Employee engagement | Top 5 mistakes made when managing deskless employees - and how to avoid similar pitfalls

‘Employee engagement’ – it sounds like a fairly straightforward phrase but trying to maintain a happy, motivated deskless workforce can be fraught with difficulty, and we often hear from business leaders struggling with the same universal issues. If you’re keen to avoid pitfalls when it comes to your own employees, read on…

1.Lack of intelligent workforce planning

We’ve all heard the saying ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’– one of the most annoying clichés to be served up when it’s all gone to pot, yet there’s clearly truth in it. Not having informed, accurate information regarding team resourcing is likely to result in understaffing or overstaffing – or both – and a stressed, demotivated workforce. The solution could be within reach via smart workforce technology, which utilises AI to provide up-to-the-minute staffing forecasting, enabling managers to plan ahead much more easily. That said, while there’s the option to create schedules months in advance, you might also want to consider keeping a percentage of shifts open and flexible, so that your employees can choose and book their own shifts themselves. Which leads us on to mistake number two…

2. Offering minimal flexibility

A large proportion of deskless staff still struggle to obtain any ‘give and take’ whatsoever from their employers regarding their working patterns – we found that 45% have no say over their schedule. Yet flexibility is an increasingly crucial factor for the frontline workforce: a third say that a more flexible schedule would make them more motivated and engaged. Without greater flex, staff are likely to look elsewhere for a better work/life balance.

It can start with small steps – enabling staff to switch shifts between themselves via an app, and introducing flexible leave policies are likely to have a positive impact (for more on this, check out ‘3 simple ways to boost flex for your shopfloor’).