4 ways to communicate with those essential front-line employees

Many companies make communicating with non-desk employees a low priority.

It’s a huge mistake not to engage your frontline employees in the vision and values of the company, in the brand promise the company makes to consumers, and what the brand stands for in the world.

They are the very employees who deliver on your brand promise—or not. You can spend zillions of dollars on advertising and raise your awareness through the roof, but one surly drive-thru attendant can ruin the customer experience.

Direct managers tend to be the default channel for most communication with this group. However, we know there are several challenges built into this method. Not all direct managers will share information simultaneously, so some employees might know about a major change before others.

That message also is filtered through the lens of each manager, so inconsistency is an issue. Perhaps even more important, there’s no way to know whether managers have successfully delivered the information.

Instead, build channels directly from corporate management to the non-desk audience. There’s a significant downside when corporate leaders leave this population out of the loop.