How to unlock the potential of your frontline employees

Frontline employees are the cement of your business.?

Whether its retail, warehouse, healthcare or something in between, frontline workers make up 80% of the global workforce, so it’s important to understand how to support them to grow and develop.?

You need to recognise what it takes to unlock their full potential and how to implement performance and development processes to empower success.

Why the focus on frontline?

So many HR platforms are built with desk-based workers in mind, for those employees sat in offices with desktop computers.

Traditional platforms and processes often forget to incorporate accessibility and engagement tailored to fit the needs of the frontline worker as well as those at a desk.

But in reality, frontline workers feature in so many places – stores, restaurants, hospitals, factories, education institutions, construction sites and more.

Plus, many of the roles in frontline are customer-focused, making them the brand ambassadors for your organisation.

Which is why, investing time, resource, and budget, in their career development, engagement, and performance is essential to your retention goals.

Unlocking their potential

You need to perform a skills gap analysis to understand where your development opportunities sit – then you’ll be ready to develop employee skills to plug any gaps.

Through StaffCircle, you can use Success Circles to do this.

If you’re looking to do this on a different platform (we’d obviously love for you to use StaffCircle, but this newsletter is here to help all leaders, no matter what platform you’re using) then a good place to start is reviewing your competency framework.

It’s important to not only understand the skills you need your employees to have, but the best route for their development – is it one-on-one training, a self-led course or group session? Perhaps it’s something else entirely.

Understanding the learner will ensure the development you provide truly resonates with your team.

Accessibility is key

Your frontline workers are likely juggling a multitude of tasks, all of which require immediate attention – especially if your team is based in healthcare.?

Add to that a lack of office space or desktop computer, making it difficult for you, the HR leader to organise cost-effective training.?

Investing in a mobile platform that is accessible and engaging allows you to provide training and development without the shackles of a desk.

A progressive web-app enables you to level the playing field with barrier-free access to performance, development, and communications across your team.

This provides your frontline workers with the same access to growth as those accessing the same platform from the office.?

It’s development that is available anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Clear objectives and goals

Before you begin with development, it’s crucial to understand the overall business goals and objectives, as well as your individual employees.

What are the desired outcomes for the business? How can training and development of an individual support these goals? In what time frame can this be achieved?

Having clear objectives and set goals that can be linked to employee’s performance acts as a roadmap for your development.

From here, you can create a personalised development plan to help your employees reach their full development whilst adhering to set timelines and achievements objectives.

Plus, in a platform like StaffCircle, goals can be shared across departments and the wider team to ensure cross-business buy-in.

Seek and provide feedback

Finally, your frontline workers are deskless, not voiceless.

To ensure they stay engaged and you understand their needs, prioritise asking and providing feedback as part of their performance management.

The annual appraisal is dead, because now, employees want consistent, regular feedback to understand how they’re doing, where they’re going, and how they can get there.

How do you create continuous feedback loops?

Manager check ins, peer-to-peer feedback, and NET promotor scores are just some ways you can help foster a culture of collaboration and engagement.

Plus, by not leaving an appraisal to just once a year, you’ll be able to identify potential risks earlier on and work towards fixing them before they become a larger problem – supporting your retention goals.

Unlocking your frontline employees’ potential doesn’t need to be complicated – in fact, with the right resources and focus, you can improve retention and engagement tenfold.

Looking for the right platform to support you? Consider StaffCircle.