Managing a remote team? These 7 best practices cover communication, trust-building, and tools to keep distributed employees connected and productive.
Jess DeVore
Published:
September 6, 2023
Last updated:
October 8, 2024
What we'll cover
56% of US companies have been increasing their level of remote work, according to a 2021 survey.
But as more and more workers operate from different locations, managers around the globe are facing the uncharted territory of managing remote teams. And that’s as if managing a team wasn’t hard enough already in person.
Regardless, the hardship of managing remote teams is a small price to pay for the benefits they offer. Plus, how you handle this new reality of work will shape your true potential as a leader.
So consider this post as your go-to guide for managing remote teams. We’ll begin with some common challenges that plague virtual managers, followed by our best strategies to lead your remote team with confidence.
Challenges of managing remote teams
Working from home seems normal these days, but many organizations didn’t have remote work on their radar until the global pandemic forced them to.
Before we get to the remote management strategies, let’s see some key challenges faced by leaders and their team members when adapting to this new way of working.
Shifting to a new structure
Human beings are creatures of habit. From that morning commute to the evening snack, our daily work routines have probably been pretty consistent.
When you and your team members start working remotely, everything can get upside down. You are forced to establish a new routine, along with juggling your personal and professional duties outside the office, factory, or wherever you used to work before.
Plus, it doesn’t help that you are now supposed to deal with a lot of new virtual tools, communication methods, and remote work policies. No wonder managing remote teams seems overwhelming.
Adopting tech-based communication
Facing an issue, or need a second opinion on something? Just go to your nearest team member and sort it all out in a second.
This is possible in an office, but may feel like a distant dream in today’s remote working environment, too good to be true!
In fact, 45% of employees worry over not seeing their team members in person because of remote work, and 34% have doubts about their ability to collaborate virtually. Ensuring you're providing a good digital employe experience is key.
As communication moves to technologies such as email and instant messaging, managers and their team members are finding it hard to get the answers they need in time.
Juggling productive and personal time
Personal time at home. Work on site. It has been a simple rule to follow. When you work from an office, there’s a clear line between your professional and personal life, at least more straightforward than the boundaries set by remote work.
With remote work, the lines are blurred. It’s easy for the personal responsibilities to distract you from your work, or for your work to eat up your family time. So both managers and their employees are faced with the issue of striking a balance between the two.
Building trust and rapport
When managing remote teams, you want to keep your team members assured that you are available to lead and support them. And that you’re in touch with their concerns, needs, and suggestions.
But when everyone is struggling to communicate efficiently, it gets increasingly difficult to do that. And with no visible body language and non-verbal cues, you may not get an accurate sense of their level of engagement, feelings, and emotional well-being.
We don’t mean to scare you with a laundry list of challenges of leading remote teams. But rather to drill down the fact that you’ll need to really pull up your sleeves for the job. To truly manage and engage remote teams, you should be ready to work harder than ever, which brings us to the next section.
Best practices for managing remote teams
Ready to learn the tips and tricks to manage remote teams the right way? Here’s how to get the best results from your remote employees.
1. Establish clear expectations
34% of remote workers worldwide say that transparency from leadership triggers a deep sense of connectedness at work. And a big part of transparency is setting clear rules and regulations for your team members.
When managing remote teams, it’s important to set boundaries and expectations that your team members are supposed to work with. For example, random video meetings may get awkward for some employees if they weren’t expecting them.
So you need to let your team members know exactly how you plan to manage them from a distance. This includes communicating the following:
Values and behaviors that shape the company culture
Remote work procedures
Guidelines specific to their project
Communication style guides
Expectations regarding workload and availability
The best way to start implementing work expectations when managing virtual teams is to have a kick-off meeting to introduce all the policies and procedures. Then keep reinforcing them in regular weekly and monthly meetings.
2. Implement the right communication channels
Email has its place. But there are many different types of communication, not all of which are best-suited for emails. These include:
Status updates
Frequently used resources for team members
Project schedule and deadlines
Troubleshooting guide for common problems
Because of this, picking the right communication channels is crucial for managing remote teams.
For example, depending on the nature of communication, you may also want to use channels like instant messaging, virtual meetings, or cloud sharing from time to time. And if you want to limit the use of random video calls, you can establish email and online chat as the main communication channels for your team.
Avoid having too many different tools and channels as they can overwhelm your team and allow important messages to slip through the cracks. It’s better to use a single communication platform or employee engagement tool that consists of multiple communication streams.
Blink, for example, is a mobile app that allows team members to communicate via a social-media-style feed, instant messaging, and cloud-based document sharing — all from one place.
3. Set regular check-in times
When your team is working from an office, it’s easy to check in regularly with the whole group as well as individual team members. But don’t think you can’t do the same with remote teams.
In fact, if your team has just started working remotely, you might need to schedule extra check-ins until the team members have adapted successfully to the new routine. Then scale back based on what works for your team and the given workload.
For example, start with a daily meeting of 15-20 minutes. Go around in a circle and give each worker a chance to talk about their plan for the day, any issues they have, and what they need from other team members.
4. Invest in mental health and well-being
According to World Health Organization (WHO), anxiety and depression lead to productivity losses that cost the world $1 trillion annually.
Not just that. For every $1 that goes into workers’ mental health, there’s a return of $4 in terms of employee health and productivity.
When your team members are working remotely, their mental health should be an even higher priority for you than what it was in the office. Because with remote team management, you don’t have as many opportunities to identify what emotional challenges your workers are struggling with.
For example, some employees may find it easier to adapt to remote working and maintain sound health than others. And for the ones that don’t, you’ll need to identify and support them as per their needs. Some ways to do that include:
Appointing a psychotherapist the employees can talk to
Sharing guidelines and resources for self-care
Encouraging workers to take frequent breaks
5. Celebrate both small and big wins
Achieving milestones together is what makes your team, a team. So when managing virtual teams, don’t let the physical distance come in the way of celebrating and rewarding accomplishments.
Celebrating successes will encourage your remote employees and motivate them to keep doing their best work. For example, you can host virtual parties, get a gift delivered to a team member’s doorstep, or give a bonus day off.
Also, don’t postpone a celebration in your wait for achieving something big. Even short-term successes count, especially when managing remote teams. Otherwise, your team members can easily feel discouraged.
6. Document everything
Managing remote teams can get real complicated, real fast. As you take your project activities from the physical world to a virtual environment, many key steps and tasks can slip through the cracks.
So for effective remote team management, it’s not enough to have the workflows, roles, and processes just in your head. The best way to retain and enhance team productivity is to document as much as possible and make the documentation easily accessible for all remote employees.
Create detailed documents that provide step-by-step breakdowns of all the things the team needs to get done, when to do them, and who is responsible for the work items. For example:
Checklists and templates for routine tasks
Playbooks that go deep into project protocols and procedures
Flow charts showing what actions to take in dynamic circumstances
Forms to record key information and instructions to fill them properly
To make sure your team can refer to these documents as needed, put them on a shared storage platform and set permissions for team members to access at any time. This will reduce bottlenecks and get the team members to complete their tasks efficiently.
7. Provide socializing opportunities
According to a Buffer survey, 20% of remote workers go through a heightened sense of loneliness, and another 20% find it difficult to collaborate and communicate.
So it’s vital to encourage social interactions among remote teams. You need to proactively create time and opportunities for employees to connect and socialize with one another.
Some of the best ways to do that include virtual hangouts, joint brainstorming sessions, morning coffee standups, online lunch and learns, and team-building games.
Conclusion: managing remote teams like a pro
As you can see, managing remote teams is not a piece of cake. It requires you to keep a close eye on not just the progress of tasks and project goals, but also team members’ emotional well-being and their relationships with one another.
No doubt, you’ll need to step up as a leader in some big ways. Some of the remote team management strategies we have covered may already be familiar to you, while others will need you to go out of your comfort zone.
Regardless, if you’re serious enough to be reading this article, we’re confident that you can handle managing remote teams with flying colors. So start following these best practices today, and see the difference they make in your remote team’s performance.
Plus, as we said earlier, consider using an all-in-one communication app that can make collaboration easy and bring team members together despite the physical distance that comes with remote work. Book a free blink demo.
Frequently asked questions
How do you effectively manage a remote team?
Set clear expectations and goals, document everything and make sure you have clearly defined processes. Ensure you have the right communication tools, have regular check-ins and keep tabs on remote employees' wellbeing. Keep on top of employee recognition and if possible provide opportunities to socialise with the team.
How do you manage multiple teams remotely?
The same goes for managing multiple remote teams, communication and the tools you use will become even more important so make sure you choose these wisely. Ensuring you focus on structure, communication and recognition.
What is the key to success working remotely?
The key aspects of making working remotely a success can be boiled down to structure, communication and recognition.
56% of US companies have been increasing their level of remote work, according to a 2021 survey.
But as more and more workers operate from different locations, managers around the globe are facing the uncharted territory of managing remote teams. And that’s as if managing a team wasn’t hard enough already in person.
Regardless, the hardship of managing remote teams is a small price to pay for the benefits they offer. Plus, how you handle this new reality of work will shape your true potential as a leader.
So consider this post as your go-to guide for managing remote teams. We’ll begin with some common challenges that plague virtual managers, followed by our best strategies to lead your remote team with confidence.
Challenges of managing remote teams
Working from home seems normal these days, but many organizations didn’t have remote work on their radar until the global pandemic forced them to.
Before we get to the remote management strategies, let’s see some key challenges faced by leaders and their team members when adapting to this new way of working.
Shifting to a new structure
Human beings are creatures of habit. From that morning commute to the evening snack, our daily work routines have probably been pretty consistent.
When you and your team members start working remotely, everything can get upside down. You are forced to establish a new routine, along with juggling your personal and professional duties outside the office, factory, or wherever you used to work before.
Plus, it doesn’t help that you are now supposed to deal with a lot of new virtual tools, communication methods, and remote work policies. No wonder managing remote teams seems overwhelming.
Adopting tech-based communication
Facing an issue, or need a second opinion on something? Just go to your nearest team member and sort it all out in a second.
This is possible in an office, but may feel like a distant dream in today’s remote working environment, too good to be true!
In fact, 45% of employees worry over not seeing their team members in person because of remote work, and 34% have doubts about their ability to collaborate virtually. Ensuring you're providing a good digital employe experience is key.
As communication moves to technologies such as email and instant messaging, managers and their team members are finding it hard to get the answers they need in time.
Juggling productive and personal time
Personal time at home. Work on site. It has been a simple rule to follow. When you work from an office, there’s a clear line between your professional and personal life, at least more straightforward than the boundaries set by remote work.
With remote work, the lines are blurred. It’s easy for the personal responsibilities to distract you from your work, or for your work to eat up your family time. So both managers and their employees are faced with the issue of striking a balance between the two.
Building trust and rapport
When managing remote teams, you want to keep your team members assured that you are available to lead and support them. And that you’re in touch with their concerns, needs, and suggestions.
But when everyone is struggling to communicate efficiently, it gets increasingly difficult to do that. And with no visible body language and non-verbal cues, you may not get an accurate sense of their level of engagement, feelings, and emotional well-being.
We don’t mean to scare you with a laundry list of challenges of leading remote teams. But rather to drill down the fact that you’ll need to really pull up your sleeves for the job. To truly manage and engage remote teams, you should be ready to work harder than ever, which brings us to the next section.
Best practices for managing remote teams
Ready to learn the tips and tricks to manage remote teams the right way? Here’s how to get the best results from your remote employees.
1. Establish clear expectations
34% of remote workers worldwide say that transparency from leadership triggers a deep sense of connectedness at work. And a big part of transparency is setting clear rules and regulations for your team members.
When managing remote teams, it’s important to set boundaries and expectations that your team members are supposed to work with. For example, random video meetings may get awkward for some employees if they weren’t expecting them.
So you need to let your team members know exactly how you plan to manage them from a distance. This includes communicating the following:
Values and behaviors that shape the company culture
Remote work procedures
Guidelines specific to their project
Communication style guides
Expectations regarding workload and availability
The best way to start implementing work expectations when managing virtual teams is to have a kick-off meeting to introduce all the policies and procedures. Then keep reinforcing them in regular weekly and monthly meetings.
2. Implement the right communication channels
Email has its place. But there are many different types of communication, not all of which are best-suited for emails. These include:
Status updates
Frequently used resources for team members
Project schedule and deadlines
Troubleshooting guide for common problems
Because of this, picking the right communication channels is crucial for managing remote teams.
For example, depending on the nature of communication, you may also want to use channels like instant messaging, virtual meetings, or cloud sharing from time to time. And if you want to limit the use of random video calls, you can establish email and online chat as the main communication channels for your team.
Avoid having too many different tools and channels as they can overwhelm your team and allow important messages to slip through the cracks. It’s better to use a single communication platform or employee engagement tool that consists of multiple communication streams.
Blink, for example, is a mobile app that allows team members to communicate via a social-media-style feed, instant messaging, and cloud-based document sharing — all from one place.
3. Set regular check-in times
When your team is working from an office, it’s easy to check in regularly with the whole group as well as individual team members. But don’t think you can’t do the same with remote teams.
In fact, if your team has just started working remotely, you might need to schedule extra check-ins until the team members have adapted successfully to the new routine. Then scale back based on what works for your team and the given workload.
For example, start with a daily meeting of 15-20 minutes. Go around in a circle and give each worker a chance to talk about their plan for the day, any issues they have, and what they need from other team members.
4. Invest in mental health and well-being
According to World Health Organization (WHO), anxiety and depression lead to productivity losses that cost the world $1 trillion annually.
Not just that. For every $1 that goes into workers’ mental health, there’s a return of $4 in terms of employee health and productivity.
When your team members are working remotely, their mental health should be an even higher priority for you than what it was in the office. Because with remote team management, you don’t have as many opportunities to identify what emotional challenges your workers are struggling with.
For example, some employees may find it easier to adapt to remote working and maintain sound health than others. And for the ones that don’t, you’ll need to identify and support them as per their needs. Some ways to do that include:
Appointing a psychotherapist the employees can talk to
Sharing guidelines and resources for self-care
Encouraging workers to take frequent breaks
5. Celebrate both small and big wins
Achieving milestones together is what makes your team, a team. So when managing virtual teams, don’t let the physical distance come in the way of celebrating and rewarding accomplishments.
Celebrating successes will encourage your remote employees and motivate them to keep doing their best work. For example, you can host virtual parties, get a gift delivered to a team member’s doorstep, or give a bonus day off.
Also, don’t postpone a celebration in your wait for achieving something big. Even short-term successes count, especially when managing remote teams. Otherwise, your team members can easily feel discouraged.
6. Document everything
Managing remote teams can get real complicated, real fast. As you take your project activities from the physical world to a virtual environment, many key steps and tasks can slip through the cracks.
So for effective remote team management, it’s not enough to have the workflows, roles, and processes just in your head. The best way to retain and enhance team productivity is to document as much as possible and make the documentation easily accessible for all remote employees.
Create detailed documents that provide step-by-step breakdowns of all the things the team needs to get done, when to do them, and who is responsible for the work items. For example:
Checklists and templates for routine tasks
Playbooks that go deep into project protocols and procedures
Flow charts showing what actions to take in dynamic circumstances
Forms to record key information and instructions to fill them properly
To make sure your team can refer to these documents as needed, put them on a shared storage platform and set permissions for team members to access at any time. This will reduce bottlenecks and get the team members to complete their tasks efficiently.
7. Provide socializing opportunities
According to a Buffer survey, 20% of remote workers go through a heightened sense of loneliness, and another 20% find it difficult to collaborate and communicate.
So it’s vital to encourage social interactions among remote teams. You need to proactively create time and opportunities for employees to connect and socialize with one another.
Some of the best ways to do that include virtual hangouts, joint brainstorming sessions, morning coffee standups, online lunch and learns, and team-building games.
Conclusion: managing remote teams like a pro
As you can see, managing remote teams is not a piece of cake. It requires you to keep a close eye on not just the progress of tasks and project goals, but also team members’ emotional well-being and their relationships with one another.
No doubt, you’ll need to step up as a leader in some big ways. Some of the remote team management strategies we have covered may already be familiar to you, while others will need you to go out of your comfort zone.
Regardless, if you’re serious enough to be reading this article, we’re confident that you can handle managing remote teams with flying colors. So start following these best practices today, and see the difference they make in your remote team’s performance.
Plus, as we said earlier, consider using an all-in-one communication app that can make collaboration easy and bring team members together despite the physical distance that comes with remote work. Book a free blink demo.
Frequently asked questions
How do you effectively manage a remote team?
Set clear expectations and goals, document everything and make sure you have clearly defined processes. Ensure you have the right communication tools, have regular check-ins and keep tabs on remote employees' wellbeing. Keep on top of employee recognition and if possible provide opportunities to socialise with the team.
How do you manage multiple teams remotely?
The same goes for managing multiple remote teams, communication and the tools you use will become even more important so make sure you choose these wisely. Ensuring you focus on structure, communication and recognition.
What is the key to success working remotely?
The key aspects of making working remotely a success can be boiled down to structure, communication and recognition.
What we'll cover
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See how Blink helps frontline teams stay connected, informed, and engaged.
By understanding the platform features that really drive HR impact — and knowing what to do to ensure platform success.
Let’s take a look.
What is employee experience?
Employee experience is the combined impact of every interaction an employee has within your company — from their first day to their last, and everything in between.
It’s shaped by company culture, the quality of workplace communication, learning and development opportunities, compensation, and well-being support.
It’s also shaped by the software and resources employees use to do their jobs — whether that’s a dedicated employee experience platform like Blink or tools that support your operations.
Ultimately, employee experience is not one thing. It’s the accumulation of small, daily moments that determine how employees feel, how hard they work, and how long they stay at your organization. And it has a direct impact on the metrics that matter most to HR.
Why employee experience matters for HR
A positive employee experience improves employee engagement, productivity, retention, and performance — core HR goals.
It helps HR teams to hit their hiring targets. When you’re known as a great place to work, you attract better candidates. It also reduces HR workload because employees can access the resources they need when they need them, and there are fewer avoidable queries.
The organizations that understand this don’t treat employee experience as a culture initiative. They treat it as a business strategy.
Let’s look at some examples.
Cisco has built an onboarding experience that 90% of employees say exceeds their expectations. Beyond this initial training, the company is committed to helping employees do their best work and progress in their careers.
Hilton, named the #1 World’s Best Workplace in 2025, has made employee well-being central to its employee value proposition (EVP). With sabbaticals, benefits for caregivers, and mental health support, Hilton has ensured that 85% of its staff feel balanced and healthy at work.
Elara Caring — a provider of personal care, home health, and hospice services with over 32,000 caregivers — has prioritized internal communication and co-worker connection. After implementing a frontline app, 95% of employees say they feel more connected to the company.
Employee experience in frontline organizations: Key considerations
With over 2.7 billion deskless workers globally, the employee experience gap between frontline and desk-based staff is one of the most significant — and most costly — challenges HR leaders face.
Frontline workers are often disconnected from leadership, colleagues, and company culture. They have limited access to desktop-based tools. And they miss out on development opportunities and workplace perks that desk-based employees take for granted.
When their experience is poor, they leave — at rates that consistently outpace desk-based worker attrition.
Closing this gap requires intentional effort — and in most cases, it requires digital tools that every employee can actually access.
10 employee experience platform features that drive HR success
The right employee experience platform gives you the tools to hit your most important HR targets — whether that’s improving retention, driving engagement, streamlining onboarding, or building a culture that people genuinely want to be part of.
But not all platforms are built equal. And for organizations with a large frontline workforce, you need tools that meet staff where they are — serving customers, transporting goods, and keeping your operations on track.
Here are the features that matter most, and how each one connects to your HR goals.
1. Frontline-friendly features
For organizations with a significant frontline workforce, these frontline-friendly features are a baseline. Every other feature on this list only delivers value if frontline employees can actually access and use your platform.
To ensure your EX platform meets the needs of frontline workers, look for:
Mobile-first design. Platforms that are built for smartphones from the ground up. Not a desktop platform with a mobile app bolted on.
Offline capabilities. So employees in low-connectivity environments aren’t cut off from the information they need.
Intuitive, consumer-grade interfaces. Frontline workers won’t adopt tools that feel clunky or slow. The bar is set by the apps they already use in their personal lives.
No corporate email required. Access is granted via a phone number or employee ID, so every worker can use your systems from day one.
How will this help me meet my goals?
Ensure your employee experience investment reaches all employees — not just those who sit at a desk.
Reduce the friction that causes low platform adoption rates and poor ROI.
Close the experience gap between frontline and desk-based employees that drives disproportionately high frontline attrition.
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2. Two-way communication tools
Effective internal communication requires two-way channels that give employees access to leadership updates, co-worker conversations, and company news — and give leadership real visibility into what employees are thinking.
You also need structured channels for different types of communication, so the right messages reach the right people without everything competing for attention in the same feed.
For frontline organizations specifically, those comms channels need to be available on smartphones. Push notifications and mandatory reads also come in very useful.
How will this help me meet my goals?
Easily communicate company updates, initiatives, and events to your entire team or specific departments.
Work toward employee engagement goals by gathering valuable employee feedback through direct one-on-one or group chats.
Build trust and transparency because employees feel they have a direct line to leaders.
3. Surveys, polls, and real-time feedback
Annual surveys tell you how employees felt twelve months ago. But by the time the results land, the moment to act has usually passed.
Real-time feedback tools — pulse surveys, quick polls, employee sentiment analysis, and manager check-ins — give HR a live picture of how employees are feeling, what’s working, and where action is needed.
This can make the difference between responding to a retention crisis and preventing one.
The best platforms make surveys easy to launch and feedback easy to send. Short, targeted surveys take seconds to complete and get higher response rates — particularly from time-poor frontline workers.
You should also look for analytics and reports that help you make sense of your findings. That way, you can create a plan of action and employees get to see visible change in response to their feedback.
How will this help me meet my goals?
Surface issues before they impact engagement and retention.
Get the data to make evidence-based decisions on HR initiatives, rather than relying on instinct.
Demonstrate to employees that their voice matters, driving engagement and belonging in the process.
This is a problem. Because a retail associate doesn’t need the same updates as a warehouse operative. A new starter needs different content than a ten-year employee.
When every employee sees everything, the platform becomes noisy — and people stop paying attention.
Audience targeting allows HR and comms teams to deliver the right content to the right people, based on their role, location, department, and tenure. It helps you reduce overwhelm and land messages more effectively.
What’s more, when staff are confident of finding personalized content on your employee experience platform, they keep logging in. So you reach more employees through the same streamlined channels.
When choosing employee experience software, look for tools that allow you to create and manage employee groups, and tools that let you customize dashboards on an employee-by-employee basis.
How will this help me meet my goals?
Improve message cut-through by ensuring employees only receive content that’s relevant to them.
Enable more targeted feedback collection — surveying specific teams or locations rather than the whole organization at once.
Reduce the noise that causes employees to disengage from internal comms and EX platforms entirely.
5. Automated employee journeys
Onboarding is one of the highest-stakes communication challenges in any organization.
When it's inconsistent — when new hires receive different information depending on which manager onboards them or which shift they start on — it shows up in slower ramp-up times, more HR queries, and higher early attrition.
Automated employee journeys solve this by delivering the right content to every employee at the right moment — consistently, regardless of role, location, or manager.
Pre-boarding information before day one. Essential policies and system guides on arrival. Role-specific training in a logical sequence. Check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days to identify and address early disengagement.
The same logic applies beyond onboarding — to role transitions, promotions, returns from leave — any other moment in the employee lifecycle where timely, consistent communication makes a meaningful difference.
Pick an employee platform that supports content automation — and connects with your HRIS — and staff get a more consistent and comprehensive experience.
How does this help me meet my HR goals?
Reduce the volume of repetitive onboarding queries that consume HR capacity.
Ensure every new hire gets the same high-quality experience regardless of manager or location.
Improve early retention by giving new starters the confidence and information they need to succeed from day one.
A mobile-first platform with built-in recognition tools changes that. It enables peer-to-peer recognition, manager shoutouts, and company-wide celebrations of employee achievement — visible to everyone, not just the people who happen to be in the office.
The most effective recognition tools fit seamlessly into the work day.
If giving recognition means logging into a separate system and filling out a form, it won't happen consistently. If it takes two taps from the same app employees use for everything else, you embed recognition in company culture.
How does this help me meet my HR goals?
Drive engagement, belonging, and retention by ensuring every employee — frontline included — feels seen and valued.
Motivate employees to do their best work, improving performance and productivity.
Improve the employer brand, making your organization a more appealing place to work.
7. Digital forms and workflows
HR processes are often still paper-based or scattered across disconnected systems — particularly in frontline organizations.
Leave requests, incident reports, onboarding paperwork, equipment sign-offs — each of these small administrative tasks consumes significant HR time when multiplied across a large workforce.
Digital forms, accessible from a smartphone, remove that friction. Employees complete forms in the moment they're needed, on the device they're already using. Submissions are tracked, data is captured cleanly, and HR spends less time chasing paper and more time on work that requires their expertise.
The best platforms let you build, customize, and update forms without IT involvement — so HR can respond to changing processes quickly without adding (another) ticket to the queue.
How does this help me meet my HR goals?
Reduce HR admin burden by digitizing manual, paper-based processes.
Improve data quality and compliance by capturing information consistently and in real time.
Free HR capacity for strategic work by eliminating the time spent chasing, collating, and correcting paper-based submissions.
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8. Enterprise-wide search
When employees can’t find what they need, their first port of call is often HR. The people team spends a lot of time answering questions that are already answered elsewhere.
The issue? Information is hard to find — because it’s hidden away in an intranet folder, in an outdated handbook, or in a lengthy chat thread. In the case of frontline employees, it’s often because they can’t access company resources from their smartphones.
A searchable, centralized, mobile-first knowledge hub — with user-friendly content management tools — reduces unnecessary queries. It also empowers workers, because all the information they need to do their jobs well is right at their fingertips.
With the right EX platform, you put policies, procedures, FAQs, a people directory, and training materials within easy reach — across all devices — so your HR team spends less time fielding questions.
How will this help me meet my goals?
Reduce the volume of routine process and policy queries that consume HR team time.
Improve employee productivity by reducing time spent searching for important documents or information.
Support compliance by ensuring every employee is working from the same, up-to-date version of every document.
9. Integrations with your HRIS
An employee experience platform that doesn't connect to your core HR systems creates more work, not less. Employees end up juggling multiple logins. Data lives in silos. HR spends time manually reconciling information across systems.
The right employee experience platform supports deep HRIS integration. It syncs with your HR system — pulling in employee data, org structures, and role information automatically.
Onboarding journeys trigger on the right day. Audience targeting reflects current team structures. Employees can access payroll, shift swap tools, benefits, learning systems, and leave information without leaving the platform.
Single sign-on (SSO) is essential. But the strongest integrations go further. They provide two-way data sync and automated user provisioning, so you can turn your platform into a digital front door for your entire HR tech stack.
How does this help me meet my HR goals?
Reduce the manual admin burden of maintaining employee data across multiple systems.
Give employees a single, trusted place to access HR information and complete HR tasks — reducing queries and improving self-service.
Improve the ROI of your existing HR tech by increasing adoption through a single, accessible front door.
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10. Reporting & analytics tools
It’s hard to make meaningful improvements to employee experience — or to make the case for HR investment — without reliable data.
An EX tool with strong analytics capabilities gives you real-time visibility into how the platform is being used — who’s engaging, what content is landing, which locations or teams are disengaged, and where communication is falling short.
That data informs better decisions: smarter content strategies, targeted interventions, and a clearer line between HR activity and business outcomes — like retention and productivity.
Look for tools that track a wide range of KPIs and provide customizable dashboards and metrics. AI-powered data insights and data segmentation tools will also prove useful.
How will this help me meet my goals?
Gain valuable insights into employee experience.
Inform HR initiatives and decision-making by tracking progress and identifying areas for improvement.
Demonstrate the ROI of HR and communications investment to leadership and finance.
How to choose the right employee experience tool for your business
Choosing an employee experience platform is a big decision. The right tool can reduce turnover, improve operational performance, and give every employee — including those on the frontline — a reliable connection to the information and culture that keeps them engaged.
The wrong one? Well, it adds to tool sprawl, sits unused, and creates more HR problems than it solves.
We’ve explored the features you should be looking for when choosing an employee experience platform that helps you meet HR goals. But what does the process of finding and implementing a new EX tool really look like?
Here’s a rundown of all the steps involved.
Start with your workforce, not your wishlist
Before evaluating any platform, get clear on what your end users need from a new tool. That means talking to people from across your organization — leadership, different departments, office-based workers, frontline employees.
Ask what bugbears they have with the tech tools you currently use — and what features and functionality they’d be looking for if they were picking a new platform. Quiz them on existing workflows and the places where bottlenecks occur.
Get input from your workforce and you’ll find it easier to draw up a list of platform must-haves. Employee buy-in also helps to ensure adoption and usage once your new tech tool goes live.
Define your HR outcomes
Another task to complete before you sit down to a demo? Establish the two or three key outcomes that matter most to your organization right now.
Is the priority reducing frontline attrition? Fixing onboarding consistency? Getting recognition to employees who currently receive none?
These priorities should drive your evaluation. So if a vendor can’t clearly explain how their platform moves the metrics you care about most — with evidence from organizations similar to yours — proceed with caution.
Assess integrations
Before committing, audit your current tech stack and ask vendors specific integration questions:
Does it integrate with our HRIS — and how deep does that integration go?
Does it support single sign-on, so employees don't need another set of credentials?
Can employees access payroll, scheduling, and benefits tools through the platform — or does it just link out to them?
What happens when one of our existing systems updates — who manages the integration maintenance?
Deep, maintained integrations are what turn a communication tool into a genuine digital front door and help your organization to avoid tool sprawl.
Don't underestimate the adoption challenge
The most common reason employee experience platforms fail to deliver ROI isn't a bad product choice. It's poor adoption — particularly among frontline workers who’ve learned to be skeptical of tools that promise to make their working lives easier…and then don't.
When evaluating platforms, ask vendors:
What does a typical frontline rollout look like?
What adoption rates do your existing customers achieve, and over what timeframe?
How do you support manager activation — since managers are often the critical link between a platform launch and frontline engagement?
What onboarding resources and tutorials are available to keep adoption momentum high?
What other support do you provide during platform launch?
A vendor who can point to concrete adoption data is a vendor worth keeping on your shortlist.
Watch for these red flags
Not every platform that markets itself as an employee experience tool is built for the realities of your organization. Watch for:
Desktop-first design presented as mobile-ready. There's a significant difference between a platform built with a mobile-first mindset and a desktop platform with a mobile app bolted on. Ask to test the mobile experience before making any decisions.
Weak or templated analytics. If you can't measure adoption by role, location, and department — and connect communication activity to business outcomes — you can't demonstrate ROI or identify where the platform is falling short.
Shallow integrations. A platform that integrates with your HRIS in name only, without real data sync or SSO, won't reduce the friction that drives employees to workarounds.
Rigid workflows. Platforms that can’t adapt to your organization’s culture and processes will slow managers and teams down, instead of helping them. Look for platforms that can be customized and personalized to organization and employee needs.
Pilot before you scale
A full-scale rollout might feel efficient. In practice, it simply hides problems until they're really expensive to fix.
Different employee groups — frontline workers, managers, desk-based staff, new starters — have different needs, habits, and access patterns. What works well for one group may not work for another.
Run a structured pilot with a representative group before rolling out to the full workforce. Track adoption rates, ease of use, and qualitative feedback. Use what you learn to refine your onboarding approach, notification settings, content strategy, and governance before scaling.
A phased rollout reveals friction points early, when they’re still cheap to address.
Measure continuously, not just at launch
Implementation isn’t the finish line. The needs of employees change over time. Business priorities shift. Communication strategies that work well at 500 employees may need adjusting at 2,000.
Build regular platform reviews into your HR calendar. Use analytics to track adoption trends, content engagement, survey participation, and the correlation between communication activity and business metrics like attrition and productivity.
The organizations that get the most from their employee experience platforms are the ones that treat them as living infrastructure — not a one-time rollout.
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Next-level employee experience andHR impact
Choosing the right employee experience platform means finding one that works for your people, your processes, and your HR goals.
From frontline-friendly design to analytics, integrations to recognition features, the best platforms make work easier, while improving employee engagement and HR outcomes.
But even the perfect platform won’t deliver ROI on its own. Success comes from understanding your workforce, defining the outcomes that matter most, piloting thoughtfully, and measuring continuously.
Treat your EX tool as living infrastructure, and you’ll see engagement, retention, and productivity rise — making your organization a place employees genuinely want to work.
Employee engagement is the extent to which employees feel motivated and committed to your company. But in today’s organizations — especially in those with a frontline presence — employee engagement is too often overlooked.
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace for 2024, just 23% of people are engaged at work. And organizations with low levels of employee engagement are more likely to experience the following:
High employee turnover
Reduced productivity
Poor team performance
Poor customer experience
For frontline leaders, engagement is a particular challenge. It can be hard to even reach, let alone engage, employees who spend their days traveling, out in the field, or working across multiple sites.
So what can a company do to motivate and inspire its workforce? As we’ll see in a moment, improving employee engagement requires a holistic approach — one that encompasses all areas of the employee experience.
Here, we look at employee engagement strategy — and the employee engagement best practices — that every company should adopt.
Employee engagement: understanding the challenge
Employee disengagement is a widespread issue in both desk-based and frontline businesses. Employee engagement scores are low because of:
Poor internal communication. A lack of transparency and communication within a business leaves employees feeling disconnected from their teams and leaders. Internal communication suffers when leaders and managers are overworked, when internal comms are not made a priority, and when the right communication tools aren’t in place.
Inadequate tech. Technology plays a significant role in employee engagement. You can use it to keep employees engaged, by giving them access to the tools and connection opportunities they need to succeed in their roles. You can also use it to measure employee engagement. A lack of adequate technology tends to be a bigger problem in frontline businesses because most tools are designed around desk-based teams.
Leaders not leading by example. Employee engagement is the outcome of a positive employee experience. And positive employee experience is the responsibility of every leader and manager in your organization. 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. So team leaders need training and support to understand their role in boosting engagement.
Poor work-life balance. Stress is a huge issue in many industries. According to O.C. Tanner research, nearly a third of employees are living in survival mode. They’re on the verge of burnout with many of their basic needs unmet. When employees aren’t happy and healthy, they’re unlikely to be engaged in their work.
Employee engagement challenges in frontline organizations
Any business looking to get the most from its workforce has to stay up-to-date with employee engagement best practices. But for leaders in frontline organizations, the stakes are particularly high.
Frontline teams already experience a high rate of employee turnover. It’s fair to say that frontline employees are dissatisfied with their employee experience… and for several different reasons.
McKinsey’s EX Factor framework breaks this employee experience down into nine elements across three categories: social experience, work experience, and organization experience.
Organization experience. Technology is arguably the biggest challenge to resolve in the frontline organization experience. Frontline workers waste significant amounts of time jumping from one not-fit-for-purpose platform to another, and logging in and out of multiple systems in a single shift. It’s no surprise that 52% of frontline workers say they’d leave their jobs because of the poor quality tech tools provided.
Social experience. Frontline workers don’t spend much time at HQ, if any. And the nature of their work means they spend their days in different locations, often working in isolation. This makes it hard to maintain a sense of community and engagement, and it risks frontline employees feeling on the margins of your organization, particularly in comparison to their desk-based peers.
Work experience. The frontline work experience can be less flexible and rewarding compared to desk-based employees.Few frontline employees are given development opportunities (despite wanting them) and many fail to get the recognition they deserve. On a more practical level, basic tasks like swapping shifts are inefficient at best — and impossible at worst.
Employee disengagement can have serious consequences in frontline sectors. It can lead to health and safety risks, poor customer care, and compliance issues, as well as employee dissatisfaction and churn.
So how can frontline businesses turn it around? Let’s dive into the employee engagement best practices that will help you improve the employee experience at your organization.
6 best practices for employee engagement in 2025
Employee engagement is a priority in high-performing businesses. These employee engagement best practices are ingrained in company culture and operations.
Five of the best practice recommendations we’ve included here are based on the 5 C’s of employee engagement:
Care — show employees you care about their wellbeing as well as the company’s bottom line
Connect — build relationships and foster a sense of togetherness
Coach — guide your employees to be the best they can be
Contribute — encourage employees to contribute their thoughts and ideas
Congratulate — celebrate employees for the great work they do
We’ve also added a bonus best practice – analyze and optimize — as this is key to evaluating your performance and improving employee engagement going forward.
So, read on to discover how to implement the 5 C’s and adopt these best practices for employee engagement within your organization.
1. Care: create a supportive environment
When you show genuine care for your employees and their wellbeing, you foster loyalty and trust, and develop a positive work environment. This works wonders for your employee engagement metrics.
44% of employees experience a lot of stress at work. In supportive environments, employers know how to recognize and respond to stress and burnout in frontline workers. But they also do their best to prevent stress and burnout from occurring in the first place.
Supportive employers offer health and wellness programs, mental health support, and flexible work arrangements. They communicate empathetically and show employees that they value their work and input. Employees know who to turn to if they have a problem or need help.
In 2025, the way companies care for their employees is evolving. And digital tools are becoming a more important part of the picture.
With an employee app like Blink, you can send important communications straight to every worker’s smartphone. You can point them in the direction of health and wellbeing resources — and reinforce company culture with clear and consistent communication.
Today’s employees expect their workplace tech solutions to be of the same quality as the tools they use in their personal lives. Using technology at work should be as simple as sending a direct message or scrolling a news feed for company announcements.
When workplace systems aren’t intuitive and familiar, it can add stress to the working day and cause employees to feel burdened and disengaged.
So by adopting a digital approach, companies can use technology to ensure all workers — including those who don’t sit at a desk all day — feel cared for and supported by the company.
2. Connect: foster meaningful relationships
Humans are naturally social. Neuroscientists have found that we crave social connection in the same way we crave food when we’re hungry.
The best workplaces satisfy this craving. They support employees to create a network of strong and meaningful workplace relationships.
Connections like these help employees feel like part of the company team. They bring business benefits too. Employees who feel that they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work.
Other advantages? You improve team-building and collaboration. And employees are more connected to the wider aims of your organization, which makes it easier for you to get everyone pulling in the same direction.
Types of workplace connection
When adopting employee engagement best practices, you have to consider and facilitate two different types of connections within your workplace.
Employee–employee connection
What stops a worker from moving from one hospital to another? Or from one bus company to another? More often than not, a company’s values, culture, and sense of community play an important role in people choosing to stay — or to leave.
Dispersed workers need regular connection with their co-workers. They should be able to share their knowledge and connect with like-minded co-workers in workplace communities. Leaders need to provide tools that help team members from across the organization feel part of company culture.
Employee–leader connection
Meaningful relationships are built on two-way communication and they involve people from all levels of an organization. Employees should hear from their leaders and vice versa.
For dispersed teams, achieving open communication across the company hierarchy requires a tailored approach. You need to find tools that allow the conversation to continue, even when a worker is on the road or based over multiple sites.
Tools for employee connection
In today’s modern workplace, reaching frontline, hybrid, and office-based employees is easier when you have the right communication tools.
A modern intranet
The traditional company intranet doesn’t facilitate the type of communication the modern workforce wants and needs. But upgrade to a modern intranet and you move beyond top-down news and one-way conversations.
With a modern intranet, you can develop internal communication channels that support top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer connections.
An employee app
A mobile-first employee app takes intranet features and puts them into the palm of every employee. It provides a user-friendly interface and integrations with lots of other workplace software.
An app is particularly useful for organizations with a frontline workforce. These employees rarely have access to a desktop device, which means they can’t send and receive important workplace communications.
If you’re still sending paper pay stubs, posting out a paper newsletter, or pinning notices to memo boards, then going mobile could be the best thing you do for employee engagement.
An all-in-one platform
Emails from leadership. WhatsApp messages from co-workers. A noticeboard crowded with posters. When employees have to look in lots of different places for company communications, things get confusing.
An all-in-one platform provides a range of communication channels, including private chat, a content hub, and a social-media-style news feed. These channels are available on desktop and mobile devices.
Pick a platform like Blink and you also get tools for employee recognition and feedback. You can even integrate the app with your other workplace tools, turning Blink into a digital front door for your organization.
With an all-in-one platform, you give employees the connection they need and streamline the communication process.
7 in 10 people say learning improves their sense of connection to their organization
8 in 10 people say learning adds purpose to their work
This is why employee development is another of our employee engagement best practices.
Employee development makes staff more invested in their work and loyal to your organization. And it’s not just for office-based teams. Frontline employees want the chance to learn new skills and earn promotions, too.
70% of frontline workers surveyed by McKinsey said they had applied for career advancement opportunities. But the McKinsey survey also revealed that 65% of frontline employees were unaware or unsure of how to achieve advancement.
To keep employees engaged, companies have to provide equal access to learning and career opportunities, such as training courses or mentorship programs. Again, this may mean using digital tools.
Employee development case studies
Let’s take a look at two companies that are investing heavily in employee development for their frontline employees.
Amazon
Amazon is keeping a close eye on the future. Through courses and apprenticeships, the company is helping employees to develop technical expertise. New tech skills will benefit both employees and the company over the years to come.
But Amazon isn’t just offering L&D in areas closely linked to business goals. The company recently committed an incredible $1.2 billion to employee L&D. This fund covers all sorts of education.
Frontline employees can use it to pay for college tuition fees. They can use it to fund high school completion and English as a Second Language (ESL) certifications.
While these courses may not provide direct benefit to Amazon, the employee loyalty and engagement it fosters are well worth the investment.
McDonald’s
Employee L&D is fun and digital at McDonald’s. The company created a cash register training program that looked and felt like a computer game.
Learners had to respond to customer orders under timed conditions. They could use lifelines and win bonuses as they did their best to keep customers happy.
This gamification was successful. A high proportion of employees engaged in the training. McDonald’s reduced the time it took to serve each customer by 7.9 seconds and increased customer spend by an average of £18,000 per restaurant.
4. Contribute: make employee voices heard
Employees feel a greater sense of belonging and are more motivated to succeed when they’re empowered to contribute their ideas, skills, and expertise.
The company benefits, too. You avoid working in an echo chamber because you get to hear a wide variety of perspectives. You develop leadership skills among your workforce, which can help with succession planning. And you encourage employees to take greater ownership of their work and results.
A frontline business can encourage employee contributions by:
Providing a dedicated platform for idea sharing. It’s not always easy for frontline workers to share their ideas. Dispersed shift work means they often have little access to office-based decision-makers. But you can use technology to recreate the ‘open door’ experience. With a dedicated employee voice platform, all staff can offer their contributions — and managers can give those valuable contributions the recognition they deserve.
Seeking feedback from employees. Surveys are another great way to make employees feel heard. They’re an easy way for you to canvas employee opinion and discover the issues that matter most to your workforce. Regularly request employee feedback on topics like internal communications, employee satisfaction, and company culture to make meaningful improvements in these areas.
Acting on employee input. However you receive employee input, be sure to act upon it. Employees only have faith in the process if they feel listened to. So keep employees in the loop. Tell them that you’ve received their contributions. Tell them what plan of action you’ve put in place, giving realistic timescales where possible. And once your plan has produced results, share these with employees, too.
5. Celebrate: recognize employee achievements
Recognizing and celebrating employee achievements is another of our employee engagement best practices.
Research from Gallup shows that well-recognized employees are 45% less likely to leave their roles within two years — and employees who get valuable feedback are five times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t.
The first thing businesses tend to think of when they hear the word ‘recognition’ is monetary reward. And of course, employees want to be paid fairly for the work that they do. You can use pay raises and financial bonuses to recognize a job well done.
But, in good news for budget-holders, monetary rewards aren’t the only way to recognize employee achievement. McKinsey found that up to 55% of employee engagement is driven by non-monetary recognition. A simple “thank you” goes a surprisingly long way.
Other employee appreciation ideas include fun benefits like a catered lunch, a day of volunteering, or an employee ‘wall of fame’.
To get the most out of non-monetary benefits:
Get to know employee recognition preferences — and then tailor rewards to teams and individuals wherever possible
Make it equal — all employees, whether they work in the office or on the frontline, should have equal opportunity for praise and reward
Encourage peer-to-peer employee recognition — 75% of employees say that giving recognition makes them want to stay at their current organization longer, so encourage co-workers to highlight and celebrate each other
With Blink’s recognition feature, you can shout out employee successes, congratulate someone on a promotion, celebrate team milestones, and even wish your coworkers a happy birthday, all within the company newsfeed.
You can decide who sees your recognition post and have the option to create personalized messages, too.
6. Analyze and optimize: evaluate employee engagement performance
Once you’ve adopted the 5 C’s and associated employee engagement best practices, it’s time to analyze and optimize the process.
There are various metrics you can track to establish the success of your employee engagement program. These include statistics on employee retention, sick leave, satisfaction, and employee engagement tool usage. You can also gain insight from staff surveys.
If you’re to make good use of the available data, you have to clarify two things:
Your metrics before you made changes to your employee engagement program
Your employee engagement goals
Using this information, you can set targets. For example, you may decide that you want to improve your employee retention rate from 60% to 80% within the next quarter. Or that you plan to outshine your competitors by beating the industry average for staff satisfaction within the next year.
By setting goals and regularly analyzing your employee engagement metrics, you learn where you’re making progress. You can also make strategy changes based on insight, rather than anecdotal evidence or gut instinct.
The end result is an employee engagement program that is continually improving, better meeting the needs of your frontline team and your business.
This is another part of the employee engagement process that Blink can help with. Our app comes with powerful frontline analytics.
You get data on employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction. You can launch in-app surveys to find out how employees are feeling. And you can hone your communication style with insight into your most popular posts and topics.
Employee engagement best practices: key takeaways
extra thought and attention.
Finding ways to connect your team, offer training opportunities, get employee input, and show recognition can be tricky when your teams aren’t spending their days together in the same office environment.
But thinking about the 5 C’s can give you lots of employee engagement ideas. And when you incorporate the 5 C’s into your employee engagement best practice — and also take the time to analyze and optimize employee engagement — you can count on numerous benefits.
These include:
Better employee retention
Improved productivity
Streamlined operations
Improved employee and customer satisfaction
Go North West, a transport company in the north of England, used Blink to improve communication between office-based staff and drivers. The app drove employee engagement and moved the company lightyears from the office noticeboard full of old news they’d been using previously.
A record 50.5 million people living in America quit their jobs in 2022 — and a further 40% of US employees considered leaving their jobs. Organizations need to step things up a notch if they want to start engaging both their desk-based and frontline staff.
The good news is there are many employee engagement strategies, tactics, and ideas you can implement to turn around the situation. The 12 strategies we discuss in this guide will help you create an engaging workplace experience and drive employee engagement for both desk-based and frontline employees.
Frontline Employee Engagement in 2024
Blink created this guide after working with hundreds of frontline organizations. Now, these insights can help other leaders prepare for a year that promises both challenge and opportunity.
Download to learn more: The top eight frontline engagement trends to watch out for and the six key strategies for success
A quick recap: what is employee engagement?
Employee engagement is the ongoing process of ensuring your workforce feels:
Emotionally connected to their job, coworkers, and organization as a whole
Satisfied with their job role and function
Aligned with your company’s values
Able to give 100% during work hours
Industry statistics cite employee engagement as a key factor in employee satisfaction, retention, and even company profitability. Employee engagement should be a number one priority for businesses globally — and yet, as of 2023, only 23% of employees globally are engaged.
You can use a number of methods to measure employee engagement levels in your business. Think surveys, metrics, and other engagement KPIs that will help determine how motivated, satisfied, and fulfilled your employees are in their work.
Remember, employee engagement is often the byproduct of a great employee experience. If you provide a fulfilling, enjoyable, and inspiring workplace experience, you enable and encourage engagement.
With this in mind, you need to tailor and adapt your employee engagement strategies to meet the needs of different types of employees, including frontline workers. This will make their overall experience positive and rewarding.
The foundations of effective employee engagement strategies
Engaged employees can be your greatest business asset. They are more focused and committed than disengaged workers, encourage their coworkers, and positively impact your bottom line.
But improving employee engagement is not about what you do. It’s about what you are as an organization, the culture you cultivate, and the values that you live by.
So before we jump into the employee engagement strategies, it’s important to look at the key values of employee engagement that form the foundation for those strategies. Those core values are:
Respect
Respect is an essential consideration for all your high-level decisions about managing employees. For your workers to be engaged at work, they should be able to trust that they are being treated with fairness and respect.
So how do you convey this in your processes and policies? You pay competitive wages, allow enough breaks, listen to their ideas, and formally recognize excellent performance and value-abiding behaviors.
Transparency
If your employees aren’t aware of anything about your organization that’s beyond their scope of work or immediate team, you can’t blame them for feeling like an outsider. Sooner or later, they’ll feel isolated and disengaged.
Being in the loop doesn’t just help them do their jobs in a better way, but also makes them feel like they belong. So it’s essential to communicate openly and regularly with all your employees.
The more transparent your communication, the higher level of trust you’ll build with your workers. And the more comfortable they’ll feel sharing their thoughts and concerns, which brings us to the next pillar of employee engagement.
Two-way communication
Most organizations follow a top-down approach to employee communication in which frontline employees hardly ever have a say. But these workers often have the best insights because they work directly with customers day in and day out.
So one of the best values to nurture and cultivate for high employee engagement is two-way communication. Give your workers ample opportunities to raise their voice and share what they think. Then act on this feedback to take your employee engagement to the next level.
12 actionable employee engagement strategies
Here are 12 employee engagement strategies & tactics you can implement today:
1. Foster co-worker relationships
When employees have friendly relationships with immediate team members and other people in the organization, they are more likely to enjoy the day-to-day.
Workplace relationships don’t just help with networking, they also provide the guidance and motivation a worker needs to succeed in their role. And creating opportunities to build and nurture these connections is one of the best employee engagement strategies.
Co-workers don’t always cross paths throughout the working day — especially in frontline organizations. It might be up to you to encourage better intra-department connections through organized events. You could create a program to encourage workers to collaborate, socialize, or train each other on the parts of the job that they know best.
Workers from different departments can connect, share notes, and exchange best practices. This way, they can also try out a recently learned skill or explore different options they might want to pursue in the future.
In fact, there are many cases in which employees consider leaving their organization to pursue a different career path. This program will help you facilitate the lateral moving of an employee to a different department, so they aren’t forced to look elsewhere. This way you hit two goals with one stone: high employee engagement and better employee retention.
2. Have a thorough onboarding process
Onboarding is essential for setting the right tone and expectations when a new employee joins your team.
As the statistics in the video above highlight, around 20% of new hires leave in the first seven weeks of employment, but organizations with a strong onboarding process have improved retention rates by 82%.
A strong onboarding experience is achieved by:
Making sure your onboarding process covers not only organizational policies, but also the company’s core values, mission, and vision
Giving your new employees mobile accessto relevant materials and resources to learn from, and encouraging all employees to provide their feedback
Acknowledging the importance of connection during onboarding. Introduce new hires to their team members, leadership, and coworkers. For a dispersed workforce, this can be done by ensuring your employees have the right digital tools and channels to connect from wherever they are
A sense of belonging from day one is integral in order to improve employee engagement — particularly for the frontline, where80% of workers feel they have few connection opportunities at work.
See how Go North West is using Blink to make new team members feel part of the organization right from day one.
3. Rethink physical spaces
Frontline employees power the global workforce. With no central break room or day-to-day opportunities for office chat, dispersed workers can become increasingly disconnected from the rest of the organization.
While team building and other social events may be organized with the best of intentions, they often miss the mark for frontline workers, putting more pressure on employees instead of providing a channel for enthusiastic engagement.
If you’re a frontline leader, you need to rethink your social spaces and channels to meet the engagement expectations of all your employees. This might mean creating dedicated digital channels, Feeds, or groups for frontline workers who would otherwise never have a chance to interact.
Deliberately creating space for accessible social interaction can help build relationships, increase engagement, and create an environment of inclusion and positivity throughout your organization.
Career growth has a positive impact on knowledge workers’ organizational engagement
Career goal progress and professional ability development promote job engagement
Career growth has a positive effect on affective commitment, which in turn influences employee engagement.
If you can make workers feel that they can advance their careers without leaving your company, you’ll see a big boost in employee engagement. Workers at every level of your company should be able to view a clear-cut career path ahead and the map to follow that path.
So when formulating employee engagement strategies for your company, see how you can help workers get in complete control of their careers. The more assured they are about achieving their future goals, the more engaged you’ll find them to be.
How to accomplish this? Take your workers’ input on where they see themselves in the future. Here’s a career development plan template that might come in useful, as you do.
When you empower employees to take charge of their goal setting in alignment with team objectives, they’ll be more invested in working hard to hit those goals. And they won’t need tight schedules to do the same, leading to an improvement in overall satisfaction.
5. Provide training and learning opportunities
Helping workers learn new skills and investing in their professional development is crucial to their engagement.
In fact, 35% of millennial employees (who also make up around 35% of the US workforce) said they were attracted to employers who offer excellent training and development programs for this reason and saw it as the top benefit they wanted from an employer.
There are many measures you can take to facilitate employee education:
Conduct online workshops that support employees’ learning goals
Provide reimbursements for courses workers enroll in
When you invest in employees’ learning and development, you are sending a message that your company is committed to them for the long term. And this demonstration of commitment makes them far more likely to give their 100% on the job.
6. Clear and consistent communication
Dispersed staff need a tool that allows them to interact with each other as if they were in the same room. This is key for breaking down barriers, unifying teams, and working productively, no matter where your team is located.
At Blink, communication is part of our culture and we are strong believers in its power. This is something that you must emphasize too if you wish to engage your employees. When you build a culture of trust and open communication, you help create an environment of transparency, respect, and collaboration.
You also need to make sure your team members are able to communicate with each other. Every team member should be aware of the communication channels that the organization uses and how to use them.
As leaders, don’t forget your own role in communication, either. Simply providing employees the channels to communicate and actually engaging employees through these channels are two different things.
To ensure a clear and consistent communication strategy, consider:
Frequent News Feed updates to keep team members in the loop
Regularly scheduled 1-1s and ongoing two-way feedback loops
Targeted posts in group chats and forums for sharing ideas and gaining insights
When someone asks where they work, your workers can feel absolute pleasure, cold apathy, or even disdain or embarrassment answering that question. It all depends on your company’s reputation inside and outside the premises.
Money is undoubtedly a strong motivator, but employees also want to feel proud of where they work. The strength of your organization’s brand and what it stands for is directly related to your workers’ level of engagement.
That makes internal branding one of the most crucial employee engagement strategies. It means you need to ensure that your workers understand, support, and feel connected to your mission, vision, and values. The more convinced they are of what your brand stands for, the more likely they are to emulate behaviors that speak to the same values.
The supermarket chain Trader Joe’s is a great example. It has designed a fun and quirky environment for both workers and customers, with the workers conveying its brand values through different aspects of their job. The way they name products, design signage, décorate the store, and interact with customers — everything aligns with the Trader Joe’s brand.
The checkout process is just as warm, friendly, and casual. Workers display enthusiasm and a genuine desire to help with their feedback and expertise on the products.
This goes on to show that when done correctly, internal branding can create a virtuous cycle. It will attract workers who love your brand, who will further communicate their passion to your customers and partners, thereby enhancing the brand and attracting more top talent.
8. Encourage diversity and inclusion
D&I initiatives are crucial to the overall employee experience, making them a great place to focus your efforts for improving engagement levels. Research by ADP states:
“Studies have shown that employees who are satisfied with their organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I) are twice as engaged as dissatisfied employees. Changeboard adds that diverse and inclusive organizations work 12% harder, are 19% more likely to stay longer with the organization, and collaborate 57% more effectively with peers.”
What does this look like in action? Bentley University highlights some key actions that can help you better promote diversity in the workplace, including to:
Address implicit bias: Make sure everyone in the company, starting with your C-suite and leadership teams, is aware of their unconscious bias and take proactive steps to address it
Acknowledge intersectionality: D&I initiatives must not ignore or sidestep the fact that all individuals have nuanced social identities and backgrounds that can confer or deny privilege in accordance with cultural norms
Invest in Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Investing in ERGs, or affinity groups that provide social support for employees with shared backgrounds, interests, and/or experiences is one of the most effective ways to ensure diversity initiatives remain top-of-mind
Offer mentorship programs: Mentorships encourage both personal and professional growth, and provide a pipeline for leadership development. For groups with fewer role models in senior positions, mentorship can be crucial to cultivating diverse leadership
Communicate with transparency: Be open and transparent about the goals of your D&I initiatives. Communicate progress towards achieving measurable objectives, ensure everyone is informed about key developments in the initiative, and most importantly, be open to feedback from all employees on how you can improve it
In addition to these diversity strategies, every segment and every department of your organization must also feelincluded to foster true D&I and, in turn, boost engagement.
In fact, studies show that belonging is one of the most powerful predictors of D&I efficacy in the workforce. Organizations with high levels of belonging also have higher employee net promoter scores (eNPS), which are correlated with higher engagement levels.
Frontline workers can experience the very opposite. Warehouse workers, for example, are typically secluded from other employees — and that goes double if they work the night shift as well. If a frontline worker continues to feel left out, then their engagement is likely to suffer. It’s crucial that you take the necessary steps to ensure that everyone has a sense of belonging and inclusion, starting with your frontline employees.
9. Survey, listen, and act
12 best employee engagement strategies & tactics that work 2
Your employees all have improvements they’d make to their roles, whether it’s a better work-life balance, tools that they can actually use in their roles, or more contact with management. You need to collect these insights — and act on them — to keep your employees engaged long-term.
An employee engagement survey can help you gain this valuable feedback from workers. An employee survey gives you insights into employees’ opinions, attitudes, and experiences — and you can use this data to identify areas for action.
You can also use surveys to recognize areas of improvement and understand what makes employees proud of their work.
Make sure you follow through on survey results with actions that address the employee feedback provided. Additionally, keep your workers in the loop with regular updates on progress and changes made as a result of their input. This will help build trust between your team and management, and demonstrate your commitment to employee engagement.
10. Recognize and reward
Rewards and recognition are essential for employee engagement. In fact, one 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that when anemployee says their manager is great at recognizing them, then that employee is 40+% more engaged than those with managers who were not.
Recognition is an effective way to keep employees motivated. It also reinforces the behaviors you want more of in your organization.
For example, if you want to encourage team collaboration, reward teams that work together on a project or present a unified front during client meetings. If you need increased productivity, recognize employees who go above and beyond to get the job done.
Remember, rewards don’t have to be expensive or elaborate. Digital recognition tools or Kudos are both an effective and cost-effective way to show appreciation for your team’s hard work.
11. Provide incentives and perks
While closely related to your rewards and recognition schemes, incentives and perks work slightly differently. Typically, incentives are used to elicit a particular action from your employees. For instance, you might offer bonus pay for completing a project before the deadline or reaching certain on-the-job targets.
Unlike as-and-when recognition and rewards that react to a job well done, with ongoing incentives, workers will often know what they will get for completing the challenge ahead of time, and exactly what is required in order to receive that incentive.
Perks are more general benefits that make working in your organization more desirable. Some basic examples could include flexible work hours, subsidized gym memberships, and free snacks or coffee. You really need to get more creative than this, however, if you want to provide perks that your employees really want.
For example, factors such as compensation, growth through promotion, paid training, and high-value traditional benefits have the largest impact on frontline employee preferences when choosing a new role. However, employers do not value the same factors, according to the same research by McKinsey. The study states:
“When it comes to growth-oriented attributes, employers tend to emphasize a higher job title (among the bottom five attributes for frontline employees) over job growth and learning opportunities (both top-five attributes), which may help explain why frontline employees cite a lack of employer-provided development opportunities as a primary barrier to their advancement.”
To align your company perks with the needs of your frontline workers, you should consider providing opportunities for a yearly raise or promotion, advanced learning and employee development opportunities, and ongoing upskilling.
McKinsey: What frontline employees want—and what employers think they want
12. Implement employee engagement tech with analytics tools
Analytics are essential for a successful employee engagement strategy. With the right engagement analytics tools, you can gain insights into how employees are engaging with company messages, what topics they’re most interested in, and how to best tailor future activities to their needs.
For example, use feedback or survey tools on mobile devices to collect real-time data from employees. This data can then be analyzed to reveal the most critical areas of focus for your engagement strategy.
You can also use dedicated analytics features to tailor specific messages or activities that best meet the needs of individual employees. This helps you create a more personalized, effective experience for workers and drive more meaningful engagement within your organization.
Using technology to monitor employee engagement is also one of the best ways to ensure that initiatives are tied directly to overall business objectives. Analytics help you understand if there are any engagement gaps that you need to fill.
Are there certain teams that consistently fail to engage with your content, for example? Tracking open rates, comments, will help you identify any disengaged teams or employees, so that you can work to address and improve their experience.
How to create an employee engagement strategy
Set goals
You need goals that are specific and measurable when creating a successful employee engagement strategy. This provides the foundation for your efforts, ensures everyone is on the same page, and helps you assess progress along the way.
Identify your issues
Once you have established your goals, determine what obstacles stand between you and achieving those objectives. Communication issues, lack of motivation, or a disconnected team can all put your progress at risk. Knowing what might stand in your way will help you tailor activities to your organization’s needs and develop solutions that are relevant and effective.
Build your plan
Next, you need to create a plan of action for achieving your engagement goals. You should include activities such as tailored employee surveys, tech and communication refreshes, and analytics implementation in this plan.
Analyze and adjust
Finally, track the progress of your employee engagement efforts with analytics tools and review how well they worked. Adjust activities based on the findings, and move forward with more tailored initiatives.
Why your employee engagement strategy might fail
Not listening to feedback
If you don’t listen to what your employees are telling you, then your engagement activities will be misguided and ineffective. You need to respond quickly and effectively to feedback in order to ensure that your initiatives meet their needs.
Not having the right tools
Communication and engagement tools are essential in today’s workplace, and even more so if you want an engaged workforce. Without the right tools, you won’t be able to track progress or employee engagement scores accurately — let alone ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Plus, if your tools aren’t fit for mobile, you will be missing out on the chance to engage with your key employees when they are on the move.
Not having leadership buy-in
Employee engagement strategies rely on strong leadership support. Without it, your initiatives can easily be overlooked or deprioritized as other programs take precedence. Make sure that your leadership is involved and invested in the process to ensure success.
But who are your most engaged allies?
How would greater employee engagement help them meet their targets?
How do you bring the opportunity to life for your wider leadership team?
What are the risks they’ll ask you about, so that you can prepare in advance?
Employee engagement strategies only work when teams are communicating effectively. Invest time into making sure that communication channels are clear and regularly updated with relevant content so that everyone can stay in the loop.
Final thoughts
No one wants employee disengagement. It’s costly and damaging to morale. Plus, disengaged workers make errors at a 60% higher rate.
But still, many companies turn a blind eye to the issue. They wait to take concrete action and implement employee engagement strategies until things get out of hand.
The good news is that improving employee engagement is both possible and measurable. You need the right steps, the right engagement tools, and serious execution. So take a good look at your present culture and see which of these strategies will be a good start for you.
Remember, your company is a community. And communities prosper only when every member and segment feels valued, trusted, and respected.
Blink is an internal communications tool that can help take your employee engagement to new heights.
Choosing the right Slack alternative in 2026 requires understanding how workplace communication has evolved. Today’s teams are distributed, hybrid, and increasingly mobile — so the right platform must go beyond simple chat.
Key things to look for:
An all-in-one experience: The best Slack alternatives combine chat, announcements, and engagement tools. Platforms like Blink bring communication, collaboration, and employee experience together, creating a single digital front door for every employee.
Support for small and frontline teams: Many businesses now rely on hybrid or deskless workers and need a mobile-first communication tool that employees can use without a company email.
Integration with everyday tools: Slack alternatives such as Blink and Microsoft Teams integrate with core systems like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and HR software, ensuring one-click access to essential apps.
Ease of onboarding and adoption: Tools with a familiar consumer app UX drive faster adoption across all roles and departments.
Customization and security: Look for flexible access controls, branded interfaces, and enterprise-grade data protection.
In short, the best Slack alternatives for small businesses and frontline workforces are those that make communication effortless, keep employees connected wherever they work, and simplify tech stacks — with Blink standing out as a leading choice in this new category of employee experience platforms.
10 Slack alternatives
Slack alternatives include:
Blink
Workvivo
Google Chat
Microsoft Teams
WhatsApp
Staffbase
Unily
Mango Apps
Chanty
Zoho Cliq
Let’s take a closer look with an in-depth comparison of each of these team communication tools to help you find the right fit.
#1. Blink
Best for: Organizations with desk-based and frontline employees looking to elevate internal communication and employee experience.
Looking for a Slack alternative that actually works for your entire workforce, including frontline teams? Blink has you covered. With real-time, peer-to-peer chat at its core, Blink makes communication effortless, regardless of role or location.
But Blink isn’t just another messaging app. It’s an all-in-one employee experience platform, packed with seamless communication, collaboration, and engagement features that help connect everyone — from corporate offices to the frontline.
As a mobile-first solution, Blink works on smartphones and desktop computers with equal functionality. Every employee gets easy access to modern intranet features, including real-time conversations, surveys, a content hub, recognition tools, and social networking capabilities.
With deep third-party integrations, Blink becomes the ideal digital front door for your organization. A personalized dashboard provides employees with one-click access to all the workplace software they use, including scheduling, HRIS, project management tools, and other essential applications.
Benefits
Real-time chat, for any organization: With peer-to-peer messaging, group chats, and team channels, Blink makes it easy for employees to connect instantly, whether they’re at their desk, on the shop floor, or in the field.
Mobile-first: The platform has the same features and functionality on both mobile and desktop devices, and you don`t need a company email address to use it. Enabling all workers to access communication and collaboration tools on the go.
Personalized comms: With audience segmentation and a mix of public and private channels, employees only receive communications relevant to their team, role, location, or interests.
Multiple communication channels: Blink offers a news feed, content hub, chat, surveys, and recognition tools, making it a complete solution for internal communication.
Super-app integrations: Blink integrates with other workplace tools, giving employees access to communications, documents, training, and HR essentials in one place.
Dedicated support: Blink pairs you with a customer success manager to maximize adoption and impact.
In-built AI: Blink’s AI features help employees write, improve, and summarize content, making it faster and easier to share ideas and information.
Considerations
An all-in-one employee experience platform: Blink includes the tools you need for communication, collaboration, and engagement in a single solution. It may exceed your requirements if you only want to replicate Slack’s messaging functionality.
#2. Workvivo
Best for: Large companies seeking a culture-led comms experience with native Zoom integration.
Workvivo is a product that’s risen to prominence in recent years due to its acquisition by Zoom. Seamless integration with Zoom’s video conferencing software is a major platform selling point. Workvivo also provides a mobile app and a variety of communication channels.
Benefits
Culture-building communication tools: Workvivo’s channels include a news feed, live streams, and podcasts.
A centralized hub: Workvivo can simplify communication and collaboration by cutting down the number of tools you need.
Translation capabilities: Break down language barriers in multilingual teams by allowing employees to publish and read content in their chosen language.
Personalized content: A tailored activity feed ensures users only see messages that are relevant to them.
Considerations
Chat functionality: For instant messaging, Workvivo relies on integration with Zoom Team Chat, MS Teams, or Slack. Because of this, Workvivo might not be the right choice for businesses who want to move away from Slack.
Cost:Workvivo is one of the more expensive platforms on this list, with additional costs for some features — including Workvivo TV and advanced analytics.
Overwhelming notifications:Some Workvivo users say that excessive notifications disrupt their work day.
Best for: Google Workspace users looking for quick, lightweight team messaging.
Google Chat is an instant messaging tool that offers seamless integration with Gmail, Drive, and Meet. It’s perfect for small to mid-sized teams looking for one-to-one and group messaging software. And it’s a good Slack alternative for those keen to stay working within the Google ecosystem.
Benefits
Google integration: You can jump from Google Chat, to Google Docs, to Google Meet, to Gmail in a click. Google Chat offers easy and extensive Google integration.
File sharing and spaces: Users can securely share files and create dedicated spaces for specific teams or projects.
Make announcements: For company-wide announcements, you can create threads that support up to 500,000 members.
AI functionality: Employees can use Gemini within Google Chat. They can find answers and files, brainstorm ideas, and summarize conversations with ease.
Considerations
Poor mobile experience: Google Chat offers a better experience on desktops than it does on mobile devices, with users mentioning unreliable notifications and tricky navigation.
Employee engagement: The user experience offered by Google Chat pales in comparison to leaders in the field. The interface is unlikely to engage employees.
Functionality and integrations: Users complain that Google Chat lacks the advanced features and third-party integrations provided by other chat tools.
Pricing
Free for Workspace users. Google Workspace plans start at $7 per user per month.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.5/5
G2: 4.6/5
#4. Microsoft Teams
Best for: Formal organizations already using Microsoft 365 software.
Microsoft Teams is a popular team collaboration software. It allows desk-based, remote teams to collaborate in real-time — and it integrates with Office 365 to provide team chat, meeting, and document-sharing tools. It’s worth noting that, in contrast to Slack’s informal threads, MS Teams has a more corporate and structured feel.
Benefits
Office 365 integration: If you already use Office 365 software, it’s easy to add Teams into the mix.
Video calls: Teams has in-built video conferencing tools. You can launch one-click video meetings, with breakout rooms, recordings, and transcripts.
Advanced security: Microsoft prides itself on enterprise-level security so it’s a good option if you’re working in a highly regulated industry.
Easy navigation: Each chat channel comes with file storage. So it’s easy to find documents that relate to each conversation.
Considerations
Clunky interface: Teams can feel unintuitive for new users. There are lots of tabs, menus, and nested options to get used to.
Poor mobile experience: If you want to make comms and collaboration available on smartphones, Teams isn’t the best choice.
Lacks company-wide comms tools:MS Teams isn’t great for culture-building employee communications. You may find it hard to get critical messages to cut through.
Microsoft Teams is free for the first month. The cheapest plan starts from $4 per user per month.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.5/5
G2: 4.4/5
#5. WhatsApp
Best for: Small teams or informal communication where compliance isn’t a concern.
Let’s start this section with a disclaimer. WhatsApp isn’t designed as an internal business communication tool. But many organizations use it as an unofficial Slack alternative, particularly if their existing comms tech doesn’t fulfill their needs.
Frontline employees may end up using WhatsApp because the software used by their organizations is only available on desktop and with a company email address — neither of which deskless workers have easy access to.
Benefits
Simple UX: WhatsApp offers a consumer-grade messaging experience. The app is easy and enjoyable to use — and most employees are already very familiar with it.
Message, call, and video functions: You can use WhatsApp to speak one-to-one or to the whole team using instant messaging, audio calls, and video chats.
Engaging functionality: WhatsApp offers a social-media-style experience. Users can leave reactions on posts, send multimedia content, and launch polls.
Considerations
Security: WhatsApp is associated with data privacy and security concerns. The platform has been vulnerable to hacking, malware attacks, and scams in the past.
Lack of oversight: Internal comms and IT don’t have access to admin controls or analytics.
Blurring boundaries: Personal and work messages compete with one another. Mixing personal and work comms can blur boundaries and harm productivity.
Best for: Large enterprises looking to centralize employee communications.
As a Slack alternative, Staffbaseprovides everything you need and more. It’s an intranet that works well for large organizations with both dispersed and desk-based staff. Via the app, employees can use one-to-one and group messaging functions, with the option to attach files to messages and enable and disable push notifications.
Benefits
Great user experience: Staffbase provides an intuitive interface and clear page layouts that are easy for users to navigate.
An all-round communication tool: With Staffbase, you get tools for top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer communication.
A content management system: A full CMS makes life easy for your internal communications team.
Customization options: You can tailor the Staffbase interface so it matches the branding of your organization.
Considerations
Cost: Staffbase is at the more expensive end of the scale. You also have to pay more for advanced add-ons. So it doesn’t tend to make sense for small and medium-sized businesses.
Limited mobile functionality: The Staffbase mobile app doesn’t provide many out-of-the-box tools for frontline workers.
Limited integrations: Staffbase integrates well with Microsoft 365 software. But for a wide range of integrations and to give employees access to niche industry tools, you may have to look elsewhere.
Pricing
Pricing is available on request.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.7/5
G2: 4.6/5
Read more: Staffbase alternatives
#7. Unily
Best for: Global enterprises focused on top-down communication and intranet-style knowledge sharing.
Unily is another all-round employee experience platform. It goes beyond chat functions to connect, inform, and engage employees across your organization. You can launch polls, update the social feed, and send mandatory content, making everything available on both mobile and desktop apps. But while it excels at broadcasting information, it’s not built for real-time, peer-to-peer conversation.
Benefits
Strong top-down communication tools: Unily lets you create and distribute targeted content via news articles, social feeds, and mandatory reads.
An integrated people directory: It’s easy for employees to find co-workers and start conversations with them.
Read receipts and notifications: Read receipts tell you when a recipient has seen your message — and notifications ensure that critical comms are never missed.
Personalization:Unily helps you segment your audience and tailor content so employees only receive relevant information.
Considerations
Lack of instant messaging: Unlike Slack, Unily doesn’t support real-time chat between employees — limiting peer-to-peer collaboration.
Complexity: Unily is a comprehensive comms tool. But setup and management will take up a lot of your time.
Cost: Unily customers say they get a lot for their money. But this is one of the priciest Slack alternatives out there.
A second-tier mobile experience: Because the desktop version of Unily is so complex, it can be tricky for admins to translate the experience to a small smartphone screen.
Pricing
Pricing is available on request.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.6/5
G2: 4.5/5
#8. MangoApps
Best for: Organizations who want to create a unified digital workplace.
MangoApps is an employee experience platform that combines document management, project collaboration, and a news feed. It provides audience-targeting tools and some good configuration options.
Benefits
Easy to use: Both employees and admins will find it easy to use MangoApps and there’s a minimal learning curve.
A one-stop shop: MangoApps provides many of the tools you need for internal comms, recognition, and employee engagement.
Comprehensive search: It’s easy for users to find what they’re looking for within the platform thanks to a good search function.
Built-in knowledge management: MangoApps offers easy document management and knowledge base features.
Considerations
User experience: UX and the visual appeal of the platform lag behind that of other platforms on this list.
A poor mobile experience: The mobile app experience is also not up to scratch, with core features for frontline workers relying on integrations.
Pricing
Pricing is available on request.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.4/5
G2: 4.2/5
9. Chanty
Best for: Budget-conscious companies looking for a Slack-lite tool.
Taking things back to basics, Chanty is an internal communication app designed to connect office-based and frontline employees in small to mid-sized teams. It provides a centralized hub for messages, contacts, and tasks and an intuitive interface that allows teams to access information and collaborate.
Benefits
Intuitive messaging: Chanty supports one-to-one and group conversations across a clearly organized interface.
Create tasks and Kanban boards: You can start task discussions with a click and manage tasks, due dates, and status with collaborative boards.
File sharing capabilities: Users can share files, uploading and accessing documents and images within the direct messages.
Considerations
Limited features: Chanty won’t work as an all-in-one internal communication and real-time collaboration solution. You’ll need other tools in the mix.
Lack of integrations: Chanty doesn’t provide easy integration with many popular software solutions.
Scalability issues: This platform is designed for businesses at the smaller end of the scale so if you’re likely to grow quickly, you’ll need a new solution before too long.
Limited customization: The platform is simple to use but it doesn’t offer advanced customization options.
Pricing
Chanty offers a free plan with paid plans starting at $3 per month per user.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.7/5
G2: 4.5/5
10. Zoho Cliq
Best for: Businesses already using the Zoho software suite.
Zoho Cliq is another Slack alternative to consider in 2025. It provides a secure chat platform for communication within teams and with external stakeholders. You can use video calls, real-time messaging, and file-sharing tools.
Benefits
Simple UI: Users say that Zoho Cliq is easy and intuitive to use.
Comprehensive internal team communication: Teams have all the tools they need to communicate effectively, even when working in different locations.
A good mobile experience: Users are positive about Zoho Cliq’s mobile app, particularly in comparison to Slack’s mobile experience.
Considerations
Limited functionality: Zoho Cliq works best as part of the Zoho ecosystem, which includes CRM and project management software. Alone, it has limited functionality.
Lack of customization: You have limited control over notifications, status settings, and the Zoho Cliq interface.
Lack of integrations: Zoho Cliq doesn’t offer the same range of third-party integrations as Slack.
Pricing
Zoho Cliq customers can start with a free trial. Plans start from $2 per user per month.
Reviews
Capterra: 4.6/5
G2: 4.4/5
What to look for in a Slack alternative
The best alternatives to Slack provide all the communication tools you currently rely on. They also fill the gaps — fixing some of the issues your team experiences with Slack to create a more effective and engaging employee experience.
Beyond the best possible real-time chat and collaboration features, here’s what you should be looking for when choosing an alternative to Slack.
A consumer-grade user experience
A user-friendly interface, simple navigation, and clear communication channels make life easy for employees — and ensure high levels of software adoption.
Easy onboarding
The best Slack alternatives have a minimal learning curve — for both employees and admins. They’re easy and enjoyable to use from day one.
Extensive integrations
To avoid app overload, your communication tech should integrate with the other tools you use, putting everything employees need in one easy-access location.
Customization and personalization
The best internal communication tools are customizable solutions that allow you to put your stamp on them with company branding. They allow you to tailor notification settings and segment audiences so they receive only relevant comms.
Cost-effectiveness
Pick a platform that gets good adoption rates. Also, choose tools that reach all employees — including hard-to-reach frontline workers — so you don’t have to pay for multiple software subscriptions.
Security
The best Slack alternatives keep your data safe and secure. Look for tools that prioritize security with key features like end-to-end encryption (in transit and at rest) and multi-factor authentication.
Find the right alternative to Slack and supercharge workplace communication
So which solution is best for your organization?
It depends on whether you need a like-for-like Slack replacement or a complete internal communication platform upgrade.
A simple team chat app makes it easy for desk-based teams to message and collaborate. But an employee experience platform takes communication to the next level.
With built-in surveys, recognition tools, deep integrations, and a social news feed, an employee communication platform connects your team to your organization’s culture and purpose while reducing time spent switching between apps.
When you choose the right Slack alternative, you can create a more engaged, connected, and loyal workforce — something Slack was not designed to deliver.
Blink brings this vision to life by turning everyday conversations into real connections through a single, mobile-first employee experience app and platform — software that unites communication, collaboration, and culture across every team.
Blink. And turn conversations into real connection with an employee experience app.
76% of workers say they enjoy working collaboratively. But workplace collaboration isn’t just good for team members. It’s also good for your organization.
That’s because, when your teams are pulling in the same direction, there’s less wasted effort, greater productivity, and better business results.
These days, collaboration is a little more complicated than it used to be. Many employees work remotely or on a hybrid schedule. There are also hard-to-reach frontline employees to consider.
In 2024, organizations are having to be more intentional about employee collaboration — and they’re turning to tech tools to bring dispersed teams together.
Collaboration in the workplace may be changing. But it’s still as important as ever. Here, we take a look at the benefits of workplace collaboration, along with the role tech can play in creating a collaborative ecosystem.
What does collaboration look like in the workplace?
Workplace collaboration involves team members working together to achieve a common goal. It relies on empathy, active listening, conflict resolution, and accountability.
But it’s not just about team members working together on a big project. Or giving the standard monthly update on company developments. Collaboration is much, much more than that.
The most collaborative organizations make collaboration part of their company culture. It’s a mindset of openness and transparency. A place where all employees engage in effective communication and are ready and willing to help one another.
Employee collaboration might mean liaising with engineering, marketing, and sales teams to launch a ground-breaking new product. Or simply helping your co-worker get the photocopier working again.
In any form, collaboration is about sharing information and knowledge. About willingly offering support. And about combining employee strengths to get the best results each and every day.
Nowadays, there’s another key element to collaboration in the workplace — technology. In the wake of remote working and higher employee expectations with regard to tech, collaboration has gone digital.
Organizations use digital tools to facilitate employee collaboration even when teams don’t work face-to-face. They use tech, like project management software, employee apps, and real-time communication tools.
This is helping to maintain collaboration among desk-based teams, at home and in the office. It’s also supporting dispersed frontline workers to collaborate at work, too.
Collaboration is good for business. It ensures that your employees, like cogs in a well-oiled machine, are all working together. There’s more momentum and less friction. So you find it easier to achieve organizational goals.
Collaboration within teams helps those teams to function more effectively. Cross-functional collaboration is important too. Team-working across different departments helps to remove workplace silos and get all teams on the same page.
Workplace collaboration is also good for employee motivation and morale.
With easy and effective communication, the workplace becomes a happier place to be. And when employees operate as a team, helping each other to achieve tasks, the workplace becomes more caring and supportive.
Collaboration clearly makes a difference to employees. A 2022 Corel report into team-working revealed that:
41% of employees have left their job or would consider leaving their job due to poor collaboration at work
64% of employees say that poor collaboration costs them at least three hours per week in productivity
78% of employees say that leadership could be doing more to promote collaboration within the organization
Collaboration ties in with employee engagement, the employee experience, productivity, and employee retention, making it a really crucial component of any workplace.
8 benefits of collaboration in the workplace
Let’s take a closer look at what workplace collaboration can do for your employees and organization. Here’s what you can expect when your employees routinely collaborate with one another.
Improved employee engagement
Employees who feel they belong within an organization are 5.3 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work. And employees who get enough information to do their job well are 2.8 times more likely to be engaged.
Workplace collaboration brings employees together. It gives them need-to-know information, and aligns everyone behind company goals.
This creates a sense of community and purpose, which fuels employee engagement. Collaboration leads employees to feel more satisfied in their work and more loyal to your company.
Increased efficiency
When teams collaborate, they share information. Teams pool resources and people power. Employees who work together closely can share workloads and responsibilities.This enables teams to complete tasks more quickly. It also reduces the chance of duplicated work.
This efficiency frees up time in the workday. It helps managers to make workloads more manageable, while creating the time and employee headspace for even more creativity and collaboration.
Knowledge sharing
Imagine a company that fails to share its collective knowledge effectively.
Teams spend their time researching topics that other teams understand in depth. Employees repeat the same mistakes because there’s no one sharing their hard-earned insights. You fail to establish best practices. And employees are in a constant state of catch-up.
Now imagine the opposite. A company where knowledge is shared seamlessly between co-workers, teams, and departments. There’s no gatekeeper and collective knowledge is easy for everyone to access.
The latter scenario makes for a more successful organization. It helps you build a more knowledgeable workforce. And it saves a heap of time — because your people aren’t separately pursuing the same lines of research.
Stronger relationships
Good employee collaboration relies on strong workplace relationships. And it helps to develop them, too.
When teams collaborate, they communicate regularly. They work together towards a shared goal. They also develop trust and mutual respect as they share ideas and rely on each other’s support.
By developing these strong relationships, your organization gets better at collaboration going forward. You create a culture of psychological safety, where people feel comfortable speaking up about their ideas, mistakes, and concerns.
Strong workplace connections also improve the employee experience. With Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 report revealing that 20% of employees experience a lot of loneliness at work, nurturing workplace relationships has never been more important.
Better decision-making
When you make decisions as part of a team, you leverage the knowledge, perspective, and experience of each team member. You involve the people who are directly affected by the decision — and those who are responsible for implementing it.
Making decisions as part of a team means assumptions are challenged and everyone has a sense of buy-in. You make informed and balanced decisions that are more likely to garner company-wide support.
For example, in a recent webinar, we heard from the team at the Capital District Transport Authority (CDTA) in New York. They realized they needed new tech to improve internal communication at the organization.
When deciding on the right tech solution, they took a cross-functional approach. They involved communications, IT, and HR teams, along with leadership. They also consulted the workers who’d be using the new tech.
By collaborating in this way, the CDTA was able to choose a modern intranet that met everyone’s needs and enjoyed excellent levels of adoption.
Enhanced problem-solving
We all know the proverb. “Two heads are better than one.” And when it comes to problem-solving, you’re much more likely to come up with creative and effective solutions when working as part of a team.
Collaboration brings people with different viewpoints together. This diversity helps teams to approach a problem from multiple angles — and come up with a variety of potential solutions.
It also minimizes blind spots. Because there are people with lots of different perspectives involved, it’s less likely that some element of the problem or its solution is overlooked.
Stronger employee development
The practice of collaboration helps to develop employee soft skills, like decision-making, problem-solving, communication, conflict resolution, and creative thinking
When you have a culture of knowledge sharing, co-workers can also learn from one another. They can pick up new skills and information from the people they work with. Employees are organically coached by more experienced members of the team.
This informal learning can take place within teams and across departments. Successful cross-departmental collaboration enables workers to get a better understanding of different areas of the business.
Boosted productivity
As we’ve already seen, good teamwork is linked to:
All of these things support workplace productivity. Employees have access to the resources, skills, knowledge, and relationships that help them perform at their best.
Collaboration also improves accountability. When employees are involved in planning, decision-making, and problem-solving, they’re more motivated to work hard and make a success of the initiative or project.
The role of technology in workplace collaboration
It used to be that collaboration could take place informally in the office.
Co-workers could share ideas as they made coffee in the break room. Or as they walked to the elevator together. There were plenty of face-to-face meetings where people could work together to solve problems and make decisions.
But things have changed. In recent years, technology has played a much bigger role in team working.
Firstly, thanks to the pandemic, remote working became much more widespread. While some organizations are encouraging people back to the office, a sizable proportion of employees still spend part of their working week working remotely.
In the UK, figures for 2024 show that 40% of workers spend at least some time working from home. In the US, 41% of employees whose jobs can be done remotely work a hybrid schedule.
Secondly, employee expectations around workplace tech have increased. With intuitive tech at home making life easier and more convenient, employees now expect the same digital experiences in the workplace. This goes for frontline employees, too.
Frontline employees — working shifts, in isolation, or on a busy shop floor — haven’t always had the same opportunities for teamwork as their desk-based peers. But with organizations now focusing on frontline employee engagement and retention, this is something that employers are looking to rectify.
To involve all employees in workplace collaboration — no matter their location or schedules — we have to be intentional. We also have to use the right technology.
Here are a few tools that support collaboration in the modern, digital workplace.
Real-time communication tools
When teams are working away from the office, real-time communication tools are an employee collaboration essential. You need a way for co-workers to communicate seamlessly, sharing information as if face to face.
We know that many deskless workers conduct conversations on personal apps. But this type of shadow IT poses security risks. It also fails to enhance collaboration and employee engagement as successfully as a dedicated communication tool, run with the oversight of your managers.
So providing employees with messaging and video conferencing tools is a must. You need software that facilitates 1:1, group, and company-wide chat.
Project management software
Projects have lots of moving parts. And — particularly for non-office-based teams — it can be hard to visualize project tasks and progress without project management software.
This type of software acts as a centralized platform for planning and executing projects. It keeps all files, discussions, and tasks in the same place, ensuring nothing gets lost and everyone is aware of their responsibilities.
Project management software is particularly useful for remote and hybrid teams. But it can still come in useful for purely office-based teams.
Streamlined communication, workflow automation features, file organization, task visibility, and real-time updates are useful for teams wherever they may be working.
Employee apps
For employees who don’t spend their day at a desk, an employee app is another vital workplace collaboration tool.
As Ian Gordon of Elara Caring said to us in an interview:
“Being a frontline worker can feel like you're on an island by yourself, and the solutions that you need must be quicker and more succinct. You can't spend a lot of time signing in and navigating. You need to get to your answer now.”
Apps, like Blink, fit Gordon’s description. They’re intuitive to use and available on employee smartphones. They also make it quick and easy for employees to complete tasks, whether that’s sending a message to a co-worker, checking the latest policy documents, or filling in a safety report.
Employee apps support collaboration for time-poor frontline workers. They help them build connections with co-workers, share their frontline insights, and keep up to date with company news, improving the employee experience in the process.
A resource hub
Whether it’s on your company intranet or an employee app, a digital resource hub is another useful tech tool for employee collaboration.
A resource hub allows co-workers to share files and work together on them. It also acts as an internal knowledge base.
Here, employees can find best practices, company policies, and FAQs. If they have the appropriate permissions, they can also add their own insights to the hub, tagging documents so employees can find them easily.
AI and automation
AI and automation tools are also playing a role in employee collaboration. They’re providing time savings that give team members more opportunities for collaboration. And they’re supporting collaboration in other ways, too.
Companies are using this tech to automatically tag resource hub documents so users can find what they’re looking for more easily. AI is producing better resource hub search results.
AI is also supporting employees in their use of data. With automated data analysis and predictive analysis, AI is giving employees a sound basis for their collaborative problem-solving and decision-making efforts.
Some organizations are also using AI to facilitate communication between different departments. For example, technical teams are using it to translate complicated documents for non-technical co-workers.
This is helping to close the communication gap between departments and ensure that everyone has the information they need to collaborate effectively.
In summary
Workplace collaboration has changed dramatically over the past decade. But it’s still a key indicator of business success.
Collaboration supports workplace productivity, communication, and business results. It leads to better problem-solving and decision-making.
It also supports your employee retention and engagement efforts by making your workplace an open and supportive place to be, improving the employee experience.
Face-to-face collaboration is trickier than it used to be. But with the right tech solutions, you can champion collaboration in your organization, no matter where your employees spend their work days.
Blink has everything you need to bring collaboration to your desk-based, remote-working, and frontline employees. Our mobile-first employee app provides:
Real-time communication via 1:1 and group chats, plus the company news feed
A resource hub, where employees can access company documents and forms
Deep integrations with the project management tools you already use
AI support that supports better workplace communication
Tom has been with Realise Training, a leading provider in the apprenticeship, adult learning and vocational training market, since October 2018. Realise supports people to fulfill their potential and help businesses upskill their workforce, and this year around 16,000 learners benefit from apprenticeship and adult education programs through Realise. Most of their training is done onsite, so their tutors are often traveling and working remotely.
Tom is part of the operational support team. There is not a job he doesn’t do — and if there is, he still gives it a go to try and help someone else out. What makes him awesome? EVERYTHING! He literally keeps the business moving from events to transport to decorating, his talents are endless. He even took up modeling some new Realise-branded clothing at one point… We need more Toms in this world!
How has Blink helped in his role?
Blink really aids in communication, from those quick instant messages when you need some last-minute train tickets to Tom being able to notify the business of operational notifications.
What does he want to do next?
I think building our own driving school sounds like something he would like to participate in! All those vehicle insurance documents and building regulations… he'd love it!
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