The Modern HR Playbook: Four Ways to Improve The Frontline Employee Experience
Turnover happens long before a worker quits. It’s death by a thousand cuts.
Headlines call it a “job hopping epidemic” or “great resignation.” But really, these are symptoms of a bigger problem. We call it the employee experience gap.
There is a clear divide between what today’s mobile, deskless workforce needs and the company processes built to support them. That’s why workers are quitting in droves, with global average turnover rates reaching +40% across hospitality, manufacturing, healthcare, construction, and retail.
As a result, HR and communications teams are constantly fighting fires to recruit and retain talent. But they’re quickly realizing that “churn and burn” is no longer a sustainable option. Retention is the best way to drive better business outcomes.
Let’s look at how top frontline businesses are preventing turnover before it happens.
1. Build a preboarding process that prevents early quitting
Beekeeper customer Tree Top ran exit surveys and found the main reason for early quitting was not feeling welcomed or prepared for a new role. Their HR and communications team asked themselves: how could they help their deskless workers feel connected to the culture and company?
They created a preboarding portal in Beekeeper that announces new hires when they join so everyone can put a face to the name. One onboarding employee was surprised to see she was being welcomed by their VP of HR before her first day.
As you can imagine, this gives new hires a great first impression and makes them more likely to stay. With the help of a few other initiatives, they’ve boosted overall retention rates by 20%.
In a recent webinar, we shared how to build the same exact process.
You’ll notice how Sarah, one of our amazing customer success managers, walks you through each step. This isn’t a journey you should have to go on alone. With the help of our experts and template library, you can create a custom employee experience that fits right into your company brand and existing processes.
2. Simplify onboarding for you and your employees
Every day, we talk to HR leaders who are drowning in paperwork and endless requests.
Automation can be your lifeline.
Take Resorts World Las Vegas as an example. They had the challenge of onboarding 5,000 new employees within just a few weeks. So they brought all SOPs and policies into a mobile document library, then created a system for assigning training and monitoring completions.
Workers suddenly had everything they needed to do their jobs at the tip of their fingertips.
This doesn’t have to be rocket science. You can start by:
- Sending automatic onboarding messages to incoming new hires
- Emailing HR with submitted paperwork on a weekly schedule
- Creating a simple approval process for PTO requests
None of it has to be built from scratch. Our product team leveraged best practices from our customers and turned them into onboarding templates you can quickly customize to your needs.
Want to take it for a spin? Download the template here.
3. Improve safety training and development
Workers want access to the tools they need so they can fish for policies, onboarding documents, and training videos themselves.
We often hear how administrators want more time to spend quality time with their employees. Not approving time-off requests, training records, contracts, and performance reviews.
A digital system helps you win your time back so you can invest it in your people.
Maybe you already have a learning management system (LMS). The problem is that workers can’t quickly access it, or don’t receive reminders to complete training.
With Beekeeper, you can create shortcuts that send workers directly to courses and set up reminders to improve completion rates and compliance.
Companies that fail to invest in safety training and talent development risk losing top employees. Providing learning opportunities helps workers grow and feel less stagnant. Talent is elevated and turnover drops.
As Shannon McQuarrie, Chief People Officer at Built Bar puts it: “I want people to stay here long term. Turnover is so costly with recruiting, training, and hiring. You know what it does for your reputation. It’s highly important that we take our existing workforce and we build them
up. We provide them training and we provide them with opportunities.”
You’ve seen the templates, guides, and blogs. But have you ever read a graphic novel about frontline workforce retention strategies? Download your free copy and skip to Chapter 4 to learn how Jackie, an HR leader, ensures her workers have a good training experience.
4. Recognize great work to drive higher retention
Twenty-six percent of frontline workers say lack of recognition limits their productivity.
Everyone wants to be recognized for doing great work. But it’s easy to be overlooked when you’re disconnected from the rest of the company.
Beekeeper ensures that never happens. You can set up a Good Vibes widget with us instantly, so peers can recognize and even send each other reward points.
If you want to see how to build a full-scale rewards and recognition system with just a few clicks, sign up for a free trial here.
At the very minimum, we can help you set up bots that recognize employees for work anniversaries and birthdays.
Don’t leave turnover up to chance
We recently conducted interviews with 20+ HR leaders across the world. One of the main insights? Everyone is struggling to prevent turnover.
We hope new hires get a good experience with their managers. We pray they can find the resources they need to do great work. We wish we had more time to meet with them.
In other words, we’re leaving turnover up to chance. Well, now you can create a consistent employee experience for every single worker to prevent turnover before it happens. You don’t have to roll the dice.
Don’t believe it? Ask the 1100+ businesses that use Beekeeper to close the gaps between onboarding and offboarding for their workers. Get a free consultation with one of our experts here.
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