Every leader in an organization that has frontline workforce has likely experienced the 'frontline connection gap' - but what is it?
Jess DeVore
Published:
September 6, 2023
Last updated:
October 8, 2024
What we'll cover
This article is part of Blink’s “frontline first” series: content created specifically for leaders of deskless or distributed teams. We know that the job of frontline leadership is entirely different from managing ‘desk-based’ teams, so this is for you and your unique set of challenges.
Every leader in an organization that has frontline workforce has likely experienced the 'Frontline Connection Gap' - it's the root cause of thousands of wasted hours and measurable negative impact on key business metrics like retention and productivity.
But what exactly is this 'gap', and how do you know if your organization is one of the ones experiencing it? And if it turns out that you are, how do you go about closing it (and is it even worth the effort)? In this article, we'll explore all of those questions and give you some simple answers.
What is the Frontline Connection Gap?
In a nutshell, the Frontline Connection Gap is the failure to enable frontline workers to communicate with the same ease, scale and speed as desk-based workers.
If it sounds simple, that's because it is. Think about how the average desk-based worker gets to communicate at work:
Easy access to their co-workers via email, work apps such as Slack and video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams
Easy access to key information and updates via intranets and cloud-based drives
Easy access to key HR processes such as booking time off and downloading paystubs through tools such as Deel or Workday
Easy access to learning and development through dedicated Learning Management Systems
Easy access to other parts of the organization (including leadership) through shared directories
Easy access to feedback portals through tools such as CultureAmp or Peakon
There's more where this came from, but the key point is that desk-based workers have access to a wealth of people, processes and information within just a few clicks.
For deskless workers, the picture looks very different - let's look at those same areas again:
Limited access to co-workers beyond those in the same physical space, often leading to isolation
Limited access to key information, often still delivered through paper memos as many frontline workers don't have access to a company email address.
Limited access to key HR processes such as booking time off and arranging shifts, which often requires making phonecalls or messaging managers via text and WhatsApp. Processes such as claiming expenses often still involve using paper forms.
Limited access to learning and development, as access to computers is infrequent
Limited access to management and leadership, leading to disengagement
Limited ability to deliver feedback or whistleblow on critical problems
The stark difference in these two worlds all comes down to communications infrastructure (or lack thereof): without continuous access to computers and email addresses, frontline workers are in a world that desk-based workers haven't experienced in more than twenty years.
The impact of the Gap
The way to know if your organization has a Frontline Connection Gap is by seeing if anything 'disappears' into it.
For the best examples of this, look to what your Human Resources team are doing. Let's take Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a key case - these critical initiatives are often planned and tracked at board level, and in order for them to be effective they need to impact every single member of an organization. The roll-out of these will often work well for desk-based teams thanks to regular communications such as emails, chat groups, in-person Employee Resource Groups and video calls.
However, getting to the frontline is a different matter. Without reliable channels for communications, People leaders will often find that promoting DEI programs is restricted to a flyer on a noticeboard, curtailing awareness and participation from the very start. In other words, the DEI program has fallen into the Frontline Connection Gap.
So we see just how big a problem the Gap can be: company policies and programs might as well not exist, for all the frontline are able to engage with them. As a result, the impact of the Gap can be felt on almost any core business metric - for example:
Retention drops because frontline employee engagement is low
Recruitment faces challenges as the organization is unable to offer an ideal employee experience
Customer experience is impacted when employees are ill-informed and disengaged
Productivity drops through inefficiencies in processes such as filling empty shifts and inconsistent onboarding and training
Safety is put at risk through failures to communicate critical information at scale
Employee wellbeing suffers as a result of isolation and inability to access support
The list could go on - and it does. If any one of these key metrics looks different in the frontline part of your organization in comparison to the desk-based part, then the likelihood is that you have a Frontline Connection Gap to bridge.
How to close the Frontline Connection Gap
It's important at this point to remember that the Frontline Connection Gap is rarely caused through neglect or intention - in fact, many organizations have tried (and are still trying) to close it. The problem is that the strategies that they employ usually fail, and it's for one important reason: the kind of communications infrastructure that works for the desk-based will not work for the frontline.
A key example of this is using intranets. Many organizations find intranets to be a useful means of sharing information with their desk-based workers, and so attempt to roll these out to their frontline workers through a mobile-based approach. In theory, this should work: most frontline workers have access to a smartphone and are confident enough in using them to download an intranet app.
However, this strategy comes across a number of roadblocks:
Firstly, it requires frontline workers to remember a new login and password (IT teams often find themselves facing high volumes of password reset requests as a result).
Secondly, engagement with intranet apps will usually be disappointingly low - but the reason for this poor uptake will help you unlock the secret of successfully crossing the Frontline Connection Gap (keep reading to find out).
To close the Frontline Connection Gap, there are three simple principles to follow:
Go mobile. With smartphone adoption having reached a critical tipping point, this is a no-brainer.
Consolidate where you can. The more systems and apps you ask a frontline worker to instal, the more you dilute your success. If you're asking your frontline to download and login to separate systems for accessing paystubs, receiving communications, giving feedback and arranging shifts, you're adding friction with every step. Create a single point of access wherever you can.
Put daily value at the centre of your solution. This is the crucial secret behind adoption, and the last mile of closing the Frontline Connection Gap. Busy frontline workers need a reason to engage with HQ, and that's the problem with simply rolling out an intranet on mobile: there's little in it for a frontline worker, so even if they have an app in the palm of their hand, they'll rarely take time out to log in. Success lies in inverting this, by making sure that at the heart of your communications infrastructure are processes that the frontline always need - for example, access to shifts and paystubs. By placing value at the heart of your system, you get the consistent engagement you need to close the Gap (we call this 'Chips and Dip theory'.
Despite the seriousness of its impact, the Frontline Connection Gap is actually a relatively simple problem - which thankfully means relatively simple solutions. If you're ready to get started, check out some of the best solutions on the market over here.
This article is part of Blink’s “frontline first” series: content created specifically for leaders of deskless or distributed teams. We know that the job of frontline leadership is entirely different from managing ‘desk-based’ teams, so this is for you and your unique set of challenges.
Every leader in an organization that has frontline workforce has likely experienced the 'Frontline Connection Gap' - it's the root cause of thousands of wasted hours and measurable negative impact on key business metrics like retention and productivity.
But what exactly is this 'gap', and how do you know if your organization is one of the ones experiencing it? And if it turns out that you are, how do you go about closing it (and is it even worth the effort)? In this article, we'll explore all of those questions and give you some simple answers.
What is the Frontline Connection Gap?
In a nutshell, the Frontline Connection Gap is the failure to enable frontline workers to communicate with the same ease, scale and speed as desk-based workers.
If it sounds simple, that's because it is. Think about how the average desk-based worker gets to communicate at work:
Easy access to their co-workers via email, work apps such as Slack and video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams
Easy access to key information and updates via intranets and cloud-based drives
Easy access to key HR processes such as booking time off and downloading paystubs through tools such as Deel or Workday
Easy access to learning and development through dedicated Learning Management Systems
Easy access to other parts of the organization (including leadership) through shared directories
Easy access to feedback portals through tools such as CultureAmp or Peakon
There's more where this came from, but the key point is that desk-based workers have access to a wealth of people, processes and information within just a few clicks.
For deskless workers, the picture looks very different - let's look at those same areas again:
Limited access to co-workers beyond those in the same physical space, often leading to isolation
Limited access to key information, often still delivered through paper memos as many frontline workers don't have access to a company email address.
Limited access to key HR processes such as booking time off and arranging shifts, which often requires making phonecalls or messaging managers via text and WhatsApp. Processes such as claiming expenses often still involve using paper forms.
Limited access to learning and development, as access to computers is infrequent
Limited access to management and leadership, leading to disengagement
Limited ability to deliver feedback or whistleblow on critical problems
The stark difference in these two worlds all comes down to communications infrastructure (or lack thereof): without continuous access to computers and email addresses, frontline workers are in a world that desk-based workers haven't experienced in more than twenty years.
The impact of the Gap
The way to know if your organization has a Frontline Connection Gap is by seeing if anything 'disappears' into it.
For the best examples of this, look to what your Human Resources team are doing. Let's take Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a key case - these critical initiatives are often planned and tracked at board level, and in order for them to be effective they need to impact every single member of an organization. The roll-out of these will often work well for desk-based teams thanks to regular communications such as emails, chat groups, in-person Employee Resource Groups and video calls.
However, getting to the frontline is a different matter. Without reliable channels for communications, People leaders will often find that promoting DEI programs is restricted to a flyer on a noticeboard, curtailing awareness and participation from the very start. In other words, the DEI program has fallen into the Frontline Connection Gap.
So we see just how big a problem the Gap can be: company policies and programs might as well not exist, for all the frontline are able to engage with them. As a result, the impact of the Gap can be felt on almost any core business metric - for example:
Retention drops because frontline employee engagement is low
Recruitment faces challenges as the organization is unable to offer an ideal employee experience
Customer experience is impacted when employees are ill-informed and disengaged
Productivity drops through inefficiencies in processes such as filling empty shifts and inconsistent onboarding and training
Safety is put at risk through failures to communicate critical information at scale
Employee wellbeing suffers as a result of isolation and inability to access support
The list could go on - and it does. If any one of these key metrics looks different in the frontline part of your organization in comparison to the desk-based part, then the likelihood is that you have a Frontline Connection Gap to bridge.
How to close the Frontline Connection Gap
It's important at this point to remember that the Frontline Connection Gap is rarely caused through neglect or intention - in fact, many organizations have tried (and are still trying) to close it. The problem is that the strategies that they employ usually fail, and it's for one important reason: the kind of communications infrastructure that works for the desk-based will not work for the frontline.
A key example of this is using intranets. Many organizations find intranets to be a useful means of sharing information with their desk-based workers, and so attempt to roll these out to their frontline workers through a mobile-based approach. In theory, this should work: most frontline workers have access to a smartphone and are confident enough in using them to download an intranet app.
However, this strategy comes across a number of roadblocks:
Firstly, it requires frontline workers to remember a new login and password (IT teams often find themselves facing high volumes of password reset requests as a result).
Secondly, engagement with intranet apps will usually be disappointingly low - but the reason for this poor uptake will help you unlock the secret of successfully crossing the Frontline Connection Gap (keep reading to find out).
To close the Frontline Connection Gap, there are three simple principles to follow:
Go mobile. With smartphone adoption having reached a critical tipping point, this is a no-brainer.
Consolidate where you can. The more systems and apps you ask a frontline worker to instal, the more you dilute your success. If you're asking your frontline to download and login to separate systems for accessing paystubs, receiving communications, giving feedback and arranging shifts, you're adding friction with every step. Create a single point of access wherever you can.
Put daily value at the centre of your solution. This is the crucial secret behind adoption, and the last mile of closing the Frontline Connection Gap. Busy frontline workers need a reason to engage with HQ, and that's the problem with simply rolling out an intranet on mobile: there's little in it for a frontline worker, so even if they have an app in the palm of their hand, they'll rarely take time out to log in. Success lies in inverting this, by making sure that at the heart of your communications infrastructure are processes that the frontline always need - for example, access to shifts and paystubs. By placing value at the heart of your system, you get the consistent engagement you need to close the Gap (we call this 'Chips and Dip theory'.
Despite the seriousness of its impact, the Frontline Connection Gap is actually a relatively simple problem - which thankfully means relatively simple solutions. If you're ready to get started, check out some of the best solutions on the market over here.
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Twenty years ago, I was advising the government on transport. Our North Star was this: how do we get people out of cars, and onto public transport? We worked hard and made several huge breakthroughs. Public transport in the UK thrived and up until recently, was the mode of choice for many.
But over the past few months, things have changed – drastically so. Two decades of progress has been effectively undone in a matter of months. The government has actively discouraged people from using public transport. That’s never happened before, although I understand that it was necessary.
So: where do we go from here?
Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on the transport industry and its frontline workers. And it’s not over. We have a long road ahead, with many challenges looming.
Even so, I’m optimistic. Here's why.
The arguments for public transport are as strong as ever
Let me own up to my biggest fear first: an increase in car ownership. At the moment, many people are apprehensive about, or scared of, using public transport. That may make them rely more on their cars.
When you’ve got a car, you’ve got an enclosed space. You don't have to sit next to anyone. It's one of the reasons car shares hasn’t taken off. People don't like letting others into their personal space. Covid-19 has exacerbated all this. It might lead families without cars to buy one, or go from one to two-car households.
That might not sound like a big deal. But there's a direct correlation: as car ownership rises, bus passenger numbers fall. Or, put that in perspective: for every new car on Britain’s roads, there’s 365 fewer bus journeys per year.
My goal has always been to achieve a modal shift towards public transport. I've been working with governments for many years to make this happen. That momentum has now ground to a halt. Will that change be permanent?
I don’t think so. The argument for public transport – economic and environmental – remain strong. They will only get stronger. One pivotal reason is climate change. At the beginning of 2020, that conversation was at the heart of public consciousness. Once again, circumstances have sidelined that conversation, but it's more urgent than ever.
The facts remain: the car is an inefficient user of roads, it's wasteful, it's polluting.
But here's what gives me hope. During lockdown, many people have experienced good quality, clean air. Many of them for the first time ever. That's huge. That's compelling.
We caught a glimpse of what a life with less pollution could be like. A live demonstration of a world with less traffic and fewer planes. That’s something most of us want to hang on to; without losing the thrill and energy of vibrant, busy cities.
What's holding us back is public perception. Many people see buses as a main polluter, causing congestion and reducing air quality.
That's not true. One new bus produces less pollution than one new car. That's despite the fact that they can carry 50 times as many passengers, by the way. In fact, buses are a key part of the solution for clean air and sustainability.
What we need to do is shift ingrained mindsets and change misperceptions.
Even after disaster, people adjust
Covid-19 poses an extreme threat. But we have dealt with – and recovered from – extreme threats before.
Take the London bombings in 2005. We lost 35 people; it was all over the television. It was terrifying. People's lack of confidence in public transport was lower then than it is now. Even so, Transport for London got their systems running again the very next day.
Or take 9/11. One of the worst horrors of anyone's lifetime. Remember how nervous were people about flying? But the next day, thousands of planes still took off. Today, aviation has a fantastic track record of keeping people safe.
We've mitigated the risks associated with terror attacks as much as possible. But you'd need to be a fool to say that that terrorist threat has gone away completely.
We don’t know when, or if, Covid-19 will completely go away. We can never eliminate risk. But we can learn to live with new danger.
We adjusted to airport security measures. And we will adjust to facemasks and social distancing.
Human beings are born to adapt.
It will take time, of course. Some people will be nervous for the foreseeable future. But long-term, people’s behaviour will normalize again. Patterns of patronage will return. All the evidence shows this is what happens after a crisis.
We need a marketing exercise. To gradually build up public trust, to reassure passengers it's safe. A way of reassuring people about risk, hygiene, temperature checks and general safety.
Our key workers are resilient
Being a bus driver is one of the toughest jobs in the UK, especially in a busy city.As a driver in London, you have to navigate the busy streets, the traffic; and at the same time, you have to keep people safe, give directions, take their fares.
It's a demanding job at the best of times. Along came COVID-19, and bus drivers were even more exposed than healthcare professionals. Thirty-three of them died in the UK. And all the while they were delivering NHS staff and other key workers to their jobs. The role they play is enormous.
We should be clapping for our bus drivers.
We don't know what their job will look like when all this is over. But I have trust in the resilience of our key workers, and in their capacity to adapt.
One of the economic fears in this respect is about a potential increase in autonomous vehicles. I do expect those to play a big role in the future of transport. In the past year, the number of autonomous car trips was no more than a few thousand.
But there have been hundreds of millions of autonomous train journeys every day. Half of all trains in Asia are autonomous, and we're starting to see autonomous buses come to the fore. There are five different tests in European cities later this year. This looks like it will be an area of big growth.
But won’t that mean job losses for frontline workers?
I don’t think so. In my view, we can approach the issue of driverless vehicles in two ways.
We can say that we're not going to change people's jobs despite the fact that we've got new technologies. Then we will lose bus drivers in the long-term. That would be the wrong way.
Or, we can use technology to enhance people’s jobs. Frontline workers’ roles could shift to become more customer service-orientated. Our workers could be there as ambassadors, communicating with passengers. In the case of an emergency, they could mingle with customers, make sure they're okay. This could herald a new era for public transport, an 'excellent customer service phase'.
We've already seen the potential firsthand. If you've got a lively happy bus driver, the whole experience changes. But at the moment, it's difficult to achieve that. If we move towards an autonomous world, we could recruit more of the right people.
There could be a different mindset, a different approach, a different energy to it. We could reproduce the customer care that people expect in restaurants and shops.
So the role of frontline workers will change, but the prevalence of jobs won’t. Our frontline workers will be as relevant ever.
We can build strong collaborations
To produce a much better product, we need the help of our customers. When it comes to the bus system in particular, we tend not to know what our customers think or want. We don't communicate with them, or not enough.
We want to get to know our customers better. Learn about what matters to them, communicate better with the people who rely on us. Drop them text messages. “Sorry, I'm hacked off, we couldn't produce reliable journeys because of these roadblocks.” Reward them, thank them for their loyalty. That would mean learning about best practice in customer care.
We also want to form closer partnerships with the unions, local authorities and the highways authority. We need to get to know the local politician who's in charge of road space allocation well. To deliver, you need strong relationships like that.
We need to broaden our vision and build robust connections. With our customers, with relevant authorities.Look at best practice in other industries, think bigger, and focus on core competencies. Nail the areas that matter most, no matter the line of work.
That’s my vision for the frontline of the future, and that’s why I’m optimistic.
With a focus on communication, marketing and customer service, we can make the changes we need. Not just to recover – to thrive. It won't happen by itself; we need to set the right priorities and make the right decisions.
In 2025, the frontline workforce underwent a significant generational shift.
For the first time, Gen Z passed Millennials as the largest generation in the shift-based workforce.
Whether you’ve realised it or not, this generation is already on your shop floors, in your restaurants, and working your distribution centers. And now is the perfect opportunity to revisit your internal comms strategy.
Why? Because if your frontline communications only work for employees who tolerate email, check notice boards, and don’t expect much from their employer’s technology stack, you’re already falling behind.
Here’s what the Gen Z frontline workforce expects from your internal communications — and how you can develop a strategy that supports this, now dominant, frontline cohort.
In the frontline workforce, a bigger shift has already taken place. Gen Z workers now make up 41% of US shift-based workers — slightly ahead of Millennials at 40% and way ahead of older Gen X and Baby Boomer generations.
Frontline organizations are feeling this shift first, because Gen Z has been hit hardest by the rise of AI and a cooling entry-level jobs market, and frontline roles have a low barrier to entry.
So what does this mean for your organization? Simply put, the employee communication strategies that worked for previous generations won’t work for Gen Z. That’s because Gen Z is bringing different priorities and expectations to the workplace.
What makes Gen Z workers different from older generations?
Understanding Gen Z internal comms starts with understanding what this generation actually expects from work.
They grew up mobile-first. Gen Z is the first generation to have grown up with smartphones as their primary communication device. They’re used to consuming information in a fast, succinct, very visual format. For Gen Z frontline workers, a company that communicates through printed notices and manager cascades isn’t just behind the times — it’s an organization that doesn’t respect their time or preferences.
They expect transparency. Gen Z employees want to understand not just what they’re being asked to do, but why. They expect leadership to communicate openly about company direction, decisions, and challenges. Organizations that broadcast information without context — or leave employees in the dark — lose Gen Z trust fast.
They leave faster when expectations aren't met. Gen Z has a lower tolerance for poor employee experience than previous generations. A role that doesn’t deliver on the experience promised during recruitment, offer a visible path forward, or treat them as valued members of the organization won’t hold them for long. Their loyalties are also divided, with two in three poly-employment workers (those working multiple frontline jobs) falling into the Gen Z generational bracket.
Where most frontline orgs get Gen Z internal comms wrong
The gap between what Gen Z expects from workplace communication and what the average frontline operation delivers is significant.
Paper schedules. Email-only company updates. Manager phone calls. A feedback survey that appears once a year and produces no visible response. An intranet that doesn’t work on smartphones.
This is a communication infrastructure designed for a different era. And for the Gen Z frontline workforce, it has a negative impact on employee engagement, motivation, and retention.
The organizations retaining Gen Z on the frontline are the ones that have recognized this gap and have closed it deliberately. Here’s what that requires.
The Gen Z internal comms readiness checklist
Find out if your internal comms meet Gen Z expectations. Here are five practical questions HR and comms leaders can ask right now.
#1. Can every worker access company updates on their phone?
For Gen Z frontline workers, mobile access isn’t a preference — it’s the expectation. If company news, policy updates, and operational information require a desktop login or a trip to a shared terminal, you’re not communicating with this cohort effectively.
(One important caveat: mobile access alone isn’t enough. 58% of Gen Z report digital fatigue — feeling overwhelmed by constant alerts and too many platforms. The goal isn’t more channels. It’s one well-designed channel that consolidates communication without adding noise.)
#2. Do they have a voice?
Gen Z expects two-way communication. They want to ask questions, share opinions, leave comments, and see their input influencing decisions. An annual engagement survey doesn’t meet that expectation. Reactive, visible, two-way channels will help to build trust.
#3. Is recognition immediate and visible?
Lack of recognition is a primary driver of Gen Z workplace stress. For frontline workers who rarely interact with senior leadership, peer-level and manager-led recognition delivered through a shared digital channel is essential. It shows that their contribution matters.
Gen Z learns best through short-form video, interactive content, and mobile-accessible resources they can return to at the moment of need. They need onboarding and training delivered to mobile devices in a way that keeps them engaged and informed.
#5. Can employees connect with co-workers?
Gen Zs with close workplace friendships are 15 points more likely to stay with their organization for more than five years.
In shift-based environments where workers may rarely overlap with the same colleagues, those relationships don’t form by accident.
Communication tools that support peer connection — group chats, communities, shared social spaces — are vital comms infrastructure.
What good Gen Z communication actually looks like: Domino’s x Blink
Domino’s is a good example of what happens when a frontline organization commits to meeting frontline employees where they are.
With a workforce that skews heavily toward Gen Z, Domino’s needed a communication approach that worked for employees who don’t sit at desks, don’t have corporate email addresses, and expect a consumer-grade digital experience from their employer.
After implementing Blink as their frontline communication tool, Domino’s was able to transform Gen Z internal comms.
Store employees had a single place to access company news, operational updates, training resources, and peer recognition — all in an engaging, interactive, multimedia format, and all from the smartphone already in their pocket.
The Blink app is now part of daily life at Domino’s, with 94% platform adoption and more than 8 in 10 employees actively using the platform every month. It’s transformed company culture, giving every team member access, ownership, and a stronger connection to the brand.
Managing Gen Z employees on the frontline: Five quick wins
Lead with purpose. Gen Z wants to understand how their work connects to the bigger picture. Build context into your communications — not just what's happening, but why it matters.
Communicate in their format. Avoid walls of text. Instead, create Insta-worthy internal comms — short-form video, visual content, interactive polls. It’s engaging for Gen Z and helps to build trust.
Make feedback loops visible. When Gen Z employees raise an issue or respond to a survey, show them what happened as a result.
Don't make them ask their manager for everything. Self-serve access to schedules, payslips, policies, and shift swapping removes friction from daily work and gives workers a sense of autonomy.
Your Gen Z frontline workforce isn’t waiting for your internal communications strategy to catch up.
Staff are already making daily judgments about whether your organization is worth sticking with — based largely on the quality of communication and connection they experience on shift.
The good news is that improving Gen Z internal comms doesn’t require radical changes.
A mobile-first platform that consolidates communication, supports two-way dialogue, makes recognition visible, and gives every employee self-serve access to the information they need addresses most of what this generation expects.
Blink’s mobile-first app is built for exactly this. It’s a consumer-grade platform Gen Z frontline workers love to use — because it’s designed for the way they love to work.
An ageing population, complex patient needs, staff shortages, and technological transformation are stretching teams to the limit.
The fallout from COVID-19 still lingers. In the UK, the NHS has a waiting list of 7.37 million cases. And while the healthcare strikes of 2023 may have been resolved with pay rises, salary disputes rumble on.
If all that wasn’t enough, we can add long, inflexible shifts and emotionally demanding work into the mix. It’s no wonder that nearly one-third of healthcare employees are disengaged.
This is a problem. Because disengagement hits employee retention, patient care, and any new initiatives you try to roll out. It seems that employee engagement in healthcare is in need of urgent attention — STAT.
Ready to rewrite the prescription? Here, we explore what healthcare employee engagement looks like, why it matters, and how to foster it within your organization.
Too many healthcare organizations are getting employee engagement wrong
After hundreds of conversations with healthcare professionals, one thing has become crystal clear to the Blink team. Employee engagement is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the workplace.
Too often, it gets used as a catch-all term for every good thing a worker might do — from smiling at patients to hitting their KPIs.
An engaged healthcare worker is thought to be better organized, happier, more satisfied, more loyal, healthier, more motivated, more productive, better at communicating, and more prepared to go the extra mile.
Some of these behaviors are indicative of engagement. But there are a couple of key problems with this definition:
It’s unrealistic. No one can embody all of those traits all of the time — especially in a high-stress, resource-stretched healthcare environment.
It’s vague. Phrases like “go the extra mile” make engagement sound fluffy — a nice-to-have and not the essential driver of staff performance it really is.
It’s unmeasurable. Tracking all those behaviors would be tricky. So measuring and improving employee engagement feels like too big a challenge.
When engagement is defined as a wish-list, finding practical solutions is tough. In healthcare, real engagement is specific, measurable, and tied directly to better patient care.
What employee engagement in healthcare isn’t
When figuring out what employee engagement in healthcare is, it can help to start with all the things it isn’t. Employee engagement in healthcare is not:
Satisfaction: A satisfied nurse might feel satisfied with their shift pattern. But that doesn’t mean they won’t walk if another hospital offers better pay or hours.
Happiness: A care worker may feel happy at work because they have a lot of free time to chat with co-workers. But that doesn’t mean they’re committed to the very best patient care.
Motivation: A paramedic may feel motivated to work hard because they have their eye set on a promotion. But that doesn’t mean they’re invested in today’s patients or their current team.
Empowerment: An organization may pride itself on the autonomy it affords to its staff. But staff will only take action and make decisions independently when they feel engaged and supported.
Zero stress: A brain surgeon may feel stressed when operating but still be highly engaged. An optimal level of stress can actually increase engagement.
Productivity: A hospital porter may transport patients efficiently all day long. But that doesn’t mean they’re interacting with patients and putting them at ease.
Engagement isn’t a fixed state. It ebbs and flows — from shift to shift and year to year. And it isn’t the same for every employee or every organization.
Whatemployee engagement in healthcare is
In healthcare, engagement isn’t about surface-level positivity or breakneck productivity. It’s about creating the conditions where people — often working in high-stakes, emotionally and physically demanding environments — can bring their best focus, care, and energy to patients.
To achieve this, you need an employee engagement strategy that goes beyond the HR team to involve the whole of your organization.
1. Connection to the work. Not just liking the job but feeling that their work makes a difference, that their skills are used to their fullest, and that even the smallest task has meaning within a patient’s care journey.
2. Leader behaviors. Day-to-day interactions with managers have a huge impact on employee engagement. Employees who feel that their manager treats them with respect, treats everyone equally, cares about job satisfaction, and encourages teamwork, are more likely to be engaged.
3. Commitment to safety. Staff need to believe their organization is serious about high-quality care and safety. That means being able to flag safety concerns without fear of a backlash, and seeing lessons learned when mistakes happen.
These drivers are built into everyday moments — a handover that runs smoothly because everyone was kept in the loop, a break that’s actually honored, a manager who has your back when a patient’s family is upset.
Underpinning them are crucial workplace behaviors: clear internal communication, a culture that supports all staff, and strong connections between co-workers. The organization is dedicated to a positive employee experience, not just a positive patient experience.
When these elements are in place, employees are more likely to feel valued, remain loyal to your organization, and consistently provide the highest standard of patient care.
How can you tell if your healthcare employees are engaged?
We’ve talked about how engaged employees feel about their roles and the organizations they work for. But how is this expressed in their day-to-day work?
Engaged employees aren’t always smiling, stress-free, or happy to work extra hours. Instead, engagement can be seen in the small, meaningful ways they care for patients and their teams.
In practice, healthcare or hospital employee engagement may look like any of the following:
Escorting lost family members to the right place
Washing hands and checking IV lines without fail
Helping a patient back to their room after noticing their yellow “fall risk” bracelet
Listening patiently and actively as a patient asks for details about their medications
Being mindful of quiet times at night
Delivering meals while they’re still hot
Wheeling a resident outside to feel snow for the first time in years
Offering a hand or foot massage during a quiet moment
Why healthcare employee engagement matters
Engaged employees tend to be more satisfied in their roles. They experience lower levels of stress and better workplace relationships.
Achieve high levels of employee engagement at your healthcare organization, and you’re likely to see these other benefits, too.
Better patient outcomes
What’s good for staff is good for patients. Healthcare organizations with high levels of staff engagement are three times more likely to deliver a top patient experience. They perform better in terms of safety, too.
Engaged employees are more likely to hold themselves to the highest patient care standards, whether that means double-checking a patient’s medication list or sanitizing their hands more frequently.
Improved retention
Employee retention in healthcare is a major challenge. In the past five years, the average US hospital turned over an incredible 106.6% of its workforce. In the UK, 1 in 5 NHS workers is planning to leave within the year.
When staff leave, patient experience suffers. We know that for every 1% increase in employee turnover, patient experience scores drop an average of 2 percentiles.
Here’s the kicker. Disengaged employees are twice as likely to leave your organization as highly engaged employees. They’re also more likely to call in sick, adding even more strain to overstretched teams.
During a time of labor shortages and increased healthcare demand, boosting employee engagement is a critical healthcare retention strategy.
Costs fall and revenue rises
Turnover takes a financial toll on healthcare organizations. The British Medical Association (BMA) estimates that the cost of replacing a single doctor can be more than £300,000. Over in the US, the average cost of turnover for a bedside registered nurse (RN) is $61,110.
When employees are engaged, you reduce staff turnover and recruitment costs. And because familiar faces lead to higher patient experience ratings, you improve profitability too. Your organization enjoys customer loyalty, a better brand reputation, and increased referrals.
How to boost employee engagement in healthcare
To boost employee engagement in healthcare organizations, you need activities and strategies suited to busy frontline staff. Here are 9 strategies that work in healthcare settings.
1. Bring comms to the frontline
In too many facilities, staff still find out about shift changes or new protocols by wading through their emails, squinting at a faded noticeboard, or logging into a clunky intranet.
It’s not easy for busy frontline workers to get the information they need to do their jobs well. And seeking out resources takes them away from patients.
To reach every member of the workforce, internal communication in healthcare needs to be mobile and instant. It has to meet employees where they are.
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A quick update on the news feed. Shift information shared over group chat. A new safety protocol in the content hub. Make internal communication available on every employee smartphone and you keep staff informed and connected.
2. Put everything in one place
The right tech tools make employee communications easy to access — for even the busiest frontline worker. But you can improve engagement further by putting all workplace resources onto the same mobile-first digital dashboard.
Policies, contacts, shift schedules, pay stubs, PPE request forms, even quick links to other workplace tools, are all just a tap away. So your people spend less time searching and more time doing what they do best — caring for patients.
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3. Personalize the experience
What matters to the nurse on a night shift doesn’t necessarily matter to staff in the hospital kitchen or the team up in head office. So if you blast everyone with the same updates, it quickly turns into background noise.
To engage people with comms and organizational culture, you need to tailor the employee experience. Ensure employees in different departments, shifts, and roles see information that relates to them with the help of targeted alerts, segmented comms, custom dashboards, and shared-interest communities.
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4. Build co-worker connections
The emotional toll in healthcare is real. And without strong team connections, burnout hits harder. Worryingly, according to NHS workforce research, just 63% of employees say they feel a strong personal attachment to their team.
This is understandable. Building team bonds in healthcare can be tough. Teams are stressed and overstretched. Employees may work alone in patients’ homes or work shift patterns that rarely align.
The fix? Make space for camaraderie. Give people spaces to swap advice, share wins, or offer support after a rough shift. Those small moments of connection spark a sense of belonging, another powerful driver of engagement.
5. Lead by example
Engagement starts at the top. When healthcare employees are confident in senior leadership, trusting them to promote patient safety and demonstrating the organization’s values, they’re more likely to feel engaged in their work.
So leaders have to lead by example — and be visible to employees. That means showing up on internal communication channels, adopting an open style of communication, welcoming the input of employees, and consistently sharing the mission that drives your organization.
6. Celebrate your workforce
Too often in healthcare, the wins go unnoticed. Just 44% of NHS workers say they feel satisfied with the extent to which their organization values their work.
You can help staff to feel seen and valued — and inspire their loyalty — by making employee recognition an everyday part of organizational culture.
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Create a post in the feed thanking a team for their handling of a difficult case. Allow co-workers to nominate their peers for awards. Share a monthly rundown of standout employee moments.
You can also highlight positive patient stories. Regularly reinforce the link between an employee’s actions and patient outcomes and you remind your people just how much their work matters.
You may uncover a particular shift that struggles with understaffing or a unit where safety concerns are being ignored. Or find that critical comms simply aren’t reaching their target audience.
Give employees a voice and you gain valuable insight into the employee experience — and what you can do to improve it. Dive down into the data and act upon it to show employees that their opinions are shaping how the organization is run.
8. Prioritize employee well-being
42% of NHS staff say they have felt unwell as a result of work-related stress in the last 12 months. And 81% of healthcare workers in the US say that they will look for a workplace that supports their mental health in the future.
So train your managers in how to recognize and respond to signs of stress and burnout in their employees. Provide mental health and well-being support — and ensure employees know how to access it.
But — as healthcare workers know well — it’s important to address root causes, not just symptoms. Depending on your employees and their needs, that might mean:
Offering flexible work and shift swap options
Providing competitive salaries
Promoting a culture of psychological safety so employees can speak up and report issues
Ensuring workloads are manageable
9. Track healthcare employee engagement
If you don’t measure employee engagement at your organization, it’s all guesswork. You can implement healthcare engagement trends — but you can’t be sure if and how new initiatives are benefiting your workforce.
With the right employee engagement tools, you can track engagement over time, establishing benchmarks and KPIs, like absenteeism, turnover rate, and employer net promoter score (eNPS).
You also establish a link between employee engagement activities and business-boosting metrics like employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction, employee productivity, and retention.
Employee engagement in healthcare: the Blink perspective
Back in 2020, we ran a pilot program at one of the UK’s largest private hospitals. Employees across several departments — including nurses, porters, receptionists, cleaners, and security guards — used the Blink app to access internal comms.
Using Blink cost the organization £2 million less than building a native application. But it still gave all frontline workers an easy way to get the resources they needed while on the move.
The results? A 30% increase in engagement with internal communications, with patients receiving better, faster care from more engaged staff. Our easy-to-use mobile platform meant that employees could access all the information they needed, and leadership could share vital messaging without interrupting the flow of care.
Since then, we’ve partnered with many other healthcare organizations, including:
Children’s of Alabama. Blink has helped one of the busiest pediatric hospitals in the US achieve 78% app adoption in just a couple of months. The app is boosting connection and collaboration across the frontline.
Elara Caring. The 17,000+ carers at Elara now chat and receive updates via Blink, with 95% saying they feel more connected to the organization. This is a massive shift for a workforce that previously felt overlooked and undervalued.
Coastal Medical. At this healthcare transport company, the average employee opens the Blink app 5.7 times a day. The ambulance industry sees a turnover rate of around 20%, just for paramedics. At Coastal Medical, that figure is now less than 5%, thanks to a strong workplace culture, co-worker connection, and easy access to vital information.
Transforming employee and patient experiences with Blink
When healthcare workers feel engaged in their work, they provide a better standard of care for patients. They’re more likely to feel positive about their work and committed to your organization.
An inclusive and open organizational culture, employee recognition, easy internal communication, and staff well-being strategies are just some of the building blocks you need to put in place to boost employee engagement in healthcare.
And this is where Blink comes in. A single, secure app puts updates, resources, feedback channels, comms tools, and recognition into the palm of every employee. It’s a mobile-first solution, designed for the realities of healthcare work.
This article is part of Blink’s “frontline first” series: content created specifically for leaders of deskless or distributed teams. We know that the job of frontline leadership is entirely different from managing ‘desk-based’ teams, so this is for you and your unique set of challenges.
It's somehow nearly the end of 2022, which means it's high time to start looking ahead to the year ahead.
For leaders in frontline organizations, this can be more than a little daunting. After two years of challenges caused by the pandemic and the Great Resignation, the looming prospect of a recession promises yet more adapting and innovating in order to survive and thrive.
So we'd like to help.
After working with hundreds of frontline organizations, we've created a short guide that breaks down the core principles to building a stable and successful frontline workforce for 2023 and beyond.
You can download a copy for free here or by clicking on the image below - we hope you find it useful and inspirational as you look to the new year.
Welcome to another Life at Blink! Today, we’re thrilled to shine a spotlight on one of our key team members. Sloan Kendall is the Head of Global Partnerships based out of our Boston office. With nearly a year at Blink, Sloan has been instrumental in forging impactful relationships across the industry and driving our global partnerships strategy forward. She describes Blink as a passionate, fast, and fun workplace.
Let’s explore Sloan’s journey at Blink and what she believes makes Blink special.
What initially attracted you to join Blink?
It was clear throughout my interview process and early days in the role that Blink was solving for a unique business challenge. Not just by providing a piece of technology, but because of our ability to show tangible impact on how frontline organizations get work done and what optimizing that employee experience can do for the bottom line. Specifically to my role, I’m always drawn to the opportunity to build something from the ground up.
Equally, it’s evident that our go-to-market strategy is so well suited for an ecosystem of alliance and technology partners. There is no shortage of consultants, system integrators, and complementary technology providers that want to help customers optimize their frontline experience. That shared vision is really inspiring!
What’s a project you are proud of from your time at Blink?
I’m really encouraged by our team’s commitment to and excitement for collaborating with partners. It’s a new motion for the business — and we’ve seen not just our go-to-market and delivery teams embrace the change with open arms, but also our product, engineering, and operational teams. In my experience, that embrace is the biggest difference-maker for impacting revenue growth and customer experience.
What's one thing you’re excited about for the future of Blink?
Even in my relatively short time at Blink, there has been a notable market shift. Engaging the frontline is not a nice-to-have — it’s so clearly a business imperative. We’ve been bullish on that since day one and that growth commitment gets deeper daily with the incredible work we see from our customers, the perspective we gain from our partners, and the business opportunity we hear described in discussions with prospective new customers.
Can you tell us about a recent initiative or program launched at Blink that you found particularly exciting?
Our product team’s overall response to the needs of those migrating from Workplace has been so impressive. We’ve remained true to what we believe will be game changing solutions for frontline-centric organizations, while balancing the need for new features and functionality Workplace users know and love. The extensibility of our platform is such a differentiator and what gets me (and our partners) so excited for the road ahead.
Why do you work for Blink?
At this stage in my career, I’m seeking a balance of opportunity, challenge and fun. I want to feel like we’re working towards something meaningful, while being pushed to think differently or execute faster, all while having a few laughs in between. Blink, for me, has shown it’s got all these key ingredients in the stew!
As we wrap up this glimpse into Blink through the lens of our Head of Global Partnerships, it’s clear that our commitment to innovation, partnership, and exceptional employee experience drives everything we do. From building impactful solutions to fostering a dynamic and supportive culture, Blink is not just a company; it's a vibrant community dedicated to making a real difference.
Stay connected with us for more updates and stories from the Blink team as we continue to push boundaries and redefine what’s possible.
The company intranet shouldn’t be a place where your documents go to gather digital dust. Done right, an intranet acts as the beating heart of your organization.
That’s because there are so many ways you can use an intranet. Internal communication, project management, personnel services, collaboration – a modern intranet can be the hub for a diverse range of workplace activities.
Too often, however, the company intranet is neglected. Without regular improvement, it becomes irrelevant and unappealing to your employees. Usage drops and you end up paying for something that no one really engages with.
So how do you keep your intranet up to date and in use? If you feel your company intranet has lost its shine, take a look at the list of intranet improvement ideas below. They’ll help you to maximize your intranet – boosting employee engagement, connection, and productivity in the process.
What is a company intranet?
The intranet has changed a lot over the years. So we thought it wise to start with a definition.
A company intranet is a local network, exclusively for you and your employees. Unlike the company website, it’s a place where you can share documents and data privately – without worrying about clients, competitors, or the general public seeing them.
A basic company intranet usually includes:
Internal communication tools
An employee directory
Document sharing
Access to personnel services
That’s how we’d describe a traditional company intranet. But there’s a lot of variation between different intranet software. As we’ll see in a moment, older intranets are a world away from the modern versions many companies use today.
Why is it important to improve your company intranet?
An intranet can boost employee engagement and streamline operations. But if your organization is still using an older style of intranet, you may run into the following problems:
Functionality is limited
Employees don’t like using your intranet
Some employees (for example, your frontline workers) can’t access your intranet
There’s no getting away from it. Older intranets have limitations- they were designed for a version of the workplace that no longer exists. They’re great for sharing information among a desk-based team but traditional intranets aren’t particularly user-friendly or accessible.
In contrast, modern intranet software solutions are built with the needs of today’s digital workplace in mind. They allow easy internal communication and collaboration, even when employees are away from the office. And they provide a hub for workplace essentials, like benefits and payroll.
But remember – whichever type of intranet you’re currently using within your organization, there’s always room for improvement. Technology and employee expectations are constantly changing and your intranet needs to keep pace.
Updates enhance the intranet experience for employees, which means they’re more likely to use the platform. They also bring a greater range of functions under the same intranet umbrella, helping teams to be more productive.
A fully optimized intranet (or a similar tool – like an employee app), puts essential tools at the fingertips of your workforce. Employees are more effective and engaged. And you get the most out of your software investment.
14 ideas to improve your company intranet
An older intranet is sometimes little more than a glorified shared folder. Even modern intranets can quickly fall behind ever-evolving tech trends and employee needs.
By improving your intranet, you create something altogether more useful and exciting. Adopt modern intranet features and you’ll bring your company intranet up-to-date while encouraging employee uptake too.
In this section, we’re going to look at lots of ideas for improving your company intranet.
1. Improve communication channels
2. Personalized user portals
3. Content creation
4. Social networking features
5. Integration of AI and automation
6. Mobile accessibility
7. Rewards and recognition
8. Feedback and surveys
9. Integration with other tools
10. Analytics and reporting
11. Onboarding and training resources
12. Security and data privacy
13. User training and support
14. Commitment to continuous improvement
1. Improve communication channels
Think of the communication tools you use outside the workplace – the apps you use to chat with friends and family.
These apps are appealing and engaging. They facilitate fast and easy communication via instant messaging. They allow you to chat privately or in groups. And they come with an intuitive, user-friendly interface.
Recreate the same experience within your company intranet and you boost both team connection and employee engagement.
So where should you start? The first step to improving intranet communication channels is ensuring everyone has a voice. Conversations should be two-way, not one-way. That means using communication channels that allow information to travel in all directions – peer-to-peer, top-down, and bottom-up.
Once you’ve established these types of communication channels, encourage your teams to use them. Allow employees to create spaces where co-workers can chat and collaborate. Welcome feedback and frontline intel from your workers and use channels to share important news.
When communication channels crisscross your organization in this way, everyone hears and is heard. And important information is a lot less likely to be missed.
2. Personalized user portals
Marketing emails. Grocery store rewards. Netflix recommendations. The best digital experiences are tailored to each individual consumer.
Personalization makes experiences more engaging – and, when we spend our days bombarded with information, it cuts through the noise to ensure that key messages resonate.
We can apply this approach to the company intranet. When an employee logs in and sees a dashboard personalized to their role, their team, and their past intranet interactions, everything becomes much more engaging. An employee gets relevant content front and center.
Whether your intranet provides personalization automatically – or if employees can rearrange the user portal themselves – tailored experiences are another great way to improve your intranet.
3. Content creation
At a minimum, employees should be filling out their employee profile. But you can encourage them to go further. Make your intranet more relevant and engaging by involving all team members in content creation.
Employees can share team news, tutorials, and guides. To ensure cohesion, you can create a content template to support employees with the process, outlining the structure they should follow and the tags they can add.
Of course, employees can also contribute their posts, comments, and reactions on a social-media-style news feed.
4. Social networking features
72.3% of the US population uses social networking sites. So it’s safe to say that most of your employees enjoy hanging out on at least one of the popular social media platforms.
Add a social-media-style news feed to your intranet solution and you make things feel a little less corporate and a little more social. Employees can see and share posts, images, and videos. They can also comment and react to posts published by their co-workers.
A news feed keeps employees in the know. It’s a place to share important workplace updates and events. But not any old news feed will do. If you want high adoption rates, you need a news feed with a user-friendly interface. When a platform is intuitive, employees find it easier to weave it into their work day.
Blink Feed – a feature of the Blink super-app – replicates the experience of popular social network news feeds by prioritizing connection and usability. It offers a range of really useful add-ons, too – like critical messages that sit at the top of the news feed until employees read and acknowledge them.
5. Integration of AI and automation
Love it or loathe it, AI is making work quicker and easier. So incorporating it into your company intranet makes perfect sense.
With the help of AI, you can:
Automate repetitive intranet tasks, like expense report processing and employee onboarding
Give time-strapped content creators inspiration for their posts
Personalize employee portals based on the features they use most often
Send push notifications, drawing employee back to the intranet when new content is posted
Add an AI chatbot to your intranet and you can do even more. This virtual assistant can handle routine inquiries. It can help employees find answers to FAQs, locate relevant resources, or troubleshoot intranet issues.
When AI and automation do some of the heavy lifting, employees complete tasks quickly and easily, and you lighten the load for your personnel and IT teams, too.
6. Mobile accessibility
Back in the day, old intranets worked off a server in the office. You could only log in if you were based on a desktop computer in the same building.
We’ve come a long way. Now, in a world where employees work remotely – and where they’re used to slick digital experiences – most intranets can be accessed via an internet connection. But does this go far enough?
If employees access your intranet solely from a computer or laptop screen, then maybe. But if you’re a frontline organization, probably not. You need a solution with mobile-first design that ensures the same great intranet experience across all devices.
That’s because frontline workers don’t always have access to a desktop or laptop computer. They often don’t even have access to a work email address. And if your intranet offers a sub-standard (or non-existent) mobile experience, these workers can end up cut off from co-workers, comms, and company culture.
A mobile-first intranet ensures every member of your organization – including those working remotely or on the frontline – gets the same information and sense of connection. Your intranet reaches employees wherever they spend their workdays.
7. Rewards and recognition
According to Gallup and Workhuman research, employees who get recognition for their hard work are up to 20 times more engaged than those who don’t.
Praise an employee and you boost their motivation. Give public recognition and that impact grows. You create a positive company culture. And the wider team – seeing that effort is rewarded – are more likely to up their game, too.
If you’re not using your intranet to recognize and reward the employee behaviors you want to see, this is another key area for improvement. You need tools – like Blink’s recognition feature – that help you weave small but meaningful recognition into your every day.
Show employees just how much you value them with instant, personalized messages. And go public, celebrating employee successes with the whole team so everyone benefits.
Aggregate Industries, a manufacturer and supplier in the UK, put this rewards action with their Net Zero campaign that is at a core of their organization.
In an effort to drive awareness about the team’s sustainability efforts, “carbon atoms” were placed throughout the Blink platform for employees to find while engaging with content. Once discovered, each atom held a question related to their Net Zero strategy, and when an employee answered the question correctly, they were entered into a contest for a prize. This ultimately drove incredible engagement with the platform while learning about a key strategy of theirs, and then the employees were rewarded when they engaged.
To learn more about how Aggregate Industries utilizes Blink for their Internal Communications strategy, check out our webinar here.
8. Feedback and surveys
The best intranets have built-in feedback and survey functions that make it easy to discover employee needs, concerns, and expectations.
You promote open, two-way communication with regular requests for feedback. You then have all of the communication tools you need to share findings and a plan of action with employees.
With these tools at your disposal, you can seek feedback on any aspect of the employee experience, including the intranet itself. Perhaps a crucial feature is clunky and difficult to use. Or extra functionality would make a popular tool even more useful.
Launch surveys via Blink’s mobile super-app and it’s super easy for employees to respond – even when using a smartphone. You can discover what employees think of your intranet, and then make data-driven software improvements.
9. Onboarding and training resources
When you use your intranet for onboarding, there are lots of benefits:
You create a standardized process
New hires have a resource they can refer back to
You save manager time because the intranet does some of the training for them
It’s easy to gather feedback and data on the onboarding process
If you aren’t already using your intranet to train new hires, start by putting mandatory training resources, FAQs, and video tutorials onto your portal. Also, encourage new starters to use your employee directory, finding relevant co-workers to connect with.
Introduce new employees to your intranet from the very beginning and you showcase its role within your organization. Employees get to see its features and benefits, and are more likely to use it going forward.
10. Integration with other tools
Company intranets are most useful when they’re a one-stop-shop – a hub for all the technologies, tools, and resources you use within your organization.
Putting everything in one place speeds up and streamlines workflow. Employees don’t waste time logging in and out of different platforms. And they don’t have to familiarize themselves with multiple interfaces. Instead, they access everything they need via your intranet portal.
If you’re currently using a patchwork of different tools, you can improve things by finding out which integrations your intranet software supports.
Alternatively, you can connect tools via a feature like the Blink hub. Here, you can put HR systems, internal communications, project management, employee benefits, and more, in the same accessible place.
11. Analytics and reporting
If your current intranet doesn’t have analytics and reporting features this is another area crying out for improvement. With analytics, you get to see:
See how communication flows around your company so you can identify both positive and negative relationships. Filter employee engagement data by team or date range. Find the most popular news feed posts to learn which content grabs employee attention.
Analytics and reporting functions make intranet data easy to understand and act upon. You can then use your findings to make your intranet even more effective.
12. Security and data privacy
There’s a cyber-attack every 39 seconds. Any digital workplace needs to consider the cyber security risks they face and regularly reassess the safety measures they have in place.
The best intranets provide rock-solid security that keep systems and data safe. So if your intranet security hasn’t been updated in a while, this could be another key area for improvement.
Access control measures prevent unauthorized users from accessing specific intranet sections or features. Encryption and password protection keep sensitive documents from prying eyes. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an extra-secure way to verify a user’s identity as they log in to the system.
Employee training is also essential. Everyone needs to understand secure password practices – and how to recognize and respond to security threats. When your teams understand best security practices you can rest easy, knowing that your intranet isn’t putting your business at risk.
13. User training and support
Employee security training is important. So too is intranet training. Too many intranets are underutilized simply because employees aren’t familiar with the range of features they offer.
Of course, the best intranets are intuitive and easy to use. But if you find that your adoption rates aren’t as healthy as you’d like them to be, hone in on training.
Create guides that explain intranet features and how to use them. Consider setting up a dedicated support channel for intranet-related issues and inquiries. Appoint intranet champions – members of staff who get full training on intranet systems and can then share their knowledge with co-workers.
Training and support help employees to understand and see the value in your intranet, while you maximize the impact of intranet features.
14. Continuous improvement
It’s never a case of implementing an intranet solution and then letting it run its own course. To get the best out of an intranet, treat it like a constant work in progress.
The tech tools we use in our personal lives are regularly updated. And your intranet solution needs to move with the times too. To stay relevant and engaging, it has to adapt to changing trends, tech advances, and the needs of your employees.
With surveys, feedback requests, and analytics, you keep your finger on the pulse. You can figure out what’s missing from your intranet and which features need work. You also get the buzz of seeing which changes make the most impact.
Do companies still use intranets?
We’ve just spent a lot of time talking about the improvements you can make to the company intranet. But let’s circle back to an important question – do companies still even use them?
When it comes to the traditional company intranet, not so much. Business leaders have realized that a digital workplace and digitally-savvy employees need something more. They need an intranet that’s agile, user-friendly, and engaging. And traditional intranets don’t tend to tick these boxes.
That’s why many organizations have turned to modern intranet solutions courtesy of today’s top intranet software providers. They use an intranet that employees can access via an internet connection, one that combines lots of useful workplace tools, like project management and personnel services.
But for some organizations, these updated intranets are still falling short. So instead of an intranet solution, they’re choosing to use a mobile-first employee app.
Difference between intranets and employee apps
The intranet has its drawbacks. It doesn’t necessarily work across all devices. Nor does it provide the exceptional user experience that employees now expect. Employee apps – offering many of the same features as a company intranet – remedy these issues.
Everyone in your organization can use the employee app. They don’t have to be sitting at a computer. And they don’t even need their own company email address. This makes employee apps particularly well-suited to frontline organizations.
Imagine a frontline worker – a bus driver who spends the day driving. She spends very little time with co-workers or at company HQ. In the past, when the company used an intranet that she couldn’t access, she relied on the depo notice board for company updates.
But now, thanks to the company’s employee app, she receives internal communication and makes co-worker connections via her smartphone. On her commute or during a break, she can open the app and get up to speed.
Unlike an intranet, an employee app boosts engagement, collaboration, and productivity for all employees. They typically have high rates of user adoption so no one gets left behind.
Preview Blink and learn about the features we offer for frontline teams.
The intranet of the future?
When you make improvements to your intranet, you help it to reach its full potential. You pack it with the features and functionality that make life easy for your employees.
Workers enjoy a user-friendly intranet experience that streamlines their workflow and helps them to connect with co-workers. You get boosted employee engagement and productivity.
Whether you choose to improve your intranet or switch to a mobile-first employee app, it’s all about using this incredibly powerful tool in a way that best meets the needs of your business.
Instant messaging and two-way communication features facilitate conversation across your organization. Integration with AI and other workplace tools makes teams more efficient. Personalized, social-media-style portals ensure employee engagement. Mobile-first solutions bridge the gap between frontline teams and HQ.
Prioritize improvements that match your business goals and you can have an internal communication solution fit for the workforce of today – and tomorrow.
Find out if Blink’s employee app is a good fit for your organization. Book a demo to see our platform in action.
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