With many employees always on the move between sites or on customer visits, how do we make sure that we maintain strong connections and ensure they feel valued? Technology that can be available to them, wherever they are, is the solution.
The first stepping stone to engaged connectivity is mobile workforce management. Using an app as your central place to store all work-related information can streamline this.
What defines a mobile workforce?
Mobile workers are exactly that. Individuals who are not based at a single site long-term, such as drivers, caregivers, sales reps, construction workers and tradespeople. This aspect of ‘remote work’ away from headquarters and office-based colleagues can sometimes bring a sense of separation and disengagement from central communications.
An often interchangeable term could be ‘deskless workers’, and although there are some nuances between the two, the uniting factor is that those without desktop access to an intranet will need an on-the-go solution to stay in tune with company news and updates.
Equally, the younger generation entering into the workforce has grown up in a mobile-first world. Whether they are desk based, remote or mobile workers, it is highly likely that they would engage more with mobile-friendly tools. For example, when we started working with Five Guys, they knew a mobile-first approach was paramount due to most of their employees being Gen Z or Millennials. They manage almost every aspect of their lives through apps on mobile devices, so why would it be any different when staying connected with their employer and colleagues? As we look to the future, the split of Gen Z to the rest of the workforce will continue to grow, so we must put change into action sooner rather than later.
A mobile-first employee engagement strategy
You may be experiencing some hurdles in reaching your mobile employees with important company updates. Issues can arise when process or compliance-specific information is missed, which can have a knock-on effect to a project, routine or case.
By adopting a mobile-first employee engagement strategy, the notion of checking for updates using mobile devices can become ingrained in the routine of your mobile workforce. This also relieves middle managers of holding full responsibility for sharing key updates. By setting information as mandatory reads, you can have on record that every person has read and understood a certain document, which can be vital when it comes to safety procedures or updated processes.
Feeling seen and heard
Making the employee experience more interactive with opportunities for two-way communication can also draw more people in. When your people can have their say or share in celebrations of good news or success stories, they feel like part of a successful team and over time will be more willing to share their own experiences and opinions.
For colleagues who enjoy creating short-form video or articles, provide a platform for them to share it - work-related of course. Whether it’s an event recap, an award win, success in a branch or a project completed on time, empower your people to use their mobile devices for good, sharing successes with the rest of the mobile workforce.
It goes without saying that there will be a time and a place for serious company-wide updates from the top down. For the majority of the time, however, encouraging others to get involved transforms your intranet into a social hub that your mobile, office-based and remote workforce alike will want to check back on regularly. Over time, this will increase engagement and visibility of your corporate comms, so it’s a win-win.
When your mobile workforce feels seen and heard, they become more motivated, which over time increases productivity. By encouraging your workforce to have a little fun and include their voice in the internal narrative of your business, more people will feel comfortable getting involved. They may create and share branch-specific content that your internal communications team might never have the time or inkling to create.
Features to engage your mobile workers
We have provided some actionable takeaways that can be used to engage your mobile workers and stay connected to your mobile workforce.
📹 User generated content
Use social timelines to enable easy, intuitive creation of posts and news stories accompanied with photos or videos to a feed that mirrors most social media platforms. Other users will have the option to react or comment on these posts to share their thoughts, join the fun or appreciate the great work their colleagues are showcasing. This can all be done from the palm of their hand during a commute or on a break, so it’s quick, easy and will soon become second nature.
🏆 Reward and recognition
Share praise or say thanks to colleagues near and far in just a couple of clicks with an employee recognition applet that works on both desktop and mobile devices. Giving a colleague a little boost can improve morale and increase productivity, whilst also encouraging more colleagues to get involved by sharing recognition for their peers.
📱Push notifications
New regulations, new menus, new driving routes, you name it. Whatever the update, whoever needs to see it, tailor push notifications to reach the right people in the relevant roles as soon as they need to know. Just as every other app can send notifications to mobile devices, your people can receive important notifications on their phone, in the moment.
📁 Easy access to documents
Don’t make your people wait until their manager relays the news, let them see or read it themselves. By hosting such information within your app, they can revisit it whenever necessary, and can confirm they have read and understood to give you extra peace of mind. Mobile workforce management can take many formats, and Miller Homes has seen fantastic engagement rates from their mobile workers based on construction sites who can easily access drawings, information and all other resources they need to ensure the work they do every day is to specification.
🌍 Auto translations
Is your mobile workforce also international? Help them get the best out of their intranet with translations into their chosen preferred language. Any posts made by colleagues will be auto-translated for the universal audience so nobody misses out on the fun.
📈 Learn and adapt
Understand how your mobile workers are engaging and connecting with the communications being shared through your intranet. Do they prefer video over written articles? Are posts from regional and local managers getting more attention than those from top management? The more you know about how your mobile workforce interacts with different types of content, especially when they are likely to be out and about, the better you can tailor the way your comms are presented to get the maximum response. Built-in analytics tools enable your intranet managers to access these insights and act on them where necessary.
Ready to go mobile?
The modern intranet has multi-pronged success in that it securely houses all relevant important company information but also becomes a space for colleagues to build connections and engage with peers and management, no matter where their role is based. We have a full suite of tools to support your communication with your mobile workforce and can show you how to make the best of your intranet to achieve your internal communications goals.
Click below to reach out for a free demo by our expert team and we will be in touch to arrange this with you.