Frontline Employee Connection Strategies for a More Connected Workforce

Frontline employee connection is becoming more of a priority as organsiations assess the costs of disconnection…

Feelings of isolation can be linked to burnout, job dissatisfaction and further discontent. This emphasises the need for companies to create initiatives that focus on creating fulfilling work environments, which develop and sustain frontline employee connection.

Defining Frontline Employee Connection

Before taking steps to implement these initiatives, it is important to understand the fundamental ideas behind how employees can feel connection.

Often it boils down to feelings of belonging – workers who feel that they have a place within an organisation will be more motivated to contribute towards its success.

While open and clear communication is obviously essential in fostering a frontline employee connection. Elements like engagement, emotional attachment and promoting collaboration are also important factors to consider.

Team-building strategies, promoting platforms for communication, rewarding good performance and allowing for worker input during decision making. Are also approaches that businesses can utilise to help build these connections.

Opening up access to organisational resources, whether it be via knowledge bases or individuals with institutional memory, can also be powerful connection builders.

For example, creating simple connections for frontline staff through something like a phone app can be hugely beneficial. Not only can they learn more about the organisation. They can collaborate with and build workplace peer networks to boost their work performance.

Importance of Frontline Employee Connection

As previously highlighted, the creation of a positive and productive working environment means that having a connected workforce is effectively non-negotiable.

When employees feel connected to their organisation, companies benefit in the following ways:

  • higher worker retention
  • increased productivity
  • lower absenteeism
  • greater worker interaction

By making efforts to foster connection a sustainable internal organisational culture can start to take hold. In the long-term, businesses can expect to benefit from greater efficiencies, when culture change takes place.

Benefits of Frontline Employee Connection

Better frontline employee connection can be the driver behind many meaningful changes that organisations can leverage, when attempting to create a competitive advantage in their industry.

Generally speaking, building connection and the benefits which flow from it can be divided into two areas. The first reflects employees themselves (employee centric), with the second centred around business gains and overall organisational benefits (employer centric).

From an employee centric perspective, the benefits include:

Job Satisfaction

  • Focusing on effectively engaging workers and promoting supportive workplace environments is key to helping them not only feel connected, but also helps validate their contributions.

Belonging

  • When it’s clear to employees that they are part of something larger, they will recognise their purpose and place within your organisation.

Better Motivated

  • By feeling that their roles are valued, workers are then better motivated to be productive in their duties.

Personal Development oOpportunities

  • Higher motivation, equals higher performance, equals recognition and rewards. Allowing for employees to grow and develop their workplace skills, is often one of the best motivators companies possess.

Employer centric benefits are:

Employee Retention

  • Company loyalty is basically a positive by product of employees expressing (often silently) that they have a sense of belonging and purpose within a business.

Boosted Productivity

  • This links back to motivation and belonging, essentially amounting to a net positive as a result of a healthy and accessible organisational culture.

Better Teamwork and Collaboration

  • If frontline workers feel isolated or otherwise disconnected, their ability to contribute will be negatively affected. This can impact the way specialist knowledge (critical to an individual’s role) is put to use in the workplace. Conversely, when they feel connected, they are better equipped to be part of meaningful and productive collaboration efforts.

Innovation and Creativity

  • Increased innovation and creativity is often viewed as a secondary benefit of teamwork & collaboration. In actual fact, it is potentially a major benefit for employers when connected workers are more likely to employ creative problem solving.

Building connection can have real world benefits for companies. The key is to ensure that initiatives are ongoing and regularly measured, in order to determine that they are achieving their objectives.

Strategies for Implementation

There are many ways to effectively engage and build frontline employee connections. This can be achieved by reassessing organisational processes and approaches. These include:

  • Decision Making & Involvement

Traditionally, key operational decisions are limited to choices made by leaders.

By involving employees – particularly those active in frontline work environments. Business leaders can gain a better understanding of how their decisions impact the overall process. It’s also an opportunity to understand how to better address worker needs and concerns.

  • Prioritising Open Communication and Dialogues

By making use of a centralised communication platform (like Wyzetalk), companies are able to promote open discussions between workers and managers.

Creating discussion forums where employees can voice their opinions are important. Not only does this help companies address workplace concerns, it shows employees their views are being recognised and acted upon.

  • Connection-Building Activities

These can be events like day-specific plans to contribute to a charity or more relaxed and fun activities, such as attending or participating in sporting events.

Whatever approach is adopted it is key to ensure that all workers feel they have been given equal opportunity to give input and in so doing build connection.

Wyzetalk as a Facilitator for Frontline Employee Connection

When it comes to leveraging technology in order to improve frontline employee connection, Wyzetalk is an industry leader. Our empoyee experience platform enable organisations to better engage with staff, bolster productivity and assist in creating working environments with a positive and validating organisational culture.

Through promoting digitalisation, Wyzetalk helps build a connected workforce. Digitalisation drives open communication and ensures that employees are able to effectively collaborate with their peers. It also has the potential to make a host of administrative functions available to employees easing the burden of some human resources activities.

With a centralised and accessible platform, employers are able to implement team-building strategies that combat burnout and other disconnection issues faced by their staff, especially those involved in more remote work settings.

Key Takeaways

Prioritising frontline employee connection in the modern workplace is a crucial element in creating a productive, efficient internal environment that promotes a sustainable culture that helps workers feel validated and motivated.

This benefits both parties and helps to encourage meaningful change in how employees perceive teamwork, collaboration and innovation.

To better equip your organisation in fostering frontline employee connections, let’s connect today.

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