Employee experience may not receive quite as much attention as other workplace terminology, like engagement, agility, and disruption, but it is arguably much more important. Employee experience refers to everything that a worker thinks, feels, and does in their job role – it encompasses all touchpoints of an employee’s journey. It is affected by the onboarding process, training initiatives, workplace tools, company surveys, individual rosters, and interactions with colleagues.
As with customer experience, organizations have recently realized that by enhancing the employee experience, they can greatly improve worker satisfaction, productivity, and, as a result, achieve a significant revenue boost.
For businesses with desk-based workers, delivering a better employee experience has been relatively straightforward. Feedback, development programs, and internal communications platforms are easy to set up and monitor when employees have consistent work schedules, company email addresses, and regular meetings with their colleagues.
However, businesses with frontline staff won’t find it quite so straightforward to deliver an effective and integrated employee experience. Whether these individuals are waiting staff at a quick-service restaurant (QSR), duty managers at a hotel, or retail assistants, they won’t have access to a desk to serve as a centralized workplace hub. Given that the deskless workforce encompasses 80% of all employees worldwide, that’s a lot of workers receiving a subpar employee experience.
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A digital solution
Fortunately, the future of employee experience has now arrived for frontline workers as well. Businesses with a large number of deskless workers are increasingly relying on digital tools to ensure that they receive an employee experience that is at least as good as the one being offered to desk-based workers. By using mobile apps and the right Employee Experience Platform, businesses can provide a superior employee experience to their workers, whether they sit behind a desk or work on the frontline.
For any organization looking to deliver an integrated digital employee experience, we’ve listed the six most important ingredients to consider below:
Key Ingredient 1: Internal Communication
When businesses are looking to implement a digital Employee Experience Platform for their frontline workers, internal communication must be a key consideration. Many deskless workers have to rely on a multitude of different communication tools to receive roster updates, engage with their team, or chat with their colleagues. Some frontline workers may even have to rely on old-fashioned notice boards to receive updates.
However, with a digital Employee Experience Platform, organizations can create a single user-friendly solution to reach their frontline workers via their smartphone. By centralizing communications in this way, businesses can improve workplace relations, enhance administrative processes, and add clarity to their employee’s day-to-day workload.
Key Ingredient 2: Pre-boarding, Onboarding, Reboarding
A good employee experience approach starts even before people start working at your organization. Digital solutions can play an important role in setting up the pre-boarding, onboarding– and reboarding processes in your organization.
An Employee Experience Platform can supply new hires with the information they need to help them understand their role and the company culture better. Personal onboarding packages can be created for new recruits or to help those that are rejoining the company after a period away. With the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in many individuals going on furlough or working remotely, Employee Experience Platforms can really help with reboarding too.
Key Ingredient 3: Digital Training
Because frontline workers don’t have a desk or a desktop computer to work with, they are often left out when digital training initiatives, such as eLearning– and micro learning programs. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 76% of frontline workers would like to receive additional workplace training to develop their skills. With a centralized Employee Experience Platform, eLearning proposals and other digital training solutions can be utilized to provide support for employees that have traditionally been excluded from these initiatives.
Key Ingredient 4: Employee Pulse Surveys
Without access to a desk or even, at times, a company email account, it can be challenging to get frontline workers to take part in employee surveys and provide useful feedback. This can leave frontline employees feeling unengaged – as if their views do not matter to their employer.
However, many Employee Experience Platforms give frontline workers the option of providing real-time feedback via workplace surveys. Suggestions, criticisms, and important information can be quickly collated, analyzed, and acted upon. With an Employee Experience Platform, frontline workers gain real input, and managers receive vital insight that would otherwise be missed.
Key Ingredient 5: Scheduling
Frontline workers, many of which work in industries like hospitality and retail, often work changeable shift patterns. Rosters can be changed on a weekly basis, and last-minute demands may be placed on workers in the event of absences.
With an Employee Experience Platform, push notifications and scheduling updates can be delivered to frontline workers instantly. The fact that they don’t work at a desk is no reason why they should be subjected to poor communication regarding their work schedules. Furthermore, an Employee Experience Platform also lets frontline workers find replacements and easily swap shifts with their teammates.
Key Ingredient 6: HR information
HR teams have often had a difficult time gathering information from frontline employees. Employee data is challenging to monitor when deskless employees do not have a centralized solution to engage with their employer.
The right platform, however, can link existing back-office systems such as HR and WFM software , and help employees find the information they need without having to contact HR representatives, service centers, or deal with fragmented tools.
The future of employee experience
With the key ingredients listed above, organizations can bring the entire employee experience together. An Employee Experience Platform brings benefits for organizations by improving workplace productivity, customer service levels, and worker engagement. For frontline employees, it grants them access to the kind of helpful communication, support, and HR tools that office workers have had access to for a long time.
Ready to see how you can improve the employee experience for your frontline workers? Download our Frontline Employee Experience Guide.
Want to learn more about Oneteam’s Employee Experience Platform?
View the explainer video below, or request a demo to see how Oneteam can help you to connect, train, and engage your frontline workforce.
