3 certified strategies for refueling frontline engagement
Frontline workers are the lifeblood of many businesses, but this vital segment of the workforce is so often an afterthought when it comes to internal communications. At Unite 23, Unily’s sold-out employee experience conference, we quizzed two inspiring enterprise leaders about the strategies and tactics they’re using to transform frontline engagement at their organizations. Here are the three top takeaways you can use to elevate your strategy.
Adapting internal communications for frontline success
It can be hard enough to engage desk-based workers with internal communications, so what about employees who work on the frontline, with limited desktop access? Engaging frontline employees is an age-old challenge that many enterprises are still fighting to crack.
Knowing this, we made it our mission to dig into this puzzling topic at Unite 23, Unily's annual employee experience conference. We brought together Debbie Braden, Director of Internal Communications at Caliber Collision, Marc Whittingham, Head of Change Communications and Engagement at Holland & Barrett, and Robert Sica, Enterprise Professional Services Consultant at Unily to share their top tips for adapting internal communications for a frontline workforce.
You can still watch the full session on-demand or read on for a breakdown of the key takeaways.
Takeaway 1: Consider frontline employees’ unique challenges when crafting a comms plan
Desk-based knowledge workers have very different needs and interests in comparison to frontline counterparts. While colleagues in Finance and Operations might be interested in the latest working-from-home resources or canteen information, employees working on the shop floor or on the road will quickly become disillusioned with this sort of content. Managing these two different audiences effectively starts with a rigorous understanding of what makes them tick.
Holland & Barrett, a major European retailer operating in the health and wellness space, understands this challenge intimately. Marc Whittingham has headed up the internal comms strategy at the company for the last three years, and through this time he's refined several strategies for navigating the needs of diverse audience types.
"We want to treat frontline employees like their colleagues in the office, but sometimes you have to treat them in a very different way and use different channels"
He says on the idea of a one-size-fits-all approach. In Marc's view, the key to success when it comes to engaging the frontline is being laser-focused on what is necessary to share and unafraid to trim the fat.
"We have to think about what frontline employees absolutely have to know and what is just nice to know. We’ve really streamlined down a lot of our communications because a lot of the things that we talk about might not be relevant to them.”
Meanwhile, Debbie Braden encourages internal communicators to be mindful of what a frontline worker’s day-to-day experience might look like.
"I think it’s a real challenge, especially based on the type of work that’s being done. It’s easy to engage people who are using a computer, they’re connected. Whether they’re working in the retail space, a nurse running around, or in my case auto repair, they are doing other things and working with other equipment."
Takeaway 2: Think outside of the box to keep frontline employees engaged
To cultivate a sense of connection and camaraderie amongst frontline workers, Debbie recommends getting creative with the channels your employees use to express themselves. She highlights an initiative launched by her team that demonstrates the power of authentic representation to drive engagement.
“We have a video series called The Artisans of Caliber. It’s this punchy, fast-paced music video and all of our people look really awesome. They’re not just showing themselves working, but also doing their favorite hobbies, like fishing or walking their dogs. So it’s fun to show the juxtaposition of who they are as workers and as people. We’re valuing them as a whole person and as a result, we’re starting to get some buy-in.”
Another creative tactic that won't be available to every internal comms team comes from Marc: “Something we tried at a previous company was we would actually pay frontline workers a monthly allowance to kind of give them some extra time to find the latest news and do a bit of learning and that really helped. It felt like a bit of a carrot and stick moment but what we could do after that is prove that the more content they engaged with, the better our sales were.”
Takeaway 3: The detail is in the data
Learning what content is already resonating with your frontline workers - and what isn't - is absolutely vital to adapting a frontline internal comms strategy. For Debbie, it's about tying the data to business outcomes.
"What I look at first is what are the people in different positions looking at? What are the top documents, sites, pages, news, and videos? Because, for me, that’s tied to business outcomes. Each of the positions should be focused on specific content that we’re delivering so what interests me most is: what’s rising to the top? And are they looking at what they’re supposed to be?"
Whittingham points out that analytics can also help internal communicators get a clearer picture of when and where frontline workers are reading their content—and some peak times for content consumption may come as a shock.
“I think one of the things that surprised me most was the times of day when people visit our site. When we look at those analytics, so many people are on there at 4am and, of course, we’re not encouraging that! But being able to get that level of detail around when they’re accessing the site and also the location they’re accessing it from. Those are the things my team always has a chat about.”
Takeaway 4: A day in the life
To truly understand the mindset of your frontline workers, Whittingham suggests taking a walk in their shoes.
"Get out there on the frontlines yourself! You’d be really surprised to learn about some of the challenges they’re dealing with."
Braden highlights video as a key medium for getting closer to the frontline perspectives.
“We do a lot of video and my team is on the road all the time. So they get some useful information and it’s all frontline stuff and insights we don’t get in surveys or comments.”
Catch up on the full Unite 23 program!
If these tips have got your cogs whirring, why not check out more of the strategies and techniques that are working to improve the employee experience at the world's most iconic enterprises? Discover more of Unite 23 by catching up on demand!
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