Only 13% of workers on the frontlines feel connected to business leaders in the HQ
Half of employees in Australia (51%) feel they don’t have a voice in the workplace, the results of a new study by Workplace suggest.
The Facebook-owned software as a service (SaaS) group surveyed 250 managers and more than 1,000 frontline workers to find out just how connected, empowered and valued they feel in their current organisation.
Despite nearly nine in 10 business leaders (86%) claiming they give voice to all members of their team, 51% of workers say they feel voiceless in their company.
The Workplace report highlighted three main issues:
1. Frontline workers feel disconnected from their company leaders. Most respondents (85%) believe they are connected to their direct teams, but only 13% of those on the frontlines feel they are connected to business leaders in the HQ.
2. Frontline workers have difficulty communicating internally due to a lack of means, context or tools to reach out to decision makers within their company. Nearly a third of employees say they fail to communicate internally because they don’t know which point person to share ideas with.
Frontline workers also think they aren’t encouraged enough by their managers to speak out, and this purportedly contributes to a lack of empowerment in the workplace.
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3. Frontline workers feel they are not empowered enough to share ideas with the team. Three in four employees say they once had an idea they would have liked to share with their team. However, 29% of those ideas have been lost because they were not communicated to others.
Workplace APAC Director Luke McNeal believes the report shows a communication problem between business leaders and frontline employees. This results in a feeling of isolation and disengagement among workers, both of which get in the way of creativity and innovation.
“Deskless employees told us that they struggle to feel connected to head office and company leaders, that there are barriers to communicating internally without the means, context and tools needed to reach decision makers,” he said. “They don’t feel empowered to share new ideas.”
McNeal said this sense of disconnection prevents the growth of frontline workers. “We know that deskless workers – who many times are the first and only touchpoint with customers – are untapped sources of insight and knowledge,” he explained.
“To combat this, businesses must focus on engaging with their entire workforce, especially those who don’t sit in HQ.”
