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Who are frontline employees?

At this moment, just one-fifth of workers are doing their jobs from behind a desk. That leaves the remaining 2.7 billion people who are part of the deskless and front-line workforce, with jobs that are on-the-go, and involve interacting directly with people, machines and infrastructure.

They are…

  • In the field and on the floor
  • Nurses, retail associates, factory line workers, construction workers, customer service representatives, technicians, traveling salespeople etc.
  • The first people customers interact with, or the people who build the products that end up in customers’ hands

Frontline employees form the backbone (and face) of your company.

They are your first impression on the customer, and your brand champions. With 89% of companies expecting to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience, they are your competitive edge.

When they are engaged, your business does better. Engaged employees are¹:

  • 21% more productive
  • 10% higher in customer metrics
  • 41% less likely to have a quality incident (defect)

However, studies show that frontline employees rank among the lowest in motivation of all employee types. Are your employees as engaged as they could be?

The missed opportunity of unengaged frontline workers

Disengaged workers cost the US economy $370 bn a year in lost productivity¹.

Additionally, industries with deskless workers have some of the highest employee turnover rates, costing from 16% to 213% of an employees salary per employee lost.

Since engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their employer, meaning investing in training and engagement can cut these costs².

Despite this, current employee engagement and training solutions miss the mark: studies show that 88% of remote workers struggle with inconsistent working practices and miscommunication.

Use of cumbersome learning management systems (LMS’s) and knowledge management platforms (KMP’s) are expensive and fail to cater to deskless employees for these reasons:

  • Short attention span due to front-facing nature of their work
  • Limited access to legacy systems due to deskless nature of work: only 13% visit intranet
  • Old systems focus on formats which are not mobile friendly (pptx., docx., pdf)
  • 2/3 of employees are reluctant to install organizational apps

In order to attract and retain the best talent for the future, companies have to evolve the ways in which they engage with their employees, to meet their needs.

Bites enables you to create engaging content that your employees will actually enjoy, and you can share it seamlessly to ensure your message is delivered. It’s a solution for training, communications, and everything in between.

By using the communication channels employees prefer, and story-like formats that they enjoy, you can now engage with your employees in a way that’s fast, engaging, and really effective, reaching completion levels north of 90% within 24 hours.

That means better outcomes in employee learning, engagement, and ultimately, your bottom line.

Want to learn more? Let’s chat!

  1. K. Schaufenbuel, UNC Business School, Powering Your Bottom Line Through Employee Engagement, 2013
  2. Deloitte, “Engaging the Workforce”, 2016
  3. http://desklessworkforce2018.com/