Improving Communication with Frontline and Deskless Workers

Today, there are more tools than ever to stay connected with your employees. Improving communication between deskless workers and management is important and there is no excuse as to why it shouldn’t be optimized. Here are a few ways to make communication with your deskless workforce more efficient.

What is corporate communication?

Any communication that your organization develops and distributes which is related to your business, your goals, values or policies is considered corporate communications. However, this does not just include the messages that you send, but it also involves how you respond to communications that you receive. It also encompasses your brand identity and corporate tone of voice. 

For organizations with a global presence, or companies who have employees who work alone or from home, corporate communication is a tool to unite people. Audiences for corporate communication include:

• Current employees
• Potential employees
• Customers
• Suppliers
• The press
• Investors
• Board members and shareholders

Corporate communication can be divided into two broad categories: internal and external. Normally, external corporate communication was the responsibility of the PR department, and any internal communication was in the realm of HR. However, things are rapidly changing. Now it is more effective for everyone in upper management to sit in and be present in almost all aspects of the business.

Even if your organization does not much value corporate comms, every organization is constantly sending out messages about themselves internally and externally. Corporate communication is a primary way of formalizing and being strategic about your brand message. Despite its value, recent reports highlight that 60% of organizations have no internal comms strategy. 

How to Improve Communications With Frontline and Deskless Workers

There are a few things that should underscore your corporate communication:

• Always keep two-way lines of communication open
• Make leaders visible and relatable to all employees
• Be sure that every voice across the organization is heard, including those that are deskless
• Stay committed to breaking down barriers and hierarchies
• Share information transparently
• Always encourage an open dialogue
• Lead by example
• Stay open to taking risks and making mistakes

Establish Guidelines

All of your communication, both internal and external, will need to embody your corporate culture. However, when you have multiple content creators on your team, across multiple locations, languages and time zones, things can get a bit messy and it can be hard to maintain consistency. This is why having a set of comms guidelines, best practice formats and providing real brand examples can help with this. 

Break Up Silos

Business silos can serve as a major barrier to communications throughout your organization. It’s no easy feat to build up a shared narrative if your teams are separated from each other. By having a good understanding of the structure of your company and facilitating regular cross-team collaboration, you can break down these barriers and silos. This is where using the right tools and platforms can be extremely useful. 

Try to find solutions that will help people communicate more openly across different teams or departments, which enables teams to collaborate better in real-time.

Reward and Recognize

Great communication is a prerequisite for better recognition. It will allow you to give deskless employees awards and recognition like you would for employees who work in the office. By doing so you will have happier, engaged, and more productive employees. As well as a more profitable business overall.

It may only seem like the tip of the iceberg but this can be a big step in improving recognition and engagement in your workplace. 

Better communication in the workplace helps to improve happiness at work, and happier employees are more productive, have less sick days, provide better customer support and are more engaged.

Level Up Your Team With 1Huddle

1Huddle can help you and your team stay ahead of the learning curve. We offer cloud-based employee gamification software. 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 game 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? Talk to us today.