The Shift | July 20th

Hello, welcome, and thanks for joining us. Let's get into the latest frontline insights — otherwise known as?The Shift?— brought to you by Blink.

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How to break new ground for gender equity

South Flank is an iron ore mine a two-hour flight outside of Perth, Australia. It’s an isolated but inclusive place —?40% of South Flank’s frontline workers are women, and women hold four out of six senior manager positions as well.

What has South Flank done to close the gender gap so often seen in other frontline organizations,?such as?manufacturing ,?construction , and?rail ?

Harvard Business Review ?spent six weeks at the South Flank site in 2022 to find out. Here's what they observed:?

• Strong engagement from senior frontline leaders.?South Flank’s GM collaborated with other senior managers to set strict gender equity targets?and?worked hard to achieve them. The business recognizes that?gender balance won’t happen by accident — that it must be by design. Middle managers have also been empowered to make space for more entry-level roles, if this will help achieve the targets set.
• Strong support from leaders at the head office.?South Flank's on-site managers have strong backing from senior executives at HQ. Frontline leaders have permission to innovate and experiment, to try unique three-day onboarding programs, and to even redesign key machinery so that people of any body size and shape can operate it.
• Major investments in creating a safe, welcoming work environment.?Given that South Flank’s mining workers live in residential camps on site, the business has been intentional in ensuring these spaces are safe, inclusive, and “village-like” to make the culture attractive. HBR researchers say they were struck by how many people “smiled and opened doors for each other.”
• Data-driven approaches to drive change.?Part of achieving inclusion is understanding what caused an exclusionary culture to begin with. For South Flank, sexual harassment and assault were serious issues, made worse by on-site drinking when employees were off shift. The business is working with social scientists to identify other risks and mitigate them.
• An understanding that gender equality is hard to achieve and requires ongoing work.?South Flank may have made positive progress, but it didn’t happen overnight. Leaders understand that delivering inclusion demands “changing the mining industry’s deeply entrenched masculine norms and culture.” And that “this culture, itself, is a key factor in why the long-term retention of women has proven to be a challenge.”

HBR’s write-up of the research concludes with:

“South Flank’s leaders have crushed myths that women do not want high-paying mining jobs driving trucks, blasting rocks, and fixing heavy machinery.?If a remote mine in Western Australia can achieve a 40% female workforce, and over 60% in senior leadership, then we believe this can be done by any business.”

Calling all EMS leaders!

Blink will be at?Pinnacle ?in San Antonio, Texas, from July 24th to 26th.

Are you attending? If so, stop by booth 12 to learn how Blink can increase engagement and improve internal communication between leaders and the frontline.?

AI is arriving at the frontline, so how can it be used?

Artificial Intelligence has been helping rail operators predict maintenance requirements and streamline infrastructure for years. And now the conversation has turned to?how?employees?might be able to use AI for a better employee experience.

This blog ?makes several suggestions, including how head office teams like Marketing could use AI to scale their campaigns.?If you ask us,?AI can also help employees write their internal communications on platforms like?Blink .

Either way, training, compliance, and ensuring confidentiality are all essential before extending AI capabilities to the frontline and beyond.?

Fresh opportunities for engagement and connection

When the HR team at Tito’s Handmade Vodka was tasked with boosting recruitment and improving employee wellbeing and engagement, they didn’t just look outside in, but out across their land.

In one of the most unusual frontline employee perks we’ve seen,?Tito's employees receive free fruit and veg to take home each week , grown on?a plot of farmland ?created right next to the distillery.

This is no mean feat considering that Tito’s site is based in a “food desert” where residents (and therefore staff) have “no access to good, clean, healthy food.” But that’s precisely why it’s so meaningful as a company perk. Employees can learn to meal-prep with the 75 varieties of produce available to them and interact with each other from across the organization.

How can you embrace the Tito's mindset to give employees a better quality of life, in and out of work?

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