this area?
Who can manage the on-the-ground responsibilities associated with this?
Are there any tools (e.g. a new employee super-app) that could help us manage this workload?
In terms of exactly what to measure and how to measure it, there are two key areas you need to focus on:
The data that already exists in your company
Data that you actively go out and collect.
Measuring employee engagement using existing data
This is data that your HR team won’t have to set up any new processes for; it (should) already be monitored by various departments. The key here is collating it, as there’s a good chance that inter-departmental silos mean that you won’t necessarily be able to access it right away, let alone see the big picture.
We’re talking about:
Absence rates
Employee turnover
Number of complaints to line managers
Number of complaints to HR
eNPS scores
Customer reviews
Customer retention
Sales
Turnover
Social media engagement
There could be a myriad of reasons why customer satisfaction has dipped, so take a look at it alongside some of the other metrics listed, over an extended period of time.
For example, do eNPS scores dip when employee turnover is highest? Do customers write poorer reviews when absence rates are particularly high? Start to compare ‘result’ metrics (like sales, turnover, customer satisfaction, and customer retention) with employee wellness to see whether you notice any patterns.
From there, measure, measure, measure! Set up dashboards with all your chosen metrics so that you can track and compare them at a glance. You can then monitor employee engagement via its direct consequences — absence rates going down and productivity going up is a sure sign that your efforts are working.
To assess your current data, an engagement analytics tool can help. It will look at the data you already have (like those mentioned above) to identify how engaged your people really are and provide real-time insights into what might need improvement.
All of the above help to paint a picture of where you are with employee engagement, but they aren’t the only weapon in your arsenal. So, once you’ve got those dashboards up and running, move onto…
Measuring employee engagement by collecting new data
What’s the best, most efficient way of understanding your employee engagement levels?
Just ask them.
Regular, anonymous employee engagement surveys are the most efficient way of doing this. You might see these referred to as “pulse” surveys, and they are so much better for measuring engagement than the traditional annual long-answer survey for the following reasons:
Response rates tend to be higher. It’s much easier to encourage employees to complete three quick “rate on a scale” questions with an optional “any further comments” box than three pages of long-answer questions that they don’t have time to do.
You can keep them focused on one single issue each time. This gives your HR team a much better chance of addressing feedback successfully and sharing what they’ve done to address their co-workers’ concerns.
They encourage constructive feedback. The issue with running an annual survey is that employees see it as their single opportunity to get everything off their chests.
It’s difficult to respond to 12 months of input from an entire company in any meaningful way, particularly if the topics covered range from disagreement with the company’s strategic direction or low staff retention to dissatisfaction with the options offered in the cafeteria.
How to use your employee engagement data
Whether you’ve noticed that your absence rates are soaring way above your industry average or carried out a highly targeted pulse survey, you need to take action from this data. Understanding exactly how to use your employee engagement data is therefore crucial.
Align key stakeholders with a plan of action
First, sit down with all relevant stakeholders and agree on a workable course of action. Involving stakeholders here keeps things grounded — it’s tempting to offer your workforce the moon on a stick when they’re unhappy, but this isn’t realistic. Avoid promising things you can’t deliver on — broken promises won’t be taken well by your employees, no matter how ambitious they are.
If, for example, your employees have stated they want better quality break rooms or equipment, it’s wise to take the time to align with the leadership suite on whether they have the resources to help with this before you promise a tech overhaul or new break room to your workforce.
Track improvements in data with KPIs
Second, it’s super important to track these improvements against realistic employee engagement KPIs. Change in organizations is gradual, so make sure your targets reflect this and avoid the temptation to try and go from 0 to 100 in three months.
If none of your employees are having regular one-to-one contact with their line managers, an example target structure could look like this:
3 months in: 20% of all employees having regular catch-ups
6 months in: 40% of employees
9 months in: 60% of employees
12 months in: 80% of employees
You could also consider how you roll this out. It’s much easier to coordinate regular catch-ups for office-based positions, so you could focus on getting a full 100% in the first three months for office-based teams as a quick win. Whilst you do this, you can sort out the infrastructure for deskless and dispersed teams to be able to do this further down the line.
Consider new tech
Finally, think about any tools that might help you meet these targets and/or address employees’ concerns.
There’s now plenty of workplace tech to help with a range of issues, like employee apps to help communication, productivity software to help meet targets, and advanced CRM features that make meeting customer needs much easier for frontline employees.
Check with your leadership team to see what sort of support they could offer here. They’ll be looking for a solid return on investment and plan before giving the green light, so make sure that if you’re making a direct request for new software, you build a solid business case about why you need it.
The golden rule: never assume that your workforce will notice your efforts to improve things without you communicating it.
Your workforce is busy, and meaningful change takes time — so you’re not going to make everything perfect right away. To really show your employees that you’ve taken their feedback on board, you’ll need to be explicit.
Include announcements about your planned improvements into your internal communications strategy. If you’ve conducted a pulse survey, share the results. This is a gesture of transparency that people will really appreciate—and emphasizes that you’re taking employee feedback seriously.
When announcing any improvement plans, consider:
The channel that would work best: would more people see it via email, on a noticeboard, or via a mobile-first employee app?
The frequency of your communication: how frequently should you update your employees on the progress you’re making towards these goals
You could also consider providing updates in person at company meetings, as this adds a welcome personal touch.
Remember the small things alongside big things
Big, organizational changes take time, but there are smaller things you can do for your workforce in the meantime.
Reworking the employee journey so there are more obvious routes for internal promotion takes time. Easier things like upgrading the coffee machine, setting up a couple of lunchtime clubs, or getting a pool table for the break room does not.
Implementing a couple of easy-to-manage changes (either that your workforce has specifically asked for, or just off your own back) emphasizes your commitment to improvement while you’re working towards the more structural stuff. It’s not a substitute, but it is a good reminder to your workforce about what you’re trying to do.
Blink. And your employee engagement strategy takes shape.
Blink is the all-through-one engagement super-app that your business needs to make sure employee engagement isn’t an extra task on your list, but part of a holistic approach to people management.
Our platform includes all the tools you need for effective employee engagement, from surveys and feedback loops to recognition programs and rewards. We also provide comprehensive reporting dashboards and insights to monitor progress, track performance, identify problem areas and create actionable plans.
When it comes to employee engagement, Blink is the perfect solution for businesses of all sizes.
No matter where you are in your engagement journey, we’re here to help you create the best possible experience for your employees and drive maximum success for your business.
Twenty years ago, I was advising the government on transport. Our North Star was this: how do we get people out of cars, and onto public transport? We worked hard and made several huge breakthroughs. Public transport in the UK thrived and up until recently, was the mode of choice for many.
But over the past few months, things have changed – drastically so. Two decades of progress has been effectively undone in a matter of months. The government has actively discouraged people from using public transport. That’s never happened before, although I understand that it was necessary.
So: where do we go from here?
Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on the transport industry and its frontline workers. And it’s not over. We have a long road ahead, with many challenges looming.
Even so, I’m optimistic. Here's why.
The arguments for public transport are as strong as ever
Let me own up to my biggest fear first: an increase in car ownership. At the moment, many people are apprehensive about, or scared of, using public transport. That may make them rely more on their cars.
When you’ve got a car, you’ve got an enclosed space. You don't have to sit next to anyone. It's one of the reasons car shares hasn’t taken off. People don't like letting others into their personal space. Covid-19 has exacerbated all this. It might lead families without cars to buy one, or go from one to two-car households.
That might not sound like a big deal. But there's a direct correlation: as car ownership rises, bus passenger numbers fall. Or, put that in perspective: for every new car on Britain’s roads, there’s 365 fewer bus journeys per year.
My goal has always been to achieve a modal shift towards public transport. I've been working with governments for many years to make this happen. That momentum has now ground to a halt. Will that change be permanent?
I don’t think so. The argument for public transport – economic and environmental – remain strong. They will only get stronger. One pivotal reason is climate change. At the beginning of 2020, that conversation was at the heart of public consciousness. Once again, circumstances have sidelined that conversation, but it's more urgent than ever.
The facts remain: the car is an inefficient user of roads, it's wasteful, it's polluting.
But here's what gives me hope. During lockdown, many people have experienced good quality, clean air. Many of them for the first time ever. That's huge. That's compelling.
We caught a glimpse of what a life with less pollution could be like. A live demonstration of a world with less traffic and fewer planes. That’s something most of us want to hang on to; without losing the thrill and energy of vibrant, busy cities.
What's holding us back is public perception. Many people see buses as a main polluter, causing congestion and reducing air quality.
That's not true. One new bus produces less pollution than one new car. That's despite the fact that they can carry 50 times as many passengers, by the way. In fact, buses are a key part of the solution for clean air and sustainability.
What we need to do is shift ingrained mindsets and change misperceptions.
Even after disaster, people adjust
Covid-19 poses an extreme threat. But we have dealt with – and recovered from – extreme threats before.
Take the London bombings in 2005. We lost 35 people; it was all over the television. It was terrifying. People's lack of confidence in public transport was lower then than it is now. Even so, Transport for London got their systems running again the very next day.
Or take 9/11. One of the worst horrors of anyone's lifetime. Remember how nervous were people about flying? But the next day, thousands of planes still took off. Today, aviation has a fantastic track record of keeping people safe.
We've mitigated the risks associated with terror attacks as much as possible. But you'd need to be a fool to say that that terrorist threat has gone away completely.
We don’t know when, or if, Covid-19 will completely go away. We can never eliminate risk. But we can learn to live with new danger.
We adjusted to airport security measures. And we will adjust to facemasks and social distancing.
Human beings are born to adapt.
It will take time, of course. Some people will be nervous for the foreseeable future. But long-term, people’s behaviour will normalize again. Patterns of patronage will return. All the evidence shows this is what happens after a crisis.
We need a marketing exercise. To gradually build up public trust, to reassure passengers it's safe. A way of reassuring people about risk, hygiene, temperature checks and general safety.
Our key workers are resilient
Being a bus driver is one of the toughest jobs in the UK, especially in a busy city.As a driver in London, you have to navigate the busy streets, the traffic; and at the same time, you have to keep people safe, give directions, take their fares.
It's a demanding job at the best of times. Along came COVID-19, and bus drivers were even more exposed than healthcare professionals. Thirty-three of them died in the UK. And all the while they were delivering NHS staff and other key workers to their jobs. The role they play is enormous.
We should be clapping for our bus drivers.
We don't know what their job will look like when all this is over. But I have trust in the resilience of our key workers, and in their capacity to adapt.
One of the economic fears in this respect is about a potential increase in autonomous vehicles. I do expect those to play a big role in the future of transport. In the past year, the number of autonomous car trips was no more than a few thousand.
But there have been hundreds of millions of autonomous train journeys every day. Half of all trains in Asia are autonomous, and we're starting to see autonomous buses come to the fore. There are five different tests in European cities later this year. This looks like it will be an area of big growth.
But won’t that mean job losses for frontline workers?
I don’t think so. In my view, we can approach the issue of driverless vehicles in two ways.
We can say that we're not going to change people's jobs despite the fact that we've got new technologies. Then we will lose bus drivers in the long-term. That would be the wrong way.
Or, we can use technology to enhance people’s jobs. Frontline workers’ roles could shift to become more customer service-orientated. Our workers could be there as ambassadors, communicating with passengers. In the case of an emergency, they could mingle with customers, make sure they're okay. This could herald a new era for public transport, an 'excellent customer service phase'.
We've already seen the potential firsthand. If you've got a lively happy bus driver, the whole experience changes. But at the moment, it's difficult to achieve that. If we move towards an autonomous world, we could recruit more of the right people.
There could be a different mindset, a different approach, a different energy to it. We could reproduce the customer care that people expect in restaurants and shops.
So the role of frontline workers will change, but the prevalence of jobs won’t. Our frontline workers will be as relevant ever.
We can build strong collaborations
To produce a much better product, we need the help of our customers. When it comes to the bus system in particular, we tend not to know what our customers think or want. We don't communicate with them, or not enough.
We want to get to know our customers better. Learn about what matters to them, communicate better with the people who rely on us. Drop them text messages. “Sorry, I'm hacked off, we couldn't produce reliable journeys because of these roadblocks.” Reward them, thank them for their loyalty. That would mean learning about best practice in customer care.
We also want to form closer partnerships with the unions, local authorities and the highways authority. We need to get to know the local politician who's in charge of road space allocation well. To deliver, you need strong relationships like that.
We need to broaden our vision and build robust connections. With our customers, with relevant authorities.Look at best practice in other industries, think bigger, and focus on core competencies. Nail the areas that matter most, no matter the line of work.
That’s my vision for the frontline of the future, and that’s why I’m optimistic.
With a focus on communication, marketing and customer service, we can make the changes we need. Not just to recover – to thrive. It won't happen by itself; we need to set the right priorities and make the right decisions.
Employee messaging is broken — but it’s not because people “don’t engage.”
It’s because most workplace messages are slow, noisy, and buried in channels employees never asked for. Email is where urgent notifications go to disappear. Unofficial tools like WhatsApp create risk and chaos. And legacy intranets were never built for real-time conversation — especially for frontline teams.
Meanwhile, employees are used to fast, visual, social communication everywhere else in their lives. If your internal messaging doesn’t meet that bar, it’s not being ignored — it’s being outcompeted.
The good news? Employee messaging isn’t doomed. But it does need new rules.
Let’s break them down.
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The new rules of employee messaging
Rule #1: Messaging should mirror how people already communicate
Away from work, employees are chatting over WhatsApp and TikTok. They’re sending short, visual, highly engaging messages in real-time. This is their norm.
Voice notes, GIFs, emojis, attachments, and the option to hop on a video call straight from the chat thread keep conversations flowing naturally — just like they do on personal apps.
Rule #2: Keep it safe, centralized, and compliant
Struggling to follow rule #1 because you don’t have modern comms tools?
Unofficial employee communication channels, like WhatsApp, are a tempting alternative. This is especially true if you have frontline employees who cannot access desktop-based communication channels.
But shadow IT like this poses a risk to your business. Beyond the sheen of convenience, there are issues with data privacy and device security. Your comms team has zero oversight and no analytics, so it’s hard to use employee messaging to build company culture.
In contrast, a dedicated messaging tool like Blink is secure. It offers end-to-end encryption, admin controls, and content moderation tools.
Centralized identity management comes as standard. So you can automatically end platform access when someone leaves your company — and get new hires onboarded with ease.
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Rule #3: Everyone sees only what they need
It’s hard to surface relevant details in a flood of information. So if you want employee messaging to cut through, people should be able to find the messages that matter to them, in an instant.
For this, you need targeted channels that reduce noise and prevent notification fatigue. That means role, location, and interest-based groups. It also means giving employees control with searchable chat, pinned messages, and notification settings.
With Blink, you get all the above, plus the added benefit of employee journeys. This feature lets you deliver personalized content pathways, ensuring the right content reaches the right person at the right time. It’s perfect for onboarding, training, and other key touchpoints within the employee life cycle.
Rule #4: Make your feed worth scrolling
Messaging tools + company news feed = the magic combo. Employees can chat with their team over communication tools, then head over to the news feed for company-wide connection and insight.
So, how do you make your news feed successful? Remember: To stand out in a crowded digital landscape, your feed has to compete with employees’ personal mobile apps.
Think photos, short-form video stories, and infographics. Messages that ditch the corporate tone. Employee recognition, celebrations, behind-the-scenes peeks, and quick-fire polls.
A scroll-worthy feed does more than entertain. It amplifies big company messages, strengthens culture, and keeps employees engaged, productive, and feeling part of something bigger.
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Rule #5: Measure everything
You know you’re sticking to the new rules of employee messaging when the stats back you up.
So track what lands, what gets ignored, and which teams are engaged. Use these data to tweak content formats, timing, and style (and educate other content creators within the company), so messages land better every time.
With BlinkIQ, you can track read rates, workforce engagement trends, and even employee sentiment to get a full picture of your internal comms performance. You get the insight you need to make meaningful changes to comms and the wider employee experience.
Your employee messaging playbook
If you’re keen to give your workplace communication strategy a glow-up, you’ll get the best results by following this playbook.
Establish your purpose and principles
First, get the fundamentals straight.
Why is employee messaging important to your organization? Perhaps it supports speedy communication, connection, alignment, or frontline access to comms.
What are your guiding principles? Is it clear, informal, transparent, and useful?
And how does messaging fit within the broader comms ecosystem? What types of employee communication belong on your team chat app, and which are better suited to your news feed or content hub?
Decide on your tools
These days, traditional intranet platforms, email, and shadow IT aren’t up to the task of effective employee messaging. You need a tool that mimics the experience of text and social apps, while offering next-level security features.
If you don’t currently have this kind of tech on your team, it’s time to gather cross-functional consensus on what your messaging tool should look like. Draw up a shortlist of tools that meet your requirements. Demo these tools and decide on the best fit.
Organize your channels
To keep things shipshape in your messaging tool, you need to decide the following:
Naming conventions for channels or groups (so they’re easy to search)
When to create a new channel
Who is permitted to create a new channel
You may then want to create (at a minimum) channels for specific departments, locations, and teams.
Create chat guidelines and governance
Create guidelines on the kind of content that people can share over company messaging channels. Establish emoji, GIF, and reaction etiquette.
Also, decide who’s responsible for governance — your IC team, HR, managers, or designated channel moderators? In the unlikely case that someone posts something inappropriate, moderators can then flag and remove the content.
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Create training materials
Teach employees how to get the most out of chat functions by offering step-by-step instructions for new employees and top tips for existing ones.
Let them know how to manage their notifications, how to share their location, how to set their status, and how to favorite a message.
Go further by training managers in good messaging practices. Offer advice on how to keep the digital conversation flowing, how to use AI assistance, and how to ensure their comms are accessible, engaging, and inclusive of all employees.
Decide on your success metrics
What does good look like when it comes to your employee messaging channels? Decide what metrics you want to track, and benchmark performance to see what impact any improvements make.
You might like to track:
Read rates
Message reactions
Employee sentiment
Operational efficiency
Compliance rate
Then, segment data by team or chat channel to find out where additional IC support may be needed.
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Upgrade employee messaging with Blink
Playing by the new rules of employee messaging doesn’t just improve workplace communication. It powers knowledge sharing, team building, and productivity across your organization.
To achieve this, you need a modern messaging tool that meets the expectations of employees and the needs of your organization.
Blink is a secure, mobile-first messaging platform. It delivers consumer-grade chat and a personalized news feed, perfect for information sharing and co-worker connection.
But Blink doesn’t stop there. It offers a content hub, analytics, and deep integrations with other software you use. It is a complete solution for internal communications, employee experience, and employee engagement.
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