Deskless, frontline workers largely rely on managers for receiving company communications. Certainly, direct communications between deskless workforces and frontline managers will always be important, but managers are being asked to decipher and disseminate what could be a cascade of in-person conversations, calls, text, emails and automated responses. Not surprisingly, as the primary contact between frontline employees and corporate leaders, frontline managers reported difficulty in finding enough time to surface feedback and source answers to questions and other necessary information. When they do have enough time, ill-suited or outdated communications, feedback, training and execution systems ae forcing them to shoulder a heavy load acting as the intermediary between corporate and staff, said Deskless researchers. “They’re trying to bubble up feedback and employee insights while also communicating crucial information back to their staff and implementing cultural, product and promotional initiatives – all while simply trying to stay afloat on a day-to-day basis,” the Deskless report exclaimed. As such, some disconnects between what workers say and what corporate leaders hear are to be expected, and when asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how effective their organization’s communication is, 65 percent of corporate leaders scored their communications an 8 or higher, while only 35 percent of workers did the same. A disconnect also was discovered when talking about investing in technology, showed the Deskless data. When asked whether they agreed with the statement, “I believe my organization invests in new technologies for frontline workers,” 73 percent of corporate respondents strongly or somewhat agree, while only 39 percent of frontline workers feel the same. In fact, managers have reported that low-tech analog solutions, such as whiteboards and binders, not only are still being used but are still being actively adopted and encouraged. Likewise, just 4 percent of corporate leaders say the availability of training and upskilling for frontline employees is inadequate, while about 30 percent of frontline employees see them as inadequate. The EX Breakdown Considering the large deskless workforces that frontline organizations employ, there’s a wealth of information that can be used to finetune messaging, improve task and campaign execution and even predict turnover, argued researchers at Deskless. “There’s also a massive opportunity to tap into the frontline perspective on the insights they’re communicating, which can lead to continuous improvement and improved business outcomes,” said the research firm. The largely “top-down” approach to communications, typically shoehorned from the desked world into deskless environments, along with the mostly unstructured feedback loops are limiting organizations’ abilities to tap into these resources or ensure that insights and feedback are finding their way to the right people. “Furthermore, there’s a concern among managers about the results of the feedback they share,” said the Deskless report. “The large, sweeping initiatives that are implemented and shared back down to frontlines feel misaligned against the original feedback or concerns, and managers feel like corporate is out of touch with the ‘day-to-day chaos’ of the frontline experience.” Nearly 40 percent of frontline respondents said that fractured communication was very or extremely challenging to their day-to-day work. An infusion of communications technology, meanwhile, can consolidate channels to allow for one fluid, company sanctioned channel for information to flow down – and back up, Deskless researchers pointed out. Communications applications can embrace the ad-hoc, in-the-moment communications, harnessed into a more consistent and scaledup approach, reducing the load on managers and opening up opportunities for continuous feedback loops in one place, they continued. “This allows for organizations to scale up communications, delivering information to the frontline more directly, with the analytics in place to measure effectiveness and knowledge retention companywide,” concluded the research report. The good news is, there is general consensus among all participants that technology investments can help alleviate existing challenges. According to the survey of deskless organizations, 84 percent of corporate leaders, 78 percent of frontline managers and 69 percent of deskless workers believe that investing in new technologies for frontline workers can improve the overall success of their organizations. J CX & EX How Frontline Managers and Workers Share Feedback In-person 59% Email 44% Text/calls on personal phone 42% Conversations with manager 41% Company-provided communications app 23% Surveys 19% Independently sourced communications app 16% Company intranet 15% Physical (bulletin board, binders, etc.) 15% Social media 14% None of the above 5% Source: Deskless; the Starr Conspiracy 20 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com
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