Your company’s front-line workers are the heroes of 2020. Whether they’re treating patients, stocking groceries, or greeting guests, employees in public spaces are taking on health risks to perform their jobs. These members of your workforce deserve to feel happy and engaged at work. Retaining them helps your company too — per Gallup, the conservative estimate for replacing an employee is one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary. So what are some ways to motivate and engage front-line employees? Check out our best practices below.

Drive employee engagement from the get-go with a robust onboarding program
Onboarding is the first opportunity you have to convey your company’s culture, values, and its commitment to employees. Use your onboarding program to call out themes that are meaningful to both a new employee and your company culture, such as your Learning and Development (L&D) programs or your commitment to two-way feedback.
Ensure there are advancement opportunities in place, and all front-line staff know about them
Advancement opportunities are tied to retention; in fact, 86% of workers leave their jobs due to a lack of career development. Use your onboarding experience to inform all new hires about the advancement opportunities available. Managers should also discuss career development during one-on-ones.
Enable staff to share customers & operational insights with management
Organizations can also show that they value their front-line employees by giving them the opportunity to share key learnings with leaders. Recommendations to improve processes or the customer experience can benefit the company too.
Encourage staff to try new things
Once front-line workers receive buy-in on their proposed initiatives, let them be the owners of the change! Giving teammates autonomy and new projects to drive will help them grow professionally, and ultimately boost their engagement.
Share recognition publicly
Knowing that you’ll be celebrated for accomplishments is a great motivator! In fact, people who receive meaningful recognition when they perform well are almost 2X more likely to work at their company two years from now. To drive a culture of recognition, ensure that kudos is shared publicly, whether that’s via a bulletin board, company-wide announcement, or Reflektive’s Recognition solution.
Invest in managers
Ensure that your current managers are equipped to lead motivated, engaged teams. Share resources with them to boost their coaching skills. Lead manager training sessions to answer their questions and practice roleplaying different scenarios.
Encourage managers to provide regular feedback
Regularly-provided feedback helps in so many ways. Not only does it boost employee performance, but it shows that the organization is committed to the person’s growth and development. Solutions such as Reflektive Feedback empower front-line workers to request input at any time, so they can continuously improve their performance.

Ready to start building a culture of feedback and engagement? Learn more best practices by scheduling a chat with an expert.