Do you know that most companies have 80% of their workforce as frontline staff? Well, that should tell you about frontline teams being an organization’s pillars and how their treatment will determine its longevity.

For businesses that mistreat their frontline teams, they are bound to face problems such as:

• Low employee morale
• Bad customer service
• A declining rate of productivity
• Difficulty in management
• Reduced growth levels

You must ensure that frontline employees feel appreciated for their jobs to avoid coming across challenges that can send your company down the wrong path.

Who Frontline Employees Are

In a business, while some individuals are responsible for coming up with plans and ensuring to put strategies in place for their achievement, others execute them flawlessly. Those accountable for work execution are quite often frontline employees whose importance to a business should never be underestimated.

They occupy roles in companies such as:

• Team leaders
• Sales associates
• Factory workers
• Receptionists
• Cashiers
• Healthcare professionals
• Construction workers

Carrying out frontline employee engagement is very important because it helps connect them with the rest of the staff in a business. Engaged frontline teams find it easy to relate with other members of the organization and be strongly informed about company goals and procedures.

An engaged frontline employee has some advantages:

• High rate of worker retention
• Improved roles in the business
• Positive vibes within the workplace
• Strong confidence and inspiration 
• Reduction in employee truancy

Leading Teams as a Frontline Manager

There is no magic to having an excellent frontline team without ensuring that you have a leader who can navigate the entire process. Frontline managers supervise teams and how they do their day-to-day jobs in an organization.

They lead teams by performing the following roles regularly:

• Providing support to frontline teams
• Interacting with customers
• Managing business activities
• Assigning tasks to teams
• Setting and following up on work procedures

Strategies for Engaging a Frontline Team

An obvious fact is that it’s hard to engage frontline employees because their work orientation may create many barriers between themselves and another team in a business. But, it’s possible to close these gaps as long as you take the proper steps to keep the frontline team engaged.

In light of this, let’s consider four ways through which you can engage your frontline teams:

1. Be Tech-Savvy

Well, you can’t deny that digitization is in full force and has dramatically influenced how most businesses now do their operations. To ensure that frontline teams are in a position to put in their best, you have to introduce sophisticated tech tools. For example, you can track your employee working hours through clocking-in software.

Implementing a clock into work software brings benefits like:

• Ensuring accountability
• Productivity boom
• Prevention of overtime not given
• Optimization of payroll

Different types of clocking-in options that exist are:

• Swipe clocks
• Biometric
• Proximity
• Pin
• Dedicated software

2. Put Safety First

Nobody wants to work in a place that will endanger their lives. If you are going to keep your frontline team engaged, then ensuring their safety is one of the best ways to go about it. Implementing workplace safety software will go a long way in showing your support.

Workplace safety software helps to do the following for your frontline team:

• Allay their fears
• Increased output levels
• Organize safety procedures
• Induce a high level of employee loyalty

Always ensure that the workplace safety software is secured and simple to operate. Having this software helps to promote a culture of safety and support.

3. Rely on Communication

Communication is vital for every business sphere because, without it, problems will arise. Relying on communication is crucial to keeping your frontline team engaged. Since frontline staff is involved with the customers’ forefront, you must ensure that strategies using email and messengers must be top-notch.

For example, improving the email delivery rate will go a long way in ensuring their messages are received. The benefits of working on email deliverability are:

• Helping to retain workers and clients
• Providing good customer experience
• Reducing the rate of emails not getting to the inbox
• Projecting brand image visibility

Frontline employees don’t want to keep working in vain, which means improving strategies will help combat that.

4. Continue Upskilling

Well, everyone wants to keep growing and showcasing more abilities; this does not exclude frontline teams. Ensuring you provide opportunities for your frontline teams to keep developing and increasing their skills goes a long way in keeping them focused.

You can even make their training process more manageable by hiring a Chief Learning Officer to help in:

• Preparing growth structures for workers
• Providing excellent onboarding process for newbies
• Judiciously employing the use of learning systems and software
• Ensuring adequate training

CLOs help to maximize the full integration of knowledge systems to improve and boost employee abilities.

Summary

There’s now a great need for frontline employees to feel part of the team in a business. Companies that keep reaching consistent success always ensure their frontline teams are well-connected. You can engage your frontline teams by providing tech tools, encouraging growth and ensuring adequate communication.