In 2023, making frontline success a top priority will be key to overcoming the current economic challenges that continue to disrupt businesses and stall the post-pandemic recovery process. Learn how to drive Frontline Success in your organization thanks to our complete guide.

1. The Ultimate Guide:
Frontline Success
in 2023

2. Frontline
Success
When Frontline Businesses run at
their best: for employees, customers,
and leaders.
When workflows and communication
only contribute and nothing detracts
from your organization’s core goals
and efficiency, that is…
Characteristics in Action at the Workplace:
• Lower turnover rates than the industry average
• Higher productivity and output: reaches performance KPIs around sales,
output, quality control, etc.
• Positive team morale & employee engagement
• Team members understand how their role
fits into the larger organization
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 2

3. The Business and
Human Impact
on Frontline Success
Business Impact
of Frontline Disconnect:
• The cost of one frontline worker quitting is
about $4,500 dollars
• Frontline turnover costs in the U.S. supply
chain industry alone have hit $90 billion
• Studies show that 75% of employee
turnover can be prevented
• 40% of U.S. workers say they’d like to see
greater investment by their employer in
technology to improve processes, efficiency
and safety
• 21% of U.S. frontline workers said they
have experienced workplace injury due to
inadequate processes or communication
Imagine if you
could reverse that:
• Increased performance – Research shows
that business unit-level engagement is
predictive of future customer experience
metrics, productivity, and financial
performance1
• Lower attrition – Engaged employees are
87% less likely to leave their organization,
which means reduced costs in having to
recruit new staff, train them and wait for
them to ramp up to full productivity
• Increased revenue – According to Bain &
Company, companies with highly engaged
workers grew revenues 2.5x as much as
those with low levels of engagement
• A better customer experience – 70% of
engaged employees indicate they have
a good understanding of how to meet
customer needs; only 17% of non-engaged
employees say the same
You’ve probably already experienced the business impact and
problems that come from lack of communication and integration
of your frontline. The high turnover rate, customer complaints,
missed production quotas, and spikes in safety incidents are just
a few examples.
Sounds familiar? Believe it or not, all these problems are
symptoms that stem from a single condition: the frontline
disconnect.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 3

4. Tips to Drive
Frontline Success
Often, leadership teams at frontline organizations make
assumptions about what workers need on a day-to-day basis.
This disconnect between corporate headquarters and the frontline
means that many initiatives miss the mark, leading to lost revenue
and dissatisfied workers.
Frontline organizations can take steps to get to know their
workforce. The following pages will give an overview how.
4
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023

5. Employee
Surveys
Employee Surveys
in Action with MasTec
MasTec, a general contractor with a
large frontline workforce operating in
remote locations, used the results of
their employee engagement survey to
rethink their communication strategy.
For MasTec’s employees, communi-
cation, recognition, and advancement
opportunities were all important, so
the leadership team decided to roll
out Beekeeper to improve all of those
areas.
Surveying frontline workers can help identify what matters
most, potential areas of improvement, and obstacles that
are getting in the way of frontline success.
1.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 5

6. Create a Cross-Functional
Task Force or Committee
for Frontline Success
Task Force in Action with
Flagger Force
Flagger Force, a short-term traffic control
company, created an administrator role in
each department responsible for providing
direct assistance to employees. Workers
knew that they had someone to turn to and
trust with questions and concerns.
This also allowed the company to identify
and deal with issues before they escalated.
Frontline success spans every area
of business. To truly create a frontline
success initiative that will work, it’s
important to create a cross-functional
team that includes people from
HR, operations, internal comms,
marketing, executives, frontline
managers, and actual frontline
workers themselves. Everyone MUST
have a seat at the table and come
together to talk openly, brainstorm
solutions, and create change across
the organization.
Assigning staff to monitor and
optimize employee communication
can really accelerate frontline
success.
Flagger
Force
employee
app data
2.
comments have
been made on
the app YTD
62,308
98%
of our
workforce
is on
the app
Average respone time
is
73 mins
19,085 posts
have been made on
the app YTD
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 6

7. Communicate Directly
with Frontline Workers
Embrace Two-Way
Communication
Unlike top-down communication where updates trickle down from
leadership to frontline workers (but rarely travel the other way
around) two-way communication creates more opportunities for
employees at every level to have their voices heard.
Many frontline workers might
be skeptical that corporate HQ
understands their needs.
One of the strategies that helped MasTec
achieve a high adoption rate for Beekeeper
was limiting the amount of communication
that was coming from corporate.
They wanted the majority of company
messaging to flow from field managers to
workers in order to establish the immediate
value of the app and encourage content to
grow organically.
Two-Way Communication in
Action with old Smokey Distillery
Old Smokey Distillery, a moonshine and whis-
key distillery, wanted to keep its workforce
engaged by involving them in the product de-
velopment process. With Beekeeper, they set
up Streams where employees could give sug-
gestions on upcoming releases. Because their
frontline workforce was already responsible
for producing and distributing the products, the
company wanted to make sure they also felt
included in higher-level decision-making.
3.
4.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 7

8. Create Open Feedback Loops
Digitize Paper-Based
Processes and Information
While employee surveys are an important way to receive feedback,
encouraging employees to share concerns and suggestions whenever
they come up is also vital to frontline success.
Frontline employees spend their
workday on the go and often
work in remote locations, mak-
ing paper-based communica-
tion inefficient and ineffective.
Digitizing paperwork like PTO,
near-miss reports, safety pro-
cedures, and onboarding forms
gives frontline employees the
information they need to per-
form at their best.
Feedback Loops in Action
Manufacturing giant ABB was able to create
open feedback loops by digitizing employee
feedback on safety processes. The company
swapped their rarely-used “idea box” in the
breakroom for a digital Beekeeper form.
The mobile experience gives workers a quick,
easy way to offer ideas and suggestions.
Now, floor managers at ABB can hardly keep
up with all the submissions they receive from
employees. Ideas submitted via digital forms
are automatically posted in a Stream that
employees can access. Now, ABB can track
its team’s improvement ideas across the
organization.
The result? Since launching Beekeeper’s
digital forms, ABB has seen a 200% increase
in ideas submitted via the employee
suggestion form.
Digitization in Action with Cargill
Global food corporation Cargill found that giving
their workers on-demand mobile access to
company documentation via Beekeeper allowed
them to achieve greater operational efficiency.
This was particularly important during the start
of the 2020 pandemic when reaching frontline
employees safely was critical.
“It was extremely important to safely
communicate with employees in a
COVID world, so they weren’t gathering
around bulletin boards to look at
schedules. Instead, they could have
schedules at their fingertips.”
Kimberly W. Wolff
Protein Emerging Capabilities, Cargill
5.
6.
8

9. Common operational processes
that tend to be pain points for
frontline teams include:
• Swapping shifts
• Relaying shift handover updates
think mid-shift not communicating with the night shift
that a piece of equipment is broken
• Submitting maintenance reports
• Accessing pay stubs
Simplifying or eliminating unnecessary steps
workers have to take to perform these tasks
might include automating workflows, digitizing
paper-based processes.
Streamlining Operations
in Action with Domino’s
Switzerland
Digitizing payroll with Beekeeper work-
place software has significantly reduced
the time it used to take for payroll tasks
by moving the process online. Fixed and
hourly contracts had to be processed
separately, and it often took 2-3 hours
just to pack envelopes.
“While our prior payroll system was time-
consuming and cumbersome, Beekeeper’s
operations integrations suite has allowed
us to digitize the whole process. Within
Beekeeper, payslips are now accessible to
employees with a single click”
» Read the
complete story here
Claudia Scherrer Domingos
Head of Human Resources, Domino’s Pizza
Streamline Painful
Operational Processes
Identifying and mapping out processes that your frontline
workers perform regularly can reveal potential roadblocks
causing confusion, miscommunication, and delays.
7.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 9

10. Invest in Mobile-
Friendly Training and
Professional Development
Proper employee training not only
gives workers the immediate tools
and information to perform their
tasks but also sets them up for
long-term success. Training starts
during the onboarding process,
but ongoing initiatives like safety
training also contribute to frontline
success.
Mobile-Friendly Safety Training
in Action with Flagger Force
Flagger Force wanted to enable continuous
learning around safety topics for its employees,
so the company used Beekeeper’s integration
with mobile-based training platform eduMe to
create a digital microlearning strategy.
With eduMe, Flagger Force delivers “micro
training” in segments, enabling frontline em-
ployees to learn and develop skills in small
doses.
» Read the
complete story here
8.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 10

11. Create Clear Career Paths
and Opportunities for Growth
Provide Mobile Access
to All Resources
Frontline industries are notorious for having high turnover rates and many
companies don’t offer enough incentives for workers to stay long-term.
Promoting from within and communicating how workers can advance
their careers within the company can help with retention.
One of the most common roadblocks in
a frontline employee’s workday happens
when they need additional information
to complete a task. If that information is
stored in a binder somewhere, it takes
time for that employee to find what they
need.
Upward Mobility in Action
For Flagger Force, one of the benefits of adopting
Beekeeper was that it allowed the leadership team
to identify field leaders who were “power users” of
the app. The company promoted many of those
stand-out contributors to leadership positions.
Recognizing these employees publicly on Beekeep-
er also set an example for the rest of the workforce
and incentivized more engagement on the app.
Providing digital access to an organization’s resource library
(guides, manuals, etc.) not only speeds up operations and
reduces delays, but it empowers workers to make informed
decisions and address issues on the spot.
“2 out of every 3 workers have
quit a job because they did not see
a path ahead for them. They’re
looking for that company that’s not
just going to hire them to do the
job today but invest in them for
something longer term.”
Ben Eubanks
Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse
Research & Advisory
9.
10.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 11

12. Celebrate Frontline Workers
within the Company
Our recent survey of over 6,000 frontline workers revealed that one of
the top motivators for frontline teams is receiving positive feedback and
recognition for a job well done.
Use whatever company-wide communication
channel you have to publicly praise your
frontline workers. Call out top performers
directly and congratulate them. Here are a
few ways you can do this:
• Incorporate frontline wins into the company
newsletter
• Highlight frontline workers on the company
intranet
• Hold your own frontline hero awards and
give prizes to top-performing frontline
workers
• Create a company video that highlights a
“day in the life” of frontline workers in the
company
Have executives spend time on the shop
floor chatting with frontline workers and
letting them know that they’re appreciated
11.
12.
Mobilize Your Frontline
Managers
Frontline managers are one of the largest segments of the workforce.
According to Harvard Business Review, they make up 50% to 60% of a
company’s management ranks and directly supervise as much as 80%
of the workforce.
Frontline managers have the most complex,
demanding jobs of anyone in the organi-
zation. They are accountable for top-line
performance metrics like sales, meeting pro-
duction quotas, and more. But they’re also
responsible for inspiring and motivating their
teams to get the job done well and on time.
Here are seven ways to mobilize your front-
line managers and make them your greatest
allies to frontline success:
1. Leadership training
2. Professional development
3.
Soft skills and emotional
intelligence training
4. Implement a frontline success platform
5.
Dedicated “face-time” from executives
and upper management
6. Reduce administrative workload
7.
Empower frontline managers to become
coaches, not just rule enforcers
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 12

13. How to Measure
Frontline Success
• Employee Engagement: number and qual-
ity of interactions employees have with
the company they work for that go beyond
their assigned tasks
• Performance and Productivity: time and
money saved using previous vs. current
communication tools/methods
• NPS (Employee Net Promoter Score): how
likely an employee is to advocate for or
promote the company they work for to oth-
er potential employees
• Retention/Turnover Rate: percentage of
employees who stay with a company and
how many leave over a certain period of
time
• Employee Feedback: response rate for
engagement initiatives like employee sur-
veys, as well as how often employees give
feedback on their own accord
• Tool/Technology Adoption Rate: how
many employees adopt new tools and
technologies, how long it takes them to do
so, and how engaged they are during the
initial adoption process
Taking steps to measure success by identifying, tracking, and
analyzing KPIs is an important part of understanding whether your
communication strategy is working. Here are key KPIs to track:
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 13

14. Resources to Drive
Frontline Success
Here you’ll find links to templates that we use with our own
customers every day to help them build a safer, agile, and more
productive workforce.
Accomplish three things:
1.
Assign a project manager
2.
Identify your company’s chief
communicators and key stakeholders
3.
Prepare your communication initiative
and project overview with the new team
Execute our three-step goal-setting process:
1.
Assess the current state of your company’s
internal communications
2.
Establish KPIs to measure the success of your
internal communication program
3.
Build your internal communication objective plan
Your content plan consists of all the essential
information you need to communicate to your
company to improve operations and engagement:
1.
An editorial calendar to schedule your posts
2.
A content calendar to plan the types of content you
want to publish
3.
Ideas for the types of content you should
communicate.
Communication Stakeholders Plan
Communication Objectives
Content Calendar
» Overview
» Overview
» Overview
» Google Sheet
» Google Sheet
» Google Sheet
» Excel Template
» Excel Template
» Excel Template
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The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023

15. Frontline Success
Business Success
15
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023
=
At the same time, the needs of frontline
workers have been largely neglected for
the past several decades. The pandemic,
The Great Resignation, and other global
events have forced us to face the problem of
frontline disconnect head-on.
In 2023, making frontline success a top
priority will be key to overcoming the current
economic challenges that continue to disrupt
businesses and stall the post-pandemic
recovery process.
Nearly 90% of all businesses rely on frontline workers. At the same
time, a whopping 80% of the world’s workforce are considered
nondesk workers. Frontline teams clearly make up the majority
of the workforce around the globe, and companies are utterly
dependent on them to function.
The Ultimate Guide: Frontline Success in 2023 15

16. This is Beekeeper
Beekeeper is transforming the way frontline businesses
work. Our mobile-first platform helps companies ditch
paper and manual processes to improve employee
engagement, retention, and performance.
Empower employees with direct access to the people, processes, and
systems they need to do their best work. Companies around the world
use Beekeeper to connect their teams, unify their systems and drive
their businesses forward.
Learn more at beekeeper.io
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