Frontline workers are an essential part of any organisation. They are the first point of call when engaging with clients, they represent your brand, and they are often the first to test and utilise IT products in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frontline workers hold a fundamental role within an organisation, with their knowledge, they can unlock innovative ideas, bring your strategies to life \u2013 and ultimately enhance the customer experience. However, despite their key function and pivotal place within a business \u2013 frontline workers can feel undervalued, held back by legacy tools, and often left out of important conversations. In these times, more than ever, we should be listening to, and understanding frontline workers to recognise their needs and involve them in new product development and trialling new products or services. Over the past year, there has been a 150% increase in Microsoft Teams usage among frontline workers across the globe. With the rise of working from home, social distancing and COVID-19 \u2013 members of organisations have felt the need more than ever to stay connected and simplify workstreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Companies with an engaged workforce have a 10 percent increase in customer loyalty and 23 percent higher profitability compared to those with a disengaged workforce (Gallup, 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The role of frontline workers has changed. With the rise and popularity of digital and online platforms such as e-consult, giving an alternative to making a face-to-face appointment with a doctor, frontline workers are better equipped than ever to trial and test these new technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frontline workers aren\u2019t just based at the same place or station every day. They may now be working from home, on the shop floor, or in the warehouse. They need more flexibility in where, how, and when they work \u2013 and to be armed with the best tools to best equip them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usage of apps such as Microsoft Shifts (an application within Teams) grew ten times from pre-pandemic levels for frontline workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Staff can view their colleagues\u2019 schedules and workflow timetables, and request to swap shifts through the app. Minimising the need for finding personal data, tracking down managers and employees plus lengthy phone calls. This one-step request saves not only time, but is an efficient way to forward-plan workflows and staffing shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frontline workers require access to the data they need and the right people to get it to, faster than ever. They also need to be able to share data, analytics, insights and learnings with colleagues of different levels and managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retail store workers need to have the ability to check stock for customers, while remaining on the shop floor. This can now be done easily and effectively by using Microsoft Teams via a hand-held device \u2013 ensuring maximum customer service and efficiency at all times. No more running into the stock room leaving a customer waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The integration of the Approvals app within Microsoft Word will streamline approval process for all workers everywhere \u2013 giving them the ability to create, manage or request approvals directly within Teams or Word documents. Thus sharing with colleagues has never been faster, easier, and more efficient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Keep frontline workers front and centre of every technical and adoption decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ask the team to get involved in the decision-making process. Why not invite a few members of the team to become pilot testers for new technologies? This way you\u2019ll get honest feedback from people in the teams that are using the tools daily. This information is crucial, and can help steer business decisions and directions \u2013 minimising a negative impact on staff. Remember \u2013 your frontline workers are essential to the daily running of the business, and they often work around the clock, keeping the lights on no matter the hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Define a problem worth solving \u2013 discover the \u2018what\u2019s needed by whom and why\u2019 before the how. What solution will actually help empower<\/em> your frontline workers and improve processes across the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Ensure collaboration between the business and IT leadership for a solution that solves the problem and aligns with the business needs. Don\u2019t waste time and money on implementing a product or service that won\u2019t help anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Engage with frontline managers \u2013 they are the pioneers in ways of working and help to drive adoption of new technologies with their frontline teams. Similarly, to point 1 \u2013 by working with managers who have a close relationship with their team, you can drive new technologies and implement new products and services easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. Think about time-to-value. Start with simple repetitive, daily tasks that could be automated. If someone spends approximately 15 minutes per day on a task that could be automated, you could save around 90 hours over the course of one year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. Capture frontline-user feedback. This is an integral part of the pilot. Listen to what frontline employees are saying about the technologies \u2013 and learn from it! Feedback is often asked for, but commonly disregarded in favour of personal plans and lack of flexibility. This isn\u2019t the best way to work. Be collaborative, learn from the frontline and implement their honest feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. Constantly look out for improvements. Expand frontline solutions to drive evolving business outcomes. Always think of process improvements taking into consideration 360 feedback. Want to find out more? Can you see an area of your business that could benefit from assisting frontline workers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Microsoft provides a Solution success Kit to deliver truly valuable Microsoft Teams solutions for frontline workers across entire industries. The kit contains proven methodology, best practices, and planning resources \u2013 to help you accelerate business goals and success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kit is recommended for roles responsible for defining priority business scenarios (Business Decision Makers), conducting technical implementation for frontline worker environments (IT Professionals), and driving projects and change within your organisation (Project Managers and Change Managers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Find out more here: https:\/\/github.com\/TeamsFLW\/Teams-FLW-Solutions-Success-Kit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Frontline workers are an essential part of any organisation. They are the first point of call when engaging with clients, they represent your brand, and they are often the first to test and utilise IT products in action. Frontline workers hold a fundamental role within an organisation, with their knowledge, they can unlock innovative ideas,… Continue reading Supporting Frontline Workers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":8201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-workplace","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8196"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8599,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8196\/revisions\/8599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
There\u2019s always room to improve!<\/p>\n\n\n\nMicrosoft Solutions Success Kit<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n