Mar 4, 2021 5:35:46 PM
Training & learning | Employee experience | Communications
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Frontline employees have been working incredibly hard for the last year to keep their industries afloat. We should certainly be celebrating their achievements - but calling them heroes and putting them on a pedestal isn’t enough. Praise and appreciation is nice, but it doesn’t make their jobs any easier.
What they need is help and support from HQ. Something concrete, a tool that will improve the employee experience and empower them to do even better, every day.
One way companies can provide that support for their frontline employees is by consolidating their training and internal communications into one unified, user-friendly platform.
Here are 3 reasons why now is the time to make the change:
#1 A unified platform gives frontline employees all the information they need - in one place.
Frontline employees are also deskless workers.
80% of the global workforce is made up of deskless workers, and yet most companies’ internal communications and training programs don’t actually consider what might work best for those employees.
Frontline employees are on their feet all day jumping from task to task, often with no down time. They can’t be constantly heading to the back office to check their emails for updates from HQ, and they certainly don’t have the time for lengthy training sessions.
In 2021, with guidelines for frontline employees changing constantly, it’s essential that everyone has up-to-the-minute information and relevant training. To achieve that, you have to meet employees with communications and training where they are - which is on their smartphones.
Combining communications and training is the only way to ensure that your employees have all the information they need at their fingertips, no matter where they are or how busy they might be.
Having these 2 functions in the same place tells employees what's happening, what they need to do, why it needs to be done and how to do it.
RELATED: Who Are Deskless Employees, and Why Do They Need a Digital Workplace?
#2 A unified platform improves performance.
We’ve all been in a situation where we’ve tried to split our focus too many different ways at once. It never works out well, does it?
Even with the best will in the world, ultimately you end up with a lot of tasks either not done properly, or not done at all.
The same rule applies to the tools you use to complete those tasks. Having a plethora of different communication channels - emails from HQ, WhatsApps from area managers, a group chat for store teams, an app for company updates, and so on - is a recipe for disaster.
Disrupting your frontline employees’ focus like this will leave them confused and exasperated by the constant notifications, and they’ll most likely end up missing something important.
Unifying all your communications in one place makes life so much easier for frontline employees, as it gives them the time and mental bandwidth to get on with their duties while ensuring they never miss an update.
Just ask our client, BurgerFi - they achieved a 100% adoption rate across their entire franchise network when they switched to YOOBIC’s mobile-first platform. Their frontline employees are now more engaged and actually look forward to training, which has helped BurgerFi expand its network even despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can find out more about BurgerFi’s journey with YOOBIC here.
And speaking of achieving 100% adoption rates...
#3 A unified platform drives high adoption rates.
A platform can be absolutely perfect on paper, but won't change anything if employees don't use it. That's why driving high adoption is so critical.
Just by combining company communications and training, you're already doing a lot to drive adoption. That's because you've given employees a single source of truth for all the information they need. If something is easy for you, you'll use it more.
What's more, with a unified platform, there's so much you can to to engage your employees and drive your adoption rates even higher. Here are a few tips.
Keep communications updates short and sweet, with only the relevant information - your employees have a lot on their plates as it is. You can also keep it fun and engaging by posting a combination of text posts, videos, images, and even GIFs.It’s common knowledge these days that refreshing your social media feed and receiving notifications triggers a release of dopamine (the “reward hormone”) in the brain, so giving your communications a social media makeover will encourage employees to keep coming back for more.
That addictive feeling we get from social media can also be applied to learning and development. Gamified microlearning makes learning fun and engaging by providing targeted quizzes to test employees on anything from new product launches to the latest COVID-19 guidelines.
Encouraging friendly competition between colleagues with a points system and leaderboard will further entice your frontline workers to actively participate in their own learning and development.
It’s easy to get carried away with the fun stuff, but don’t forget to also champion your employees’ voices. Employees working in a pandemic need to feel engaged more than ever, and like we said earlier, rewards mean nothing if employees don’t feel truly seen or heard. Make your internal communications about mutual respect and reciprocity, and your frontline workers will go above and beyond for you.
RELATED: Microlearning Examples: 7 Ideas to Elevate Your Workplace Training
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Find out how to transform your training and internal communications strategy and help your employees through the COVID-19 crisis by requesting a demo below:
