Deskless workers play a vital part in many businesses. Without them, many organizations would be forced to stop operations, ultimately hurting their business and profits. Yet, even with this major role, many deskless workers are overlooked due to their physical distance away from managers and upper management. Add in the fact that many companies also suffer from poor communication, outdated technology, and inflexible policies, and it is common to find deskless workers so unhappy with their jobs that they are considering quitting.
However, this situation does not need to be your company’s future. In the below guide, we will go over everything you need to know about preventing turnover when it comes to your deskless workers and how you can change the culture for these workers in your organization, helping ensure they feel engaged, happy, and satisfied with their jobs.
What Exactly Are Deskless Workers?
Deskless workers are often referred to as frontline workers who do not have a designated office or workspace. Today, these workers make up 80% of the global workforce, which accounts for around 2.7 billion people, and are generally found in industries such as retail, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, transportation, telecommuting, and travel.
What Causes Deskless Workers To Leave?
Almost 61% of deskless workers have considered quitting their job because they are not satisfied with their working environment. And while the reasons for this dissatisfaction vary, the main factors contributing to this unhappiness include the following:
- Deskless employees view themselves as temporary workers
- There is a lack of professional training for deskless employees
- There is often a lack of management involvement in a deskless worker’s overall success
- There tends to be limited collaboration with deskless workers
- Deskless workers have a challenging time networking with other co-workers
- There is a lack of communication when it comes to expectations and goals
- Achievement is not visible to other peers and management
- There is a lack of authenticity when it comes to corporate-produced communications
- On-the-job training for deskless workers is not scalable
- Typically, there is little opportunity for growth
As these factors continue to build, it usually escalates into deskless workers feeling unappreciated, overworked, and burned out, leading them to finally make the challenging decision of quitting their job.
Nine Ways To Retain Deskless Workers
Although the figures show that a majority of deskless workers are unhappy with their job, this does not need to be the case for your workers. Employers can change this dissatisfaction by taking certain steps to improve the working conditions these deskless workers face, helping them feel more satisfied in their role and ensuring that these workers not only create new goals but also give them opportunities to reach these goals.
That is why, if you are looking for ways to improve your organization and the working environment for deskless workers, consider the following tactics:
Improve Flexibility
Unfortunately, many deskless workers feel they are unable to achieve a good work-life balance due to their work schedules. In fact, many of these workers often feel they have to give up hobbies, social and family events, and even sleep to meet their job demands.
As a result, one of the top ways to retain deskless workers is to improve their flexibility when it comes to their job, allowing them to have a better work-life balance. When employees have this balance, they are not only happier on the job and more engaged, but they end up providing more value for the business and sticking around for the long term.
Promote Communication within the Organization
Deskless workers often struggle when it comes to knowing what is going on within the organization and connecting with other employees and their managers. Consequently, these workers often struggle with feeling alone, leading to a significant amount of anxiety, stress, and lower productivity.
However, when companies open this line of communication, it allows deskless employees to not only receive much-needed communication but gives them the ability to communicate with others, including discussing issues with their coworkers and superiors in real-time, and allows management to know how they are doing, which can reduce fatigue and burnout, and allows these deskless workers to feel more engaged and supported.
Provide Ongoing Training for all the Employees
Many deskless workers feel that once their onboarding is complete, their ability to learn new skills becomes limited. However, when employers provide ongoing training and make sure their deskless workforce is included in this training, it allows these types of workers to have opportunities that will enable them to grow just like the rest of the employees.
More importantly, because of this training, not only does engagement improve but so does employee loyalty, which can ultimately prevent turnover in the company amongst the deskless workforce.
Recognize Deskless Employees
The deskless workforce is often a thankless job, resulting in these employees feeling undervalued. However, when employers can show these deskless employees recognition and appreciation, it is one of the best ways to retain them. More importantly, giving individual credit is often one of the easiest and more affordable ways to improve employee retention and performance.
For instance, companies can:
- Shift to continuous performance management instead of annual or biannual performance reviews, so that management can see what is going on in real time.
- Use a talent management system, which allows managers to keep track of employee wins as they happen.
- Avoid using the same praise for all the workers. Instead, make recognition as specific as possible.
Increase Unique Benefits
Due to the nature of their work, standard benefits may not always work for deskless workers. That is why when companies take the time to understand what these employees need and adapt benefits to match, it can help to improve working conditions for these deskless workers and leave them feeling appreciated and understood, which can also impact employee turnover.
Some ways companies are changing these benefits is by incorporating new technology, such as scheduling apps, to help make it easier for deskless workers to be able to switch shifts if someone cannot make their assigned time or become unexpectedly sick. Yet, for individuals living paycheck to paycheck, this may not be the best solution, as these individuals are still losing out on much-needed money by missing work. That is why some companies are also including paid sick leave, which gives these employees the reassurance that if they need to take time off for an illness, they will still get paid.
Encourage Collaboration Between Employees
While collaboration between deskless employees is often challenging, it should be encouraged, as it brings a sense of community in the workplace, as well as appreciation and a feeling that everyone is a part of a team. Better yet, improving this collaboration does not need to be difficult. Even using internal or real-time messaging systems can make everyone feel more connected.
Improve Employee Engagement
Finding ways to improve employee engagement can not only help with job satisfaction and productivity, but it can also provide these workers with the following:
- A sense of purpose within their job
- An invested feeling in the success of their company
- A solid connection with their organization
- A sense of belonging and loyalty
Use Newer Employee Engagement Tools
Unfortunately, relying on older methods such as radios or paper messaging does not work in all workplace situations anymore. For employees to feel engaged, organizations need to step out of the one-size-fits-all method and look into new engagement tools that can enhance the workplace experience and improve communication and collaboration between workers and employees.
Use Proper Management Tactics
Managers play a significant role in helping employees stay engaged and motivated. That is why applying proper management tactics to a deskless workforce is key in building a better community that allows these workers to come together, work towards the same goal, and feel motivated and empowered to get the job done.
Preventing Your Deskless Workforce From Leaving Is Critical
Deskless workers are a critical part of many organizations and industries. However, until we find ways to keep these workers engaged, it is likely that many organizations will end up losing them. That is why companies must take steps to help prevent the loss of these vital workers and ensure they feel a part of the team.Thankfully, your organization does not have to figure out this course of action on its own. When you visit the Refresh Platform, you can discover tools and methods that can help prevent turnover in your workplace when it comes to these deskless workers and figure out the best ways to implement these tactics in your organization.