3 Ways to Communicate with Employees That Don’t Have Email

For desk-bound office workers, having a corporate email address is a given. For many of these workers, using email comprises a huge chunk of the day — often to their dismay. In stark contrast are deskless workers, the 2.7 billion-person strong portion of the global working population who don’t work from an office, don’t complete their work on a computer, and often, don’t have a company email address. Being able to communicate with employees that don’t have email can be quite a challenge.

Even though many frontline workers don’t have a company email address, they shouldn’t be excluded from important company news, alerts, and information. In fact, staying informed and engaged both with their teams and the greater organization improves employee engagement, safety, and performance.

Ensure your deskless workers are in the loop with these three great strategies for how to communicate with employees without emails.

1. Regular Face to Face Communication with Management

A survey of deskless workers in the US found that while 71 percent of managers consider themselves very informed on relevant company-wide news, while only 40 percent of staff claim the same.

To remedy this information bottleneck, management should schedule regular face-to-face meetings with employees to update them on the latest news and policies, and ensure they feel connected to the organization. These meetings also provide a great way to discuss new ideas and solicit feedback from employees.

2. A Mobile Communication Platform

While deskless workers aren’t sitting in front of a computer, they do have smartphones. In fact, 95 percent of Americans own a cell phone (for 77 percent of those people it’s a smartphone) and 81 percent of businesses now offer or plan to offer a BYOD-friendly workplace. Communicating with employees that don’t have email can be just a matter of finding the right mobile-first communication app for your employees.

Zinc Real-Time Communication allows teams to get answers and share information in real-time as well as allows management to share critical information using eye-catching Broadcasts.

Broadcasts take over the screen and require users to interact with the content. Companies like DISH and Vivint Smart Home use Broadcasts to keep deskless workers in-the-know and safe while on the job. These messages often alert employees to:

  • Company news, HR updates, recent press articles
  • New product and process information such as installation guides
  • Upcoming deadlines for administrative tasks like submitting mileage reports
  • Safety tips and real-time updates on job site safety hazards

Another thing to note is that with an enterprise chat platform, you have visibility into who has read messages. This keeps teams accountable and gives managers peace of mind. Unlike email, you can feel confident that your messages are reaching frontline workers and confirm it by looking at communication analytics.

By leveraging a mobile-first communication app, companies can keep deskless teams informed, engaged, and connected to the company.

3. Digital Displays for Internal Communications

While many frontline workers use a mobile device as part of their workday, many workers, such as those on the manufacturing floor, don’t have any access to mobile devices. This means that physical displays are critical for keeping employees informed. A way to update this system is to swap cork bulletin boards for digital displays. These are a more engaging, dynamic, and real-time way to share announcements, policy changes, directives, and so on.

Communicating with Non-Desk Employees

Once you leave the world of traditional enterprise communication behind and instead focus on solutions built for deskless workers, finding ways to communicate with employees who don’t have email isn’t that big of a challenge after all.

Learn more about Zinc here Zinc Real-Time Communication.

Talk to our team today!

ABOUT Kristen Wells

Kristen is the senior manager of corporate communications at PTC and editor of Field Service Digital. She is passionate about elevating the stories of women in field service and improving communication between the field and the office. Prior to ServiceMax, Kristen held content marketing roles at startups such as Zinc and cielo24. Kristen holds a B.A. in Communication with an emphasis on Professional Writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara.