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I don’t know about you, but I am starting to get a bit tired of those endless discussions about “The Future of Work”.

Much of that debate centers around technology and WHERE we perform our work.

But the future of work is actually about people.

When we talk about it, we talk about humans — how we work, with whom we work, and yes - also where we work.

The Future Of Work is human and must be humane.

It is more about people than location!

Now is the time to take a fresh look at the employer/employee relationship and the fitting tool to strengthen that relationship.

How employees and employers value one another is a key indicator of business success.

A strong relationship drives the very best behaviors and delivers better returns.

Isn't the overall goal of Internal Communication to turn strategy into action?

Whenever I ask organizations how they communicate with and get their message across to their entire workforce - including their non-desk workforce that performs their work on-the-go - I often hear, “Oh, internal communication with our mobile workforce? We have it covered. Everyone is on WhatsApp.”

This makes me very concerned and uneasy. 

Have you ever asked yourself the question, "What could be so wrong with using a consumer tool for internal corporate communications?"

Take a guess at how many percent of the global workforce do not have a desk?
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60 to 80% of workers globally - about 2.7 billion people - are “deskless” and handling jobs that do not require (or allow for) sitting in place.
 
If that number surprises you, think about all the industries this includes: retail and grocery, healthcare, hospitality and foodservice, construction, manufacturing, logistics and utilities.
 
These frontline workers have unique job demands, volatile working schedules, demanding customers, long hours standing, and little to no access to task-critical information.
 
This deskless workforce is undergoing an Employee Experience investment renaissance as companies are increasingly recognizing the impact technology has on boosting deskless worker productivity and job satisfaction.
 

One of the biggest operational challenges faced by companies with a large percentage of frontline workers is high turnover rates.

When your workplace becomes a revolving door of new staff members, your bottom line starts to struggle. Constantly having to recruit and train new employees gets expensive. Very expensive.

There are a number of reasons why turnover rates are so high among frontline workers. Here are just a few.

Workstream collaboration tools are finally becoming the standard they should have been a long time ago—and for good reason.

Clear collaboration is crucial across all teams and locations, especially for companies with a large percentage of non-desk employees. Office workers have been collaborating digitally for years, and there has been a recent surge in non-desk workers joining the collaborative process to bring entire organizations together in a more cohesive manner.

Miscommunication is expensive. Due to high levels of linguistic and cultural diversity within the non-desk workforce, it is crucial that the digital platform you adopt can effectively accommodate many different types of communicators.

Organizations have to cultivate an environment for inclusivity, engagement, and diversity if they want to increase productivity as well as retain more talents.

As mobile workforce demographics reflect more diversity, companies need to implement internal communication strategies that include every single worker. 

Microsoft 365 and Teams are great solutions for office-based employees. But what about your frontline workers—the ones who aren’t sitting at a desk with a computer at their fingertips?

"The more you know, the more you think you don’t. The more you don’t know, the more you think you do." - inspired by Aristotle and Albert Einstein 

As a leader you need feedback from your team to succeed.

Collecting employee feedback regularly and frequently through employee surveys is an essential part of assessing internal communication strategies, operational efficiencies, and improving workplace culture.

Companies are now turning to employee surveys to gain organizational insights they can take immediate action on. Best of all, there are now ways to collect the feedback you need to make concrete improvements in real-time.