How Internal Communication Apps For Business Connect A Deskless Workforce

The modern workforce is diverse. But there is an underserved part of the workforce: deskless employees. These are your frontline staff, and they’ve always been there in manufacturing facilities and working in our hospitals. Because more employees no longer work in a traditional office, we need better solutions for reaching our teams, engaging them, and activating them towards our goals. We need tools for our deskless workforce that enable communication, give access to resources, and connect employees wherever they are. Here are five key benefits of using internal communication apps for business:

1. Boosts Employee Engagement 

When you have the right internal communications strategy and tools in place, you engage all your employees. Employee engagement is a critical part of retention, job satisfaction, job performance, and increased earnings for your business according to Holmes Report.

2. Strengthens Top-Down Communication

Ever play the game of telephone? Communication for frontline employees can be a lot like this game. Communication comes from corporate, gets shared through internal comms to field leadership, cascades down to frontline managers, and is (hopefully) shared with employees. If you’re familiar with this game of telephone, you know that the message that you start with often is very different from what you end with. The same is true here.

At every stage, the message changes in tone and intent. The what and the why might be very different based on role and seniority, and a lot can get lost in translation. Anyone along the chain might leave out the “why” behind a change, and they might not share the inspirational messaging. They might not share the recognition piece or the story that was shared in tandem with an operational change. But internal comms pros are very strategic about how they share information and know that the “so what” behind a message is critical to getting buy-in, understanding, and ultimately trust.

3. Opens Up Access 

We are big believers in giving all employees, regardless of their title or where they work, access to information. This includes the operational information they need to do their jobs and stay safe in the workplace and the information they need for their personal lives, like benefits and wellness resources. Historically, frontline employees who aren’t managers haven’t had this kind of access. And we want to change that. 

4. Enables Two-Way Communication

You’ve probably heard that communication should be two-way. We completely agree. Unfortunately, at most companies, deskless employees may not be able to receive messages directly with your existing channels.

That said, we also know that your internal communication strategy needs to be informed by employee feedback. This makes the use of surveys critical through this platform, so you can get real-time feedback from your staff to make sure messages resonate and stick. But we also know that not all messages need to come from Internal Comms or the C-Suite. Mid-level managers should be empowered to communicate better with their teams. Our frontline manager comms guide can help.

5. Improves Manager Comms and the Localization of Content

We know that manager comms skills are often lacking and are becoming a priority for many internal comms professionals. An internal communications app for business can enable you to train your managers on comms best practices, provide talking points for changes or updates, and give them a feedback loop to ask for help and submit questions.

When your managers are confident communicators, you can then empower them to share content with their employee groups. When you can localize content, this increases its relevance and authenticity. And local content lets IC pros to focus on top-down messaging, executive communications strategy, and management.

Why an Employee App Can Work For Your Business

There is a lot of misinformation out there about internal communications apps. Read our blog Debunking Bring Your Own Device Myths to learn the truth behind the top five misconceptions we hear about employee apps. When you’re ready, we’re here to answer any of your questions about how theEMPLOYEEapp can help you with your communication needs