The Covid-19 crisis, lockdowns and the advent of large-scale teleworking have highlighted dysfunctions and have accentuated misalignments between jobs and teams: managers and leaders based in sieges (white collars), the managers On the terrain (frontline manager) and finally the staff in the field (frontline workers, deskless people, blue collars, emailless people...).
There was also a gap in the tools used: The emails to 90% of Head Office Leaders vs 27% for Frontline managers who use Whatsapps messages or calls.
Many companies are therefore facing the challenge of aligning their different groups of employees who favor radically different communication technologies and software.
Cyril de Queral (CQ), CEO of Powell Software and David Keribin (DK), CEO of Cenareo share their vision on the major trends that are emerging around the subject of inclusion in tools and communication in business.
“The major risk for businesses with these new ways of working is losing contact with employees, losing their culture.” Cyril de Queral
What are the major changes observed in businesses today?
CQ : The revolution in the world of work that is currently under way is immense and exciting to observe. This mutation will be in the history books! We had already experienced greater teleworking before the Covid-19 crisis during transport strikes or the Yellow Vests crisis. In many countries, especially the US, “remote work” was already very widespread before the pandemic.
But since the pandemic, it has been a tidal wave, a majority of tertiary companies offer a very significant portion of remote working to their employees. Stellantis, one of the largest industrial companies in France, offers several days of remote work to its employees. After several months of intensive remote work, we can see that hybrid work is ideal.
DK : The culmination of this transformation must be achieved by not widening the gap between white and blue collars, it is key to federate all employees, even those who are not digital natives.
Today, what is the degree of inclusion of these populations?
DK: During a discussion with a member of the Bouygues Comex, this is what he told me: the only 2 ways to inform employees on construction sites are managers and the screens that are put in construction shacks. However, a recent Lecko study shows that 52% of frontline managers say they miss important information from headquarters... Imagine the volume of information coming from headquarters that never reaches the ears and eyes of frontline workers...
The populations that suffer from this digital divide are however key for the company...
DK : They are essential to the success of the objectives! Take for example the example of Luca De Meo, CEO of Renault, who presented his strategic plan for the next 5 years last January. What stands out above all are 3 key metrics around profitability, free cash flow, and operating margin. They will undoubtedly have an impact on engineering work but will undeniably be experienced in factories. These objectives, if they are not embodied by employees on a daily basis, cannot be achieved.
It goes without saying that the daily alignment of all stakeholders to these 3 numbers alone is necessary.
So the challenge is alignment. How can we ensure that the digital wave reaches these least connected populations?
CQ : Indeed, the challenge is to involve all employees, and not only those who are comfortable with digital tools, not only those who are behind a computer but also those who are in the field.
Many companies are facing the challenge of aligning their different groups of employees who favor radically different communication technologies and software. So, strategic digital transformation choices will have a direct impact on the employee experience. If the company ensures that all information is accessible and reaches all employee targets wherever they are, then it's a win. Our role is to offer solutions to include everyone in the company, not just head office managers...
What are the most appropriate tools to include the least connected populations in this new organization?
CQ : The major risk for businesses with these new ways of working is to lose contact with employees, to lose their culture. The solution is to set up a communication and employee experience platform where we will give back the place to communication and the sharing of corporate culture with innovative functionalities.
The digital workplace is becoming indispensable and is being transformed into a virtual corporate office. It is the new place to meet and communicate when we are at a distance. To guarantee the commitment of employees, to ensure good communication, to maintain the link and to develop the corporate culture, this collaboration and communication platform is essential.
DK : In this context, communication screens within companies are among the key success factors of this digital transformation. Indeed, these screens are not discriminatory, they affect everyone who passes by, it is 65% more impact than paper, but it is also and above all a magnificent tool for connecting teams to the information that passes through the internal intranet or employee advocacy tools. By connecting these tools to screens, screens become a Drive-to-Web channel that will push employees to participate in digital workplaces.
How do you support businesses to connect field workers at Powell?
CQ : We have an extremely clear and simple way of meeting this need: the most used digital tool today is the smartphone. 70% of the world's population has a mobile phone, more than 5 billion people. So we offer access to the company's digital workplace on a mobile phone. We hire front-line workers on a mobile application that is very easy to use and dedicated to them. The agility of these employees on smartphones allows them to be perfectly at ease with our application, they are included in the work of the future of the company.
How not to drown employees in myriads of information and tools?
CQ : This is another of the big difficulties for businesses that we aim to solve at Powell Software with our software platform. We believe that it is now necessary to use Artificial Intelligence and the power of search engines to present employees with relevant and contextualized information. The applications that are most accessible to an employee should be the ones that they use the most. The digital workplace dashboard must be contextualized for each user. In this way, we ensure optimal productivity and targeted access to information regardless of where the employee works.
DK : The secret is to select the information with high added value and to repeat the message! Repetition is something well known to all marketing managers around the world, but in the corporate world we sometimes tend to forget it. We can't just hope that the messages will impact employees, we have to work to find ways that allow it. The interconnectivity of business tools is key, whether they are work tools (digital workplace) as well as information tools (digital signage), their interconnection is the key to automation and therefore to repetition in order to maximize its impact.
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