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Despite making up nearly 80% of the global workforce, deskless workers often feel disconnected from company culture due to poor communication. While deskless workers frequently need critical information, the time, method and delivery is typically lacking.
Organizations need to do all they can to effectively communicate with this workforce segment. Effective communication starts with a thoughtful strategy, followed by the judicious use of tools, online and offline resources to reach employees no matter where they are or how far away they are from a computer.
Enable Your Deskless Workers With Timely, Relevant Communication
It’s so easy to take instant communication for granted. After all, everyone has access to email, don’t they? But deskless workers might not have easy access to a computer for hours at a time — if at all. They also might not be working traditional office hours, so the companywide email sent out during the day might not get to them until it’s too late to act on it.
Poor timing and content irrelevance hinder comms efforts. Although 61% of deskless workers believe that better communication would make them more productive, 24% of them say that poor communication leaves them feeling disconnected from the company culture. Your communications strategy needs to take deskless workers’ access, schedules and preferred channels into account. Delivering effective and timely communications — on the employees’ own terms — is critical to company success.
Use a Mixture of Analog and Digital Approaches to Get Messages to Your Deskless Workforce
Getting messages to deskless workers at the right time will require new ideas and tools. Comms teams might wonder how they can accomplish this task with few team members or limited resources.
But successful outreach is possible. Deskless workers might not have easy access to a computer, but it’s likely they’re carrying a mobile phone. Mobile outreach is both an effective strategy and a preferred one — 51% of deskless workers would prefer mobile methods like text messages or push notifications.
Of course, a successful communications strategy shouldn’t only rely on mobile. Digital signage is another way to reach a number of people with broad messaging. And comms teams shouldn’t forget about a key component in their toolkit — managers. Direct manager communication is one of the most effective ways to reach the deskless workforce, and 42% of deskless workers prefer hearing critical company information directly from their managers.
Prove Communication Success Through a Mix of Metrics
Comms teams have a lot to focus on as they develop careful plans that address communication relevance, timing, channel preference and digital literacy to truly connect with all employees. Having a strong set of metrics to measure the effectiveness of outreach efforts will help here. These metrics can be hard or soft depending on how much you need to tie comms efforts to broader business goals. Metrics can be obtained through simple polls, pulse surveys, direct discussions with managers, or through dashboards on your comms platform.
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At the end of the day, a successful communications measurement strategy will follow the following lifecycle:
- Set initial goals and KPIs
- Target and orchestrate your communications
- Measure regularly
- Share findings with stakeholders
- Repeat and refine
Conclusion
Improving employee communication is essential for engaging all workforce members, especially deskless or frontline workers who make up the majority of the global workforce and are often the first to deliver customer experiences. By leveraging a mix of analog and digital channels, communications teams can reach deskless workers with critical information and foster a sense of belonging, no matter where they are. Such communications efforts will go a long way to improving employee morale and team cohesion.
For more info, read the full whitepaper: Making the Deskless Not Connectless.
