This episode features an interview with Cris Grossmann, CEO and Co-Founder of Beekeeper, a company committed to connecting non-desk or “frontline” employees through technology. Cris strongly believes that a digital transformation of the frontline worker can give companies a significant competitive advantage, one of which is coming out of the pandemic stronger and more productive. In this episode, you’ll learn how to invest in your frontline workers through relevant, usable technology.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Cris Grossmann is passionate about providing tech solutions for companies. His goal, and the goal of Beekeeper, is to foster connection and communication among all employees, especially those with non-desk jobs. He founded Beekeeper in 2012 to meet the demand for high-quality internal engagement tools for businesses. His latest book, The Rise of the Frontline Worker: How to Turn Your Frontline Workforce into Your Biggest Competitive Advantage, helps businesses recognize and implement solutions that reach all employees, whether behind a desk or out in the field.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
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DEFINING TERMS
A frontline worker is any employee who doesn’t sit behind a desk, and surprisingly, they make up 80% of the global workforce, making these non-desk employees much more present than we might have thought. Cris added, “For everybody like you and me sitting behind a PC, there are at least three to four people out there in the world doing something with their hands, standing on their feet, or working with a customer.”
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Pen and Paper Workers
“Only 1% of all the venture capital goes into desk-less or frontline worker solutions. So that’s where a lot of the disparity, a lot of the innovation, and a lot of the digitalization really starts. It’s not uncommon for frontline workers to still be working nowadays with pen and paper and with checklists. For us, it’s literally unthinkable. And as you correctly pointed out, during the pandemic, these differences became even more evident. Everything from communication to collaboration is similar to how we worked decades ago: pen and paper.”
Going Digital
“The topic of digitizing and digitally transforming the frontline is a very particular type of transformation that an organization has to go through. It’s not a walk in the park. […] It’s something a little bit more refined that just needs some careful planning. We’ve been doing it for many years now and have a very good blueprint of what it takes, but it does require a certain approach and a conscious approach to it.”
The Challenge
“You simply can’t push technology on them and tell them to download these 12 different apps — in one you can see your shifts, and in the other one, you’ll get your payslip, and in the third one, you can do your HR processes, and in the fourth one, you log your time. That simply doesn’t work. When it comes to a frontline worker, all they want is to come in, clock in, start working, and go home. Period.”
The Ideal Scenario
“Frontline workers need one companion app: one single point of contact for the frontline worker to get everything they need in order to be well-informed, engaged, productive at work, and in line with the rest of the organization. And it has to be simple. It has to be quick. And it has to be tailored to their needs.”
The Six Needs
“It’s not about what they put into the app, but what they get out of it. As I already mentioned, it has to be very simple and tailored to their needs. There are six needs that we have identified that need to be addressed by such an application: When do I get paid? How much do I earn? When do I have to work? What do I have to do? With whom do I have to do it? What is the progress of my work compared to my targets? If you cover those six needs, you have something that really appeals to a frontline worker. And that is what we have been designing and putting together at Beekeeper.”
A Holistic Approach
“You’re stuck down the road when you have an application that only solves one of those six needs but doesn’t really address the other ones. That’s why it’s important to look at it holistically, even though, and that’s also a recommendation, this is really a journey and it’s more of a step-by-step approach. Pretty much none of the customers go to the bank with all of the six needs at once, but it’s important to have a view of the end status and have some sort of product platform or technology that allows you to really grow and cover all of those without having to go back to your frontline workers every six months with one more application or one more thing to deploy.”
Ready for Change
The vast majority of frontline workers crave these types of changes. They appreciate it. And it influences their choice of staying with an employer or not. If the company is investing in technology for them and deploys the tools that really make their life easier, that’s one of the biggest criteria for staying with or choosing an employer.”
LEARN MORE
Cris welcomes you to check out Beekeeper to learn how you can help keep your employees connected no matter where they are.