What deskless employees actually need from their managers (hint: it's not motivation)

42% of companies have increased their investment in cloud and unified communications.

And this trend has only grown stronger during the Covid pandemic. The virus has given unified communications a long-overdue seat at the table. 

It’s not hard to understand why. As companies grow larger and employees become more remote, keeping track of all your communication channels and devices is a challenge. And unified communications, especially as a service (UCaaS), solves this problem.  

Still, many companies are on the fence, with some not even familiar with this new approach. Instead of choosing the benefits of unified communications, they’re busy prioritizing other organizational needs. Big mistake! 

In this post, we’ll explore the top reasons why your company should invest in unified communications. Whether you want to learn more for yourself or get buy-in from other leaders in your company, the following list is exactly what you need.

Let’s dig in. 

What is Unified Communications?

Ensuring that workers can easily communicate, collaborate on projects, and share documents are critical to your business. 

Yet in most organizations, voicemail, email, fax, video calls, and live chats have all been on different systems so far. And managing these disparate platforms has been time-consuming and messy.

Even if it wasn’t, the solution may not have led to any improvement in collaboration and productivity. In fact, 69% of employees waste more than 5 hours each week switching between different communications devices and apps.

Enter Unified Communications. It means connecting instant messaging, video conferencing, data sharing, email, and more in a way that you can fetch data from one into the other. 

A solution based on unified communication integrates all your communication devices and apps in one central place. And when this solution is offered as a cloud-based service, it is known as UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service).

So instead of managing and switching between different places, employees need access to only one platform, streamlining communication and collaboration for everyone involved.  

Benefits of Unified Communications 

The definition alone should be enough to have you nodding in support of unified communications. Still, the following points will shed more light on why Unified Communications is important. 

1. Watertight IT

When you look at how your company communicates, you may discover a number of solutions, with each implementation needing dedicated support and vendor management. 

That means your IT department spends a lot of time troubleshooting, installing, updating, and providing support for these solutions. And every minute of time has a cost. 

Wouldn’t this time be better spent on innovating proactive strategies that grow your business and meet corporate goals?

A unified communications solution helps free up IT resources by consolidating all communication in one place. So there’s only one system to manage and troubleshoot instead of several.  

2. Reduced business costs 

Maintaining multiple units of hardware and software licenses adds to your cost and overhead. In fact, you don’t just pay for the different platforms, but also for a person or team to supervise the whole system. 

And don’t get us started on the time and budget you’ll need to allocate to train workers on how to use all the platforms. That’s a big waste of money — money that could have been used to grow the organization.  

In contrast, with a unified communications solution, you pay only for a single platform. So your overall cost is considerably low. 

3. Streamlined operations 

Unifying communications in one place makes it easy for employees to do their jobs regardless of where they are located while saving time on routine tasks. For example, with a UCaaS solution, you can:

• Route all incoming calls to a dedicated team member, app, or device
• Redirect fax or voicemail to an email inbox as a PDF or audio file

You can set up many other automations and workflows to make remote work easy for your workers. And you can do all this without any special support from the IT department. This makes it easy to derive call center analytics on peak load, minimum load, first call resolution rates, etc. which will help with streamlining operations further

4. Improved collaboration and productivity

A survey has shown that companies adopting UC, on average, see a 52% improvement in workplace productivity and a 25% boost in operating profit.

Wondering how? Let’s take an example. Imagine you have a team spread out in five countries, with members trying to share and collaborate on crucial documents. And picture how chaotic it can be. 

Now give the team members the ability to present via a virtual call and share documents through instant messaging after the call — all from the same system.

When your team knows exactly what communication platform to use for everything, they won’t spend countless hours searching emails and other apps. 

The verdict is clear. With unified communications, employees can communicate on both internal and external communication channels quickly and reliably. 

When your different systems can talk to each other, collaboration is a breeze, and you get things done fast.  

5. Better customer service 

Consumers of today are highly impatient. They expect quick and efficient support and services. If they don't get a response to their problem or question fast, they won’t think twice about switching to one of your competitors. 

In fact, 58% of customers will end their relationship with a brand that gives them mediocre customer service.  

So if you want to maintain an exceptional level of customer support, two things are essential:

• Your employees should have a fast way to communicate with customers
• Your employees should find it easy to share information among themselves 

But both these goals are almost impossible to achieve if you have different, standalone communication services scattered all over the place. With such an approach, you also run the risk of crucial messages slipping through the cracks.

A unified communication solution goes a long way in offering a stable and predictable experience to customers, increasing their satisfaction and loyalty to the brand. 

6. Improved security

Cybercrime costs businesses $2.9 million per minute, says research by RiskIQ. And the more disparity in your communication systems, the more vulnerable your organization will be. 

So another advantage of UCaaS is better security. A unified communications solution can ensure that all your calls and communications are encrypted and less susceptible to risk.  

7. Simplified remote work

Communication becomes even more important when your workforce is dispersed in several locations. And a unified communications system ensures that all the workers have proper access to your company’s network. 

This way, employees can answer emails, attend calls, and share files while on the move. This level of connectivity is what makes a UCaaS solution a must-have.

Final thoughts: 7 Unified Communications benefits

Over the last few years, there has been a massive shift in how companies operate and how employees get things done. For many businesses, the days of large office buildings with the majority of your employees are long gone. Instead, companies today have a diverse workforce across several locations.

This makes unified communications essential for modern businesses. From improving productivity to facilitating remote work, and from delighting customers to reducing security breaches, unified communication has the benefits that make it a necessity for today’s workplace.   

Switching to a UCaaS may seem like a big investment, but it can make a big difference in your organization’s future. Even so, if your boss and other senior managers are on the fence, show them this list! 

Invest in unified communications at the right time, and your business will reap the benefits for years to come. Request a free Blink demo today.

Kristin has quickly settled into life at Blink in just four months. After starting her career in finance, Kristin discovered her passion for working closely with people to achieve shared goals — leading her to a customer success role where she thrives on building new processes and partnerships.

We caught up with her to learn more about her journey, her excitement for upcoming Blink features, and why she loves working at a company that champions both frontline employees and forward-thinking innovation.

Which Blink office do you work out of?

I work at the Boston office 3 days a week. 

What is your position at Blink?

I’m a Customer Success Manager. I work with our existing customers to optimize their use of the Blink platform, ensuring we meet their strategic goals through maximizing the value of their Blink investment.

How long have you been at Blink?

I’ve been here for just over four months, so I’m still relatively new. Before this, I worked in Customer Success at a larger tech company in Boston. It was a similar role, but I enjoy working at a smaller, earlier-stage company because I like having the opportunity to build processes and functions from the ground up — it’s really exciting to me.

I graduated college with a major in Finance and started my career in that field. I enjoyed it and did well, but I realized the part of my job I loved most was interacting with people and working toward shared goals. In Finance, those goals were usually budget-related. I thought, “Okay, I don’t want to become a CFO one day… so, what do I want?” That’s what led me to Customer Success, which is fundamentally about teamwork and collaboration.

What initially attracted you to join Blink?

When I heard about Blink, I was really excited. So many apps target desk-based employees — I’d been working in tech, and everything I worked on was designed for people at their desks. What thrilled me about Blink was that it focuses on frontline, deskless employees. It’s such a cool space in the market, and not many tech companies concentrate on that.

Plus, once I started meeting the Blink team, I could sense a great energy. Everyone was incredibly kind during the interviews, and I knew it would be both an exciting and welcoming place to work.

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

I know I’ve only been here a short while, but I’ve already had the opportunity to collaborate with several teams on enablement for one of our new product offerings: Advanced Employee Intelligence (AEI). AEI is a set of real-time dashboards that customers can use to take action on insights across key areas of the platform. 

From the Customer Success side, we really needed resources to demonstrate its value to our customers. So, I worked with Izzy, Nikita, and Adrienne to develop talk tracks and enablement materials — a really exciting project! We’re already seeing the benefits of it, because now we can discuss AEI much more confidently with customers, watch them adopt it, and help drive their success.

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

I’d describe the Blink team as driven, thoughtful, and team-oriented. Everyone is highly motivated — always pushing to add new product features, improve processes, or try out innovative ideas with customers to enhance employee engagement and communication.

They’re also incredibly thoughtful and team-oriented. From day one, I could tell how welcoming everyone was, eager to help me learn the ropes and teach me everything I needed to know. It’s been great having such a supportive team, especially as I get familiar with the product and start building relationships with my customers. 

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

I’m really excited about our product development. We have a lot of cool features on the way, and there’s a great opportunity to partner with our customers to help them leverage these features to enhance their employee communication and engagement.

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

I think our Voice and Video Calling feature will be really cool. Blink is already a one-stop shop, but I believe this will be a fantastic way to streamline communication for people who need to connect quickly. It’ll be incredibly helpful for real-time collaboration.

Why do you work for Blink?

I work at Blink because there’s an opportunity not only to support Blink’s ongoing success and growth but also to partner with our customers on their own success. That’s what excites me every day: having those calls, collaborating on different initiatives, and seeing firsthand the value Blink brings them. It’s especially rewarding to know we’re making an impact for essential workers or those who, without Blink, might have been overlooked in traditional communication channels.

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

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

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

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

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

Similarities between internal and external communications

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

Strategic importance

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

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

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

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

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

Selling the brand and what it stands for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two-way conversations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The need for engagement

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

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

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

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

The need for targeting

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

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

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

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

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

Measuring success

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

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

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

Differences between internal and external communications

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

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

Your audience

Internal and external communications have different audiences:

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

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

Your communications team

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

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

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

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

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

Content

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Communication goals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Communication channels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finding the right tool to support your internal communications strategy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What makes him awesome?

Grant has been with Brighton & Hove for 37 years and now he organizes the buses run out for us.

He is in at 04:00 every day and is never sick. He liaises with Engineering for available buses, plans the run out order, and keeps our bus board updated. He will make sure that the buses run out smoothly and on time and helps all of the drivers as well as the coach drivers, with any queries or if they need assistance with maneuvering, etc. He assists us Supervisors where required with ticket machine problems etc and willingly takes ownership of the state of the garages.

Grant is a true frontline hero and we don’t always show our appreciation enough  Thank you Grant!

How has Blink helped in his role?

Grant uses Blink to communicate with the other departments, drivers, and supervisors to ensure that all relevant information is passed on.

What does he want to do next?

Grant has found his niche and is happily counting the days until he can retire.

Nominated by: Wayne Henty, Supervisor

The average person will work 35 hours per week. That adds up to 84,365 hours over their lifetime. Yet just over one-third of employees (34%) are engaged, and 16% are actively disengaged in their work and workplace.

If you’re reading this, the chances are you want to make sure your employees don’t feel like they are wasting a large portion of their life at work. We’ll do our best to help you do just that.

In this handy guide, we’ll break down the key steps you need to take when creating an employee engagement strategy.

From understanding why your organization truly needs an employee engagement strategy, to the actionable steps you can take to create your own strategy, we’ll cover everything you need to know right here.

Why you need an employee engagement strategy

Creating an employee engagement strategy can seem daunting, but it’s important for any business. Having a strategic approach to your employees’ happiness and engagement will help you retain top talent, keep them motivated and productive, and ultimately grow your business.

Effective employee engagement strategies will outline exactly how you are going to improve employee engagement within your organization, allowing all team members to stay on the same page when it comes to their roles and responsibilities.

In short: by creating an employee engagement strategy, you can strategically work to improve your employee engagement. And with improved levels of engagement, come a number of organizational benefits, including: 

• Higher Productivity: Employee engagement is closely linked with productivity. Engaged employees are more motivated to do their best work and achieve their goals. In fact, research has shown that engaged employees are up to 202% more productive than disengaged employees.
• Reduced Staff Turnover: Low employee retention is costly and disruptive for any business, and one of the most decisive factors for employee retention is employee engagement. Engaged employees are less likely to leave their job, which reduces the need for costly and disruptive staff turnover.
• Improved Morale: A happy workforce is a productive workforce. When employees feel engaged and valued, they are more likely to be happy at work and less likely to experience stress or burnout. As such, a staff engagement strategy can motivate employees and improve morale, job satisfaction and overall company culture.
• Greater Loyalty: An engaged employee is more likely to be loyal to their company, in fact 90% of workers said they are more likely to stay at a company that takes and acts on feedback: AKA one that engages them. They are less likely to look for jobs elsewhere and are more likely to recommend their company to others. Therefore, the right employee engagement strategies can drive your staff retention rates and encourage employees to stay with your company for longer.

Employee engagement strategies & business types

What your employee engagement strategy needs to consist of will change depending on your business type. For example, a software company will need to focus on ways to motivate and engage product designers and developers in order to compete for top talent in a competitive Silicon Valley environment. A healthcare organization, on the other hand, will need to come up with innovative ways to engage their nursing and medical staff to combat physician burnout and the growing nursing shortage.

What's important is that you provide your workforce with strategies that are designed for them specifically. Ultimately, your strategy will depend on the type of employees you have, the unique challenges facing those teams in your market, their day-to-day tasks, and how your organization operates as a whole.

Employee engagement for the frontline

Creating an employee engagement strategy can be especially important for frontline organizations. With 80% of the global workforce working on the frontline, it’s important to have strategies in place that will help keep these workers engaged, productive and motivated.

Additionally, employees in frontline positions often have more direct contact with customers and are more likely to represent the company to the public. As such, it is important for these employees to be engaged and motivated, so they can provide positive customer service experiences.

Frontline staff engagement strategies might involve providing employees with accessible digital tools for employee engagement, offering transparent and frequent communication, or emphasizing the importance of customer feedback.

Remember: whatever strategies you use, it’s important to tailor them specifically to your industry, business type and workforce.

How to create your employee engagement strategy

In order to have engaged employees, you need a plan in place, outcomes in mind, a clear outline of responsibilities and a culture that takes participation seriously. You also need a toolset available that is able to execute your plan, close distances, track results and simplify operations. 

To make this a little easier to understand, we've broken the process down into 7 simple steps.

1. Define - Your purpose, values & mission

Defining your own purpose, company core values, and mission statement is a crucial step in creating your employee engagement strategy. In fact, when teams know your goals and expectations of them, they are 2.8 times more likely to be engaged in their roles, according to research from Quantum Workplace.

By clearly articulating what you stand for as an organization, you can align your staff with these values and give them a reason to be invested in the success of your business in the long-term.

To ensure that all employees are on the same page here, you should provide an easy-to-access Hub containing all company policy and procedure documents, along with a thorough onboarding process for new hires.

2. Listen - Conversations and research

Direct, two-way conversations and further research into your employees’ needs and wants will help you to create a more personalized engagement strategy, making this a core step in the strategic process. One way to do this is through pulse surveys.

Pulse Surveys are short, regular surveys that ask employees about their engagement levels and how they feel about their work. This can help you to identify any areas where your employees may be struggling, and can help to ensure that your employee engagement strategy is constantly evolving.

Whether it’s through surveys, focus groups, one-on-one interviews or anonymous staff feedback tools, gathering data and hearing directly from your employees can give you valuable insights into what they need from an engagement strategy, and help you identify your organisation's key engagement drivers, in order for staff to stay engaged at work.

3. Review - Analyze and plan

Once you have gathered data from your employees, it’s time to analyze this information and determine what action needs to be taken. You may find that certain areas of your workplace are in need of improvement, or perhaps a company-wide change is necessary to boost employee engagement.

Whatever the results of your employee research, it’s crucial to identify specific targets and actions that will make your plan a success. What’s working, what's not? Are there specific issues that need to be addressed? What are your engagement goals as a business leader?

Key goals for your employee engagement strategy could include:

• Lower staff absenteeism
• Better employee retention rates and lower turnover
• Improved productivity
• Enhanced employee motivation and happiness 
• Increased customer satisfaction 
• More positive organizational culture.

By reviewing and analyzing the data you have gathered, you can gain a clear understanding of how to better engage employees in order to achieve these goals. This will help you to build a more effective employee engagement strategy that your employees want to respond positively to.

4. Commit - Actions speak louder than words

Strategy is important, but actions always speak louder than words. Employee engagement strategies that work, only work if you plan to back them up with core actions, processes and real change.

Below, we have outlined some key ways to commit to your employee engagement strategy. By truly committing to all of these actions, you can bring your employee engagement strategy to life and start seeing real results.

Tools & technology

Digital tools are essential for any organization looking to boost engagement. By providing your employees with the right tools, you can make it easier for them to connect with each other and with your company. This can help to improve communication and collaboration within your team, leading to higher job satisfaction, and a more engaged workforce.

There are a variety of different digital tools that you can use to engage your employees, including great employee engagement apps, online chat software and team collaboration tools.

It’s also important to consider using technology with frontline-specific features in deskless organizations. With 52% of frontline workers claiming they would leave their job over tech tools, better digital commitments are clearly needed here. By providing your employees with tools fit-for-purpose on the frontline, you can ensure that your employees feel supported and engaged no matter where they are in the organization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV1_4ZdjPQ4&ab_channel=Blink

Recruitment 

Assuming that you have already begun the process of gathering data and analyzing it, you should now begin to take actions across the board in order to improve employee engagement. One way to do this is through better recruitment practices.

People who match your ideals and company culture, who will add value, and who are onboarding engagement are more likely to be engaged employees. Therefore, it is important to take care in the recruitment process, and to ensure that you are hiring people who will be a good fit for your company. You can use interviews, personality tests and job simulations to get to know a candidate better, and to see how they would fit into your team.

It is also important to provide a thorough onboarding process for new hires in order to establish a culture of engagement from day one. This can help them to feel welcome and comfortable in their new role, and can help them to learn about your company policies and procedures.

Communication

Regular communication is key to keeping employees engaged. Employees need to feel like they are part of the bigger picture, and that their voice is heard. By establishing a regular communication schedule – whether it be through Secure Chats, email, newsletters, team meetings or other methods – you can ensure that your employees are kept in the loop.

It’s also important to have a clear internal communications strategy in place. This should outline who is responsible for communicating with whom, and what methods will be used. This will help to ensure that everyone is on the same page, and that important messages don’t get missed.

It’s important to tailor communications to the needs of your employees. For example, if most of your employees are frontline workers who don’t have access to a computer, you may need to adjust your communications methods so that they can be accessed on mobile devices – think mobile employee engagement apps. You may also need to consider using different methods for different departments or locations within your company.

Surveys

Although surveys are important when drafting your strategy, it’s also important to gather feedback from your employees on a more regular basis if you want to walk the walk of employee engagement. By conducting regular Employee Surveys, you can get a sense of how your employees are feeling at any given time – and if things need to change.

An employee engagement survey can help you to gather valuable data and feedback from your employees, which you can use to improve your strategy. You may want to consider including questions about work-life balance, employee engagement initiatives, training and development, and other areas.

Frequent surveys are a great way to get ongoing feedback from your employees and to see how they feel about various aspects of their job or the company as a whole. You can also use surveys to measure the success of your employee engagement strategies, obtaining valuable insight into what is working and what needs to be changed or improved.

Managers

“Leadership has an important role to play when it comes to employee engagement, and this is especially important given nearly half (45%) of workers say leadership is “minimally” or “not at all” committed to improving company culture. In fact, 78% of employees confirmed that any change to culture needs to be driven by the CEO.” — Jeff Cates, CEO of Achievers.

For business leaders, mid-level management is often the first step towards employee engagement. By ensuring managers are supported from the top level, given the budget, training, tools and support they need, you can set them up for success as well as help to create a culture of engagement across your entire organization.

Effective managers have many important roles when it comes to employee engagement. They are responsible for setting expectations, holding people accountable, and providing feedback. They are also responsible for coaching and mentoring their team members, as well as helping to resolve any issues or conflicts that may arise.

5. Measure - Analyze and report

To measure the impact and see if their employee engagement activities and strategy is working, businesses should use employee engagement analytics via the right tools, at the right time.

It’s important to use analytics at different points throughout your engagement strategy, as this will help you to gain valuable insight and data that can be used to adjust what is working and improve the areas that need improvement. For example, you may want to analyze employee satisfaction levels before implementing a new training program, or track engagement levels over time to see if your initiatives are working.

There are many different types of analytics tools that you can use to analyze and report this data, for example Blink's Frontline Intelligence tool. Our powerful analytics offer insight into the people and relationships that make your organization tick. 

By analyzing data from people, places, and things on a regular basis, you can gain real-time intelligence into your employee engagement strategy that you can use to better support and understand your workforce.

6. Reward - recognition & progression

When used effectively, recognition can be an extremely powerful tool for improving employee engagement. Employees need to feel appreciated for their efforts, and recognition is one of the best ways to show your most engaged employees that you appreciate them.

However, simply giving employees a pat on the back isn’t enough – recognition needs to be meaningful, memorable and measurable. By taking the time to recognize employees in a meaningful way, you can show them that you truly value their contributions, and make them want to engage and contribute more.

There are many different ways to recognize employees, and it’s important to find what works best for your organization. Some popular methods of recognition include offering Kudos or Employee Recognition, awards ceremonies, Feed shout-outs, gift cards or vouchers, and thank-you notes.

It's also crucial that you back up recognition with opportunities for growth and career development. This may include promotions, opportunities to learn new skills, a stronger compensation and benefits package, or simply more responsibility. By providing employees with opportunities for growth and progression within the organization, you are helping them feel valued and motivated to continue performing well.

7. Repeat - Regular check-ins and adjustments

To truly maximize the impact of your employee engagement strategy, it’s important to take a regular and systematic approach. This means that you should regularly check in on key metrics, analyze the data you gather, and make any necessary adjustments based on what you find.

Stay on top of your engagement. Track key metrics such as employee satisfaction and engagement levels, and conduct regular check-ins to analyze the data you gather. This will help you make any necessary adjustments to your strategy in a timely and effective manner, ensuring that your employees are engaged and motivated at all times.

Final Thoughts

At Blink, we provide the all-in-one solution to employee engagement. Designed for the frontline, our easy-to-access, intuitive employee engagement app delivers real-time data and communications, actionable insights and intelligent recommendations.

Inspiring engagement in your employees has never been easier. With our powerful analytics tools and customizable recognition programs, you can gain valuable insight into your workforce and take the steps needed to boost engagement levels across the board.

Whether you’re looking for a way to track employee performance, improve communication and feedback, or simply create a more positive work environment, Blink has everything you need.

Get started today

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

Alexia Cambon, Director, Research, Gartner.

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

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

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

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

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

How do you know your frontline workers are collaborating effectively?

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

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

Clear communication of goals and progress

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

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

Healthy conflicts

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

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

Exchange of opinions and ideas

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

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

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

Peer-to-peer recognition

Recognition heavily influences employee satisfaction.

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

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

Signs of poor workplace collaboration

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

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

Low enthusiasm during meetings

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

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

Poor communication among your workers

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

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

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

High employee turnover

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

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

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

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

No accountability

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

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

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

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

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

How to improve employee collaboration

1. Let your employees know what you expect from them

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

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

4. Have regular team-building activities to solidify relationships

5. Reward team collaboration as you do individual success

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

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

1. Let your employees know what you expect from them

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

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

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

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

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

Well, communicate it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Have regular team-building activities to solidify relationships

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Reward team collaboration as you do individual success

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

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

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

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

Did you have a successful project?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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