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Dear retailers: Here’s what your associates really, really want

Dear retailers: Here’s what your associates really, really want

by | Apr 25, 2019 | Employee Communication, Employee Engagement, Feedback, Retail

I am writing to you on behalf of your frontline employees and their frustration when it comes to workplace practices.

Do you remember playing broken telephone when you were younger? In order to communicate your message, it would be passed along a chain of people. The fun of the game was that in the end, the message was entirely altered. The retail industry also seems to be playing the broken telephone game, but it’s happening unintentionally.

In order to successfully implement new initiatives, you must send a message through a series of management levels. Similarly to playing broken telephone, there’s no way to ensure that the exact original message is being continuously communicated.

“Workers who are on the frontline have the most influence on the customer’s experience. Their attitude and commitment can mean the difference between successful sales and lost opportunities. This makes it important for companies in every industry to implement employee engagement practices as a way to improve customer satisfaction.” —Omega Management Group

When it comes down to implementing retail initiatives, your frontline employees will be the one to roll out your strategy. Your team may put in countless hours prepping a strategy that in the end, doesn’t reach its full potential due to poorly communicated and altered information.

You may think that your strategies are failing, or that you may not be able to create a culture of caring, but 68% of frontline employees rank their employers as doing poorly in communicating with them. With this kind of miscommunication, it is impossible to trust that your message is being conveyed effectively, making it very difficult for frontline employees to do an exceptional job.

So let me tell you what your frontline employees want:

 

1. Constant communication

One way in which retailers communicate current initiatives with their frontline staff is through e-mail. Employees are sent emails, which get lost in their inbox with thousands of other emails, only to be confused as spam. Did you know, only 11.27% of retail e-mails are opened? This means that the chances that your team is digesting your message are slim to none.

E-mail is dead—but technology is more relevant than ever.

Optimize your use of technology to develop constant communication with your frontline team. Mobile apps for the purpose of engaging your team are the perfect way to use technology to maintain a continuous connection with your retail team and help motivate them.

 

2. Ongoing training

Training in the retail industry shouldn’t stop after an employee’s orientation training. Since there are always new sales promotions, company updates, and marketing strategies being implemented, it is important to keep your employees informed about current company initiatives, and ready to help roll them out.

The way to create a culture of caring for frontline employees comes down to engagement. If they are not being continuously trained and educated on the strategies being implemented at the company they work for, they will not be engaged.

 

3. Opportunity for feedback

Providing employees with a platform for feedback essentially gives you insight into customer opinions and preferences – straight from the source. Frontline employees interact with your customers on a daily basis, giving them a valuable perspective on what they really want.

Apart from providing insights, feedback from frontline employees also allows them to share their ideas for change. Since they spend the most time in-store, they may have some great ideas on how to improve your business. It will also allow employees to feel engaged and create a voice for themselves. Disengaged employees cost their employers on average 46% of their salaries in lost productivity. By allowing them to interact directly with corporate through a  platform for feedback, they can become much more engaged and passionate about their work.

Bottom line is, your customers run your business. Connecting with employees who directly communicate with them will allow you to grow your business and ensure that companywide initiatives reach their full potential.

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The do’s and don’ts for coaching your sales team

The do’s and don’ts for coaching your sales team

by | Apr 25, 2019 | Feedback, Retail

Successfully coaching a sales team is difficult. As a sales rep, you have to navigate through a sales process that often has many steps, many challenges, and can in most cases be compared to climbing a steep uphill terrain to reach the peak – or to close the sale.

As a sales manager, you most likely have a team full of different types of people, in different locations, with different learning styles. Though they may all have that inner fire to sell and a natural sense of competition, figuring out how to successfully lead a sales team that truly works together to reach sales targets is often a challenge.

So, how can you achieve this? How can you communicate ideas and information to your sales team in a way that can be understood and acted on by everyone?

Working with a global car manufacturer, we helped them achieve behavioral changes in their sales process by using ‘nudges’—to help salespeople get customers through the “difficult” parts of the sales journey, which ultimately led to purchasing. Through a combination of convenient mobile technology and practicing micro-communication, salespeople learned the tips and tricks on how to sell, shared ideas with each other on best practices to try during the tough parts of the cycle, and shared in a leaderboard-based competition throughout. The result was a dramatic increase in test drives and sales!

Based on this case study, here are some useful tips on the do’s and don’ts for coaching your sales team. Follow these, and you’ll be on the road to success to having a high functioning, high performing sales team in no time.

Don’t: Use a top-down communication method

Traditional top-down corporate communication is widely used in order to share selling tactics and knowledge with the team—but they are not always effective. When you practice top-down communication methods, messages often become blurred by passing through different management levels, or can even come across as being very disconnected from the realities of the sales floor.

Instead, try opting for other more localized alternatives and using a more approachable method for communicating. This will allow for the message to be better understood and more influential on driving certain behaviors and actions amongst your sales reps.

Do: Look at various technology communication options

One of the struggles decentralized teams face on a day-to-day basis is finding an effective way to communicate with their team members. Whether it’s email or intranet, or even a WhatsApp group—find a way to make today’s technology work for you. No matter the medium, ensure communications are clear, timely, and add value to the reader.

Mobile can be a simple platform for solving this issue. With an estimated global smartphone adoption of 68%, it’s clear that nearly everyone and anyone is carrying around a mobile device these days. Using a mobile app for pushing information to the front line and engaging in two-way conversation hits the mark on all communication success factors: it’s easily accessible, efficient, and simple to use.

Do: Keep it micro

Top-down communication may appear overwhelming for the receiver. Condensing information into bite-sized pieces to make the message more digestible can help solve this problem. When communicating with your sales team, using in the moment, micro-communication reminders with messaging that compels action will be the most efficient method for driving behavioral change.

Don’t: Enforce strict rules

No one likes to be forced to do something in a certain way. The intentions behind strict rules are good—but they come across as aggressive when sales tactics are being forced on a sales rep. Implementing strategies to convey useful information to employees is a much better way to grab their attention and begin to ‘nudge’ them towards a certain behavior.

Do: Gamify it

Everyone loves games—in fact, they are the #1 downloaded category of mobile applications in the App Store. By incorporating a game-like feel to the delivery of critical information, not only will employees be more engaged in the process, but they may even enjoy learning about new sales initiatives or tactics. By providing rewards and gamifying training programs, employees will be more inclined to participate. (Plus, salespeople LOVE to be number one. Bragging rights abound).

Do: Use a priming strategy

Taking a subtle approach to coaching your sales team can be done through a process called priming. It can be achieved through the placement of subtle cues in the person’s environment which causes a change in their behavior and preferences.

“Nudging” your sales team (no, not physically) to grab their attention is the perfect way to apply a priming strategy. This concept could be applied electronically—through delivering smartphone notifications when new information or actions are available or a short daily post on the company intranet. For example, take the idea of reminding your sales team that it’s critical to share with prospects on a test drive during their selling process (and leads to a 50% conversion rate). It is a subtle and effective way to grab their attention and influence desired behavior, rather than enforcing a strict rule that states ‘each and every prospect must be taken on a test drive’.

Don’t: Encourage your sales team from jumping to the close

When it comes to coaching your sales team, don’t encourage them to skip to the close—even if they’re feeling lucky. It’s all about taking baby steps. Ever hear of the term, slow and steady wins the race? Many of the smaller steps may seem tedious to complete and are in fact often undervalued. When managers took the time to discuss with their sales teams about the benefits of talking early on in the sales process about pre-paid maintenance, salespeople experienced a much higher conversion rate on that plan. Essentially, when they began to ‘nudge’ their sales teams to focus on a specific step in the sales process within a given month, they saw a positive impact on overall sales numbers.

Do: Reward & recognize behaviors

Motivating sales reps is a crucial element to any business success. Recognizing accomplishments, big and small,  will motivate them to keep up the good work. This gets even more interesting when results are published in a public way (the corporate leaderboard updated in real time). Additionally, consider using team-based tangible incentives to drive location-based (or team-based) performance.

So, the takeaway? Salespeople are different, and it is a multitude of these approaches that will help you see success. Have other tips? Share with us in the comment section.

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3 things millennials want in the workplace

3 things millennials want in the workplace

by | Apr 25, 2019 | Foodservice, Retail

Millennials are a hot topic right now. Why? Well, they’re now the largest generation in the workforce, making up one-third of employees, and are shaping the future of the workplace. They’re tech-savvy, innovative, and have ambitions and desires that some businesses may not be used to. When choosing their next role, millennials are looking for a few things in the workplace, and no, it’s not an office ping-pong table.

 

1. Purpose

women with hands up

Millennials crave purpose. They want to know their self-purpose—how do I fit into this role? Is my work being noticed? How can I grow my career here? And they also desire a sense of purpose within the company – what is this company doing for the world? Are we really making a difference?

At most companies, senior-level management plays the role of the “decision-maker” while the lower level employees are responsible for making magic happen by executing on those decisions, but millennials crave a bit more than that. They want to do more than meet basic requirements and need to understand what impact they have on the business. Feeling significant and knowing their value at a company is imperative.

So, how can you help millennials feel that sense of purpose that they’re looking for? The best thing you can do is to be transparent. If millennials know their company’s mission and the impact that the business has on customers, they will show an incredible amount of passion and talent towards your business.

Truly invest time into understanding what your employees want out of their job. 80% of millennials said they would like to receive feedback in real-time and have more frequent check-ins to keep a pulse on their progress. If you can create shared value and a defined sense of purpose, millennials will stick around, because that’s something that truly matters to them.

2. Flexible schedules

birds eye view of women on laptopForget the 9 to 5—millennials just aren’t interested. We’ve said it before, non-desk working is on the rise and millennials want the choice to work flexible hours, with the option of working from home.

Today, technology dominates millennials’ lives. Almost everything can happen with the click of a button – they can order food, taxis, and clothes, do their banking, speak with people across the world, book vacations, all in mere moments. Millennials tend to see their job in a similar way and want more flexibility and balance when it comes to their workday.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that millennials are looking to work less, in fact, millennials are checking in on work while at home, commuting to work, or grabbing their morning coffee more than ever before. To a millennial, time does not equal money, they are just looking to work differently than traditionally expected—flex hours and even taking working vacations are becoming the norm. And, it turns out that most millennials would rather communicate electronically than face-to-face.

The reality is, our world is powered by technology and it’s really starting to shift the ways that we communicate in the workplace. Being flexible and adaptable to your employees’ schedules will make a big difference to them.

3. Open communication

2 cowokers meeting The days of cubicle desks and annual reviews are over—millennials crave open communication and want to receive real-time feedback. To a millennial, it’s important to be able to reach out to their fellow employees and superiors when needed, whether that’s face-to-face or online.

In fact, open communication isn’t just something that millennials want, but most of your workforce probably wants. Think of it as the “open door policy”—your employees want to feel encouraged and comfortable enough to express themselves in an honest way, and they expect the same in return. Without recognition and some critical feedback, it’s really difficult to know how you’re doing or if what you’re doing is truly making an impact on the success of the business. If you can give millennials immediate and honest feedback, they’ll be more focused and motivated to achieve great results.

So, how can you ensure you’re giving millennials what they need with communication? Annual reviews are valuable, but they need to happen more frequently than once a year. Checking in with your employees on a weekly or bi-weekly basis about their successes, their failures, and their goals will help build employee loyalty. Also, if you’re working in an office, having a more open floor plan will allow for quick and easy communication.

If you’re looking to win the war of millennial talent, then you should be developing a work environment where your employees feel a sense of purpose, have flexible schedules and are comfortable to communicate openly with their coworkers.

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Unimin achieves a 96% employee response rate using Nudge

Unimin achieves a 96% employee response rate using Nudge

by | Apr 25, 2019 | Brand Stories, Manufacturing

In November of 2015, Unimin, North America’s leading industrial mineral producer, launched ‘Going For Zero’, an internal campaign with one ambitious goal: have zero occupational injury or illnesses amongst all 1,800 employees and across all North American sites. Turning to Nudge Rewards for help, Unimin set out on the mission of making health and safety a top priority, through having all employees act as safety leaders and vocal enforcers of safe workplace practices.

In order to engage and mobilize team members around this initiative, Unimin used the Nudge Rewards app as a central communication tool in the Going For Zero Campaign. The results? Within two weeks of launch, 75% of Unimin employees adopted Nudge mobile technology. Unimin was able to achieve a response rate of 96% within 48 hours of sending a message, a statistic unparalleled by traditional communication channels such as e-mail or intranet, which have a response rate of 12% and 27%, respectively.

Unimin’s adoption of the Nudge app thus far has created a collective and engaging way to stay on top of the latest updates and changes to our Safety & Health program. We can send out live messages and watch as the information is absorbed from the top down to our troops in the field. Everyone with the app has the power to give us their direct feedback on how we’re doing with safety and health.                                                                                                —Andy O’Brien, Vice President of Safety & Health at Unimin

Construction worker on the phoneUnimin designed the Going For Zero program as a “comprehensive, step-change approach to safety that combines training, rigorous adherence to lifesaving rules and peer practice to make every employee a safety leader”. While Unimin’s goals were clear, finding a method to ensure that team members were knowledgeable, capable, and actively engaged in safety was not.

In reviewing alternatives, Unimin selected Nudge as a mobile solution for rolling out the Going For Zero program. From hourly workers to executives, Unimin took a team-based approach to safety, using the Nudge app to:

  • Raise awareness
  • Test health and safety knowledge
  • Provide a forum for feedback
  • Identify opportunities for improvement
  • Reward and recognize the performance of team members

The success of overall employee adoption and response rate was attributed to the ease of use and incentives that the Nudge app provides. Team members receive Nudges straight to their smartphones, responding at their own convenience and seeing progress in terms of points and standings in real-time.

“We understand how fundamentally important it is that Unimin’s employees are knowledgeable, capable, and actively engaged in safety each and every day. By putting safety communications directly in the hands of all team members, the Nudge app has helped Unimin’s Safety & Health team overcome the challenges of connecting with a fragmented team. The Nudge app has enabled them to efficiently and effectively communicate the materials needed to drive consistent and exceptional safety performance in a fun, interactive, and engaging way.”—Lucas Playford, Manager of Customer Success at Nudge Rewards

 

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Can your frontline employees hear you?

Can your frontline employees hear you?

by | Apr 25, 2019 | Employee Communication

Picture this: you’re a sales representative at a small telecom store in your local mall. We’ll call you Trish. You work four shifts a week at Acme Mobile–an up and coming brand in the telecommunications industry with stores throughout the country and hundreds of frontline employees. You started working at Acme Mobile a few months ago to save up money for rent and tuition. You enjoy your job and the perks of saving on phone plans, but your interest doesn’t extend further than that. So, do you live and breathe the Acme Mobile brand? Do you know the latest promotions, products, and long-term company goals? Probably not, but you should. 

Does this employee sound familiar? A large part of retail, hospitality, or foodservice workforces are frontline or non-desk employees, who are the backbone of businesses and the face of brands. Though it’s critical to keep them engaged, it’s often hard to reach them. 

The problem? Frontline employees are busy, often work part-time, are geographically dispersed, and do not have access to traditional corporate communication channels. Even through email, bulletin boards, and team huddles, there’s no true way of ensuring that teams are understanding and retaining the information, creating a frustration around communication between employees and head office. Tribe Inc. recently conducted a survey of 1,000 non-desk workers in the U.S, where 84% of respondents state that they don’t get enough information from top management. Furthermore, 75% said their employers aren’t telling them enough about changes in policies and goals, showing how frontline employees are craving more information from corporate, but corporate doesn’t know how to get it to them. 

How can we solve this problem? First, consider the following:

1. They do not have corporate email addresses

Only a small fraction of frontline employees have access to a company email address. Tribe’s survey found that 83% of frontline employees are not on their company’s email system, although 38% say they would like to be. Email is a good channel for internal communications; however, when dealing with frontline employees, high turnover, security, limited access, and expenses can become issues.

2. They do not have the time

Frontline employees are extremely time constrained during their workday. In fact, the total time spent by a retail employee on corporate communications averaged at less than 2 minutes per day. Their time is short, so communication has to be quick, accessible, easy to understand, and actionable.

3. They aren’t getting the right information

73% of frontline employees rely on their supervisors to keep them informed, yet organizations continue to face the challenges around broken communication between supervisors and frontline staff. This puts a lot of pressure on supervisors here as both corporate and frontline employees rely on them to receive, understand, and relay information. 

cartoon of hands raised in the air holding mobile phones with the letter N in the middle of the screen

Ultimately, companies need a way to reach frontline employees that is accessible, efficient, and accurate. The answer? An enterprise mobile app, and here’s why.

A mobile app is the perfect answer to communication challenges within an organization. It solves the problems outlined above and makes for the most efficient and effective communication solution. Instead of having to check the company intranet, newsletter, social media pages, or email, a mobile app provides convenience and flexibility.  Through push notifications employees can get access to real-time information while remaining in-the-loop on all company and product updates. Mobile also provides corporations with a tool that reaches every frontline employee regardless of location. 

Accessible? Efficient? Accurate? Check.

Over 85% of people between the age of 18 and 35 own a smartphone and are spending an average of 162 minutes per day using them. With Gen Z entering the workforce, it’s important more than ever to activate a mobile-first communications strategy. At the end of the day,  employees will be using their smartphones regardless, so take advantage of these behaviors to connect with your frontline teams, providing them with the information they need to deliver on business goals. 

If you’re looking for a way to engage your frontline employees using mobile, look no further. Our mobile solution is powered by behavioral theory, social mechanics, and gamification, offering a truly unprecedented way of impacting key business drivers while delivering insights that matter. 

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