While staying in a hotel in Belgium, I ate half a cookie with my breakfast and left for a couple of hours to explore the city on foot. It was a large cookie, so I left it in my room thinking that I’d finish it when I get back.
But when I returned, it was gone. I called the front desk and they said housekeeping threw it away because they thought serving me a fresh one would be better. I contacted the kitchen, and found that they were already informed to deliver the cookie as soon as I called.
Do you see the quality of service and convenience I experienced because the front desk, housekeeping, and kitchen staff worked together and kept each other in the loop? And do you think I’d want to stay in that hotel again? Absolutely!
That’s the potential of good teamwork and collaboration. Working as a team, your employees can merge their unique talents and give your company a real competitive advantage. On top of that, cultivating teamwork skills helps you create a happy working environment for yourself and your workers.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what it means to work as a team, the importance of teamwork skills, and the top skills your team should have for effective collaboration.
What are teamwork skills?
Teamwork skills are the traits and abilities that allow you and your employees to work well with one another on a project or task.
If you’ve played a sport in school or joined a club at work, you may already be familiar with what it means to work as a team.
Most educational institutions try to incorporate these skills in students early on, since they lay the groundwork for all your future endeavors, whether professional or personal.
So “teamwork skills” is more like a blanket term encompassing qualities such as proper communication, active listening, and conflict management.
Why work as a team?
Teamwork isn’t just a fancy term to put on your website and posters in the office. It’s an integral part of your culture and business operations. Plus, it has a direct impact on your revenue.
As per a survey by EIU, when workers are not working as a team, the impact on overall revenue is serious. Over 33% of sales lost as a result were valued between $100,000 and $999,999.
No matter your industry or job role, the ability to work alongside others is crucial for you and your workers to contribute positively to the company.
Communication and collaboration among a team are the attributes that unite a group of diverse individuals towards common business objectives. And they make it more likely for organizations to achieve them.
Teamwork skills you need to work as a team
Your ability to work as a team depends on how well you instill and demonstrate the teamwork skills mentioned below. But if a skill doesn’t come naturally to you, worry not. All of these can be improved with the right teamwork development strategies.
Communication
Clear, steady, and efficient communication is critical to consistent teamwork. When team members inform, educate, and inspire one another, amazing things happen; barriers are broken down, knowledge is shared, and productivity skyrockets. Team management tools can be used to maximize productivity while building a strong and trustworthy remote team.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: checking in with team members, asking clarifying questions, articulating your ideas, and sharing information in a timely manner.
Project management
Contrary to what you may think, project management skills are not just crucial for managers and coordinators, but they also benefit other team members.
Knowing the basics of project management, team members can understand and align better with the plans and processes set forth by the leader. Plus, project management best practices help employees feel more assured about the timeline and completion of the projects.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: setting realistic goals, assigning roles and responsibilities, managing project budget, defining tasks, and prioritizing them based on their urgency and importance.
Delegation
Every team member has different strengths and capacity to accommodate the tasks associated with a project. They need to know exactly what their job is, and have a reasonable amount of work on their plate.
So to function effectively, teams need leaders who know how to delegate. You should have the ability to clearly assign tasks to the people who can handle them. Plus, you’ll need to set deadlines that are challenging yet achievable.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: creating guidelines, setting expectations, showing what a successful outcome looks like with example, and scheduling.
Conflict resolution
Conflict is part and parcel of any collaborative project. Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen in your team, whether in the form of a small disagreement or a large debate.
But how you handle such a situation speaks volumes about your aptitude to work as a team. Strong team players keep their cool and look at any conflict as an opportunity for clarification, learning, and growth.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: being open to ideas different than yours, being fair and respectful, listening with the intent to understand, and backing up your ideas with examples and unbiased data.
Active listening
Listening seems like a simple and passive activity, but it isn’t always as easy for some people as speaking and expressing their own ideas.
Real, active listening is much more than just sitting back and letting others talk. It takes effort and focus. It involves giving your 100% attention to the speaker and listening not just for the words, but also the intent and emotions behind them.
Most people don’t really listen. Even when they do, they listen to prepare an instant response in their mind. But good listeners listen to understand first. And then they ask clarifying questions to validate what they understood. This whole process takes the trust and satisfaction of the whole team to another level.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: Giving undivided attention to the person speaking, considering non-verbal cues, making eye contact, and not making unfounded assumptions.
Rapport building
Rapport is the informal connection you have with your team members that makes it easy and comfortable to carry out the formal responsibilities.
Being able to bond and engage in enthusiastic conversations is important for you and your team to realize their full potential. It leads to better communication, planning, and an overall more pleasant working environment.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: showing an interest in your team beyond what they do at work, finding common interests, empathizing with their needs and frustrations, and offering help and support.
Public speaking
How can we talk about working as a team and not talk about public speaking and presentation skills? You’ll frequently need to address your whole team to explain a process or persuade them to adopt a new approach.
It’s often scary for people to present because they expect everything to be smooth and perfect. And they want to look like a fancy orator. But a good presentation is more like a normal, friendly conversation focused on clearly communicating your points. As long as you do that much, your job is done.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: working with MS Powerpoint or other presentation software, designing visual slides, understanding your audience, and telling stories that hook.
Steps to improve how you work as a team
Teamwork skills are mostly soft skills. So improving them is a little more complicated than hard skills, since hard skills usually have a straightforward rulebook. Still, there are steps you can take to boost your teamwork skills significantly.
Learn from strong team players
Whether inside or outside your immediate team, you will always find people who work really well as part of teams. And you can learn a lot by observing them and their ability to collaborate.
See the behaviors and words of people who excel at teamwork and take notes about things that stand out to you. Whenever you see an example of great collaboration, jot it down and try to incorporate the lessons in your own words and actions.
Set specific goals
To truly grow yourself as a team player, you must identify specific areas for improvement and set concrete objectives. Plus, it’ll really help if you put time constraints on your goals.
For example, saying something like, “I’ll start communicating and showing an interest in my team members’.” is not a specific goal. A better alternative is, “I’ll ask each team member if they need any help at least once every week.”
Practice teamwork
Honing your ability to work as a team takes patience and consistent practice. Once you set goals, try to find every opportunity you can to practice the skills you want to improve.
For example, you can start volunteering to your team with small tasks, or be the first one to raise your hand when there’s a chance to work with someone new.
The more you work with a diverse set of professionals, the better you’ll get at collaboration.
Get regular feedback
We often tend to miss the little things that we need to improve the most, while berating ourselves on stuff that no one would notice. When speaking in front of a group, for example, you may be worried that you look nervous. But mostly it’s just in your mind.
The point is, it can be hard to determine what you need to improve on your own. So the best way to get around your blind spots is to ask coworkers for feedback.
Get your mentor, supervisor, or a trusted peer within your team to evaluate your ability to work as a team member. By sharing their honest and unbiased opinion of your strengths and weaknesses, they can help you work on things that really matter. So you’ll know where to channel your time and energy.
Wrapping up: improve the skills you need to work as a team
Great teamwork does not happen by chance. Working as a team requires a lot of work from managers as well as team members.
You need open communication, clear delegation, team building, and other important skills and best practices we’ve shared above. All of them will give you a good starting point to get accustomed to the basics.
Plus, improving your teamwork skills is a journey that never ends. There will always be new things to help your team learn and get inspired. So keep researching and learning from the best businesses out there.
With adequate time and practice, you will eventually build a collaborative workplace that’ll keep you ahead of the curve for years to come. And while you’re at it, also consider using a tool that streamlines ongoing communication and collaboration at your company, such as Blink. Book a free Blink demo today.
While staying in a hotel in Belgium, I ate half a cookie with my breakfast and left for a couple of hours to explore the city on foot. It was a large cookie, so I left it in my room thinking that I’d finish it when I get back.
But when I returned, it was gone. I called the front desk and they said housekeeping threw it away because they thought serving me a fresh one would be better. I contacted the kitchen, and found that they were already informed to deliver the cookie as soon as I called.
Do you see the quality of service and convenience I experienced because the front desk, housekeeping, and kitchen staff worked together and kept each other in the loop? And do you think I’d want to stay in that hotel again? Absolutely!
That’s the potential of good teamwork and collaboration. Working as a team, your employees can merge their unique talents and give your company a real competitive advantage. On top of that, cultivating teamwork skills helps you create a happy working environment for yourself and your workers.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what it means to work as a team, the importance of teamwork skills, and the top skills your team should have for effective collaboration.
What are teamwork skills?
Teamwork skills are the traits and abilities that allow you and your employees to work well with one another on a project or task.
If you’ve played a sport in school or joined a club at work, you may already be familiar with what it means to work as a team.
Most educational institutions try to incorporate these skills in students early on, since they lay the groundwork for all your future endeavors, whether professional or personal.
So “teamwork skills” is more like a blanket term encompassing qualities such as proper communication, active listening, and conflict management.
Why work as a team?
Teamwork isn’t just a fancy term to put on your website and posters in the office. It’s an integral part of your culture and business operations. Plus, it has a direct impact on your revenue.
As per a survey by EIU, when workers are not working as a team, the impact on overall revenue is serious. Over 33% of sales lost as a result were valued between $100,000 and $999,999.
No matter your industry or job role, the ability to work alongside others is crucial for you and your workers to contribute positively to the company.
Communication and collaboration among a team are the attributes that unite a group of diverse individuals towards common business objectives. And they make it more likely for organizations to achieve them.
Teamwork skills you need to work as a team
Your ability to work as a team depends on how well you instill and demonstrate the teamwork skills mentioned below. But if a skill doesn’t come naturally to you, worry not. All of these can be improved with the right teamwork development strategies.
Communication
Clear, steady, and efficient communication is critical to consistent teamwork. When team members inform, educate, and inspire one another, amazing things happen; barriers are broken down, knowledge is shared, and productivity skyrockets. Team management tools can be used to maximize productivity while building a strong and trustworthy remote team.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: checking in with team members, asking clarifying questions, articulating your ideas, and sharing information in a timely manner.
Project management
Contrary to what you may think, project management skills are not just crucial for managers and coordinators, but they also benefit other team members.
Knowing the basics of project management, team members can understand and align better with the plans and processes set forth by the leader. Plus, project management best practices help employees feel more assured about the timeline and completion of the projects.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: setting realistic goals, assigning roles and responsibilities, managing project budget, defining tasks, and prioritizing them based on their urgency and importance.
Delegation
Every team member has different strengths and capacity to accommodate the tasks associated with a project. They need to know exactly what their job is, and have a reasonable amount of work on their plate.
So to function effectively, teams need leaders who know how to delegate. You should have the ability to clearly assign tasks to the people who can handle them. Plus, you’ll need to set deadlines that are challenging yet achievable.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: creating guidelines, setting expectations, showing what a successful outcome looks like with example, and scheduling.
Conflict resolution
Conflict is part and parcel of any collaborative project. Sooner or later, it’s bound to happen in your team, whether in the form of a small disagreement or a large debate.
But how you handle such a situation speaks volumes about your aptitude to work as a team. Strong team players keep their cool and look at any conflict as an opportunity for clarification, learning, and growth.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: being open to ideas different than yours, being fair and respectful, listening with the intent to understand, and backing up your ideas with examples and unbiased data.
Active listening
Listening seems like a simple and passive activity, but it isn’t always as easy for some people as speaking and expressing their own ideas.
Real, active listening is much more than just sitting back and letting others talk. It takes effort and focus. It involves giving your 100% attention to the speaker and listening not just for the words, but also the intent and emotions behind them.
Most people don’t really listen. Even when they do, they listen to prepare an instant response in their mind. But good listeners listen to understand first. And then they ask clarifying questions to validate what they understood. This whole process takes the trust and satisfaction of the whole team to another level.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: Giving undivided attention to the person speaking, considering non-verbal cues, making eye contact, and not making unfounded assumptions.
Rapport building
Rapport is the informal connection you have with your team members that makes it easy and comfortable to carry out the formal responsibilities.
Being able to bond and engage in enthusiastic conversations is important for you and your team to realize their full potential. It leads to better communication, planning, and an overall more pleasant working environment.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: showing an interest in your team beyond what they do at work, finding common interests, empathizing with their needs and frustrations, and offering help and support.
Public speaking
How can we talk about working as a team and not talk about public speaking and presentation skills? You’ll frequently need to address your whole team to explain a process or persuade them to adopt a new approach.
It’s often scary for people to present because they expect everything to be smooth and perfect. And they want to look like a fancy orator. But a good presentation is more like a normal, friendly conversation focused on clearly communicating your points. As long as you do that much, your job is done.
Actions that demonstrate this skill include: working with MS Powerpoint or other presentation software, designing visual slides, understanding your audience, and telling stories that hook.
Steps to improve how you work as a team
Teamwork skills are mostly soft skills. So improving them is a little more complicated than hard skills, since hard skills usually have a straightforward rulebook. Still, there are steps you can take to boost your teamwork skills significantly.
Learn from strong team players
Whether inside or outside your immediate team, you will always find people who work really well as part of teams. And you can learn a lot by observing them and their ability to collaborate.
See the behaviors and words of people who excel at teamwork and take notes about things that stand out to you. Whenever you see an example of great collaboration, jot it down and try to incorporate the lessons in your own words and actions.
Set specific goals
To truly grow yourself as a team player, you must identify specific areas for improvement and set concrete objectives. Plus, it’ll really help if you put time constraints on your goals.
For example, saying something like, “I’ll start communicating and showing an interest in my team members’.” is not a specific goal. A better alternative is, “I’ll ask each team member if they need any help at least once every week.”
Practice teamwork
Honing your ability to work as a team takes patience and consistent practice. Once you set goals, try to find every opportunity you can to practice the skills you want to improve.
For example, you can start volunteering to your team with small tasks, or be the first one to raise your hand when there’s a chance to work with someone new.
The more you work with a diverse set of professionals, the better you’ll get at collaboration.
Get regular feedback
We often tend to miss the little things that we need to improve the most, while berating ourselves on stuff that no one would notice. When speaking in front of a group, for example, you may be worried that you look nervous. But mostly it’s just in your mind.
The point is, it can be hard to determine what you need to improve on your own. So the best way to get around your blind spots is to ask coworkers for feedback.
Get your mentor, supervisor, or a trusted peer within your team to evaluate your ability to work as a team member. By sharing their honest and unbiased opinion of your strengths and weaknesses, they can help you work on things that really matter. So you’ll know where to channel your time and energy.
Wrapping up: improve the skills you need to work as a team
Great teamwork does not happen by chance. Working as a team requires a lot of work from managers as well as team members.
You need open communication, clear delegation, team building, and other important skills and best practices we’ve shared above. All of them will give you a good starting point to get accustomed to the basics.
Plus, improving your teamwork skills is a journey that never ends. There will always be new things to help your team learn and get inspired. So keep researching and learning from the best businesses out there.
With adequate time and practice, you will eventually build a collaborative workplace that’ll keep you ahead of the curve for years to come. And while you’re at it, also consider using a tool that streamlines ongoing communication and collaboration at your company, such as Blink. Book a free Blink demo today.
Unfortunately for C-suite execs at frontline organizations, unless decisive action is taken quickly, things will only get worse.
While the problem of frontline turnover has many contributing factors, from salary competition to changing workforce demographics, one important part of the solution remains constant: employee engagement.
And here lies the problem: most of the time, it doesn’t work.
“If you build it...they won’t actually come”
Frontline businesses have invested in engagement solutions and projects before, but regardless of the type of organization, these are generally met with tepid responses.
The list of fallen soldiers here is considerable: town halls, employee surveys, intranets, ERGs. And often, the response sounds something like this:
“Great, another thing to remember”
“It’s not a natural part of my day”
“It’s a one-off thing”
“It’s too hard to use”
Hours of time from leadership, People teams, Internal Comms functions and supervisors go into projects that rarely succeed in their mission. This is like the birthday party where the decorations are up, the cake is ready and the music’s on – but nobody’s showed up.
The result? Frontline workers aren’t sustainably engaged, the cycle of attrition continues and there’s little meaningful data in order to understand exactly what to do to fix it.
The solution: chips and dips
Turning this around warrants changing the way we think about employee engagement. For most businesses, employee engagement is a thing that we ‘do’ - it’s a project, an initiative, even a tool or an app. But this is where we’re going wrong.
The solution lies in approaching frontline engagement as something that we ‘earn’ - it’s an outcome, not an output.
To illustrate this, let’s return to our party. Anyone who’s ever been to a house party will be able to tell you exactly where most people end up: the kitchen. And why are they in the kitchen? Because that’s where the drinks, the mixers, the snacks and the ice is. There’s useful stuff there, and so they gravitate there, and the good times start rolling.
So to return to frontline engagement: put out the ‘chips and dips’. In other words, focus on providing frontline workers with services and tools that not only fit into their busy days, but make them better – and use that space to invite engagement.
How it works: chips, dips and paystubs
Blink is a new type of frontline engagement app that the average worker opens ten times per day! Blink brings the processes that frontline workers and their managers need all into one place – from payslips to scheduling and critical documents, all with one login. This is our ‘chips and dip’.
For leaders and managers looking for engagement, this is the time to swoop. The whole of the frontline’s eyeballs are on the app, which means that surveys get seen, important messages from the CEO and HQ are read, and the work being done to improve the working day gets cut-through.
If a once-yearly employee engagement survey is the equivalent of putting out samples at Costco in the hope that a nameless stranger will take a drive-by snack, this is the equivalent of the work cafeteria – the place where the whole companies gathers, day after day.
How to be a good frontline host: Elara Caring’s story
Elara Caring – one of the largest US-based providers of personal care, home health and hospice care – had a frontline engagement problem when we first met them last year. With a 62% turnover rate of their more than 32,000 personal care attendants (PCAs), the leadership team needed sustainable engagement badly.
In adopting Blink, Elara looked to empower its PCAs and make their lives easier – and get engagement and loyalty in return.
They used Blink to remove the burden of paper-based admin: Elara’s PCAs had to constantly fill out expenses and other forms on paper. Blink’s solution was to integrate these manual processes and systems into a single app. Payslips, expenses and mileage reporting, key information from Sharepoint, schedules and rotas were all suddenly available to Elara’s PCAs at their fingertips.
The benefits for Elara’s PCAs? Time savings, with more attention devoted to their “real jobs” than ever before.
The benefits for Elara Caring? Sustainable engagement, with 95% of employees saying that they now feel more connected to the company. PCAs have begun to use Blink to create a community – and sub-communities – within the organization, creating the connection and cohesion that makes them stay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINw_Y7CjWQ
In conclusion: good parties don’t skimp on the guac
In a war for a diminishing talent pool, the need to directly address frontline engagement has never been more acute. But it’s also shown where there are failings in trying to get engagement from the activities and programs that work for desk-based, white-collar workers. The key to success for the frontline is to not only fit into frontline life, but to make frontline life better and easier – and use that digital space you’ve created to finally connect your people.
Frontline employee engagement is no easy task. Your frontline employees work varying shift patterns and spend limited time at head office. They don’t tend to get much downtime during their working hours. And they aren’t always kept in the loop when it comes to company comms.
These obstacles get in the way when you’re trying to connect frontline workers to company culture — and each other. And it’s why standard team-building activities usually fall short.
To make a success of your employee engagement strategy, you have to tailor activities to your deskless workforce. Otherwise, you risk disengagement, plus the productivity and retention issues that go with it.
That’s why we’ve created this list of 18 employee engagement activities. These ideas are suited to busy frontline workers and their schedules. They’re designed to boost engagement and offer meaningful benefits to your employees.
This can lead to lower levels of productivity. It can also cause increased staff turnover rates, which already tend to be pretty high in frontline organizations.
Employee engagement activities, like the ones we’ve included below, help frontline employees feel more connected to their company, role, and co-workers.
And, according to Gallup, improving your employee engagement rates can lead to a range of business benefits. Besides increased productivity and employee retention, these benefits include:
A reduction in safety incidents
A decrease in absenteeism
An increase in customer loyalty
An increase in profitability
Employee engagement is good for employees — and it’s good for business. So let’s take a look at the activities that will help make it happen.
18 employee engagement activities (that work for a frontline workforce)
To engage your frontline workforce, you can incorporate any of the following employee engagement activities into your work days:
1. Engage with employees from day one
2. Celebrate employee milestones and contributions
3. Incentivize goals
4. Create a mentorship program
5. Offer perks that boost employee wellbeing
6. Give regular feedback
7. Encourage group chat
8. Provide shift swap tools
9. Plan a money management month
10. Launch a poll
11. Create online communities
12. Offer professional development opportunities
13. Launch a competition
14. Use video tools
15. Organize a volunteering day
16. Hand the mic to your leaders
17. Run Lunch and Learn sessions
18. Measure employee engagement
Team engagement ideas for frontline workers are different than for other workers. With their variable schedules, you can’t arrange lunch dates or after-work get-togethers.
Here are a few employee engagement initiatives your frontline workers can benefit from.
You can start with employee engagement activities like:
Introducing new co-workers (digitally if it’s not possible to introduce everyone in person)
Supporting new hires to login and familiarize themselves with your engagement tech tools
Sharing a library of online resources that explain the company, their role, and company culture
Assigning them a buddy or mentor
New hires need regular guidance, especially from managers. So don’t assume your workers are done onboarding after a few days or weeks. Instead, design a process that lasts for at least 90 days.
2. Celebrate employee milestones and contributions
Employee recognition improves engagement. Everyone likes to feel appreciated and valued by their employer.
So make recognition a regular feature on your company intranet or newsletter. Celebrate birthdays, volunteer work, and project milestones. Recognize the hard work and successes of employees.
You can also encourage peer-to-peer recognition. 75% of employees say that giving recognition makes them want to stay at their current organization longer.
Get co-workers to nominate each other for awards, then hold an award ceremony. Or simply get them to appreciate each other by sending a message on the company news feed.
3. Incentivize goals
Gamify the work environment by offering rewards in return for meeting goals. When employees perform well and meet targets, give them a gift you know they’ll like. Company rewards can include gift cards, discounts, cash prizes, an extra day of paid vacation, or the option to give a charitable donation.
But don’t dive right in. Before you announce your reward program, it’s a good idea to survey employees. Ask them which rewards they’d prefer so you can be sure that workers will be motivated by the prizes on offer.
4. Create a mentorship program
Do you want your employees to engage with each other, learn valuable skills, and help each other at the same time? Try rolling out a mentorship program.
Assign frontline workers a mentor within your organization. You can pair people from different departments and different levels of the company.
Then, set a regular schedule of mentor meet-ups. Mentors and mentees might like to conduct meetings online to better suit their work schedules.
Also, offer guidance on how constructive meetings should be run. The aim is for mentees to set workplace goals and come up with a plan for achieving them.
5. Offer perks that boost employee wellbeing
A healthy worker is a productive worker. So encourage fun runs, offer free healthy snacks, and provide discount gym memberships.
Also, try to provide flexible scheduling when possible to give employees a better work-life balance. You’ll reduce employee stress and their risk of burnout.
To ensure frontline employees can access wellbeing activities, you can use a wellbeing app. Via this type of tool, you can provide employee engagement activities. Things like mindfulness and meditation sessions, nutrition planning, and health tracking, all via an employee’s mobile device.
6. Give regular feedback
Gallup research shows that 80% of employees who say they’ve received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged in their work.
So schedule activities where employees receive regular feedback from managers. Make it constructive and useful for employees, so it’s not an appointment they dread.
Also, take a few hours each week to run an online open-door session. This is a time when employees can meet with managers digitally to ask questions and express any concerns.
7. Use the company news feed
A user-friendly employee app with a company news feed acts as a virtual water cooler. It’s a place where frontline workers, who may spend little time with co-workers, get to build stronger workplace relationships.
The comms team can support engagement by using the news feed to share a mix of essential and informal posts. They can announce news, celebrate birthdays, and share tips — encouraging workers to comment, like, and post.
Also, consider these engagement-boosting ideas:
A weekly challenge — a photo contest, a trivia quiz, or a step-count competition
Employee spotlight — highlight a different employee each week, describing their achievements, personal stories, and contributions
A survey — whether the topic is something fun or something more serious, surveys are a great way to engage your workforce
Health and wellness tips — share tips and articles related to physical and mental health, all suited to the demands of frontline roles
8. Provide shift swap tools
Frontline employees want greater levels of flexibility. It’s not always easy for frontline organizations to provide this when there are fixed shifts to fill.
But with shift swap tools, you make it easy for workers to achieve a little more work-life balance. They can swap shifts with co-workers without HR or managers having to get involved.
You can provide other self-serve tools, too. For example, via the Blink interface, employees can access their pay stubs, request time off, and view their shift schedules.
Automating HR tasks like this gives more control to your frontline workers and lightens the load for your HR team.
9. Plan a money management month
Money worries can affect an employee’s wellbeing and their engagement with work. And employee engagement activities are most effective when they provide real value for your workers.
So plan a money management month to help employees make informed financial decisions. Use quizzes and polls to engage employees in the conversation. Challenge employees to a low or no spend day. Provide money advice over 1:1 chats or via your company resource center.
This is exactly what they’ve done at supermarket chain, Tesco, where they recognized the strain that the cost of living crisis has put on employees. In response, they introduced a range of new initiatives:
Skills training activities so employees develop store-wide skills and can pick up extra shifts
A Pay Advance scheme that allows workers to access earned pay ahead of payday
Personalized videos explaining to every worker how much their pension will be worth
10. Launch a poll
Polls give employees a chance to share their ideas and opinions. It’s a way to make their voices heard.
You can launch polls online, with the help of a tool like Blink Surveys. This allows you to quickly and easily find out what frontline employees are thinking about your chosen topic.
You might like to ask questions related to internal communications, company change, employee engagement, or simply the layout of the break room. Using this insight, you can make changes that make a real difference to your employees.
Just be sure to keep them updated with poll findings and your plan of action so they know that you’re really listening to what they have to say.
11. Create online communities
It’s easier to build connections with co-workers when you have something in common with one another. Online communities — based around shared interests — make it easy for frontline workers to find like-minded work friends.
So create space on your intranet for these types of communities. Perhaps you have a group that loves to run in their spare time. A gaggle of gamers. Or a bunch of bookworms. An online community helps bring these co-workers together.
12. Offer professional development opportunities
Training is a great way to improve workplace engagement. 71% of frontline workers have a strong desire for more learning opportunities at work. But a third of workers say that employers don’t invest enough in their growth.
Try to make training more accessible to your frontline workforce. Remember that it doesn’t have to take place in a classroom. You can put training resources into the palm of frontline workers’ hands with the help of the right technology.
You can offer micro-learning modules that workers can complete on mobile devices during a break. And provide fun online courses, with competitive and gamified features.
Also, remember that a lot of worker engagement can be tracked back to your managers. So ensure that managers get the employee engagement training they need, too.
13. Launch a competition
Pit teams of employees against each other with a fun company-wide competition. For an engagement boost, link your competition to company goals and values.
For example, if you’re championing employee wellbeing, set workers a steps or fitness challenge.
If you’re focused on employee development, encourage workers to complete training modules by setting them a training challenge.
To highlight your commitment to a chosen charity, set a fundraising contest.
Alternatively, improve engagement on the company app with a quick photo caption competition.
Pick challenges that can be completed remotely, without teams having to meet up in person. Also, plan rewards for the winners and give regular updates via your comms channels to keep competitors engaged.
14. Use video tools
When you can’t meet face to face, video is the next best thing. You can film leadership updates, company events, and new product demos to give employees more insight into the organization and their roles.
Videos are a great option for town hall meetings. Post the video on your employee news feed and employees who can’t attend in person can watch the video back later.
Similarly, get new hires to film a video to introduce themselves and post it to the news feed. Their co-workers can comment on the post to say hello and help their new co-worker feel more at home.
15. Organize a volunteering day
Offering employees opportunities to volunteer is good for their wellbeing and engagement levels. You can make this activity more appealing to frontline workers by giving them paid time off to volunteer and by giving them flexibility over the days they choose.
Salesforce leads the way on this. They give employees seven business days every year to volunteer for one of the non-profit organizations that Salesforce formally supports — or one of their own choosing.
Jamie Olsen, senior director of Citizen Philanthropy at Salesforce says:
“These are the types of programs that people want and that are attracting them to companies right now. They better the community. They improve people’s happiness.”
You can ensure everyone is on the same page by conducting a virtual Q&A session with one of your leadership team.
This type of event gives employees direct access to leadership. It bridges the gap between the frontline and head office. It also helps employees make their voices heard, which makes them feel valued and motivated.
The prospect of a Q&A can be a little daunting for leaders. But remember, a moderator can facilitate the session, reading out pre-submitted questions and managing live questions.
Also bear in mind that there are huge benefits to be gained. These include frontline insights, improved communication, and a stronger workplace culture.
17. Run lunch and learn sessions
When employees have all the information they need to do their jobs well, they feel more engaged. So give employees access to an online library of resources, transferring any old paper documents to a digital format.
With this library, you can then run virtual Lunch and Learn sessions. This is where a group of employees watches or reads a selected resource. Afterwards, they discuss their reflections either over video call or via group messaging.
18. Measure employee engagement
The last on our list of employee engagement activities is one for your people team, not your frontline employees. And it’s a really important part of any employee engagement strategy.
Find out how you’re doing by tracking employee engagement KPIs. Track your employee net promoter score (eNPS), engagement with your intranet platform, or employee survey results.
You can then set goals and — by drilling down into the data provided by your platform analytics — find actionable areas for improvement.
Final thoughts: employee engagement activities and ideas
To make a success of frontline employee engagement, you need to:
Provide employee engagement activities that offer real benefits for frontline employees
Make these activities accessible to the frontline with the help of flexible, digital solutions
You then create a culture that employees can play an active part in, no matter their schedule or location. You also motivate frontline workers to engage with company culture out of choice, making time for it in their busy days.
Incorporating the activities above into your frontline workplace is much easier when you have the right technology. And an employee engagement app comes in very useful. It’s a way to put all content and communication into the palm of every employee.
By creating online spaces where employees can gather, chat, share knowledge, and connect with company culture, you extend employee engagement to your hardest-to-reach employees — those on the frontline.
Digital inclusion is the ability of individuals and communities to access, understand, and use technology in a safe and meaningful way. More often, we hear of digital inclusion and digital equity as social concepts — do citizens have equal access to health tech solutions, for example, and do they have access to the internet in order to participate in society?
But frontline digital inclusion and digital equity for employees are just as important.
Frontline digital inclusion is essential in order to bridge the connection gap between the frontline workforce and the rest of an organization.
By understanding frontline digital inclusion better, we can helpcreate a more equitable global workforce where everyone has access to the tools, resources, and people they need to succeed. In doing so, we encourage increased employee engagement, and unlock productivity and performance for the business, so everybody benefits.
What is digital inclusion?
Before we get into the specifics of frontline digital inclusion, let’s start with some definitions.
Digital inclusion is an important concept in the modern world as access to technology and digital services play an increasingly critical role in people’s lives. It refers to the ability of individuals and communities to access, understand, and use technology in order to take part in society, regardless of their social or economic backgrounds.
On a larger scale, digital inclusion projects serve to create equity where it isn’t already: between those who have access to digital resources and those that don’t. Frontline digital inclusion is one example of this concept in action, as it refers to providing equal opportunities for frontline workforce members to use technology in their daily activities.
Digital inclusion comprises three key areas:
Accessibility
Digital skills
Connectivity
Accessibility
Digital accessibility refers to the ability of all individuals to access digital content, tools, and services, including those with disabilities, sensory impairments, or neurodiversities.
On a global scale, improving digital access involves a wide range of considerations, such as providing alternative formats of content (such as audio or braille versions), designing websites and applications to be inclusive, and ensuring that digital services can be accessed in different languages or formats.
Digital skills refer to a range of abilities needed to use digital tools, devices, and communications applications effectively. Understanding their purpose and how they can be used to benefit the user also falls under this definition.
Digital education and training initiatives are important for helping people to develop the skills they need to be digitally included. Digital skills are an essential part of being digitally literate in today’s world, allowing individuals to take advantage of all that technology has to offer.
Connectivity
Digital connectivity refers to the ability of individuals to connect to the internet and online services, as well as the infrastructure and internet connection that supports this.
Enabling digital connectivity involved providing internet access in areas where there is none, or setting up public Wi-Fi networks in remote locations. This is particularly crucial in developing countries, where access to the internet can be a huge advantage.
What would digital inclusion look like for the frontline?
Frontline digital inclusion includes everything from having access to devices and software, understanding how they work and how to use them properly, and being able to take advantage of the same digital services as those in higher positions or working at HQ.
Accessibility
Workers should have access to the digital tools needed for their roles, whether their job is desk-based or not. When frontline employees have digital equity, they are able to better perform their daily work tasks using relevant software and mobile-optimized platforms.
Language is particularly important to consider here. Frontline environments like healthcare are becoming more divergent and employees are speaking a broader range of languages between themselves and with their patients. Any technology provided to them has to be easily translated to avoid crucial messages being missed.
Digital skills
Digital skills can be thought of in two ways when it comes to frontline digital inclusion.
One: is the tool intuitive for the frontline or has it been designed with desk-based workflows in mind?
And two: are frontline employees being offered relevant training, onboarding, and support for the digital tools provided?
You might need to create additional resources for improving digital skills, such as tutorials, videos, and webinars. You can also direct them to key employee engagement champions who can empower them to use their new tech effectively.
Connectivity
Connecting your organization from the C-Suite to the frontline brings about a huge wealth of benefits, from ‘soft’ benefits like belonging and inclusion, to ‘hard’ benefits like the effective flow of information and a faster time to response.
Mobile-first digital technologies — like accessible and engaging frontline employee apps — help ensure your teams stay connected in-field and are able to access everything they need.
The digital divide: understanding frontline digital exclusion
By now, you’re hopefully as sold on the idea of frontline digital inclusion as we are. It’s not only an ethical imperative, but a business one too.
So what’s currently stopping digital equity on the frontline? Why are so many frontline workers experiencing digital exclusion?
Frontline teams typically lack access to the digital resources needed to perform their roles. They may also be offered existing tools and services that fail to meet their needs. Digital inclusion barriers may come from a lack of familiarity or understanding of how to use the tools, a lack of technological infrastructure, or simply limited access to devices and software while working in the field.
To put the problem into numbers:
34% of frontline healthcare employees can’t easily access workplace systems on their mobile devices
Nearly 20% of frontline healthcare employees aren’t using their company intranet
… and two-thirds of that 20% don’t know how to
With a digital divide like this, it's no surprise that frontline organizations are seeing a drop in the usage of and engagement with their digital channels (more on this below).
In short: we have to combat digital exclusion in order to deliver digital inclusion. And at work, that starts with the frontline.
Frontline digital exclusion in action
Digital exclusion wastes time and money. It can also be a serious contributing factor to employee disengagement.
At home health provider Elara Caring, employees were choosing to drive up to an hour each way to collect their paystubs in person as it was too difficult to access this information online
For the same employees, a lack of communication between head office and the teams in the field left them feeling unsupported and disconnected
Transport provider Stagecoach hired a full-time role just to manage platform password reset requests from frontline employees
We know that bridging this digital divide adds value.
Organizations with the highest degrees of digital connectivity and empowerment are able to grow in ways that other businesses can’t. Here’s why…
Why is digital inclusion important for frontline teams?
How digital exclusion impacts frontline engagement
Feelings of exclusion negatively impact employee engagement and therefore care and commitment
It becomes difficult to understand frontline employee engagement. Paper-based employee engagement surveys go unanswered and unanalyzed — and if you can’t understand engagement, you can’t improve it either
How digital exclusion impacts frontline performance
Employees will naturally drift away from your business objectives and mission statement when kept at a digital distance
Frontline staff become less invested in their day-to-day activities and more burnt out, negatively impacting performance.
How digital exclusion impacts frontline profitability
Operations can easily become chaotic and ineffective without an efficient flow of information between co-workers and departments
Higher costs as recruitment and retention come under threat; the ‘leaky bucket’ of labor supply means that significant funds are deployed to the finding and training of a replacement workforce who might not stick around for long anyway
Fresh challenges arise around recruiting and retaining new employees as the business loses its reputation as a good place to work
Disengaged organizations see 23% lower profitability than highly engaged ones, and the longer employees remain in a disengaged state, the harder it is to turn around
How digital exclusion impacts frontline retention
Digital exclusion can result in rising frustrations, poor employee morale, and low satisfaction due to the lack of adequate tools and resources available
As 52% of frontline workers claimed they would leave their job over tech tools, it’s clear that these frustrations can have an impact on your employee turnover rate, too
The average annual employee turnover rate is estimated at 18%, yet some frontline industries and organizations are experiencing much higher turnover levels. US frontline retail employees, for example, have a historic turnover rate of over 60%
Three actionable tips to drive your frontline digital inclusion efforts
Now for the how: here are three actionable tips to consider when driving digital inclusion for your frontline employees.
1. Understand who’s responsible
First and foremost, you must understand who is responsible for driving digital inclusion in your organization. While traditionally this has been the job of the CIO or CTO, it's clear that others in the C-Suite such as Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) can have a major role to play.
“Given how technology has infiltrated the entire C-suite, it’s clear that while CTOs and CIOs are still in charge of which technologies to purchase and deploy, their collaboration across departments is expanding. They need input from the entire executive team to ensure their investments match and support the overarching goals of the business and leverage collaboration to have the greatest impact.”
Analysis by Deloitte (pictured below) also explores the role of the C-Suite in managing the hyper-connected workplace. Touching on how CHROs, CIOs, CROs, COOs, and individuals can adjust to the changing world of hyper-connected work, this analysis provides an excellent starting point for organizations to better understand the roles and responsibilities of each C-Suite member.
However, important to remember that true employee techquity requires buy-in and team effort from not just the entire exec team, but also heads of HR/People, Internal Comms, and that all-important first-line manager. In fact, it's crucial to leverage the first-line frontline manager if you are going to succeed with frontline digital inclusion.
A CEO might only spend 6% of their work hours with the frontline, despite these staff members representing up to 80% of their business. Conversely, frontline managers spend the most time with the frontline, yet are often overlooked and undervalued. With first-line knowledge, your inclusion efforts will be much more effective.
With all this in mind, placing responsibility for frontline digital inclusion squarely on the C-Suite is too limiting. It’s important to have a comprehensive strategy in place with clear roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders.
A digital inclusion strategy for the frontline should include a comprehensive assessment of existing technology access and resources available to frontline employees. This assessment should cover areas such as:
Device availability (i.e., laptops, tablets, and smartphones)
Internet connection speeds and access to data on your work sites
Availability of learning and training materials
Access to technical support
Any other resources necessary to ensure successful digital integration
Once a comprehensive assessment of existing resources has been completed, your frontline digital inclusion strategy can be created and regularly updated:
This strategy should include objectives, goals, action plans, and resource requirements necessary to achieve the desired outcomes. Improved employee engagement, enhanced customer service capabilities, and increased productivity are all in reach
Regular reviews and updates of the strategy are key to its success. Employee engagement KPIs and frontline analytics should be established in order to track progress made against the strategy
Finally, a successful digital inclusion strategy should include continuing education and training initiatives for frontline staff. These initiatives should focus on upskilling employees in areas such as data security protocols and best practices for the platform you choose.
Check out the digital inclusion checklist at the end of our guide for more strategic guidance.
3. Enable, engage, and understand your frontline
Achieving frontline digital inclusion requires enabling, engaging, and understanding your employees.
By combining the three, you can create an effective frontline digital inclusion strategy that puts your employees on the path to success.
Enable
Enabling your frontline with the right technology goes beyond simply providing them with a device and internet connection. It’s about equipping them with tools to succeed in a digitally-connected workplace.
For deskless workers, this might include:
Content Hub: A central hub that's accessible on the go, storing critical policies, procedures, schedules, and guides in one place
Digital Forms: Creating and distributing mobile-first digital forms, gathering data, and automating key processes. No hassle. No paper. No IT support tickets
Single Sign-On: Access to all applications from one single app, without the hassle of remembering usernames and passwords
Integrations: Integrate your existing tools and apps into new employee tech for intuitive and streamlined use
Engage
To receive engagement from your frontline, you have to earn it. This means providing digital tools that encourage engagement, as well as recognizing and rewarding input.
For example:
News Feed: Bring the whole company together with a News Feed that's fun, familiar, and easy to use — you might just reduce time spent on non-core tasks by up to 90%
Secure Chats: Create an intuitive, seamless communications experience for everyone with secure, mobile-first chats
Recognition: Provide instant, personalized recognition for every employee, directly to the palm of their hand
Understand
To truly understand the digital experience of your frontline staff, you have to take the time to get to know them. This means listening, empowering their voice, and understanding how their experience affects their job performance.
Analytics: Utilize powerful analytics for insight into the people and relationships that make your organization tick
Surveys: Ditch paper surveys, build trust with your frontline, and get more data with short, regular Pulse surveys designed for higher engagement
Your frontline digital inclusion checklist
Digital inclusion is an important factor in the success of any organization. To measure the success of a digital inclusion strategy, there are certain key points that should be checked:
Start with user experience: Understand the experience of your frontline staff by listening to and empowering their voice, and understanding how their experience affects job performance
Offer digital support: Make sure all employees have access to online services, regardless of their digital literacy
Utilize powerful analytics: Leverage analytics for insight into the people and relationships that make up your organization
Take surveys and measure engagement: Replace laborious paper surveys with short, regular, mobile-friendly Pulse surveys to gain more data and build trust with employees
Provide tailored digital tools: Choose tools that are tailored to the needs of your deskless employees, and ensure a seamless user experience
Offer recognition: Show appreciation for employee performance with rewards, badges, shout-outs, and leaderboards
Invest in collaboration: Connect employees with one-on-one conversations, secure chats, and team communication tools to foster a culture of collaboration
By following this checklist and leveraging the right digital solutions for your organization, you can make sure that no one is left behind as you strive for greater digital inclusion. With Blink, this is made easier than ever.
Blink. And you bridge the digital divide
Frontline digital inclusion is an important and essential program — and it’s not as complex as it sounds.
By understanding the unique experience of deskless workers, providing access to digital tools tailored to their needs, and listening to and recognizing employee feedback, organizations can ensure that no one is left behind in the digital world.
But remember: not all digital services are created equal. At Blink, we believe in providing a seamless, intuitive user experience for the frontline, which is why ourfrontline employee app was built with deskless employees in mind.
With features including Secure Chats to News Feeds, Pulse Surveys, and Recognition tools, our employee-first solutions empower organizations to make their frontline staff feel connected and engaged throughout their journey.
Let us help you drive digital inclusion within your organization – get started with Blink today.
In 2020, digital transformation in the manufacturing industry was valued at $263.9 billion USD. This figure is anticipated to reach $767.8 billion USD by 2026. As business leaders in manufacturing, you probably already know all about how DX on your production line can improve your machinery, drive your production rates and refine your overall output.
But what about your day-to-day, run-the-biz systems? How can digital transformation in manufacturing also benefit your wider company operations and employee performance? How can you utilize DX in manufacturing to craft a more meaningful and engaging employee experience, and what other bonuses may you discover along the way?
At Blink, we know a thing or two about transforming the employee experience through the right digital tools and technologies. So with this guide, we are providing you with a comprehensive introduction to the key benefits of digital transformation in manufacturing and why it's essential for your organization right now, with a core focus on the digital employee experience and how you can transform it in your business.
What is digital transformation (DX) in manufacturing?
Digital transformation (DX) in manufacturing is the process of implementing new digital technologies to improve and refine processes in a manufacturing organization. This typically involves a range of procedures, from improving communication and collaboration to adopting new manufacturing methods, or automating tasks.
A digital transformation strategy works to improve the overall efficiency, productivity and profitability of a manufacturing organization by integrating new digital technologies – such as employee engagement tools, Industry 4.0, big data analytics, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) – into company processes.
And while we all know that production machinery and tech makes up a huge part of your company processes, it’s important to see the wider picture, too. DX can actually have a significant impact on the behind the scenes operations of your business, including how you communicate and engage with employees, distribute knowledge and connect teams, recruit new talent, and even support the wider community.
By undergoing DX in all areas of your business and integrating stronger digital employee experience strategies for your workforce, you can in fact unlock a range of surprising benefits for your organization.
Main goals of manufacturing digital transformation
"It's not possible to pick just a short list of technologies and declare them to be the next big thing. Any innovation project is always a combination of different technologies and thoroughly designed processes aiming to achieve business goals."
Max Ivannikov
But what are some of the main goals that manufacturers are focusing on for their digital transformation initiatives? As this industry whitepaper discusses, the main goals of manufacturing digital transformation can be segregated into four broader areas:
Cost reduction: Leveraging digital technologies to reduce costs in areas such as supply chain management, employee performance, production planning and inventory control.
Competitive advantage: Utilizing digital technologies to gain a competitive edge in the market, such as through improved customer/employee experience, product customization and data-driven decision making.
Agility: Increasing flexibility and adaptability in the face of changing market demands, such as through improved supply chain visibility, predictive maintenance and agile business processes.
New business models: This could include refreshing manufacturing processes, investing in digital technology to improve processes company-wide, and otherwise finding new revenue streams through digital transformation initiatives.
Common roadblocks to DX in manufacturing
Some common challenges organizations see when undertaking DX in manufacturing include:
Competitive market: In a highly competitive market, your current digital capabilities and processes may not be enough to stay ahead. And with the swift upturn in DX investments in the market, it can be difficult to keep up with competitors who are already rapidly integrating new digital technologies. While you might feel on the back foot, it's important to remember that digital transformation is a long-term investment, and there are always opportunities for growth and sustainable improvement.
Distributed workforce: It can be difficult to know where to begin with digital transformation, especially for manufacturers who have a distributed workforce and may not have a clear understanding of the specific needs and pain points of their frontline employees. This can make implementing new processes, rolling out communications and combating employee attrition particularly challenging. We'll dive deeper into how to enable DX by empowering your frontline workers later in this post.
Costs and fees: Adopting new digital technologies and processes can be a costly investment, and there may also be additional fees for training and implementing these changes company-wide. It's important to conduct thorough ROI analysis and carefully weigh the potential long-term benefits against the initial costs.
Resistance to change: Change can be difficult, especially for employees who have been working in a certain way for many years. This is why it's important to have clear communication and a strong employee engagement system in place to help employees transition and adapt to the new digital technologies and processes.
Enabling DX by empowering the frontline
As we mentioned, a distributed workforce and lack of visibility into the specific pain points and needs on the frontline can make DX a challenge for manufacturing organizations. But by focusing on empowering your frontline workers, you can not only improve their experience and enable better communication, but also gather valuable insights to inform your digital transformation efforts.
One way to do this is through a mobile-first approach, providing frontline employees with devices and applications that allow them to easily access the information and communication they need, wherever they are on the factory floor. This not only improves productivity, but also allows for better data collection and analysis to inform DX initiatives.
Another key aspect is giving your frontline employees a voice in the digital transformation process, through tactics like regular check-ins and surveys, as well as dedicated onboarding and training programs. By actively seeking their input and understanding their specific needs, they will feel more engaged and empowered in the DX journey.
Frontline specific tech like Blink's employee app allows for better communication, feedback and overall engagement with your frontline workers. This helps to address common DX challenges such as unclear frontline needs and resistance to change, while also improving productivity and efficiency on the manufacturing floor.
With real-time employee engagement analytics, manufacturers can also track the impact, employee satisfaction and ROI of their digital transformation initiatives, supporting cost reduction efforts and decision making.
One great example to illustrate this is our work with JFE. When Canadian manufacturing company JFE approached us, their frontline workforce was disconnected due to outdated technology and communications, and they were facing large shortages in the labor market.
We overhauled their current technology and communications processes with a real-time communication solution by offering channels to funnel information, the ability to communicate with their operating teams through chats and a central hub to give employees access to company information in one place.
As a result, JFE was able to improve their recruitment processes, employee engagement, satisfaction and, crucially, its workers’ safety. With our help, they took the company from 300 to over 450 employees, and were able to promote initiatives in both recruiting and retaining staff to make them a more attractive employer to staff and new recruits.
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Interested in seeing how Blink's employee app can support your manufacturing digital transformation efforts? Schedule a free demo today.
6 unforeseen benefits of DX in manufacturing
So, you already know the production benefits of implementing DX in your business, but what about the benefits of DX solutions for the back of house? Here are 6 key benefits of DX in manufacturing that you just might have overlooked in the past.
1. Reduce staff turnover & recruit the right talent
More than 90% of manufacturing leaders believe that DX is important for their success, IDC states. They go on to predict that global DX spend among companies in discrete or process manufacturing industries will total more than $816 billion in 2025.
Hiring and retaining the right people in a competitive market can be a challenge for manufacturers, but DX can help. And with the IDC statistics above, it's more important than ever for manufacturers to keep up with digital transformation efforts in order to stay competitive in the recruitment market and attract top talent.
Adopting new technologies can make a company more attractive to potential employees and improve employee satisfaction and retention. It allows you to modernize, stay competitive and attract the right employees even when competitors are vying for the same pool of skilled workers with high DX spend.
In addition, frontline-specific tech can boost your employer value proposition as a manufacturer. You listen to how the frontline thinks and feels, allowing you to build trust with the entire workforce and reduce churn.
2. Improve worker health & safety
According to the Workplace Safety Index 2020, workplace injuries are a key driver of loss for U.S. businesses, costing more than $1 billion per week and $59 billion annually.
As we mentioned before, the rise of Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing industry has seen various manufacturers investing in new digital technologies to automate, modernize and enhance the entire process.
And with losses like these reported in the WSI, the key aspect of this modernization in the manufacturing industry is safety. By improving traditional manufacturing processes, boosting direct communication and implementing predictive maintenance, manufacturers can improve worker health and safety at the workplace.
With a frontline app like Blink, manufacturers can also gather direct employee feedback on safety concerns and act on them quickly, as well as offer training materials, policies, procedures and updates to ensure a safe work environment.
Additionally, with research showing that engaged workers are more aware of their surroundings and best practices around safety and are more likely to take steps to protect their co-workers, by investing in and driving employee engagement throughout your company, you can improve worker health and safety as a whole.
By promoting a culture where employees feel comfortable to speak up about concerns or risks, actively participate in risk management and adhere to policies and procedures, manufacturers can see a decrease in injury rates and overall improvement in the health and safety of their workforce.
3. Increase your bottom line
The latest data suggests that digital transformation investment for manufacturing companies increases business value. Gartner reports that 36% of manufacturing enterprises realize above-average business value from IT spending in digitalization at a reasonable cost when compared with peers.
Opportunities for driving profit and increasing your bottom line don’t only come from your production line. Keeping the wider picture of DX in mind, you can utilize digital tools to drive business value through improving your run-the-business functions (like finance or human resources)
DX in an organization’s HR function, in particular, have shown increased employee engagement and statistics show that highly engaged organizations benefit from:
18% higher sales
23% difference in profitability
43% difference in turnover.
With employee engagement tools that provide streamlined workflows, real-time frontline communication and intelligence, seamless scheduling and product updates in addition to new production tech like IoT and augmented reality, manufacturers can cut down on extra expenses and improve the overall efficiency of all their operations.
This ultimately drives up profits and revenue and increases business value, with your teams performing at their best by using the latest and greatest technology solutions.
4. Boost Employee Engagement
The digital transformation process can also boost employee engagement. Adopting new, modern technologies can make employees feel more valued and appreciated, improving job satisfaction and retention rates.
Currently, Gallup data notes that industrial manufacturers haven't quite caught up to other industries in terms of adopting digital tools to improve employee engagement, with only 25% of manufacturing employees stating they felt engaged at work.
DX offers new ways for frontline employees to communicate with each other and leadership, improving transparency and overall communication in the workplace – a key component of employee engagement.
With frontline-specific tech designed to engage employees like manufacturers, you can gather key employee feedback and act on it to improve processes and enhance overall employee engagement.
Further, according to the Chron, employee satisfaction is a reliable predictor of employee retention, meaning you can reduce churn and cut recruitment costs at the same time by improving the engagement your employees have with their digital tools.
Simplified, improved communications and streamlined, intuitive workflows means DX can enhance employee satisfaction levels for frontline workers, in turn, boosting their levels of engagement with their new tech and your employee retention rates.
And with the distinct improvement in profitability, sales and turnover that engaged teams provide as we highlighted above, it’s clear that investing in employee engagement initiatives is worth it from an ROI perspective.
5. Improve employee productivity
It’s obvious how traditional digital transformation solutions help improve quality on the production line. But did you know that implementing DX to improve your employees’ engagement can also lead to huge productivity boosts?
In the manufacturing sector, DX is not only about staying competitive or cutting costs – it's also about supporting your current employees; finding innovative ways to drive their motivation and productivity for a better overall business performance.
TechNative tells us that businesses must embrace innovative digital tools to make the employee experience seamless and personalized, creating a stronger emotional connection to the day-to-day experience of work.
Adopting new digital solutions, like frontline intelligence, predictive analytics and real-time communication solutions, allows you to foster connection with your frontline employees and act on their feedback to streamline day-to-day tasks. As such, your employees will feel better supported to be productive and efficient in their roles, and can produce their best work.
These employee technologies also offer product updates that keep everyone aligned with company goals, as well as streamlined workflows and schedules, reducing miscommunications and errors and allowing for maximum productivity.
So, not only does investing in digital transformation for your frontline workforce improve their overall job satisfaction, it also leads to a significant increase in motivation, productivity and output. It’s a win-win!
6. Build a positive brand reputation
In today’s day and age, it’s no secret that a company’s reputation is everything. In fact, the World Economic Forum has stated that a company's reputation can account for a quarter of its market value. Additionally, 87% of executives believe that reputational risks are more pressing than any other strategic risks.
As the digital transformation movement continues to evolve, your reputation as a manufacturing leader hinges on how well you adopt and use technology for success. Investing in new digital solutions for your frontline workforce is not only beneficial for your employees and your bottom line, but also for building a positive brand reputation.
By boosting employee engagement, satisfaction and productivity with technology, you’re not only improving the experience for those within your company, but also for your potential new hires and even your customers. With employees better equipped to provide top-notch service and meet customer demands efficiently, you can create a more positive customer experience and, ultimately, attract new business.
On top of that, adopting digital solutions for your frontline workforce also demonstrates your commitment to innovation and staying ahead of the competition in the manufacturing industry. It shows potential employees, investors, partners and customers that you’re dedicated to improving processes and creating a successful future for your company.
"Business leaders must move away from industry stereotypes, understand technologies, and help firms ride this wave with a competitive advantage by developing a successful transformation roadmap."
A DX roadmap, or digital transformation roadmap, is a plan that outlines the specific steps and timeframes for the adoption of new technologies to achieve your DX goals. This roadmap may be long and contain a number of different steps, but this allows you to stagger your digital transformation initiatives over time, prioritizing the areas that align with your current goals and business requirements.
To create your DX roadmap, you first need to understand the current state of your business. Your KPIs from above will come in handy here. Without knowing your starting point, it is impossible to map out a clear path to your goals. Therefore, knowing where you currently are is essential.
Your DX roadmap should outline key objectives, success metrics, technology investments, roles and responsibilities, and timelines. Begin implementing new technologies, methods, and processes one step at a time, starting with those that will have the biggest impact on your desired goals. And don’t forget to measure and evaluate your progress regularly to ensure you stay on track.
Remember the bigger picture
Remember, digital transformation is a long-term investment, with long-term value. Digital transformation is changing the way people do business.
Great digital leaders sift through the latest technologies to identify which ones will have the biggest impact on their business, and then prioritize those implementations. Keep in mind that digital transformation is not just about adopting new technology, but also about changing processes and culture for maximum efficiency and success.
And even with the relevant new technologies and industry trends to guide your digital transformation, you want to be uniquely positioned from your competitors. So, it's vital that you consider the wider market picture and how your DX transformation fits into it.
Consider your USPs. Can you provide a swift turnaround time based on your unique manufacturing technologies or streamlined business processes? Do you provide a second-to-none customer service journey because your customer-facing employees are always in direct contact with your frontline? You want these to be considered when mapping out your DX journey.
Set, monitor and measure your core transformation goals
To undergo digital transformation in any industry, you need to know your transformation goals. According to Asana, the best way to understand if your digital transformation strategy worked is by monitoring your business success metrics.
For the manufacturing industry, these success metrics might include employee engagement rates, retention of clients or employees, a reduction in accidents and errors, increased efficiency in production, and sustainable business growth.
Make sure to align these goals with your business key performance indicators (KPIs), as this will ensure that the entire company is on the same page about what constitutes success for the digital transformation. Plus, it's important to regularly track and measure your progress towards these goals, adjusting as needed.
To do this, look for DX solutions that allow you to access Frontline Intelligence, providing you with key metrics, analytics and insights into your employee engagement, satisfaction and even retention rates. With handy tools like this included in your DX roadmap, you are set up for success in achieving your core transformation goals.
Communicate well and often
As Mckinsey recommends for those undergoing digital transformation in the manufacturing industry:
“Communicate well and often. Establish an effective engagement plan and regular communication with critical senior stakeholders, site leaders, and a cross-functional core team.”
In short, communication is crucial for the success of your digital transformation. Keep all stakeholders, from top executives to frontline employees, in the loop about your DX roadmap and progress towards goals. This will ensure that everyone knows their role in the transformation and can work together towards success.
And don't forget to communicate with your employees! Driving employee engagement and buy-in for the digital transformation is crucial. They will be the ones driving and implementing these changes, so it's important that they understand the benefits and their role in making them happen.
Effective communication can also help with any potential resistance to change from employees. By keeping them informed and involved with easy-to-use, two-way conversations, you can work towards getting them on board with the transformation.
Accelerate your digital transformation today…
It's clear that leaders in the sector must prioritize DX efforts to ensure they're keeping up with competitors and improving overall satisfaction among their workforce.
From minimizing the time spent switching between apps and logins, to sending real-time communications and vital updates, DX allows manufacturers to improve the employee experience in a modern, digital way, and boost their bottom line in the process.
Designed specifically for industries like the manufacturing industry where workforces don’t have 24/7 access to a computer, or even a company email account, our platform is here to transform how you do business. Our app rethinks outdated frontline tech and offers a modern, digital solution for your frontline employee engagement.
Meet your newest digital water cooler: Your employee intranet
Whatever happened to the workplace water cooler?
Water cooler conversations were never just about small talk. They helped build stronger teams, sparked collaboration, and made employees feel part of a welcoming company culture.
In today’s hybrid and frontline workplaces, these moments are a rarity. But the need for connection is stronger than ever.
83% of employees want their workplace to provide a sense of community, with more than a third willing to trade higher pay for meaningful workplace friendships or social enrichment.
Enter the modern employee intranet: A digital water cooler that supports seamless internal communication and boosts employee engagement. It’s a tool that amplifies company culture and gives all employees — no matter where they work — the connection and sense of belonging they crave.
Ready to take your intranet from dusty document repository to thriving social hub? Here, we look at how to upgrade the employee intranet — and why having a digital space for connection is so important in 2025.
The evolution of workplace connection
Remote and hybrid work have transformed employee communications. There’s less opportunity for organic office conversations, which means workplace relationships and employee engagement suffer.
This is nothing new for frontline workers who rarely step into HQ. Relying on paper memos and word-of-mouth messaging, they often miss out on essential company news and coworker camaraderie.
But times are changing. Many employers now recognize the critical role connection plays in employee engagement, retention, and productivity. And they’re turning to corporate intranets to bridge the gap.
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Rethinking the employee intranet: From static portal to social hub
You may be wondering how the intranet — that clunky and outdated software — can solve the employee connection conundrum. Traditional intranets, often relegated to the dark corners of the tech stack, have functioned as a digital filing cabinet. Certainly not a space for water cooler conversation.
But internal communications have moved on.
The modern employee intranet is dynamic and mobile-first. It’s designed to connect employees across locations — offering a single source of truth and need-to-know company updates. But also a sense of belonging, a deeper understanding of company culture, and a more satisfying employee experience.
Imagine this: A delivery driver rarely crosses paths with his teammates. With limited access to an old, static intranet that he has to access via a shared desktop computer in the depot, he feels like he’s working solo.
But, thanks to a new and improved employee intranet and personalized experience, he can check the company’s social feed on his smartphone during breaks. In one central location, he can add a reaction to a recognition post for top-performing drivers and even join a group chat where colleagues swap route tips.
How to make your intranet a go-to digital water cooler (paper cups not necessary)
Ready to turn your modern intranet solution into the digital workplace hotspot? Here’s how.
Make it social
The best employee intranets replicate your favorite experiences on social media platforms. When employees can comment, react to posts, and share their own content, you create more compelling user experiences and make your platform more engaging.
Use bite-sized, engaging updates
Keep it snappy. Use short and snappy videos, GIFs, and eye-catching graphics. This type of content attracts attention and fits seamlessly into the busy schedules of both desk-based and frontline workers.
Encourage leadership visibility
Have executives and managers actively post, share insights, and respond to employee comments. Employees are more likely to engage with your intranet when they see that leadership is invested in two-way communication.
Leverage personalization
Relevant content is engaging content. So ensure employees see content relating to their role, location, tenure, and team. When staff enjoy a highly personalized intranet experience, they're more likely to log in regularly — boosting key metrics like employee adoption.
Make it accessible
All employees should be part of the conversation. So you need an intranet that your frontline employees, remote workers, and desk-based staff alike. Streamline the experience, provide a user-friendly dashboard, and make all essential features available via mobile access to create a solution that works for everyone.
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Turning employees into active intranet participants
You can build it. But will they come? And will they participate?
To prevent tumbleweed moments on your intranet platform, employee interaction is essential. Here’s how you can nudge workers in the right direction and develop a modern intranet culture that employees are excited to be part of.
Interactive content
Ask questions. Launch polls. Create employee recognition posts and ask teammates to add their messages of congratulations. Coworker connection is much more likely when you invite employees to join the conversation.
Informal content
Company updates are an employee intranet essential. But to foster connection, you need to leave space for informal conversation. So create fun content — like caption contests, a question of the day, and photos of the latest team event — to make your intranet more relatable and appealing.
Employee-generated content
Nothing inspires the reactions and comments of coworkers like employee-generated content. You can encourage employees to post their own content with a company-wide content generation contest — or by identifying and supporting employee influencers.
Gamification
A spot of good old-fashioned competition can prompt the intranet behaviors you want to see. A points system, a leaderboard, or digital badges inspire employees to take a more active role in the company intranet.
Communities
With Communities, employees can build meaningful connections with a smaller group of coworkers. These community-driven spaces link employees to their teammates or to coworkers with shared interests — and they’re great at driving engagement and participation.
These social communities are especially beneficial for frontline and remote teams who rely on digital collaboration tools to sync up with their colleagues.
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Measuring success: Is your digital water cooler thriving?
Once your digital water cooler is a hive of employee interaction and conversation, it’s time to measure its impact. Use analytics and employee feedback to assess engagement and optimize employee intranet platform performance.
Supplement this data with employee surveys. Ask employees what they think about modern intranet features, functionality, interactivity, and the types of intranet content they prefer.
You can then use this information to make meaningful adjustments to your intranet solution, making it more engaging and keeping up-to-speed with evolving employee expectations.
Give workers the social connection they crave with a modern employee intranet
A modern, social intranet isn’t just a tool for sharing information. It’s a powerful driver of culture and connection across the entire company — and a strategic part of your digital transformation.
Populate your employee intranet with key features, functionality, and content, and it becomes the gathering space of your digital workplace. It offers water cooler moments that enrich the digital employee experience.
Your intranet strategy doesn’t just benefit your people — it benefits for your broader business goals, too. By creating a deeper sense of connection and a more inclusive corporate culture, you can improve employee productivity, engagement, and retention.
Amelia has spent the last two years bringing energy, creativity, and a spark of marketing magic to Blink’s Boston office. As a Senior Marketing Associate, she’s helped shape our presence at events across the US, from high-profile conferences to intimate dinners — and even found time to turn our beloved mascot, Blinkie, into plush toys and Legos.
We sat down with Amelia to talk about what brought her to Blink, the milestones she’s proud of, and what makes the culture in Boston so special.
1. What is your role at Blink?
I am the Senior Marketing Associate at Blink and am based out of the Boston office. I have been here a little over two years.
2. What initially attracted you to join Blink?
I’ve always been drawn to the fast-paced, creative energy of tech startups, and when my former colleague Courtney Hayes joined Blink, she couldn’t stop talking about the mission, the buzz around the product, and how great the team was. That instantly piqued my interest.
At the time, I was still early in my career and looking for a place where I could grow — and Blink offered that in a really exciting way. It felt like a no-brainer. Once I learned more about the technology and how it was solving real problems for frontline teams, I knew I wanted to be part of it.
3. What's a project you are proud of during your time at Blink?
Because I run our events in the US, no two days ever look the same. Every event — whether it’s a major conference, a global webinar, or an intimate dinner — comes with its own unique set of challenges and rewards, so it’s hard to pick just one project. But I’m incredibly proud of how we’ve grown our event presence over the last couple of years. People now expect to see Blink at major industry shows, and they expect us to bring a level of excitement and creativity — and we’ve been delivering on that. From how we look to the quality of conversations we’re having, it’s been a huge leap forward.
On another note, I also somehow became a toy manufacturer on the side! Over the past year, I’ve worked with third-party partners to bring our mascot Blinkie to life as both plush toys and Legos. It’s been a long but fun process, from design to production, and now that they’re in our hands, it’s incredibly rewarding. They’re playful and memorable, and they bring so much joy to our customers, prospects, and the whole Blink team.
4. How would you describe the company culture at Blink in three words?
Supportive, upbeat, and collaborative.
The Boston office has such a special vibe. Everyone genuinely supports one another, no matter their title or role. We help each other grow, hold one another to high standards, and always find ways to bring energy and fun into the day. That kind of culture makes it easy to stay motivated and feel confident in the work you’re doing.
5. What's one thing you're excited about for the future of Blink?
Definitely our global growth. It’s exciting to see new customers coming on board — whether they’re small teams or massive enterprises. Even in just the few years we’ve been in the US market, we’ve seen incredible momentum. Every new logo is a reminder that there’s a real need for what we’re building.
I’m especially excited to see where we go in industries like EMS and retail. We’ve already made an impact, and I think there’s still so much opportunity. Some of the brands we’ve signed recently weren’t even on my radar when I first joined — and now they’re some of our biggest wins. It makes the next few years feel full of possibility.
6. Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
I’m really excited about the new voice and video feature we launched. I’m someone who sends voice notes all the time and prefers face-to-face conversations, so this update felt like it was made for people like me. It’s not just convenient, it adds a whole new dimension to how people communicate on Blink. Sometimes a message just doesn’t capture tone or emotion the right way, and this makes interactions feel more human and real. I think it’s going to be a game-changer for our customers.
7. Why do you work for Blink?
The product, the mission, and the people. Blink is solving a real need connecting frontline workers who have been left out of digital transformation. That in itself is meaningful work. But what makes it special is the people behind it. Everyone here is passionate about the mission and genuinely wants to make a difference.
There was actually a moment early on in my first year, during an all-hands meeting. Sean gave a really inspiring update about our progress, and I remember looking around the Boston office and seeing how proud people were. That was when it really hit me that I was part of something important.
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