Hi everyone. Good afternoon and thank you
for joining our webinar today hosted by
and guest speaker David johnson from
Forster Research.
We're about to kick off our webinar on how frontline
workers can be reengaged unified
and brought into the 21st century through technology.
Should you have any questions throughout the webinar? Uh please
do submit them through the chat functionality
now I'll throw things off to our guest speakers for
a brief introduction.
All right thanks wang. Um Welcome
everybody. Thanks for for joining today's session.
Uh Really happy to have uh all of you
take a little bit of time out of your day to
to to join us for this uh for this chat,
Um My name is Sean Duffy. I'm the V. P. Of
Product strategy at Igloo Software.
Um And one of the things that that that we're really
uh focused on right now is how
we can connect all employees
and you know, we're hearing a lot from from our
customer base around um
the the the need to be able to connect
not just the desk workers that uh that
that the digital workplace traditionally uh communicates
with um but all workers in an organization.
So really looking forward to a great chat
with uh with David today uh on
that topic
Thanks Sean appreciate it. And uh my name is
David johnson and
been with for for about 11 years
and for most of that time have been looking after
employee experience research, which
for me is really heavy on the organizational
behavior and psychological research. Right? That's
the lens I look through
and the whole point of it is to try to help organizations
understand how to create places where people will not
only choose to stay, but choose to
give the best of themselves do, do the best
work that they're capable of doing because they want to
and um you know, it turns out there's a lot of front
line workers in that category that really
just want to do really well and there's some companies
that do a really good job of getting
them to be willing to do that. And there
are some things that set those companies apart and those are
things that we're gonna talk about today. So
I look forward to this session very much and I look
forward to questions at the end as well and thanks for the
opportunity,
awesome. Well, we're super happy to have you here.
Um I think you know, maybe if we start
to uh to to kick off the conversation
and and and really looking at the the current landscape
for for front line workers. Um
I know I've been reading a lot of articles recently just
talking about the percentage of of
employees in the workforce that are considered
to be front line line or or desk,
Um and the IT spend
for those employees seems to be really
low compared to to to the number
of employees that that fit that category.
Um I've seen estimates as low as
as as 1%. Is is that what you're
hearing as well? David
to the ballpark. You know they they seem to
see them as a cost center more so than as
an opportunity for customer
experience and customer service. Not that's not
universal. Of course right? There are some companies that
really have that understood. They understand it well.
But um
it's making that mind shift um of
understanding the opportunity of enabling
people how to do that in ways that they'll respond
to and uh and
and the benefits that go with that,
right? And I think, you know, we we've been talking
to a lot of our customers lately and and and many
of those industries you think of health care, you
think of retail, um hospitality,
manufacturing And
again, what I keep hearing is is is this
idea of the the great resignation and these
employees having this this
feeling of of of being disengaged,
um feeling that they're not getting enough uh communication
from, from their their management team, from
the executive team, um feeling
like they don't have a a feedback mechanism.
Um are you, are are you seeing
sort of um a a shift
in in the way organizations are trying to address
um those concerns from the front line uh employees
they've had to uh they've had to ask themselves
some hard questions and our our data on this
is particularly interesting um
you know when we think about uh burnout
for example, and this is, this chart is
not going to show us that, but
the strongest predictor of burnout in our E. X.
Index survey. I was the lead author on our E. X. Index
uh data set and and survey instrument.
Um His lack of recognition for hard
work and accomplishment
and um in recent organizational changes
that affect them, have them feeling down uh And
then third is having a micromanaging boss,
you know um
and for front line workers, they often have
all three. Right? So
it's really, really hard for them to overcome
that and want to give the best of themselves and want to stay engaged.
They don't feel seen in value uniquely
for what they bring to the table and for who they are, right?
So yeah, companies are starting to wake up to this
and the more that I've had the chance to talk
to, you know, the more, the more
I can, I can help influence in that direction. But
that's what we know from the science
and um,
The reality is that most of them on
on the front lines are really
uh not getting the best of
their organizations right? Um
A third of them make less than a living wage.
And I'm frankly, I'm surprised it's not more than that,
but the living wage for where they happen to
live right $15 an hour might
be considered a living wage in Omaha, but it certainly
isn't in San Francisco, right?
And um, one of the other real pain
points is that um, about a third of
them only receive their schedule about a week
out. And I have worked in restaurants, I've
delivered Pizza. I have worked in on,
on drilling rigs, I've worked in manufacturing
scheduling is one of the most painful
things for these people because they not only
are they not getting paid well to sustain their lives.
They also, they also can't really
know what, what days they're gonna be
able to use to go do leisure things, go hiking
or camping or spend time with their families. So
that creates pain.
and only about a quarter of them receive about 72
hours. Uh a whole 25%
of them only receive 72 hours or less notice
of schedule changes, which is really painful
and uh more than half have no sick leave, so
a lot of this stuff is not just around
um Not being recognized.
It's also just the objective
conditions under which their their employers
are asking them to work, right?
And and I would think one of the the the
pain points there is if if you are one
of these employees, you're you're you're not necessarily
given the opportunity to provide that feedback
to management. I I I I hear this
from from from people that I talk to, that
that disconnect there, there's a chasm
that that eventually grows between the
employee and the organization. The organization
isn't hearing these things directly from, from
their employees. Maybe that's getting
up to a, you know, a direct manager
or a regional manager, but it might not be hitting
the executive level. And so that,
that, that, that that chasm starts to grow
where what the, what the leadership
team feels is is important to employees might
be very different than, than what employees themselves
are asking for. that's right, very
common that leaders begin to lose touch with what that
really is about and putting other things first. And
this is one of the reasons why you're seeing an uptick in unionization
for front line employees, right? There's a reason
why Schultz came back to Starbucks. The
company had lost its way, the leadership team
had lost its way in terms of what was
really important.
Yeah and I think
what we're seeing today is the organizations
trying to find different ways
to to to breach this this
this chasm to to find different ways of
communicating with with their employees.
Um I found it really really curious
again with with with customers and and
and industry leaders that I've spoken to
um that a lot of the the the
mechanisms that they're using today are
things that you would think were from 20 or 30 years
ago. It's it's paper on a bulletin
board, it's a uh a a slip
in a a pay stub. Um it's
uh you know, we have to get everybody together for a meeting
and um sometimes it's a bit of a telephone game.
And oftentimes there's there's not
um there's not an opportunity for those employees
to then provide their insights into
into what's been communicated
totally agree. Uh, it's also
one directional, right?
You know, a lot of times that I have call inquiry
calls with our clients, which is where they set up time on
our calendars to ask us questions and they've usually
exhausted google by the time they've done that.
Um You know, the questions are,
hey, you know, how do we, how do we get
our employees to hear us better? It just doesn't seem like they
hear us at all, right?
And my response to that is that's good. You know, I can
help you with that, but let me ask you first, what are you doing to listen?
Um what are you doing to understand? What language
you need to use for people to hear you, what is
it you're doing to understand what they need and what their perceptions
are. That's step number one. If you're
not willing to do that, then you have no reason
to expect that they're going to want to listen to what you have
to say. And also, you know, you probably
don't have the right kinds of tools and technologies
in place right now to do that either. It's
probably not something that's easy for them
to engage with you on. And so
uh that's another set of dimensions.
Yeah and I mean obviously that leads to to
this idea of the great resignation people
leaving jobs where they're not satisfied.
Um The the trend of quiet quitting
uh continues to to to get publicity
in the media where people are doing you know sort of the
bare minimum.
Um And and these organizations
uh are really struggling to to find a way
to engage these employees. And
it sounds like you know, a digital solution
would make a lot of sense. Um Because
I think you know, the cost of these organizations right
now, of the mechanisms that that they're using
today. is duplication of
information. Maybe inconsistent
messaging to to different, you know, groups
of employees. Um the cost
of of of having to prepare
communication so far in advance in
order to be able to print out posters
and and and slips and and things like that.
Um There's a real cost, right uh David
to to organizations and and not having a digital
solution on hand
big time. Um big
time because it, first of all, it slows down
the communication. It makes bidirectional
communication almost impossible unless
executives are able to go out there and and talk
with people and do the undercover boss thing, right?
Or something along those lines. So there's just
natural barriers that come in the way when you don't have effective
technology for being able to do it. But I also wanna
tune into a word, a term
that you use quiet quitting,
right? It's something that has emerged
in just the last few months really.
um as a term that's got everybody sort
of asking, oh well what is that? Oh my God,
you mean our people are are maybe they're
they're being paid but they're not working. Hey.
You know what, that's always been there, right?
You've always had people we used to call it, we
call it disengagement.
And it's also been. a lot of confusion. People
are conflating um people just setting
good boundaries and not wanting to work at 11
o'clock at night for you, right?
And they've already had a long day and just
setting reasonable boundaries, which is what you want them to do
if you don't want them to burn out, right? You
just don't know it yet. Right? So uh
so, you know, there's a lot that goes that's into
that, but I I just want to point out that quiet
quitting is not really something new at all.
We just called it disengaged.
Yeah, I think that's a I think that's a really great
point to highlight. And and I think one
of the, you know, we can talk about great resignation,
quiet quitting, et cetera. But at the end of the day
for an organization, there's a there's
a huge impact to to a a a large
turnover of employees right. It's it's
not just about um the the the
burden on the employees that remain to
to do that extra work because the work, the work
doesn't go away, Um but it's also,
you know, lost opportunity, it's the cost
of, of replacement. Um how do you,
you know, how much does it cost you to bring in
um new uh new employees
to to fill those gaps? Um and
then again, there's a real risk that that your,
you know, your your sort of brand image or
um how you're perceived in the market. You know, the level
of service that you're able to provide to your customers
can can degrade and and that can have a a a lasting
impact on your business.
big time. Um You know the
the the quantifiable impacts of that
are pretty well understood.
Uh, there's been a lot of research done on this over
the years and I'm surprised that it's not
better known. I get this asked this question
a lot. It's like, hey, how can you help me build a business case
for better employee experience. We want to try and reduce,
reduce turnover, but how do I quantify that?
Ah I'm glad you asked. Right.
You see a you know, depending
on the level that the person is at in the organization.
Um It could be anywhere from a half
to three times their annual salary
right to get them, get them on board, get
them trained, get them up to speed.
you know, in the more service intensive
frontline type roles. Think about a cable installer
or an internet, um, you know, an internet installer
or troubleshooter.
Um, or even a barista that
deals in, in having them, you know, understand
how to make a lot of different kinds of drinks. You don't train
that type of person
in a week, right? That might take you a few
months to really get that person not only up to speed,
but just the, the mechanics of the job,
but also coached on how to provide great
customer service, how you really want
them to show up and uh, and so on.
and so
it's uh, it's quite
expensive and far more so than
most people realize. We don't tend to take that into
account um when we're making decisions
that are gonna impact people in a negative
way and and cause them to leave, we don't think
about that. We but we have an endless supply of labor,
right? Which we don't right?
But if we think that we do and people are just dying
to work for us. Well then, OK. But even
then, right, It's still costly
Yeah, I mean one of the reasons, I don't love
the term knowledge worker. I know that gets used
quite quite often, but
every position requires to
to to do it really Well, it it requires
knowledge of the processes that you're
following. The the the product that you're
you're selling or providing the service that
you're providing to people. Um and
and I think we we underappreciate
um how long it takes for for any
To to become really proficient and
and and be able to do their job well correct.
And when somebody leaves the organization, those
numbers, not just their salary and the cost,
but also the impact on the organization is
you get about a 40% reduction in productivity
as everybody else has to try and make up for
what this person.
Is not able to do because they're gone. And
because of that, we also get about a 28%
reduction in profitability. These
are really good numbers. These are numbers that
were published in field studies are published from
field studies, 300,000 data points over
multiple years. Really good studies.
So they're good ones. But there's lots of organizational
behavior, uh research out there and operational
research out there on these impacts. So
they're really great fodder for a business case because
then you can start to figure out what the impacts are
on various metrics that you care about,
maybe pro pro productivity and profitability
or two metrics to care about. Certainly you have to report
them to Wall Street, right return on on human
capital.
Yeah. And I mean I think you know again as we start
to you know, if we think about those those
frontline workers and
the information, the knowledge,
the tools that they need to to to do
their jobs? Um It's not just
the physical tools that that that that you those
users require
them. Uh If you're working in a coffee shop? I think you
used that example earlier. Um How
do I make a particular drink, what are the specials
that that we have on today? Um what are
we out of stock of and what's a, you know, something
that I can't offer uh to a customer.
Uh today we've all seen the supply chain issues
uh and you know, going into a restaurant and you
know, certain menu items aren't available. If
I'm a frontline worker I wanna have access to
that information so that you know when
I am interacting with a customer uh I'm
able to do that in a uh uh a better
way than than being surprised uh after
I've taken the order already. Um Do
you do you see a role for technology in helping
to enable these workers very
much? Um One of the exercises
I'll often do with our clients when they're when
they're trying to do improvements
to E. X. Employee experience for front line workers
is do something experiential, right? It's put
yourself in their shoes. Let's take the barista example
for a second. Barista comes in in the morning.
Um and, you know, may need may
see what's going to be new on the menu. It's seasonal,
right? You know, the the the fall
drinks are coming in now. It may be
in their mind to try and figure out. Ok, how
do I do those? And how do I do those? Well,
um they may they're gonna need a resource. They're gonna need some
place that's easy for them to go to. That doesn't present
a lot of barriers for them to go and find
that out. Um If it's not on paper.
Right. Or if they want
to, if they, if, if they've got
a problem with a piece of equipment or
something else that they want to do or just generally take
some initiative and do something new and exciting
and look for other ideas right from other stores
that they could draw upon. It's really nice
for them to have a resource to go and consult that
right? Where they can do that. That's digitally. That it's live
information. It's real. They can ask, others
for ideas. They can ask others for help through
an app if it's really done well. So
uh you know, there's lots and lots of things
that technology can do to ease that path
for that employee reduce the cognitive load.
I call it of do taking
that next step right of demons of being able to
do that and give that initiative and and
show that initiative and do a better job for customers
Yeah. I mean, I think you know you touched on on,
I think we both touched on sort of the the the news,
the top down communications useful. But
you touched on another one. That that that's really interesting
that I think a lot of people don't um
don't necessarily consider as
a a benefit of of of having a digital
solution and that's that um
sort of collaboration across
teams. Um I think you mentioned like
you know someone in a retail store who's who's
working and they found that a particular type of display
helps drive sales of a a particular
item that that they're selling, having the opportunity
to share that information with with your
colleagues at a different location, um
can be really beneficial to an organization
as well, right? Like learning from your
peers. Um And that's something that
you know these traditional mechanisms of communication
don't really support. Well
no and imagine a situation where they have
an idea something that they think could
be done better. Um Most of the time
if they don't have a place to be able to put that or to
be able to throw it out there um it's just
gonna die. You need those ideas
right? Leaders and executives and operations
folks really need those ideas for
uh for them to continue. to improve and
uh and so that's another way that people can provide
feedback through technology can help people provide
that feedback right? Have the have the people on
the ground that are doing the job on a daily basis.
Help help tell you the best
way to optimize your your your processes.
Yeah, Yeah. I've heard a lot of
examples of that in in in things like auto
manufacturing, where you have, you know, someone
on a working on an assembly line who
realizes that there's a quicker way for them to
assemble a part um or something that
can be done slightly different or even a different order, in
which things can be done. Um And sometimes
those, those small um minute changes
uh when you're doing things repetitively over time
uh really start to add up very
much Yeah um I think the
other thing that's that's interesting is this idea
that you know we we all have
um these these computers in our pockets, right?
Um and so there's a real benefit to frontline
workers to to be able to to to share
information um to become more
connected um to collaborate
with each other. Um But I think it's
really this this this you know computer
in our pocket. That's that's helping to enable some
of those interactions
it is, it's true. Um
It makes me think of a uh a large pharmacy
chain that I did Some work with? They were experiencing
higher turnover in their pharmacies, they were
losing pharmacists. I don't mean they were misplacing
them, they were choosing to leave
and so
um you know and the exit interviews were saying
interesting things like you know you've you've
continued to pile more work on us
and it takes us longer and longer and longer to fill
prescriptions through checking insurance and all these
things,
but we haven't increased our staffing rates.
We're being punished in in reviews
in our stores um and and it's outside
of our control to do anything different. We can't
work any harder than we already
are and we need solutions. Right?
And so
they looked at, they looked at this really pragmatically
and said what can we do right? What
ideas can we have to to make this easier? And
by putting you know saving the trips
across the pharmacy by putting mobile technology
in front of the pharmacist
and automating some things like insurance,
um checking and verification and things like that.
Automating some of the communication with the drive-through
They were able to free up a lot of time
for those pharmacists to be able to continue
to be able to fill prescriptions faster but
also consult with patients right with
uh with customers who need more uh more insight
than they normally they normally have time to give
and it helps solve the problem. They they stem the flow
of retention and they also er stem
the flow of people out the door but they also increased
same store sales and customer satisfaction
as a result.
Right? And now again when we think
about this idea of of of employees
using their devices using their phones.
Um I know there's some industries uh or
some organizations that are providing devices
but for the most part um that's that's
not happening right? Um employees
are leveraging their their own personal device
and I think you know some of these. benefits are
are are really a good way to to to
help incentivize employees to
to download the the company application
to read, you know, set aside some time to to
to read the news. Um any
thoughts on on on how organizations
can can help um encourage
uh employees to to to do this.
So
Much of it has to do with your relationship with your employees
in terms of, you know, how much they're willing to do sort of
voluntarily without being compensated for it.
Um from a legal perspective,
right? There are states like California for example,
that require you to employers to reimburse
employees for some percentage of
uh of their, you know, their personal device technology,
if it really is necessary for them to be
able to do their jobs effectively. And it doesn't
have to be 100% of the device. It really needs to just
be a, you know, an amount that reflects
their business usage of it and
um. so one of the ways that you can do
it is is give people the opportunity
uh you know have an app and have them experiment
with it um
and that'll create some pull and um if
you're if you're prepared to offer a little
bit of stipend toward their mobile device
plans, that's one more reason for them to be willing
to use it and engage with it.
So those are, you know, a few things that come
to the come to the table, you have to first have the technology
that they'll find indispensable. That's
what you need most. Yeah. And
and I would I would assume that, you know, with with
these frontline workers, um we
we start to look at the um I guess
complexity is probably the term that we would use
in in in terms of the work that they're doing.
Um more the more complex
the job, the the the more benefit
that that those employees are going to see from
uh from from those digital tools
and and that access to information when they need it.
Yeah, I uh before I I just
describe the slide a little bit, I want to just
say one quick thing,
I often have conversations with chief information
security officers, the C. I. O. S. And others about
this and you know, there'll be something that will identify
in a workshop that's like, hey look, this is the golden
key, right? If you do this, if you make this change,
it's gonna transform the lives of the employees and quite
often the response, the gut, the gut response
is oh yeah. You know, that's
going to just create a security problem for us. We can't do that.
Ok, Right, I hear you, let's
lay that security problem up just because you haven't
solved it, you haven't thought through a way to solve it. There's really
no reason to think of it as a as a, as an absolute
barrier. Lots and lots of companies
attack those kinds of problems head on and find
solutions that both improve security
and improve employees ability to get things
done right, You need to be able to do both
And so um they don't really understand
the impact in in terms of productivity
and that's where the things the science and the positive
psychology comes into play.
It's like ok now I can change the conversation
right now I can say look let me
show you how important this is right.
Um Research is really clear.
This is a work that was originally done by a psychologist
named Mimi. Uh
Nobody can pronounce his name but people who worked
with him just call him mke but he wrote the original
book on flow right? And there's been a lot
of studies that have been done on if
you create an environment that's conducive to
flow right where people can get in the
zone time. seems to fade away.
Like, you know, one of the best things for a frontline
worker in fast food or in a coffee
shop or manufacturing is to be busy,
right, because the day goes by faster,
right? You want to be able to get in the zone and stay there, that means
you want to be working in an environment that's
really conducive to that, right? That makes it easier
for you to get in the zone and stay in the zone
and people who can do that. They're working in
those kinds of environments well are about 127%
more productive, right Than those who
are not and can't reach a state of flow, So,
you know, you can lay that against your labor costs,
right? This is one of the reasons why airlines,
companies like Southwest Airlines,
it's not an easy place to work, but people
love working there, right? They're just beating the path to
get in the door.
Um They're willing to put in a time because it's
an environment that's really well resourced
um for people to be in the zone and be in flow
and be happy. Um
and when we do this, well, it contributes
to our happiness, right? We are happier when
we are effective and um
and when we reach flow in any state of
uh any any pursuit, whether it be work
or learning to play music or other things
flow really is the key to happiness. And so
when people ask me what is employee experience
all about, it's about employee success,
right? Being in an environment where they can be successful,
Right. Yeah. And I think you, you know, again
you bring up a a really good point, employees
want to do work that they feel is valuable, right?
They wanna feel that the the the the the time
that they're investing um at their workplace
is is delivering something that uh that's
helping others, or you know, even
just the fact that they're contributing towards the
success of of of their team or their organization.
uh and I think, you know, one of the the the
frustration points that that we continuously
hear is if employees are spending all of their time
doing those adjunct tasks
searching for information trying to find,
you know, content
that takes them out of that flow, it takes them out
of that uh
of delivering real value,
and productivity drops, good way to think about
it is imagine right if Toyota build
cars, the way that we asked most of our employees
to work where for every, every part they
needed to put on a car, they needed to run around
the factory and search for and find the part that they
need, they got to log in to wherever it's being held,
right to be able to get them out, how fast would they
build cars?
Right, right. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, and I mean that obviously directly transl directly
translates into um
the success of the organization and how an organization
can be more efficient can deliver
value to to customers. So you
know when we talk about
helping to make employees more
more uh more satisfied
or or feel more engaged um in the
workplace. There's a there's a direct
benefit to to the organization as well.
Yes. Yes, definitely. Um
First of all, retention goes up, right?
We talked about that in terms of, you know, the numbers
around retention, right? That that goes up.
People's satisfaction in working for
you goes up. Their willingness to go out
of their way and provide great customer service
and great customer experiences go
up. Um and those so those organizations that
do this well enjoy about 81% higher
customer satisfaction and about half the employee turnover.
Again, these are good field studies. Right?
So um a big part
of this is um.
feeling like we can be successful and
feeling connected to that even if you're working
in a fast food restaurant. And there were, there were studies
that were done of people working in
fish packing plants, right? Where there were people
that cut fish for a living. You know, I can't
imagine doing that for a living, but there are people that do that
and there were people that, that did that so
well they saw every fish is like a new opportunity
to perfect the craft. They got so fast
at it, right? They were twice as fast as their, as
their colleagues were. And in doing that they
show other people how to do it, but they had developed
on as I call it, to borrow a term from
commercial kitchens in that work environment and
made impossible for them to do that. Um,
So it's about thinking about what's around
the employee and using technology in a way
that's going to better equip them something
they're gonna find indispensable and easy to
apply and whatever it is that they're doing for their
work. Yeah
I know that that makes a ton of sense. And
uh I think you you you start to see, we talked
about a little bit earlier
when you have that capability of of having
that you know, bidirectional
feedback loop where it's not just
information being shared to employees but employees
are able to provide their feedback. You you
start to get this refinement in the process
and and we talked about it happening laterally
as well, right? Where individual employees
find ways of of optimizing
and are now able to share that. You know
the We use the term crowdsourcing outside
of the the sort of business world. How do
you leverage the intelligence of of
uh a large population of people to to
make something better. Um And I think there's
a real opportunity through some of these digital tools
to to sort of you know employee source
um improvements, optimizations.
Um How do you just how do you make things better
for for each employee? Uh One
of the best ways to do it is to to have those
employees be able to provide that that that
feedback and that messaging.
So I think you know 11 last thing
that I I I wanted us to kind of um touch
on was was just this this idea
of um lowering
friction um and being able to
to reach all employees more easily
than than than what organizations
uh do today. Um and obviously,
you know, from an igloo perspective, we we focus
that around the digital workplace where employees
can come together um where they can collaborate,
where they can share information, where they know
that they can they they can reach out to
grab trusted information. but a big
part of this for for front line workers is is
really around the mobile solution, right? How do you,
how do you put that information in someone's pocket,
how do you enable employees to have
access to information when and
where they need it? Um, understanding
of course that, you know, not all industries are
um right for employ employees taking out
their phone and and and looking at it mid shift.
Um But you want to make sure that that when
that information is is is needed,
whether it's before or after or during
a shift. Um There is a there is
a device, there is a mechanism, there is a a digital
screen that's that's available for for those
employees. Um Are we
seeing more organizations
really start to look at things like digital signage,
mobile apps and devices um
to to to solve those problems.
Yeah. And part of that has been driven by the technology
itself has gotten better. Um You
know, mobile apps over the last decade,
right? Have had an opportunity to really get refined
in terms of how they work, how how
they are, how they engage people. A lot of that
is driven um in U. I. Design
research right? Where where we understand what's
sticky
and what people will find easy to use and and
even addictive in some ways
so you know, as the technology has evolved
and the understanding and and empathy
for the front line employee has increased.
Um you know, there's been a lot more interest
in in how do we how do we apply technology
in a clever ways
uh to help our front line workers
be more effective and have a better experience
in working with us and for us?
Right. Yeah. And you you you you use the term
addictive there and I think we mean that in the best
possible way, which you know,
when we talk about addictive, what we're really saying
is how do you how do
you incentivize someone to to
use the technology to use a device
to seek out information um
in a way that they're gonna do it repetitively. And
if the employee sees the value from
that interaction, uh if it helps them
do their job more easily, um If
it helps them be more informed, if
it helps them to provide feedback,
that's uh that's an incentive for
for for users to engage and and
and whether it's download an app, um
check their phone before their shift, et cetera.
That really helps, Right?
definitely as a as a former product manager
responsible for uh mobile applications
back, you know, when that was just getting going, I
used to, I used to say to our engineers, follow
the dopamine,
right? What what you really want is
people to be willing to really want to engage in
the app because they're getting something from it when they
do um they're getting something from
it that that appeals to them. They find it visually
appealing. They find information easy
to easy to get and easy to find
Uh they're getting some social interaction
from it, they're learning from it, right? These
kinds of things are those types of things that kind of give
that a little bit of dopamine that we need to keep
us working. And when I say addictive. I mean that in the best
way, I mean very much it's
like you want engaging is a better
word, right? Right. Well, and the frictions
that that the side of that coin,
right? If if users find
difficulty in accessing information
if they find it difficult to to get
to to uh or connect
to other employees, they're less likely
to take the time to to do that. Um
I think, you know, one of the things that to
to to us is really important is making sure that information
is targeted to the right employees,
so you don't want to have this large amount of noise
uh of of you know, 80% of the information
is not relevant to me and there's a small nugget
of 20% that that really is so
one of the things that we do is we're you know we're looking for ways
to better target content and information to
make the experience more personalized
um to leverage intelligent technologies
to direct the right information to
to an employee. Um so that we can
reduce that friction
um, and and really help them to, to get
to what they need to as quickly as possible. There's
a really good basis in science for that. There's a book
written by a guy named Daniel Kaman called Thinking
fast and slow, basically
our brain has two parts to it. We have a system
two, which is our thinking brain, which
requires a lot of energy, right? And there's system
One, which is our automatic brain. Think about it this
way is you're learning to play a musical instrument. You're spending
a lot of time in System Two until it
gets committed to the automatic brain. It's a system
one and you can do all kinds of other things while you're playing
an instrument. Right. Same thing is true
when it comes to technology um The
the easier it is for people to get it from
their thinking brain right into their automatic
brain, the easier it is for them to sort of adopt
and use, the more likely they will
they are going to be to do it. And so that's why the the
technology needs to be designed in that way
to be friction free and easy to
use and it's just it's neuroscience,
right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think so there's
there's sort of one other benefit that
that we haven't really touched on yet, but that's
the the consistency or the
the the the standardization of information
across both your desk and and desk
list uh or frontline employees.
And I think what we see a lot of today is
uh we talked about a you know sort of a chasm between
employees and the management level. But
there's that, you know sort of H. Q. Sitting
behind a desk at a computer all day employee and
your front line employees,
those parts of the organization don't always
talk share information or or get
the same messaging for management. Um
I would assume that there's there's some real benefits for organizations
there as well when they're able to consolidate
messaging. Um And and have
a single you know voice going out
to to all employees where it makes sense
and and create a sense of familiarity
um You know shrink that distance between the people
who are in the back office, right? And the people who are on the front
lines
um There's a big uh there's a big
benefit that goes with that.
for sure?
Yeah, well, Dave this is this has been a lot of
fun. I know we got a couple of questions coming
up on the uh on the the Q. And A. Now
um do do we wanna handle a few of these?
Sure.
So we got a two part question.
Um the first one is how do you suggest
to get the company news frontline work
need when computers and laptops are not
accessible.
that's a you know, again, a great question,
I think. Um And and and David you're you're
very familiar with with some of these problems
as well. Um One of the the the
things that um that that we hear
is, you know, can you allocate some time
in a worker's shift to be able to to
consume that content and information. And
you know, maybe it's punching in 10 minutes early
and they're able to to to consume that content
because they can't actually do it while they're on the floor.
Um Sometimes it's it's again just
incentivizing them to to know that there's value
from checking that um information
outside of work hours. Um Have you seen other
approaches that uh organizations you're
talking to are using? Yeah. I mentioned that
pharmacy, right. What one of the 11 of the things
that they were trying to do was understand
different points of the transaction process. So let's
say You know, something comes in, uh a customer
comes into the drive-through, right, and and drops
off a prescription. Um or they
walk up to the counter and they drop off a prescription.
Right, Well, that can trigger a series of events
automatically behind the scenes. That then
will something will appear on the screen in front
of the uh, in front of the pharmacist, like, hey,
You know I see you're working on this prescription
right now. There's there's this other one that's going to
need to be filled in 10 minutes, that's right next to it.
Save a moment right, fill them both at the same
time, right? That type of stuff because it's considered
to be assisted, right? It's the kind of thing where you're
the system is thinking in the background
about how to the the
the workload of the employees,
right? The pharmacist in that case. Those
are the kinds of things that make real gains because
you you're not asking the person to go and
and look for something you're presenting
it to them. Um or if
it is the kind of thing where they need to look up things and reference
something, maybe they need to understand drug interactions
right? In this particular case between two drugs,
um making that easier for them to get
to and refer to and having a device right there in
front of them that's on the counter. They don't have to walk
over to a computer, it's right there, right. They can
get that kind of info. But that comes from understanding
how these people work and understanding
in situ right in their work environment.
what, haven't you thought of that with
technology that is going to be assistive to them
and that they're gonna find really useful. That's
the key You
said that was a two part question,
yep. And the second part to that question is,
um how do you possibly change the attitude
from the top management to allow appropriate
cell phone use or an app or other
digital tools?
First part of that? I'll I'll I'll take a first
step of this? Ok sean the first part of that
is is understanding what their concerns
are. Right listening, asking questions,
getting an audience with them. If you can say, look,
I, you know, I I understand there's some concerns with
this. Can you help me understand
what you're, what you're concerned about? I see an opportunity.
Do you have some concerns about it? You know, How
can I what what work can I do to
help help you help you,
you know, and help us understand this better? And,
you know, they may come back to you if you're lucky and say,
well, here's what's really on my mind. I I ran
into this recently with a uh
with a woman who is trying to advance
a survey initiative inside
their organization around employee experience. And the C
E O was a barrier C E O. Didn't understand
the methodology or the value or anything else.
And so she had a conversation asked for some
time, had a conversation, you know, what are you what are
you concerned about? You know, a lot of other organizations are
doing this, you know, it's been pretty well proven
that it works well, what's on your mind and he
came back with a whole bunch of things that she was then able
to address and get get data and get insight
into come back to him and say, look, I did
my homework um and and here's what I have
for you and then he opened the door. So
you know, it's that type of thing where it starts with
listening. Um rather than trying to push
a rope uphill, it starts with listening.
Um
My dad used to say, you can, you can
uh pull me anywhere you want, but don't push
me, The thing
was true I found for executives.
Yeah, no, that's that's that's a really good point.
I mean, I think like anything else as well,
it's a change management issue too, right?
Um There's there's a perception that if
you see um an employee
on their cell phone that they're not doing
something that is helping the business
and so finding appropriate.
Um You know, whether it's, you know, well,
we can only do this when you're at the back part
of the restaurant when you're out of the view of a customer
um here, some reasons why we're doing
this, just making it very clear that that
that there is a benefit to this and and providing
um sort of a soft inroads
to to start to kind of break down some of those
those restrictions. But David, I think you
you make a really good point, people might
object without stating
why and and digging into those whys
I think is critically important. Yeah. Uh there's
no shortcut to that, Right? And it's relationship
building as well. You're listening, right? You're granting
one of the best gifts you can give anybody is listening.
Um And so you know to go to an executive
and say I I really want to hear from you.
Um You can I please have a minute of your time so
I can listen
right? Another
question we have here um besides
a small monetary incentive, what features
or add-ons have you seen that attract
employees to download the app? Because
yes, we're asking them to use their own personal
device.
That's a that's a great one. And and we focused
a lot on communication today.
Um but one of the things that that that
we've heard a lot of um is
is really around integrations. And how
do you provide employees
with access to some of the other digital
tools that that they need to use on a regular
basis? Um I'll give you a good
example for for front line workers scheduling
and shift swapping are key.
elements I you know, when I worked at a fast
food restaurant, I used to have to drive
to the restaurant at a time
when there was a lot of other employees and ask
anybody if they would swap a shift. Well there's
tools out there that that can enable this now and
I think having access to those tools, having
integrations to those tools within
your your corporate application,
um gives those users an incentive
to to to open the app to download
it. um And that helps them
get eyes on the the news and content
and information that that you want them to see.
Um There's another added incentive that a lot
of uh front line workers don't have
a corporate email address. And so if
you can reduce the friction and then being able
to access things like their schedule, their pay
stub. Um You know those
types of of employee experience interactions.
Um You can really provide value for them
to to to download and use the app.
yeah, uh you hit the nail right on the head of
a scheduling, right? There are a handful of things that front line
people really care the most about one of them is scheduling.
Another one is pay. Right? How
what's my how much is my paycheck gonna be? When's
it gonna come?
Right? I get the right number of hours
for last week, Right? And can I,
and can I maybe another thing that they want to do? Not
just their schedule is um is
look for opportunities to work more.
Right. Are there any other opportunities for me to be able
to put in some more hours this week? I'm gonna be
a little short. Right? Um, and if if I can
work more, that'd be great.
Um I mentioned Southwest Airlines earlier,
they've been doing this for a long time. Um They
they've given their their flight attendants and their pilots
the ability to be able to trade their shifts
right through a mobile app. And um
And that was one of the first they've had this for, like I said a long
time because they realized they could solve a customer problem
and an employee problem at the same time if they
do that for their employees and there's fewer canceled
flights.
Yeah. Right. So
Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And I think the the there's
one other kind of smaller aspect to that too,
which is things like learning, right? And and
and feedback and if an employee
feels that they're able to to have a voice
um by using this application, that's
another great in in incentive for them
or if they're to learn how to do their job better.
Um They don't have to necessarily reach out to someone,
they're able to access a training module.
Um that's a great way for them to be able
to uh to to see real value
um in in leveraging uh a mobile application
or digital application uh in the workplace.
Great.
There's also another question uh uh regards
to em? How long
does the 40% decrease in productivity
last
So I'd have to refer to the actual study itself.
There are a couple of them um And
uh one of them I think was by James K harder.
He's the chief scientist at
gallup.
Um But it was called business unit level relationship
between employee satisfaction, employee engagement
and business outcomes. Um That's
a lot to write down but just search for
James harder. H. A. R. T. E. R.
Employee engagement uh On google scholar.
You'll probably find it. Um
There's also um uh
Uh Oh shoot, I can't remember the title
of it now, but it was an article in the Journal of Applied
Psychology.
there's a meta analysis of business outcomes
with uh uh with employee engagement.
But there's look at the employee engagement research
to get some of these these data points, some of these numbers.
And if you have access to Forrester's library, obviously
anything I've published is gonna give you a wealth
of uh of numbers to work with.
but and and David, one question for
you kind of a follow up on that when when
organizations see that decrease in
productivity because employees feel disconnected
there, there's not a there's not a time limit
on that right there. There's an action
that needs to be taken and like a corrective action
that that that needs to be taken correct.
Um Yes, but it depends on on
a couple of things. The intensity of the emotional experience
that they had and um and and the degree
to which they think that's going to change, likely
to change on its own. So for example,
um let's say you have
a situation where you feel like you're the victim of
an organizational change, right? Something's happened that you're
not happy about, Well
You know, you're gonna be disengaged based on
that. Statistically speaking, you be disengaged
potentially for months or even years at a time, right?
It's going to cause you to reduce your output
because you feel like nobody saw you, Nobody
sees you, Nobody values you. So if nobody
values you or you feel like nobody values
you even though they might. Um how much,
how hard do you really want to work in that organization?
Right? Psychologically that's what's happening. So
the solution to that is is to go out and sit down and have
an authentic conversation with that person say.
What's happening for you? Um You
know I I and I think we missed
something here. I think we missed the mark in some way.
What can I do as a manager, What can
you what can we do as an organization that's gonna help
you feel whole again? Um
uh And that you know
that may be not something every manager
can do or has the skills for. It takes a lot of E. Q.
right,
Excellent. Great.
Any other questions on the line, juan Yeah,
we have one more question here. Uh what other
technology trends are you seeing uh that
addresses the pain for front line workers,
Hm um
Let me see. Well, I know there's one
of the things that that that we're watching
um obviously is is the mobile app solution,
but I think what we're, you know, one of the
other areas that that that we're seeing is
things like digital signage, just getting
information and and content in front
of employees. Um and
just in general digital solutions and and
and being able to provide the apps whether
they're integrated or whether they're standalone that that
employees are using.
Um I think I've I've also seen
some some some trending and David, you can
correct me if I'm wrong on this, but organizations
building purpose built applications
that that help optimize specific tasks.
Uh I'm thinking of a grocery store chain that I I I read
about who built their own application to help
employees answer questions about uh
the products that they're they're selling more
easily and providing that to all employees.
Um Are there other trends that that that
that you're seeing.
Um
Yeah I mean several
um I I think about the situations where you've got
um Um
either nonprofit um or
really low budgets, really low
health care or really like health care, front
lines, right? Things like that. Really low um
uh
resources to be able to deploy something.
Um. you know,
being efficient, being thoughtful about that and how
you go about it is is is paramount. But
um sometimes you
can you can go a long way just by opening up
a listening post, right? Just by having a tool
that will open up a listening post where people can
can um
uh can come to you with ideas.
Or maybe you can hold a uh maybe
you can build a sense of community around it, right, where
people can come in and uh and you
can hold sessions around. Ok, How do we do
this better now? What do you, you know, what can we
do for you? But that starts with also having a
uh a willingness and a commitment to be able
to take action based on what people say.
But I did a bunch of interviews with people, a bunch of
focus groups with frontline health care workers during
the uh the covid 19 pandemic. And
there was a huge difference between
the workers who were working in places who really
felt like the uh the leadership team and
their managers cared, right, would give them
give them time if they needed it or you know, would
help them with shifts or or other
things and those who just felt totally isolated
on their own. So one
of the trends I see is just greater awareness
of that and saying, ok, you know, from a human
level, there's more that we can do and it's
really not a high cost to be able to do
listening, right? And other things. Um it's
hard to get it to scale and that's where technology can
help you scale that type of listening.
it's great
We just received one more question right now.
Um do you have any examples uh of
nonprofit companies have that have succeeded
with communicating with their front line staff?
Yeah. Uh I think about just the example
that I gave um of uh front
line workers during the pandemic. And and again these
were these were focus groups that were composed
of employees from many different organizations. Right?
Uh Health care organizations.
yeah a lot of those employees
really did not feel at all supported uh by
their organization. They kind of felt forgotten out there.
Nobody ever talked talked to them or checked
in with them. Nobody ever, you know, asked
for feedback or anything else. They were just
out there on an island is the way it felt. And
then there were other people who worked
for different organizations who didn't feel that way.
Um they felt like they were getting,
they had a lot of bidirectional communication with leadership
and with others and they felt like they were
being reassured and recognized
for what they were contributing what they were doing.
There's a lot of ways that we signal that to people,
but I I think about those health care organizations
being those that were willing to do that whose
leaders were empathetic, willing
to go the extra mile and have those conversations
with people and and use technology to do
that and to help with that.
It was just a a a you know, pretty stark
contrast
Yeah. And we've had a number of igloo customers
who are nonprofits who who leverage
digital workplace technology in order to be able
to connect uh both their their desk
workers as well as their their frontline workers.
So um I think there's definitely opportunities
there to to leverage these communication,
these collaboration tools in order to be able
to um to make sure people
feel that they've got the information that they need
and and the connection to the organization as a whole.
Yeah, That's
great. Well that's all the questions. Uh Thank
you so much Sean and David for uh today's
uh webinar event. Uh Thank you so much
for for tuning in.