What COVID-19 taught us about empowering frontline employees

2020 has offered so many important lessons for the business community, but perhaps the most vital has been around the importance of frontline staff.

These workers, often branded “essential” during the COVID-19 pandemic, have been the lifeblood of organizations, solving problems on the ground and serving customers with flexibility and grace during one of the most difficult eras in a generation. Because of the heavy disruption caused by the pandemic, business leaders have been trying new strategies, embracing extra communication and offering more empathy than ever before.

For Ashish Uchil, head of customer success for the Americas at Workplace from Facebook, one of the big lessons for any organization looking to reach frontline workers is to acquire firsthand knowledge. Drawing from his experience working with organizations all over the world to implement internal comms programs, he explains that relying on middle managers and area bosses to provide essential intel about the frontline worker experience will create blind spots.