By Martin Vilaboy Connecting the Deskless The underserved opportunity to connect with frontline workforces Organizations that operate with large deskless workforces are suffering from a communications breakdown. Quite simply, they are in need of more robust and customized internal communications applications and services. According to surveys and research sponsored by Deckless, a research hub and community of organizational leaders responsible for deskless and frontline employees, internal communications with deskless workforces are “fractured” and inefficient – often unidirectional, unmonitored, outdated and incapable of facilitating current objectives. Indeed, at a time when employee experience and training are top-of-mind among C-suite residents, executives and managers of organizations with large deskless workforces find themselves operating with limited or non-existent feedback loops and often guessing whether or not messaging is being heard. And make no mistake; this is no small problem. More than 2.5 billion workers across the globe, in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, construction, retail, distribution, manufacturing and transportation do not sit behind a desk to do their jobs, show data from investment firm Emergence. Deskless workers make up nearly 80 percent of all employees, and often these employees serve in customer-facing roles. Yet these deskless, frontline workforces have largely been on the sidelines of digital transformation investments, witnessing significant investments in deskbound tools and technology while they continue to rely on clunky technology solutions or even manual or paper-based process to do their jobs. Too often, say researchers at Deckless, tools built for the office environment are “tweaked or reskinned, but the process remain deskbound by nature, purpose-built for workers in an office, at a desk, in front of a computer.” After COVID-19 lockdowns hit the world, digital transformations schedules accelerated, as IT departments quickly pushed new cloud, connectivity and communications technology to the desks of newly remote and hybrid workforce. Meanwhile, the story was very different for the two-billion-plus deskless and frontline employees across the globe. According to Emergence’s survey of deskless workers, 65 percent were provided no additional technology during the pandemic. This comes despite the fact that 75 percent of deskless workers report to spending most of their time using technology, and 70 percent believe access to new technology would help them do their jobs betCX & EX 18 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com
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