Empowering Frontline Workers with Digital & Cloud

Looking back over the last 18 months, we have all been challenged in our own unique ways adapting to new work conditions. For those of us able to work from the safety and comfort of our home, it’s in big part thanks to the relentless efforts of a band of hard-working Frontline Workers (FLWs).?

Spotlight on Frontline Workers

Covid-19 has magnified the importance of FLWs. Estimated at approximately 2.7 billion people, global FLW’s are a huge growth opportunity for technology, cloud communications and collaboration solution providers.

Despite outnumbering corporate workers 4:1 in industries such as hospitality, manufacturing, retail, only 20% of FLWs strongly agreed that their organizations are providing them with the best productivity and collaboration tools, according to a ?Microsoft Commissioned Frost & Sullivan study.

In the last few weeks alone, I have had multiple CXO level conversations with several leading Companies.?Two to highlight here, one Retail and one FSI industry.?Both organizations are focused on transforming via reinventing a differentiated customer experience.?Further, both are embarking on projects to empower their FLWs with digital tools and data, recognizing the key role they play in the overall value chain.

Challenges Faced by Frontline Workers During the Pandemic

Due to the very nature of their work, FLWs face overwhelming challenges. Whether it is the army of Healthcare workers, essential Retail workers, Transportation & logistics sector workers or many other industries, just travelling to work each day can present a major risk.?

According to a Microsoft study of 6,000 remote and FLWs, close to ‘34 percent of Asia Pacific respondents cited worry about contracting COVID-19, due to the lack of tech or protective equipment provided by businesses to effectively socially distance, resulting in increased stress levels’.

If the higher risk of Covid-19 exposure wasn’t enough, nearly one third also reported increased rates of burnout.

A Forbes analyst rightly points out how ‘front-line workers need to be given the right resources that enable them to maintain two foundational pillars of sustained success: efficiency and effectiveness.’ I couldn’t agree more with this point of view.

How Digital & Cloud Technologies can Help

Technology access to FLWs is a force multiplier unlike any other.?Whether it's driving foundational health and safety improvements, empowering real time and mobile access to critical data sets, digitizing manual tasks, the impacts are significant.

Firstly, digital tools can have a big impact with training, skilling and inclusion for the FLW community.?Reach52, a Singapore-based digital health systems NGO, ran a six-month project from May 2020 to provide rural based health workers across Philippines and Cambodia education & training on Covid-19 prevention strategies using digital channels. Nearly 2000 FLW community health workers were upskilled, using a multilingual low bandwidth e-learning platform, providing content in both basic text and rich media.?The potential impact spans more than 200,000 residents.

When it comes to manufacturing, essential factory workers haven’t always been the first to be digitally empowered. Covid-19 has accelerated transformation here in many ways, with companies like Honeywell innovating on the future of industrial work.?Honeywell are leveraging Microsoft Teams together with RealWear and hands-free video calling, allowing experts to provide real-time remote guidance to the factory floor, reducing machine downtime and ensuring worker safety and wellbeing in rugged environments

In Public Sector and Healthcare the adoption and cases are limitless, with great impact.?Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health has partnered with Microsoft to build a healthcare platform that drives the work of medical personnel, which has more than 1,500 daily users with data covering 966 hospitals across Thailand. Impacts include optimizing medical supplies to where they are needed most, critical as COVID-19 cases rise.?

One last but important lens on how digital and cloud technology can further help empower FLWs is on the key secular trend around Cybersecurity. Historically FLWs have been separated from HQ, often exposed to significant cyber risks.?FLWs have been traditionally heavily dependent on unauthorized shadow IT communication tools and apps for sharing sensitive business data, resulting in increased exposure to malicious threats.?To combat these risks, it's important IT & Cyber Leaders embrace comprehensive toolsets to protect all employees, including FLW’s.?These toolsets should include a holistic approach to uplift cybersecurity posture across several layers, from identity, to apps, to data, to device layer protections.?Sharing a simple Microsoft guide for FLW security for further insights.

These are just a few of the hundreds of FLW innovation and transformation stories evolving right across industry sectors.?The pandemic has proven a litmus test of our drive to come together and solve critical business challenges at an unprecedented pace, it definitely includes transforming yesterday’s FLWs into today’s digital first critical company assets.