How to engage frontline employees

According to a Gallup study, only 15 percent of frontline workers around the world feel engaged in their work.

Pair that up with employee turnover data, and you start to get a really startling, serious picture of the state of frontline employee engagement. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 50 percent of all new hourly employees quit or are terminated within six months of being hired. (Recent reports, especially in retail and food service, estimate it to be even higher).

These are all statistics and issues that you’re likely acutely aware of. Frontline comms is listed as a key trend area for 2026 exploration with 42% of communicators saying reaching employees is a top challenge (according to our 2026 Internal Communications Trends Report). But the good news is, comms pros are ready to change those statistics around! But how can you turn the tides? 

For starters: don’t treat frontline workers as if they’re constantly replaceable. After all, you’re investing a lot of time into hiring, training, and onboarding these employees.

In every case, they’re either a.) the face or b.) the backbone of your organization (or both!). If you engage these employees thoughtfully, you can get a lot of valuable feedback and insights and significantly improve your retention rates…saving your company a significant amount of cash, and creating a better company culture in the process. Plus, research suggests that organizations that connect frontline employees can also achieve significantly faster growth and improved productivity.

(And in the end, if it’s not a great fit, it is highly likely that you can find a replacement — but nobody wants to feel that way.) 

Other than taking a moment for the above mindset shift, there are five major ways to engage a frontline or deskless employee: 

1. Through their direct supervisor
2. Through the company’s culture
3. Through technology
4. Through feedback
5. Through internal and external marketing

Let’s dive in!

Bonus: Struggling to reach (and truly engage) your frontline employees? A clear internal communications strategy makes all the difference. This internal communications strategy guide walks you through setting focused goals, choosing the right channels for deskless teams, and measuring what actually works — so your messages don’t just get sent, they create real change. Prefer to build as you read? We turned this whole framework into a fill-in-the-blank workbook. Download it here!

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How to Reach, Engage, and Change Frontline Employees

This 17-page guide is packed with ways to communicate and engage with the most important part of your team: frontline employees.

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Engaging frontline employees through their direct supervisor

There’s an incredibly popular Harvard Business Review article from 1996 (!) that I see referenced constantly on LinkedIn, even to this day. The article, “Reaching and Changing Frontline Employees,” is a must-read for anyone leading a frontline team. The original Harvard Business review article spends quite a few pages championing direct supervisors as the opinion leaders in an organization, and in many instances, we agree! As they say: “Frontline supervisors greatly influence the attitudes and behaviors of others; they are critical to the success of any change effort.”

To be honest, this isn’t unique to frontline workers; we all know that managers play a pivotal role in employee engagement.

According to the Gallup Business Journal, 70% of the variance in team engagement across business units is explained by the quality of the manager. And in almost every report out there, it’s cited as the number one factor for employee engagement.

No one has a bigger influence on an employee’s day-to-day interactions, processes, and operations than the managers on the ground with them…frontline or not. 

If you find a team that’s struggling, start with their manager…and make sure your managers are prepared to shoulder that kind of responsibility.

Here are a few ways to support your frontline managers (the bulk of which is engaging their teams and generating results for the business):

• Invest in leadership and communication training. (not just a one-off session, but ongoing development!)
• Give them tools that make it easy to connect with their team. This can be pre-written talking points, employee shoutouts, or weekly check-in prompts
• Encourage them to share good news with the greater company!

One other instant place to focus: make sure frontline employees are recognized and appreciated throughout the organization. Often, these workers have to deal with a lot of the downsides of customer service or hard labor. Whether you honor them through a handwritten note (our favorite), an Employee of the Month award, small gifts, a shoutout in an all-company meeting, catered surprises, thoughtful feedback, a day off, etc., take the time to check in and ensure that they are being regularly thanked for their hard work. 

PS — here are a few other ideas to show appreciation (and delight!) your team.

Engaging frontline employees through the company’s culture 

There are mixed reviews as to whether or not frontline employees respond to the mission, values, and culture of a company…and the truth is, they might not, at first. However, it’s absolutely critical for employee engagement and retention. Sure, they might have taken the job for the paycheck, but if you’re competing entirely on the basis of hourly pay or salary alone, you’ll simply become a commodity. 

Sure, employees might be joining the team just for the job, but they’ll stay because they care. This is constantly referenced in articles about the millennial and Gen Z workforces; according to Deloitte, seventy-six percent of millennials view business as a source of powerful and positive social impact. It’s one of the top five things millennials want from their work. And this isn’t just for Silicon Valley tech companies; organizations across every industry are learning that company culture can be a key differentiator, especially for frontline or labor-intensive roles.

So make your mission accessible and actionable for all employees! Consider…

• Sharing real stories of how frontline employees contribute to your mission.
• Celebrate employee culture & values in action! (An spotlight section in your internal newsletter works great for this!)
• Use your all-hands meetings or videos to connect HQ to the field.

Company culture isn’t just for your in-office employees! When you bring your frontline team into the story, you turn a job into a place where they belong.

Engaging frontline employees through technology

Frontline or deskless workers are often siloed from the rest of their company. Connecting these employees with each other (as well as those who are in the office) is incredibly beneficial for both employee engagement and organizational performance.

Technology can give these employees a sense of place and a sense of community. Even if they don’t get much face time with their coworkers, you can connect these employees with the right tech. But the keyword here is the “right tech.” Your frontline employee base likely doesn’t have time to log into the company SharePoint. They’re on the floor. In the field. On the go. So if you want to know how to reach frontline employees, start by thinking mobile-first, message-light, and human-friendly…and the good news is… they’re probably already carrying a phone.

Look for frontline employee engagement tools that achieve these goals:

• Send employees messages on the communications channel or device they prefer (in many cases, via their cell phone). We strongly recommend two-way employee SMS, which doesn’t require an app, a login, or training of any kind
• Provide an asynchronous place for frontline employees to catch up during breaks/after shifts, and add their own comments and voice to the conversation. This is often a combination between an intranet/employee app and text message notifications.
• Encourage two-way communication between leadership teams and frontline employees. Workshop SMS can help here, with an easy-to-reply interface that you can share with leadership, managers, and anyone else.
• Keeping messages brief and engaging. Text is again the perfect tool here, with links to more detailed content like videos, surveys, etc. 
• Reach every language, automatically. Frontline workforces are often multilingual — and asking communicators to draft six versions of every safety message isn’t realistic. Look for tools that handle translation natively (with Workshop, Cici translates any message into your team’s languages in seconds, with formatting and tone preserved).

At the end of the day, you really just want a tool that can allow you to keep these frontline employees informed and engaged; you don’t want them to constantly have to hear company news through the grapevine or feel like they’re disconnected from HQ all the time.

According to our State of Frontline Communications Report, 20 million emails sent through Workshop were opened on mobile devices last year. Dive into more findings here!

Workshop is built for frontline employee communications. From one platform you can send the same message across SMS, email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, SharePoint, and intranet posts — with Cici, our AI agent, adapting the copy for each channel (a 2-line SMS vs. a longer email vs. a Teams post) from a single prompt. Cici can also translate every message into your team’s languages in seconds, which matters more for frontline than for any other audience! Generate a QR code for any email to use on tabletop signage, office displays, and breakroom posters — meeting employees where they actually are. Two-way SMS lets the field talk back to leadership in real time, and HRIS-synced distribution lists keep your audience accurate as people get hired, transferred, and offboarded. One platform. Every channel. Built for the audience that doesn’t sit at a desk.

Engaging frontline employees through feedback

One of the easiest ways to engage frontline employees is consistently overlooked in almost every business we’ve come across: bring them into the fold and get their feedback. Frontline and deskless employees are often your direct connection to customers, your eyes and ears on the floor, and have a direct view into what’s working (and what’s not). Value their unique insights and, quite simply, ask them for their feedback. 

These employees are ready and willing to give advice, too. In a Medallia study, 51 percent of frontline employees said they had suggestions for improving customer satisfaction at least quarterly, and 22 percent said they had feedback to share weekly or even daily.

Yet nearly 20 percent said their organizations never asked for their thoughts on improving customer service, and a third said they were asked for their opinions once a year or less. Decades of research have shown that employees are highly accurate in their assessments of customer satisfaction and the quality of their company’s service. If you give them more opportunities to share their insights and suggestions, you’ll be far better prepared to understand and respond to your customers…and the competitive advantages and success you achieve as a result could be astronomical. 

There are a few great channels to solicit these thoughts and opinions: 

• Create an employee suggestion box or offer an anonymous Q&A
• Encourage frontline managers to ask for it in one-on-ones
• Offer skip-levels or having senior leadership do listening tours (PS — here’s an article on what a listening tour is and how communications can affect its success)
• Use communication tools such as Slack or Workshop
• Running employee opinion surveys

The feedback loop doesn’t stop at customer service, either. Employees on the front lines are uniquely positioned to identify common issues across the business. Not only that, but they can provide context, help identify the root cause(s), and provide ideas for potential solutions. 

The best part? Not only are you gaining the benefits of all this feedback and insight, but the employee feels more engaged as a result: they’re making a meaningful impact, helping the company achieve its mission and vision, and improving the business’ performance. 

Engaging frontline employees through internal and external marketing

Internal marketing is the promotion of the mission, values, objectives, brand, and offerings of a company to the people within it.

There are all kinds of programs, initiatives, and events that can fall into this category: the company newsletter, all-hands meetings, quarterly retreats, internal product launches, celebrations, memos, OKRs, videos, employee resource groups, big announcements, new hires, swag, presentations, employees’ social media posts, you name it. 

Ultimately, though, it’s obvious to all marketers that the lines between internal and external marketing are becoming blurrier and blurrier. Investing in the way you communicate to your employees and putting intentionality and resources behind it can have an incredibly positive impact.

Just take a look at all of the trends that naturally feed into a robust internal marketing strategy, like employer branding, thought leadership, and brand advocacy. At large-scale organizations, we’ve even seen everything from massive employee conferences to internal podcasts.

Incredible customer experiences can even go viral, too. Giving frontline teams the leeway to share those amazing stories on social media as employee influencers can drive unbelievable results for your brand, and internally, it can be a great source of pride for the entire team. (We have channel in Slack dedicated to shouting out employee wins!)

And every time one of your employees shares a company post or highlights a positive part of their work, that’s bolstering your organization’s reputation. The benefits from these word-of-mouth experiences can be huge, from assisting with recruiting efforts to bringing in new customers. (Keep in mind that negative customer and employee experiences can also have a viral effect, so it’s nice to have a bank of public-facing stories that showcase the positives.) 

Use your internal communications campaigns as regular opportunities to shine a spotlight on positive stories about what employees are doing in different locations, branches, or stores. Use your newsletter, all-hands meetings, and team stand ups to remind people that great things are happening in their organization every day, and that they all can play a part in contributing to that positive company culture.

A few final thoughts:

If your internal communications strategy doesn’t actively prioritize frontline employees, you’re missing out, not only on engagement or retention, but also on real business results! But remember, you don’t have to overhaul everything overnight. Start small. Get curious. Find out what’s working—and what’s not. And build your comms strategy from there.

And if you’re in need of a tool to help reach your frontline employees, Workshop can help! Workshop was built from the ground up with internal communications in mind. With Workshop, you can:

• Reach your frontline team in the most effective way…via mobile!
• Engage your employees in real time with two-way SMS communication
• Communicate directly with managers across multiple channels
• Keep your employee lists up-to-date at all time
• Generate QR codes with just a click
• And so much more!

Free guide

How to Reach, Engage, and Change Frontline Employees

This 17-page guide is packed with ways to communicate and engage with the most important part of your team: frontline employees.

Grab your free guide!