How to improve internal communication on the frontline: 10 tips to win

In April, Blink attended the American Ambulance Association Annual Conference & Trade Show (a.k.a. AAA)  in Nashville, TN. As the premier event in the ambulance industry, leaders gather at AAA to discuss the trends and pitfalls they face, find innovative vendor solutions, and hear from experts about the future of Emergency Medical Services (EMS). 

We had the honor of sharing the stage with a few of those trend-setting industry experts. Blink hosted a panel discussion, “Uncensored: Cutting The BS On Employee Communications,” with two of the industry’s most straight-talking COOs: Danielle Thomas (Lifeline Ambulance) and Meredith A. Lambroff-Brown (Armstrong Ambulance Service). 

Keep reading to discover some of the employee communications insights Danielle and Meredith shared with the audience. 

Why good employee communications matter for EMS agencies 

First, let’s set the stage to understand why frontline communications are so critical for ambulance companies. EMS frontline workers—paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs)--play a critical role in society. Ambulance companies face a difficult task, however, when it comes to keeping a strong workforce and staying connected with them. 

Frontline roles in healthcare related industries are notoriously challenging to keep filled—and EMS is no different. Over the last few years, turnover rates have increased, with an average of 11% turnover in the US and a peak of 20% turnover in high response volume areas in 2022. The turnover problem is compounded by waning applicant pools, with nearly two-thirds of agencies reporting a decrease in applications. 

On top of that, EMS practitioners are a young and increasingly diverse workforce. In California, for example, the EMS workforce is younger on average than the rest of California’s workforce. In the US, more broadly, EMTs are one of the youngest workforces, with a median age of 29.7 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What industry COOs are saying about employee communications

Against this backdrop, what advice and insights did Thomas and Lambroff-Brown have for companies struggling to communicate with a young, mobile, and diverse workforce? Here are a few takeaways from the talk.

1. Comms is a must-have, not a nice-to-have

In many ambulance agencies, the practice of communications is often viewed as an afterthought, rather than what it really is: one of the most powerful tools available. A good communication strategy has the power to educate, motivate, connect, and focus workers; a bad communications strategy can tear down people and workplace culture. 

‍2. Master the building blocks of communications

When working on your internal communication strategy, pay attention to the three main building blocks of communication—what you say, how you say it, and how you deliver it. Each company will need a different voice tailored to their audience, so play around with these facets to ensure your message is being heard. 

‍3. Create a relevant and sustainable comms strategy

Getting employee communications right is hard because language and culture are always evolving. What worked yesterday isn’t guaranteed to work today. That’s why leaders need to constantly ensure their comms are specific, set clear expectations, and provide a model for the rest of the workforce. In other words, “what you put up with, you end up with.” 

‍4. EMS leaders are scared to over-communicate, but shouldn’t be 

In any organization, the comms team will need to handle sensitive topics. Naturally, leaders are scared of over-communicating and causing uproar over certain topics. But, rather than letting the fear of an outcome shut down communications, focus on building trust with the workforce through constant communication. That way, you’re more likely to be given grace to make a communication misstep by employees who feel connected to you already.

‍5. Build the culture with your posts

Your communications strategy plays a critical part in building the company culture. This is especially important—and challenging—for frontline organizations where workers often work alone or in pairs. Don’t shy away from posts that may seem “fluffy,” and be sure to tailor those posts to your workforce. For the younger EMS workers, the COOs take advantage of videos in the Blink Feed, because that’s how that generation consumes information.  ‍

6. Control the narrative

Rumors and misinformation are an unfortunate part of managing frontline communications. Rather than avoid tough topics, the comms strategy needs to prioritize getting ahead of the narrative. Whether it’s discussing the disparity between racial representation in the workforce and in leadership roles or an emergency issue like an error with gas card payments, set the terms of the discussion early and provide clear next steps to fend off the rumor mill. 

‍7. Measure the operational impact of your strategy

Good comms are measured by more than anecdotes. Inefficient communications and misaligned technology hinder frontline workers and contribute to waste and high turnover. When Lifeline Ambulance switched to Blink for their communications and HR tool, the company saved $420,000 in the first year—nearly 10x more than their investment in Blink. Understand the operational cost of your current strategy, find new strategies and new tools like Blink, and measure the impact regularly.

In summary, a good frontline communications strategy is one of the most important things an EMS agency can do.  But communicating with a young, diverse frontline workforce can’t follow the same playbook as your office-based staff. Ambulance agencies need a communications strategy that is tailored to this mobile, fast-paced, highly-dispersed workforce.

If you can find what works for your agency, it can help reverse the turnover trend and help create positive employee engagement that propels the business forward.

It was a compelling, hour-long discussion with both COOs. This summary is just a fraction of the insights the audience walked away with. 

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“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.

We’ve rounded up the seven top training programs that will help boost morale, foster collaboration, and increase productivity for your staff. From interactive workshops to online employee engagement courses, these programs offer something for everyone.

Whether your team is new or experienced, office-based or deskless, there are plenty of options available to help create an engaged workforce.

So let's dive into what the best employee engagement training programs are, what they offer, and how they can benefit your organization.

Choosing the best employee engagement training courses

A great employee engagement course should provide teams with a comprehensive understanding of how to create an engaged workplace environment. 

It may include a range of topics covering effective communication practices, problem-solving strategies, team-building exercises (that don’t make employees squirm), and more strategies that create highly engaged employees.

They may also offer special features such as a dedicated tutor support service, unlimited online email support, certification upon completion, real-time feedback on learning, resources to help employees create tangible goals and objectives, and interactive tools that can be used in the workplace.

To choose the right employee engagement program for your organization, you should assess and compare who the course is made for and what the content of the course is, alongside the:

• Cost
• Length
• Location
• Credit awarded

By assessing these four elements, you can make a more informed decision about which program is best suited to your team’s needs.

What to look for in employee engagement training for managers

Before you can select a training program for managers, it’s important to know what factors to consider for your leadership team. Employee engagement training is essential for even the most high-performing managers, especially frontline managers, as their impact has the unique advantage of cascading effects throughout their entire team. 

Cost varies greatly, especially given the number of remote learning and development options available. While eLearning courses are typically more affordable and easily worked into a manager’s schedule, in-person courses offer the benefit of interaction, personalized feedback, and, often, more in-depth practice.

It’s also important to consider whether you, your C-suite, management teams, and HR professionals value certification or credit hours for the time undertaken. The accreditation may add value and incentive for course engagement, as well as the name of the institution offering the training. 

Two common HR management organizations that accept credit hours for professional certification are SHRM and HRCI. 

You should also consider whether your managers will feel more compelled to complete the learning experience offered by a big name like Harvard to make up for the additional expense.

Additional considerations for choosing an employee engagement program

If you have a frontline workforce, be sure to look for a program that can be easily accessed on mobile devices or through an app with audio lessons available. This will ensure employees can access the course anytime, anywhere, helping you bridge the frontline connection gap.

Additionally, consider the size of your organization and budget. If you have a large team, you may want to look into programs with bulk discounts or offering free training resources. On the other hand, if you’re a smaller business without many resources, eLearning courses may be more cost-effective due to their convenience and lower investment needs.

With digital inclusion now crucial to the modern workplace, it's important to assess the ease of use and accessibility of any courses you choose. Are they easy for team members to access and navigate, or do they require any specific software?

Now that you know what to consider before selecting a program for management let’s go over some of the best employee engagement training programs available today.

The 7 best employee engagement training programs

1. Gallup engagement champions

Workplace advisory and polling group Gallup offers a Creating an Engaging Workplace for Engagement Champions course to help anyone in a leadership position foster a more engaging workplace and support higher productivity. 

The course's primary focus is educating higher-level leadership on how to best help their mid-management increase team engagement. There are also practical takeaways for HR professionals or managers themselves.

Cost: $3,000. 

Length: Two days.

Location: In-person and virtual.

Credit: The in-person course earns professional credit hours from HRCI (14.5) and SHRM (14.5).

2. Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie is a well-known continuing education provider that offers several management courses, including a virtual course called A Manager’s Guide to Sustainable Employee Engagement. 

The six-hour course focuses on actions managers can undertake that inspire workers to put forth their greater discretionary effort. The emphasis is on practicing emotional empathy that delivers a long-lasting culture of engagement.

Cost: $699.

Length: Three two-hour sessions.

Location: Virtual.

Credit: It offers professional credit hours — 5.5 HRCI (5.5) and SHRM (5.5).

3. LSA Global

LSA Global’s employee engagement training personalized course focuses on accountability, change-readiness, and engaging purpose (ACE) as the foundation for a greater level of engagement and business clarity. 

Cost: Available upon request.

Length: Two-day workshop.

Location: In-person.

Credit: None.

4. DecisionWise

Engagement technology provider Decision Wise offers an online engagement training program called Engagement Magic. 

The training covers the importance of employee meaning, autonomy, growth, impact, and connection for engagement and educates learners on fostering these attributes through various employee engagement strategies. 

Cost: $150.

Length: One day.

Location: In-person and virtual.

Credit: None.

5. Harvard Professional Development 

Harvard’s The Positive Workplace: Building Employee Engagement and Satisfaction course focuses on giving managers the tools to help workers through times of stress. 

There is a large emphasis on building positive company culture through effective communication and conflict resolution. 

Cost: $2,895.

Length: Two consecutive days.

Location: In-person.

Credit: Credit towards Harvard’s Certificate of Leadership Excellence in Leading Teams.

6. eCornell

Cornell’s online educational division strategic engagement course is ideal for managers looking for more training in the quantifiable aspects of employee engagement. 

The course teaches methods of measuring employee engagement, like employee engagement surveys, and guides managers through building engagement initiatives to combat disengagement based on organizational data.

Cost: Available upon request.

Length: Two weeks, two-to-five hours per week.

Location: Virtual.

Credit: Credit towards Cornell’s Strategic Human Resources Leadership Certificate.

7. LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning offers various employee engagement training courses for managers through its catalog of user-generated lessons. 

Self-paced pre-recorded lessons like this one on Employee Engagement are a highly accessible training resource for organizations of all sizes. 

Cost: $34.99 for a single course or $19.99/month.

Length: Varies.

Location: Virtual.

Credit: Online certification and continuing education credit to SHRM (1.25) and HRCI (1.25).

The value of employee engagement training for managers

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report, just 31% of employees in the US and Canada are engaged – and that's the second-highest in the world! As such, it makes sense for implementing engagement strategies to be one of your organization’s largest retention priorities. 

Typically, most think of across-the-board engagement tactics like benefits, salary, and advancement opportunities. But when it actually comes down to increasing everyday engagement and profitability, as Gallup explains, the best bet is focusing on some of the most critical players in your team: your managers. 

They understand each employee’s career goals, strengths, and opportunities for improvement. Managers help shape the culture that can make or break an employee’s experience. 

Despite their essential role in increasing the number of engaged employees, few managers are naturally good at navigating the nuances of managing people. 

Why? Well, we know that many managers make their way to a management role because of experience in their industry (as practitioners) rather than their experience leading people. 

They might be a very experienced warehouse manager, but if they haven't got years of experience managing other warehouse managers, then this kind of training can add a huge amount of value in increasing team-wide employee engagement.

With nearly 70% of frontline leaders expressing interest in developing their leadership skills, a lack of this training can cause growing leadership development gaps in your organization. 

On top of this, without training to improve the specific leadership skills required to be a strong manager, there can be potentially disastrous consequences when it comes to engagement and overall employee retention. 

In fact, after surveying 3,000 American workers, GoodHire found that 82% of them said they would potentially quit their job because of a bad manager. For that reason alone you may want to consider management employee engagement training as part of your wider L&D efforts.

After all, if you can train managers to increase employee engagement, then you can unlock all the key business benefits that come from having a more engaged workforce, making employee engagement training for managers well worth the investment.

What’s next for frontline managers? 

Choosing the right employee training method and investing in the right technology are crucial actions for business leaders wanting to boost engagement.

Hopefully, this guide gave you a better understanding of the considerations to keep in mind when selecting an employee engagement training program and highlighted some of the best ones available today.

After equipping your employees with the right training programs, the next step is to seek the best tools in the industry. Blink’s mobile-first frontline engagement super-app is the perfect all-through tool for any organization wanting to boost employee engagement.

With a suite of features designed to connect your entire workforce, Blink can help your business drive optimal performance and engagement from every member of your team.

With Blink’s Content Hub, employees and managers can access any training documents and company procedures from the palm of their hands, making any employee engagement training initiatives more effective and accessible for you in the long-run. 

Get started today with a free demo.

Today’s employees routinely use digital tools to manage their personal lives — for banking, shopping, fitness, and even dating — and now expect a similar level of convenience and connectivity in their professional environments.

Forward-thinking organizations are meeting these expectations through employee experience software platforms that transform how teams communicate and engage. Solutions such as Blink’s employee experience platform enable staff to feel more connected, motivated, and loyal to their company by simplifying communication and recognition.

Frontline teams, in particular, benefit from a unified employee experience solution. The “frontline connection gap” often leaves these employees isolated from leadership and peers, reducing both satisfaction and retention.

A mobile-first employee experience platform, such as Blink, bridges that gap by bringing everyone together wherever they work. It gives each employee a stronger sense of belonging, supports regular recognition, and creates continuous communication that makes work more fulfilling.

This guide from Blink outlines some of the best employee experience software platforms available today — helping you identify the right solution to connect your workforce and elevate engagement across your organization.

Whether your organization has frontline, desk-based, or hybrid teams, an employee experience software platform like Blink’s employee experience platform helps you meet and exceed modern employee expectations and deliver measurable improvements across engagement, operations, and culture. Here’s what effective employee experience software can help you achieve:

Enhanced employee engagement

Low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion, according to Gallup. Employee experience platforms like Blink enable two-way communication, recognition, and collaboration that increase loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity.

Streamlined HR processes

The best platforms automate repetitive and time-consuming HR tasks such as time tracking, performance appraisals, and routine communication. By handling these automatically, HR teams free up time for human-touch, value-add work that improves the overall employee experience.

Improved talent management

Around 65% of frontline employees are unsure how to progress in their careers. Employee experience software provides continuous feedback, coaching, and development tools that help managers identify high-potential talent and guide employees toward advancement.

Data-driven insights

Comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities enable organizations to measure engagement, sentiment, and performance. Blink’s platform, for example, supplies real-time insights that support better decisions, highlight trends, and surface issues early.

Employee recognition and empowerment

Employee appreciation and self-service tools make staff feel valued and informed. Access to essential information anytime, anywhere fosters a sense of support and connection across the organization.

A positive company culture

Transparent communication and meaningful connection — both core features of leading platforms like Blink — build positive company culture. When employees feel proud of where they work, satisfaction rises, churn decreases, and employer branding strengthens.

Key things to look for when choosing an employee experience software platform

Now that the benefits of an employee experience software platform are clear, it’s important to identify the key capabilities that define an effective solution. When choosing your platform, consider these essential features — many of which are core to Blink’s employee experience platform:

User-friendly interface

The best employee experience platforms minimize the learning curve. They should feel intuitive and familiar from day one, encouraging quick adoption across all teams.

Personalization and customization

Every organization is different. Choose a platform that lets you tailor tools and workflows to your company’s structure and employee needs.

Employee self-service

When employees can access the information and tools they need independently, HR teams spend less time handling routine requests and more time on strategic, people-focused initiatives.

Integration capabilities

For a seamless employee experience, ensure your platform integrates smoothly with existing business systems — from scheduling and payroll to communication tools. Blink, for example, integrates across multiple systems to provide a unified digital workplace.

Mobile accessibility

Frontline workers and remote employees often lack equal access to company tools. A mobile-first platform like Blink enables engagement and communication anywhere — whether on the shop floor, in the field, or during a commute.

Analytics and reporting

Select software that delivers robust analytics on engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Data-driven insight helps HR teams make informed decisions and address trends early.

Comprehensive feature set

To reduce the need for multiple apps, look for a platform that combines employee engagement, feedback, rewards, performance management, and learning and development. Blink’s platform consolidates these into one accessible hub, simplifying management and improving the overall employee experience.

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15 best employee experience software platforms

1. Blink

Blink is a leading employee experience app and communication platform purpose-built for frontline teams. As a mobile-first solution, Blink unifies dispersed workers and connects them with leadership through an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

Users can quickly launch pre-loaded or custom employee surveys, add mandatory reads to a shared company news feed, recognize colleagues for outstanding work, and access real-time insights on engagement, satisfaction, and retention.

Built around frontline accessibility, Blink’s Hub centralizes essential information, including pay stubs, schedules, and key documents. Its interface encourages high adoption and consistent daily use — ensuring every employee stays informed, valued, and connected.

Key features

• News feed
• Employee surveys
• Employee recognition
• Secure chat function
• Content hub (Blink Hub)
• Insights and analytics
• Integrations
• Mobile-friendly design
• Content translation

Even after identifying the right employee experience management software, securing senior leadership buy-in remains essential. Before presenting your case, gather evidence and insights in the following key areas — all central to the successful implementation of a platform like Blink.

Developed by the team at Blink, the platform brings together communication, engagement, and HR functionality in one secure space. It’s designed to strengthen connections and alignment across all levels of an organization while reducing the administrative burden on HR teams. The essential guide to executive buy-in for frontline employee experience

Scalability: Evaluate how your chosen platform will adapt to your company’s future needs, including long-term growth and an expanding workforce. Blink’s platform is designed to scale seamlessly as organizations expand, supporting larger teams without adding administrative complexity.

Implementation: Assess how straightforward it is to deploy your software and integrate it with existing systems. A solution such as Blink simplifies this step with pre-built integrations and guided onboarding.

User adoption: An employee experience platform only delivers value when employees actively use it. Confirm that your software has a proven record of adoption. For example, 97% of employees at Care Synergy now use the Blink app, demonstrating how intuitive design drives engagement.

Vendor reputation and support: Review customer testimonials and case studies to verify a provider’s reliability and service quality. Blink’s long-term partnerships and customer success programs help ensure ongoing performance and satisfaction across industries.

Case study: Elara Caring

Elara Caring employs more than 32,000 caregivers who provide in-home and hospice support to patients across the United States. The organization faced a significant communication and coordination challenge:

• Without company-issued phone numbers or email addresses, caregivers felt disconnected from both colleagues and headquarters.
• An outdated manual scheduling process left hundreds of shifts unfilled each week.
• The existing HR platform failed to meet employees' operational and engagement needs.
  

To close these gaps, Elara Caring implemented Blink’s employee experience platform, developed by joinblink.com. The mobile-first platform unified essential communication, scheduling, and feedback tools into a single, secure, accessible application. Managers and caregivers could now share updates through a company news feed, manage shifts in real time, and recognize great work — all from their smartphones.

The impact was immediate. Workforce efficiency improved, communication bottlenecks were eliminated, and employees felt more connected to both their teams and leadership. Ninety-five percent of employees now report stronger connections to Elara, and 96% would recommend Blink’s platform to others in their field.

Read the full Elara Caring case study on joinblink.com

2. Culture Amp

Culture Amp is an excellent choice if you want to improve your performance tracking process. You can set and track employee targets, create personalized L&D plans, and access historical conversation and 1:1 data so managers can provide actionable feedback.   

This employee experience management software also gives you access to a ton of data. This provides a great basis for analysis and insight. And the platform even does some of the hard work for you too, using employee engagement stats to predict staff turnover.

Key features

• Reporting and analytics
• Turnover prediction tool
• Performance reviews
• Goal tracking

Pricing

Contact sales team for prices

3. Bonusly

Bonusly is a great option for employee recognition. Employees meet personalized targets and build up points, which they can then use to claim a selection of rewards,  all via the platform.

Whether you want your team to go above and beyond for customers, meet their sales quota, or simply engage with a request for employee feedback, Bonusly helps you to promote and recognize the employee behavior you most want to see.

Key features

• Peer-to-peer recognition
• Employee rewards
• Goal setting
• Reporting and analytics

Pricing

• Core: $3 per user/month
• Pro: $5 per user/month

Contact sales team for custom plans

4. Lattice

With Lattice, you’ll find it easy to launch employee surveys, celebrate employee wins, and get real-time experience data with the help of the platform’s Pulse feature and sentiment analysis. Lattice also supports employee development opportunities. It connects individual work to business outcomes so employees can view their progress easily.

Key features

• Reporting and analytics
• Employee surveys
• Employee recognition
• Goal management

Pricing

• Performance Management + OKRs and Goals: $11 per user/month
• Engagement: +$4 per user/month
• Grow: +$4 per user/month
• Compensation: $+6 per user/month

5.  Qualtrics XM

Qualtrics XM offers several products, one of which they’ve designed specifically for people teams. The employee experience platform uses AI and automation, so you can continually gather and assess employee feedback and get to know employee views at every point in the employee life cycle.

Data analytics tools help you to connect employee feedback to customer experience and business outcomes – so you can target employee experience improvements where they stand to make the most difference.  

Key features

• 24/7 technical support
• Automation tools
• Analytics and reporting
• Action plans

Pricing

Contact sales team for prices

6. Workhuman

Workhuman is built around social recognition. Team-based social feeds support peer-to-peer appreciation. Employees gain recognition points, which they can exchange for personalized and locally sourced rewards. And an AI-powered Inclusion Advisor gives real-time feedback on recognition posts to prevent unconscious bias and promote a culture of belonging.

Key features

• Employee recognition
• Performance management
• Translation into 34+ languages
• Community building

Pricing

Contact sales team for prices

7.  Mo

Mo is one of the best employee experience software platforms for team communication and appreciation. It allows you to share successes, recognize results, and reward good work.

Standout features include the Mo assistant, which helps people managers to remember work anniversaries and prompts them to appreciate employees who haven’t had a pat on the back in a while, and the social feed, where you can start conversations, prompt employees to start conversations, and ask for employee feedback.

Key features

• Team appreciation
• Social feed
• Employee feedback
• Insights

Pricing

• Starter: $3 per user/month
• Level Up: $5 per user/month

Contact sales team for custom plans

8. Motivosity

Motivosity provides tools for every stage of the employee journey. From recruitment to onboarding to development to career progression and even an employee’s company exit experience. The basic plan gives you access to a company social feed, great for important announcements and getting to know co-workers. Add-ons include Recognition and Rewards, Manager Development, and Employee Insights.

Key features

• Social feed
• Employee recognition
• Manager training
• Surveys and insights

Pricing

• Motivosity: $2 per user/month
• Recognition and Rewards: +$2 per user/month
• Manager Development: +$2 per user/month
• Employee Insights: +$2 per user/month

9.  WorkTango

WorkTango (formerly Kazoo) allows you to highlight the strengths and skills of peers and employees, while a points and rewards system incentivizes key behaviors. It’s one of the best employee engagement platforms for teams who want to make recognition an integral part of their company culture.

Key features

• Employee recognition
• Goal setting and feedback
• Surveys
• Analytics and reporting

Pricing

Contact sales team for prices

10. 15Five

15Five is one of the best employee experience software options if you’re looking to connect employee work with business objectives. Managers and employees can create career paths that motivate performance. Employees can identify their strengths and how these align with their goals.

Key features

• Goal setting tools
• Feedback
• Employee recognition
• Manager coaching

Pricing

All of the following prices are billed annually:

• Engage: $4 per user/month
• Perform: $8 per user/month
• Focus: $8 per user/month
• Total Platform: $14 per user/month

11. Leapsome

Leapsome is a solid employee engagement software, particularly if you’re looking for a solution that can scale with your company. You can select the modules you need, adapting the software to the size and budget of your organization. With Leapsome, you can run meaningful, well-structured meetings. You can also congratulate co-workers publicly and share private feedback too.

Key features

• Employee feedback
• Learning and development
• Goal setting
• Employee competency framework

Pricing

Pricing starts at $8 per user/month with the option to add on the extra features you need

12. BambooHR

BambooHR provides a huge range of HR tools. Teams can use it to track payroll, hours worked, and paid time off. The platform offers recruitment and L&D tracking tools.

As well as making life easier for HR teams, BambooHR has a couple of features designed to improve the employee experience. Wellbeing and eNPS surveys help teams to understand the employee perspective, while performance tracking tools support employee progression. 

Key features

• Performance reviews
• Time tracking
• Payroll management
• Applicant tracking system (ATS)

Pricing

Contact sales team for prices

13. Officevibe

If you’re looking for an easy and effective employee survey tool, Officevibe is an excellent choice. Officevibe is just one of the HR products available under the Workleap umbrella and this offering is laser-focused on employee experience.

The platform gives managers tools to become better leaders and build happier teams. Pulse and customized surveys, peer-to-peer recognition, and 1-1 meeting tools that guide meaningful and productive conversations are all at a manager’s disposal.

Key features

• Surveys
• Employee feedback
• Employee recognition
• Performance tracking

Pricing

• Free: $0 per user/month
• Essential: $5 per user/month
• Pro: $8 per user/month

14. Workvivo

Another good employee experience management software, Workvivo helps organizations streamline their communications and showcase their company culture, even when teams work remotely. When posting on the social feed, employees can link their posts to company values and goals. And with the Badge Feature, managers can recognize employee achievements publicly.

Key features

• Social feed
• Employee recognition
• Content hub
• Analytics & insights

Pricing

Contact sales team for prices

Read more: Workvivo alternatives

15. Jostle

An intuitive platform with a quick and easy setup process, Jostle is another popular employee engagement platform. It works to connect everyone within an organization, providing a social feed and a space for shared documents.

Managers can set tasks and then use built-in chat functions to track progress. They can also separate the social feed by location or team, ensuring that the right information reaches the right people.

Key features

• Social feed
• Surveys
• Peer-to-peer recognition
• Document and policy sharing

Pricing

Prices depend upon the number of employees you have. For an organization with 15-50 employees, prices are as follows:

• Bronze: $5 per user/month
• Silver: $9 per user/month
• Gold: $12 per user/month

Smaller organizations can expect to pay more per user. Larger organizations can expect to pay less. Prices for the Platinum plan are available from the sales team.

Additional considerations for HR teams

You may already be sold on a particular employee experience management software, but getting senior leadership buy-in is a vital next step. Before entering conversations about the type of tool you’d like to implement, be sure to gather information on all of the following:

Read more: The essential guide to executive buy-in for frontline employee experience

• Scalability – Find out if and how your chosen platform will respond to your company’s future needs, considering long-term company growth and an increase in the number of employees.
  
• Implementation – Determine how easy it is to implement your chosen software and whether it integrates with your other existing systems.
  
• User adoption – An employee experience platform provides very little value if employees don’t use it. Check whether your chosen platform has a user-friendly interface and a history of high adoption rates. We’re proud that 97% of employees at Care Synergy are now using the Blink app. Find out more by watching our on-demand webinar.
  
• Vendor reputation and support – Take a look at customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies to find out whether your software provider has a good track record in terms of product quality and client care.

Case Study: Elara Caring

Elara’s 32,000 carers spend their workdays caring for patients in their homes or in hospice settings. The company faced a million-dollar communication problem:

• Without company phone numbers or email addresses, carers felt disconnected from their co-workers and head office
• Carers wanted shift opportunities but an inefficient manual system meant hundreds of shifts went unfilled each week
• The company’s existing HR platform was failing to meet the needs of employees and the wider organization

Elara saw a solution in Blink. Our platform gathered all the information and tools that employees needed in one easy-to-use platform that everyone could access from their smartphones. Employees and managers had access to a social feed, shift scheduling, employee feedback and employee recognition tools.  

The result? Improved workforce efficiency and streamlined communications. Thanks to Blink, Elara has transformed the employee experience. 95% of employees now feel more connected to Elara and 96% would recommend the platform.

Read the full Elara case study.

Team building gets a bad reputation.

Awkward ice breakers. Forced fun. Activities with very little bearing on the work you actually do. 

But if that’s been your experience, the problem wasn’t team building — it was how it was done.

Done well, team building in the workplace is a valuable investment.

It fosters trust and collaboration, develops communication skills that prevent costly misunderstandings, and helps to create a workplace culture that keeps people engaged and loyal.

Here, we look at the meaning of team building, at all the reasons why team building is important, and at how to make team building activities work for all types of teams.

What is team building?

Team building is a term used to describe activities, training, and initiatives that help employees work well together and achieve shared goals.

It can take many forms. Organized team building sessions. But also social occasions, volunteer days, and informal micro-activities built into the working day.

Done badly, team building is a half-day exercise forgotten by the weekend.

Done well, it creates the conditions for genuine trust and stronger relationships. It helps you build a workforce that can adapt, problem-solve, and perform — together.

Why team building is important

Team building helps improve teamwork in your organization. And that leads to the following business-boosting benefits. Here are all the reasons why team building is important.

It builds trust

Trust is the foundation that makes everything else possible: open communication, team collaboration, the confidence to raise a problem before it becomes a crisis.

Employees working in high-trust companies are 76% more engaged and 50% more productive. They enjoy their jobs 60% more — and they’re much more likely to stay.

Team building helps to create that trust.

A warehouse team working together through a theoretical logistics challenge learns to rely on each other in a low-stakes environment. That reliance translates directly to the real shift, where the pressure and stakes are higher.

It improves communication

Most team-building activities require good communication. Participants have to assign roles, share information, adapt plans in real time, and make decisions under some degree of pressure.

The communication skills developed through team building — active listening, clear information sharing, constructive feedback — transfer directly to the workplace.

This matters to your organization because poor communication is costly — in terms of duplicated work, errors, safety incidents, and customer experience failures.

It increases productivity

Productivity is another reason why team building is important.

A store team that’s practiced working together is faster at solving problems during a busy shift. An office team that knows and trusts each other moves more quickly than one that doesn’t.

When employees are familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, they work together more efficiently. They know when to step back and when to step in.  

It builds workplace friendships

Four out of five employees say workplace friendships are really important to them. Having friends at work increases engagement, satisfaction, and connection to the organization.

Team-building activities create the conditions for those friendships to form. It gives people a reason to interact with each other beyond the transactional demands of the working day.

For remote and frontline workers who don’t share a physical space, this is particularly important. Digital team-building activities that connect employees, regardless of location, reduce feelings of isolation and disengagement. 

It boosts employee engagement and morale

Gallup research shows that effective team working leads to a 23% increase in employee engagement. This reflects the fact that working as part of a team, with shared goals and strong relationships, has a huge impact on how employees feel about their work.

Team-building initiatives reinforce that sense of shared purpose. They remind employees that they’re part of something bigger than their individual task list. And that gives them a reason to show up that goes beyond their paycheck.

It breaks down silos between teams

You can fuel cross-functional collaboration by planning team-building initiatives that deliberately cross departmental boundaries.

Employees from different departments can develop relationships, build mutual understanding, and learn where their skills and remits overlap.

For organizations with a large frontline workforce, cross-functional team building also addresses the sense of separation that can develop between head office and the floor.

Initiatives that bring frontline and desk-based employees together — physically or digitally — reduce the “two cultures” dynamic that so many frontline workers say they experience.

It encourages creativity and innovation

Creative thinking doesn’t thrive under pressure and in isolation. It emerges from the kind of relaxed, collaborative, escape-from-the-norm environment that good team building creates.

This is an environment where employees feel safe enough to suggest ideas that might not work, build on each other’s thinking, and approach problems from new angles.

That mindset goes beyond a team-building session. Employees carry creative thinking back to their everyday work, and can think about problems and situations from different perspectives.

It improves conflict resolution

Workplace conflict is more common than you might think. In the UK, 44% of working-age adults said they experienced conflict at work in a 12-month period, from 2024 to 2025. 

You can’t prevent disagreements. But you can develop employees’ ability to handle them constructively.

The skills at the heart of effective conflict resolution — listening to understand rather than to respond, respecting different perspectives, communicating without defensiveness — are the same ones that good team building helps to develop.

It nurtures and reveals skills

Team building develops team working skills — like delegation, rapport building, and open communication.  

Employees can also learn skills from each other, sharing knowledge earned in different parts of the organization and from different life experiences.

Team building often reveals pre-existing skills, too. Skills that have no obvious outlet in someone’s current role become visible — and can then be put to use.

For example, you may find a great team leader among your frontline crew, or a strategic thinker among your new hires. This is another reason why team building is important, across every team in your organization.

It strengthens company culture

83% of employees say that a positive workplace culture contributes to their productivity. It also encourages them to stay working for your organization.

A positive culture is built through repeated, shared experiences that reinforce what your organization stands for and how it shows up for employees.

Team building creates those experiences deliberately. You can create moments where employees can connect with one another and really get to understand what it means to be part of your organization.

It improves employee retention

The importance of team building is also reflected in your employee retention rates.

When teams work together effectively, the working environment is more communicative and collaborative. Employees enjoy a sense of community and belonging that drives loyalty.

According to Gallup, employees are 29% more likely to stay with their company for the next year and 42% more likely to remain with their company for their entire career when they’re part of high-performing teams.

Team building for every type of workforce

So now we know why team building is important, but how do you ensure those benefits are felt across the whole of your organization? The way you deliver team building has to vary depending on the team you’re leading.

Office-based teams

Office-based teams have the advantage of shared physical space and regular informal interaction. Structured team building supplements what already happens organically.

You can use in-person events to deepen relationships, develop specific skills, and create cross-functional connections that the day-to-day working environment doesn’t always support.

Remote and hybrid teams

When planning team building for employees who spend some or all of their time away from the office, you have to be more intentional.

Limited face-to-face connection with co-workers means the informal relationship-building that happens among office-based teams has to be replaced with structured alternatives.

Virtual team-building activities, digital communities, and regular opportunities for informal communication give distributed employees a way to connect as people rather than just as colleagues.

Read more: 10 online collaboration activities for remote teams

Frontline teams

Frontline teams face the most significant structural barriers to team building in the workplace.

Employees may work across sites and shifts. They don’t always work alongside the same people and they get limited face time with leadership. This makes it difficult for them to build connections with co-workers and company culture.

Effective frontline team building takes these barriers into account. That might mean using:

• Mobile-accessible digital tools to make connection possible, no matter where or when an employee is working.
• Short-form content and activities designed for employees who are on their feet, not sitting in front of a screen.
• Thoughtfully-designed in-person sessions, scheduled with shift patterns in mind and repeated across different shift cohorts.

Read more: 5 tips to improve collaboration among employees on the frontline

Building better teams to benefit your business

The importance of team building shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s an incredibly useful tool — one that shapes how your people communicate, collaborate, and perform.

When it’s done well, the impact is clear: better problem-solving, higher employee engagement, improved retention, and greater productivity.

For dispersed and deskless workforces, who don’t always get the opportunity for informal connection with teammates, the case for intentional team building is particularly strong.

This requires the right approach and the right infrastructure. You need mobile-first tools that make digital team building possible, and that sustain the relationships and culture that in-person sessions create.  

Organizations that understand the importance of team building are investing in employee communication tools, like Blink, that support teamwork across sites and shifts. 

Blink. And give every team member the tools to connect, collaborate, and belong.

Meet your newest digital water cooler: Your employee intranet

Whatever happened to the workplace water cooler?

Water cooler conversations were never just about small talk. They helped build stronger teams, sparked collaboration, and made employees feel part of a welcoming company culture.

In today’s hybrid and frontline workplaces, these moments are a rarity. But the need for connection is stronger than ever.

‍83% of employees want their workplace to provide a sense of community, with more than a third willing to trade higher pay for meaningful workplace friendships or social enrichment.

Enter the modern employee intranet: A digital water cooler that supports seamless internal communication and boosts employee engagement. It’s a tool that amplifies company culture and gives all employees — no matter where they work — the connection and sense of belonging they crave.

Ready to take your intranet from dusty document repository to thriving social hub? Here, we look at how to upgrade the employee intranet — and why having a digital space for connection is so important in 2025.

The evolution of workplace connection

Remote and hybrid work have transformed employee communications. There’s less opportunity for organic office conversations, which means workplace relationships and employee engagement suffer.

This is nothing new for frontline workers who rarely step into HQ. Relying on paper memos and word-of-mouth messaging, they often miss out on essential company news and coworker camaraderie. 

But times are changing. Many employers now recognize the critical role connection plays in employee engagement, retention, and productivity. And they’re turning to corporate intranets to bridge the gap.

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Rethinking the employee intranet: From static portal to social hub

You may be wondering how the intranet — that clunky and outdated software — can solve the employee connection conundrum. Traditional intranets, often relegated to the dark corners of the tech stack, have functioned as a digital filing cabinet. Certainly not a space for water cooler conversation.

But internal communications have moved on.

The modern employee intranet is dynamic and mobile-first. It’s designed to connect employees across locations — offering a single source of truth and need-to-know company updates. But also a sense of belonging, a deeper understanding of company culture, and a more satisfying employee experience.

Imagine this: A delivery driver rarely crosses paths with his teammates. With limited access to an old, static intranet that he has to access via a shared desktop computer in the depot, he feels like he’s working solo.

But, thanks to a new and improved employee intranet and personalized experience, he can check the company’s social feed on his smartphone during breaks. In one central location, he can add a reaction to a recognition post for top-performing drivers and even join a group chat where colleagues swap route tips.

Suddenly, he’s part of something bigger.

Social features that make modern intranet software more interactive and effective include social feeds, secure chats, Polls, Stories, and peer recognition tools.

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How to make your intranet a go-to digital water cooler (paper cups not necessary)

Ready to turn your modern intranet solution into the digital workplace hotspot? Here’s how.

Make it social

The best employee intranets replicate your favorite experiences on social media platforms. When employees can comment, react to posts, and share their own content, you create more compelling user experiences and make your platform more engaging.

Use bite-sized, engaging updates

Keep it snappy. Use short and snappy videos, GIFs, and eye-catching graphics. This type of content attracts attention and fits seamlessly into the busy schedules of both desk-based and frontline workers.

Encourage leadership visibility

Have executives and managers actively post, share insights, and respond to employee comments. Employees are more likely to engage with your intranet when they see that leadership is invested in two-way communication.

Leverage personalization

Relevant content is engaging content. So ensure employees see content relating to their role, location, tenure, and team. When staff enjoy a highly personalized intranet experience, they're more likely to log in regularly — boosting key metrics like employee adoption.

Make it accessible

All employees should be part of the conversation. So you need an intranet that your frontline employees, remote workers, and desk-based staff alike. Streamline the experience, provide a user-friendly dashboard, and make all essential features available via mobile access to create a solution that works for everyone.

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Turning employees into active intranet participants

You can build it. But will they come? And will they participate?

To prevent tumbleweed moments on your intranet platform, employee interaction is essential. Here’s how you can nudge workers in the right direction and develop a modern intranet culture that employees are excited to be part of.

Interactive content

Ask questions. Launch polls. Create employee recognition posts and ask teammates to add their messages of congratulations. Coworker connection is much more likely when you invite employees to join the conversation.

Informal content

Company updates are an employee intranet essential. But to foster connection, you need to leave space for informal conversation. So create fun content — like caption contests, a question of the day, and photos of the latest team event — to make your intranet more relatable and appealing.

Employee-generated content

Nothing inspires the reactions and comments of coworkers like employee-generated content. You can encourage employees to post their own content with a company-wide content generation contest — or by identifying and supporting employee influencers.

Gamification

A spot of good old-fashioned competition can prompt the intranet behaviors you want to see. A points system, a leaderboard, or digital badges inspire employees to take a more active role in the company intranet.

Communities

With Communities, employees can build meaningful connections with a smaller group of coworkers. These community-driven spaces link employees to their teammates or to coworkers with shared interests — and they’re great at driving engagement and participation.

These social communities are especially beneficial for frontline and remote teams who rely on digital collaboration tools to sync up with their colleagues.

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Measuring success: Is your digital water cooler thriving?

Once your digital water cooler is a hive of employee interaction and conversation, it’s time to measure its impact. Use analytics and employee feedback to assess engagement and optimize employee intranet platform performance.

You can track internal communication metrics by looking at:

• Intranet adoption rates
• Number of likes, comments, and shares
• Number of employee-generated posts
• Number of daily logins

Supplement this data with employee surveys. Ask employees what they think about modern intranet features, functionality, interactivity, and the types of intranet content they prefer.

You can then use this information to make meaningful adjustments to your intranet solution, making it more engaging and keeping up-to-speed with evolving employee expectations.

Give workers the social connection they crave with a modern employee intranet

A modern, social intranet isn’t just a tool for sharing information. It’s a powerful driver of culture and connection across the entire company — and a strategic part of your digital transformation.

Populate your employee intranet with key features, functionality, and content, and it becomes the gathering space of your digital workplace. It offers water cooler moments that enrich the digital employee experience.

Your intranet strategy doesn’t just benefit your people — it benefits for your broader business goals, too. By creating a deeper sense of connection and a more inclusive corporate culture, you can improve employee productivity, engagement, and retention.

‍Blink. And create uplifting water cooler moments — with a new and improved employee intranet.