Finally, there’s hard evidence to back what all HR professionals know intuitively to be true: employee engagement drives business success. Now comes the tricky part – how can organisations actually achieve high engagement? Particularly when you consider the nuances between desk-based and frontline workers.
Our latest research probes this very issue. We looked at 300 companies across the UK, Australia, the US and EU in a ground-breaking Economic Value Study. Not only did the data confirm the concrete link between employee engagement and a whole host of performance-related metrics, including retention, productivity, revenue growth and more. But it also revealed the key ways that desk-based and frontline workforces differ, and the levers that can be pulled to optimise engagement for each of them.
What separates desk-based and frontline workforces?
Desk-based workforces are where the majority of employees work in offices. They’re more likely to be knowledge-based workers, in fields like financial services, professional services, technology and real estate. Here, we see a much greater correlation between employee engagement and business outcomes. They have high expectations and expect a benefits package that reflects that.
Frontline workers, on the other hand, typically come from sectors where employees are constantly on their feet. That could be in a lab, a clinic, in construction or hospitality. Being so disparate, it’s often harder for businesses to connect and communicate with these employees.
Despite this, they still have higher levels of engagement, and there’s a lower correlation between engagement scores and business outcomes – suggesting that they have lower expectations compared to their desk-based counterparts.
Covering all the bases – can it be done?
There are, of course, fundamentals that unite both groups. All employees ultimately want to be appreciated. They want to feel valued, in a way that meaningfully fulfils their needs. And for that we need to look to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
- Physiological needs e.g. food, travel, payments
- Safety and security needs e.g. physical, mental, financial wellbeing
- Belonging needs e.g. communication, culture, connection
- Self esteem needs e.g. recognition, reward
When all these are met, this is when employees can reach the highest level of engagement and self-actualisation – feeling truly appreciated.
For many businesses though, fulfilling all those needs all at once is a tall order. It has to be about finding out which benefits are most meaningful to your people, and prioritising those.
4 ways to maximise your benefits strategy for both
While our research goes much more in-depth, there are certain things to consider that can have a tangible effect on frontline and desk-based workforce’s NPS and engagement.
#1 Physiological – Adapt to your people’s everyday reality
When you cater for things like transport, nutrition, and the rest, it helps keep all employees comfortable, more productive and willing to stay longer. But the key difference is the types of needs they find more useful.
For frontline workers, staying fed and watered while doing more labour-intensive work is important – making food vouchers a way to significantly boost wellbeing. For office workers, it’s more effective to focus on benefits that support them in their daily commute, particularly for younger workers.
#2: Safety and security – Look at the long-term for frontline workers
When it comes to general wellness benefits, like access to mental health support or gym memberships, desk-based employees tend to value this highly. In fact, organisations that offer wellness plans give an employee wellbeing score that’s 13% higher than those who don’t.
The story is different for frontline employees. Rather than wellness benefits, they prefer precautionary benefits like health insurance or personal accident insurance. In a job where people are more reliant on their physical health, it makes sense that so many value initiatives that look after their much longer-term wellbeing and security. Yet our research revealed that many frontline organisations are missing a trick – with only 39% of them offering this highly valued benefit type.
#3 Belonging – Create a space where your people can be heard
Communications are an essential part of creating a unifying culture and community. Fostering this kind of environment is a significant challenge for companies with large amounts of frontline staff, where they’re often disparate. And getting it right can be difficult for desk-based workforces too, where a gap between leadership strategy and employee perception can erode trust.
Only 12% of organisations consider comms a top priority, so even putting the right infrastructure in place can put a business ahead of the game. But to take things even further, we found that leaders in the space allow two-way communication, and a forum where employees can feel they’re being taken seriously. Developing that continuous feedback loop can help remove barriers to peak engagement.
#4 Self-esteem – Make sure your cash bonuses fulfil their potential
Recognition and reward programmes are particularly effective in boosting desk-based employees’ engagement. As well as ensuring there’s alignment between your company’s values and your people’s behaviour, there’s also evidence that it has a halo effect on employee wellbeing too.
Cash bonuses are, unsurprisingly, a popular way to show appreciation. But our research proves that not all cash bonuses are created equal. Some are particularly good for recruitment, like profit share bonuses which bump up talent attraction by 11%. Others, like team performance bonuses, are better for encouraging skill building, growing this by 3% higher than average. Our full report dives into this more deeply, but it’s worth understanding what your aims are before you implement any one type of cash bonus over another.
In summary: Appreciation is everything
Making people feel appreciated takes a personal touch. That doesn’t necessarily mean highly individualised benefits, but it does mean being strategically accounting for your workforce’s circumstances, to provide them with something really meaningful. So whether it’s finding out what will help your desk-based organisations win the war for talent, or discovering how to maximise your frontline workers’ productivity, our research dives into what the best business leaders are doing to appreciate their employees, supercharge engagement and boost their bottom line.
Read the full Economic Value Study here
