How to Motivate and Engage Frontline Workers: 7 Effective Tips

Frontline workers are visible pillars to the lofty halls of human capital. This workforce of critical yet unheralded employees at an organization and their ability to perform their job effectively has a powerful effect on your company’s reputation.

Running day-to-day operations, they are the first ones to represent your brand and determine how customers perceive your company. Helping them fight burnout and improve performance can be a game-changer for your organization’s commitment to boosting employee experience.

2.7 billion frontline workers across the globe are distributed across industries such as hospitality, healthcare, construction, retail, agriculture, production, and manufacturing. This workforce may be ‘deskless’ but shouldn’t become ‘forgotten’.‍

So, how would you ensure that your frontline workers are productive? In this article, let’s explore the innovative ways to motivate frontline employees because they do not have a designated working space and access to technology that other employees have.

Who are frontline workers, and what industries do they work in?

As key workers or essential workers, frontline staff interacts with customers to drive performance and customer satisfaction. They are responsible for delivering essential public services across industries.

For many organizations and essential industries, the frontline workforce is often the first contact with customers. Depending on initiatives, they are also known as mobile workers, field teams, peripatetic workers, and blue-collar workers.

According to the Cabinet Office of the UK Government, frontline workers are involved in running critical operations across industries mentioned below.

1. Health and social care

• Frontline healthcare staff includes doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, and care workers.
• Professionals involved in the health and social care supply chain.
• Producers and distributors of medicines, medical, and personal protective equipment.

2. Education and childcare

• Social workers, childcare workers, support, and teaching staff.
• Specialist education professionals.

3. Public services

• Personnel involved with the justice system.
• Religious staff and charity workers.
• Workers involved in managing the deceased.
• Journalists and broadcasters were responsible for public service broadcasting services.

4. Local and national government

• Administrative personnel managing Covid-19 response.
• Essential public services personnel.

5. Food and necessary goods

• Personnel involved in producing, processing, and distributing food and other vital goods.
• Public Safety and National Security.
• Ministry of Defense Civilians along with police and support staff.
• Armed forces personnel, fire and rescue service employees, and National Crime Agency employees.

6. Transport and border

• Staff involved in operating air, road, water, and freight transport.
• People supporting critical transport and border infrastructure operations.

7. Utilities, communication, and financial services

• Workers are responsible for essential financial services, including workers in financial market infrastructure and banks.
• Oil, gas, water, and electricity sector personnel.
• IT and data infrastructure professionals.
• Postal services and waste disposal services.

5 Challenges organizations face in managing frontline employees

Keeping frontline workers, high-risk workforce, community healthcare workers, transport and logistics workforce, healthcare frontline and nursing home employees safe, healthy, and aligned with organizational goals has remained challenging for organizations across the globe.

Here are the five most prominent challenges organizations face when motivating frontline workers.

1. Employee safety

The frontline workforce often functions adversely, especially in nursing homes and healthcare employees. That’s why work-related injuries are very common among frontline workers.

In 2019, the total cost of work injuries stood at $171 billion. This included productivity losses of $53.9 billion and medical expenses worth $35.5 billion. Ensuring employee safety should be one of the topmost priorities for organizations as it will allow essential industry workers to perform their duties efficiently.

2. Eliminating fear and anxiety

Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent job insecurity, frontline staff suffers from high-stress levels, fear, and anxiety.

49% of Americans reported increased depression and anxiety in 2020. The fear of contracting the virus and becoming unemployed has caused burnout and stress.

3. Lack of instant communication

Organizations often face challenges in communicating with their employees at the right time. Lack of appropriate communication ecosystems has led to workplace mishaps, problems, and illnesses. Since there is no internal communication among deskless workers, communication gaps drive major problems.

4. Lack of a single source of truth

It would be best to empower your frontline workers as they often rely on timely information when running field operations. Having undisrupted access to a single source of truth is crucial for their job success.

Be it documents, policies, updates, or previous communication. They should access it all on the go. The complexity of enterprise tech ecosystems often leads to problems related to ease of access and consolidation of information.

5. Keeping them connected with managers

Today, it’s pretty easy for team leaders to stay connected with their teams in the digital world. But that may not be the case with offsite and field workers. As front liners work across locations, managers need to stay connected with frontline staff, which few organizations can effectively achieve.

Quinyx’s State of Deskless Workforce Report found a major communication gap between deskless workers and their employers.

How to motivate and engage frontline workers?

The non-wired workforce at your organization plays a key role in delivering your promises to customers and keeping high customer satisfaction. Organizations across industries depend on the frontline staff to drive performance, deliver results and improve customer satisfaction.

Although different industries face varied challenges with frontline workers, we cover the best practices that ensure a positive employee experience for all types of frontline workforce.

These seven tips will help improve employee engagement and motivate them to stay productive.

1. Empower them with the right tools and technology

Having the right tools and technology empowers your team to access timely information. Be it facilitating internal communications, communicating safety measures, or keeping them updated on procedures, you must equip your frontline workers with mobile-first and easy-to-use technologies.

For example, the employee engagement platform Empuls allows you to centralize communication, align individual goals, and collaborate through groups.‍

2. Boost employee morale with rewards and recognition

Frontline managers need to understand what motivates their employees and offer incentives accordingly.

3. Make them feel like a part of the team

The State of Deskless Workforce Report says that 50-34% of employees don’t feel valued by their employers. Your frontline workers may work in a remote setting, but you must introduce an inclusive atmosphere. This will help you fight challenges related to retaining employees and engaging with them.

Start with your communication strategy and include activities that address frontline workers. If your frontline workforce operates globally, you should consider factors like time zones, different languages, shifts, and job roles while crafting your messaging and internal communication. In a nutshell, play your role in adding a human touch to manage employees.‍

4. Create an easy and transparent feedback loop

Garnering feedback from your frontline workers is crucial because they are the first ones to interact with customers and can give you real ground-level insights.

Digital employee engagement tools can give you private virtual options for one-on-one meetings, surveys, and conversations with frontline workers, regardless of their physical locations.

5. Engaging employees with gamification

Gamification can be a real game-changer when motivating frontline employees and helping them go the extra mile. A gamification and incentive tool enables your team to motivate and recognize hard-working frontline staff with a healthy competitive spirit.

Let’s get started with motivating your frontline workforce

There is no denying that frontline workers are instrumental in bringing your organization’s ambitions and goals to life. They form a direct connection with your customers. However, motivating frontline workers and engaging them is a daunting task, especially with the diversity of time zones and responsibilities that they handle.

The good news is there are tools with which you can communicate with them on the go, share valuable information, and make them feel included. Once you motivate them to excel, they become your organization’s brand ambassadors and deliver the promised values consistently.‍