Frontline workers are an essential part of any organization. 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 organization, with their knowledge, they can unlock innovative ideas, bring your strategies to life – and ultimately enhance the customer experience. However, despite their key function and pivotal place within a business – 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 recognize 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 – members of organizations have felt the need more than ever to stay connected and simplify workstreams.
Empower with a sense of purpose
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).
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.
Frontline workers aren’t 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 – and to be armed with the best tools to best equip them.
Usage of apps such as Microsoft Shifts (an application within Teams) grew ten times from pre-pandemic levels for frontline workers.
Staff can view their colleagues’ 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.
Equip frontline workers with the right knowledge
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.
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 – ensuring maximum customer service and efficiency at all times. No more running into the stock room leaving a customer waiting.
The integration of the Approvals app within Microsoft Word will streamline approval process for all workers everywhere – 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.
7 success factors Microsoft Teams has solved for frontline workers
1. Keep frontline workers front and center of every technical and adoption decision.
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’ll 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 – minimising a negative impact on staff. Remember – 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.
2. Define a problem worth solving – discover the ‘what’s needed by whom and why’ before the how. What solution will actually help empower your frontline workers and improve processes across the business.
3. Ensure collaboration between the business and IT leadership for a solution that solves the problem and aligns with the business needs. Don’t waste time and money on implementing a product or service that won’t help anyone.
4. Engage with frontline managers – they are the pioneers in ways of working and help to drive adoption of new technologies with their frontline teams. Similarly, to point 1 – by working with managers who have a close relationship with their team, you can drive new technologies and implement new products and services easier.
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!
6. Capture frontline-user feedback. This is an integral part of the pilot. Listen to what frontline employees are saying about the technologies – and learn from it! Feedback is often asked for, but commonly disregarded in favour of personal plans and lack of flexibility. This isn’t the best way to work. Be collaborative, learn from the frontline and implement their honest feedback.
7. Constantly look out for improvements. Expand frontline solutions to drive evolving business outcomes. Always think of process improvements taking into consideration 360 feedback.
There’s always room to improve!
Microsoft Solutions Success Kit
Want to find out more? Can you see an area of your business that could benefit from assisting frontline workers?
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 – to help you accelerate business goals and success.
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 organization (Project Managers and Change Managers).
Find out more here: https://github.com/TeamsFLW/Teams-FLW-Solutions-Success-Kit
