As COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, companies are resuming their businesses, both on an increasing digital scale and delivering customer service face-to-face. On the frontline of those interactions are the employees, interacting with customers every step of the way on behalf of brands. Their responsibilities have increased along with the risks of performing their work, so their working conditions and satisfaction matter more than ever, as their experience affects performance, which in turn affects customer experience. Support for workers is often a direct line to customer success.
Yoobic, a digital workplace platform for frontline teams, surveyed 1,000 employees on the frontline of retail, hospitality, manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare industries across the US, UK and Canada, about their challenges and perspectives on their work and treatment.
The main takeaways in the report show that frontline employees feel disconnected, undervalued, and undertrained by HQ, with administrative overload and inefficient task management. Furthermore, millennial employees are among the most unsatisfied, citing lack of recognition, empowerment, and career growth, which translates into lack of fulfillment.
Part of the unproductive task management and prevalent disconnect is insufficient tailoring of internal company communication strategies, such as reaching mobile employees who do not work at a desk, not digitizing relevant tasks and processes, outdated digital tools and decentralized platforms, and not being able to use mobile devices as part of work or for accessing company communications. Only 59% of employees use mobile devices at work, despite 76% reporting they would feel more connected if they could access company communications on them and 70% believing app-based training would be beneficial.
According to the survey, employees feel that companies communicate with and train them via a one-way top-down street, without any personalization or engagement, which results in less motivation. Investing in frontline employees – with reformatting training to be digital-based and delivered more often, digitizing more administrative tasks, incorporating mobile device use – brings increased satisfaction, productivity, and efficiency, meaning higher quality CX.
