How Leaders Can Better Manage Deskless Workers

Deskless workers make up 2.7 billion people around the world, accounting for 80 percent of the global workforce today. 

Deskless workers face unique job demands, uncertain work schedules, customer service demands, long hours standing and no easy access to important information. So, it’s important to understand that the frontline workforce has different needs than those who sit behind a desk. 

The importance of managing your frontline workers cannot be understated, as they are most often working in customer-facing positions and will also act as your brand ambassadors. So how can you create better experiences for your mobile workforce? 

Understand Their Unique Needs

Remote workers have unique communication needs across a wide range of industries and linguistics. Therefore, utilizing deskless technology made specifically for deskless workers is important, and in most cases establishing proper lines of communication will require you to use a communication platform built for them. 

With a dedicated platform built for your deskless workforce, you can successfully connect everyone, monitor their engagement levels, give your frontline workers a voice, share feedback with them, take quick action with management as well as conduct transparent communication campaigns that can include the entire workforce. All without needing to send a single email. 

Considering the high cost of employee turnover and recruitment processes that are a reality in many heavy deskless industries, companies should start to consider how newer, better technology can help them decrease their employee turnover and retain their mobile employees.

Invest in Smart Technologies

To create the best experiences for these workers, organizations will need to start investing in technologies that are more engaging, user-friendly and applications that are smart enough to support workers’ needs. 

By using a strong tech platform, companies will be able to help their employees feel more connected with their employers through regular communication. This might make things like scheduling shifts, reducing overtime, mitigating burnout and supporting on-the-job training much easier. These tasks are easy for white-collar workers to accomplish through corporate emails and other systems that are built to support their needs in the office, but problems arise when you are one of the thousands of workers working at a manufacturing facility or hospital. 

60 percent of companies have little to no flexible technology solutions to address the needs of their mobile workers. Only one percent of business software spending is used on technologies for this population. When the pandemic hit, there was a huge scramble to communicate safety protocols, operations, employees’ schedules and other vital information like what an employee should do if they fall ill. This disorganization was a result of a lack of investment into the proper technology for these workers. 

At 1Huddle, we offer cloud-based employee gamification software that can easily adapt to any employee training or gamification strategy you want to implement at your workplace. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our gamification platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next. 

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Request a demo today.