One simple strategy to level up your employee experience in 2025

The past months have been tough for companies in operational industries. Rising costs, labour shortages, and mounting divisions in society and the workforce have created a perfect storm for HR and Internal Comms teams.

As we approach 2025, the need to do more with less is becoming the norm. Satisfied, motivated employees are crucial in tough times, but tighter budgets require careful choices to keep them engaged.

So, as you plan for the year ahead, where should you focus for maximum impact? How can you keep workers engaged with limited resources and higher expectations? And how can you strengthen connections with all of your employees?

These questions led to our most comprehensive study on frontline employees yet.

To get answers, we surveyed 1,000 deskless workers in manufacturing, retail, logistics, and other critical industries across the UK and Germany. We quizzed them on a variety of topics, from satisfaction and well-being to communication, motivation, and technology.

Beyond giving insights into deskless workers’ real pain points and priorities, their responses provide actionable insights for HR and Communication leaders looking to boost frontline satisfaction, productivity, and engagement.

The full report will be available in early 2025, but you can sign up here and we’ll email it to you the second it’s published.

Until then, here’s a sneak peek at some of the key findings…

Two key goals sit at the heart of any frontline engagement strategy:

1. Prevent valuable employees from leaving the business

2. Increase the value and output of employees who stay

With our study, we aimed to gain insights into what contributes to (and detracts from) those goals directly from employees themselves.

So, what did we find?

One number stood out to us immediately. Though frontline attrition rates have fallen as vacancies have decreased, 21% of frontline workers surveyed admit to only doing the bare minimum at work. They might not be quitting, but their hearts aren’t in it.

To find out why frontline workers are disengaged, we dug deeper into the data, and a combination of causes emerged. Respondents reported high stress levels, unclear career paths, poor company-wide communication, and more – all of which impacted their satisfaction, loyalty, and motivation.

But one theme stood out from the others: Appreciation and recognition. Making workers feel valued brings a startlingly high engagement boost.

While you might expect that employees are happier when they feel recognised and appreciated, you might be surprised by how much happier.

Compared to other respondents, employees who feel valued were nearly nine times more likely to feel satisfied with their jobs.

That satisfaction translates into motivation, too. Happier at work, those employees are over three times more willing to go the extra mile compared to their colleagues.

This shows that proper recognition and appreciation have the potential to transform not just employee engagement, but company performance: 'When people feel a part of something, they feel connected to each other, and they understand the individual impact that they can have. They’re more likely to thrive personally and professionally, which in turn delivers extraordinary experiences to customers. And customer excellence drives business growth,' says Abby Guthkelch, VP Executive Advisory at Flip.

Despite the transformative potential, our findings revealed that many companies struggle to consistently make their frontline employees feel valued. Only 47% of frontline employees reported feeling recognised and appreciated at work.

Why is that number so low?

From both our research and our experience working alongside large, frontline-dependent businesses, we’ve landed on two interconnected reasons.

One is the gulf between corporate decision-makers and frontline operators. For most businesses, the corporate hub is far from the shop floor – both culturally and physically. The result is that perceptions of priority and needs can be misaligned. Frontline work may also be regarded as more transactional – and therefore (incorrectly) lower in value. This leaves workers feeling ‘unseen’ and under-rewarded for their efforts.

The second reason boils down to strategy and delivery. Many decision-makers have good intentions but fall short of fully developed, frontline-first approaches, assuming that ad hoc initiatives will be enough to engage workers.

Making frontline employees feel valued is about more than the occasional ‘Well done!’ from their line manager. It’s about building a culture where workers feel truly valued. Think: Showing appreciation for employees as individuals by celebrating anniversaries, highlighting wins outside work, and taking time in 1:1 meetings to check in on how they’re doing. Or recognising their at-work contributions through company awards or performance-based perks.

Whatever your chosen tactics, they should be scalable across the business. The best strategies combine meaningful interactions with processes, systems, and technology that embed appreciation and recognition at the heart of BAU business – from the back office to the frontline.

1. Embed appreciation and recognition with technology

Digital platforms, like employee apps, make it easy to integrate appreciation and recognition programmemes into everyday work. They help deliver key parts of your programmemes to all employees, regardless of their working hours or geographic location, supporting inclusion.

In Flip, for example, everyday communication tools like group chats and channels sit alongside HR resources and mini apps, meaning employees can find out about and participate in recognition programmemes all in one place.

Whether it’s a group post celebrating someone who’s gone the extra mile, an automated flow to nominate peers for annual awards, or a quick video check-in following a manager training, digital platforms make recognising and appreciating one another quick and easy. They can also have a network effect, which leads to exponential engagement as peers see and react to recognition.

2. Create a peer-to-peer community

'When employees are encouraged to celebrate each other and their successes, it creates a supportive environment where everyone feels seen, heard and valued. By putting community at the heart of your company, your people are informed, empowered and heard – whilst your company is thriving, healthy and trusted,' says Abby.

Digital platforms facilitate community-building by enabling peer-to-peer appreciation. Feeling valued by colleagues is a powerful motivator and helps build social connections (hint: see our report preview for why this is so important). Even though on-site teams may see each other frequently in person, highlighting special achievements on a wider platform (and in writing) elevates visibility. Employees feel good when they’re nominated – and when they nominate others.

3. Make it scale with automation

With significant advances in AI technology these past few years, digital assistants can help scale and streamline processes while providing a personal experience.

At Flip, we’ve developed intelligent assistants known as Flip Flows, with special recognition flows that encourage employees to nominate their peers for recognition and walk them through the process step-by-step and in natural language.

Virgin Media O2, for example, has an assistant called ‘Shout’ that prompts employees to give shout-outs or nominate colleagues for awards. The assistant automatically posts ‘shouts’ to a shared group where others can see, comment, and react. The results are impressive: 24% of employees have given a ‘shout,’ with over 13,000 nominations submitted and nearly 24,000 reactions.

A culture of consistent, visible recognition and appreciation builds satisfaction and motivation among employees in the back office and on the frontline alike. It also helps build social connections and protects against stress and burnout: 55% of the frontline employees in our study said that co-workers are their biggest source of support in times of work-related stress.

But recognition isn’t just good for employees: it’s a strong predictor of overall business performance. Our research with BCG found that companies with improved employee  engagement report 72% less attrition and 41% less absenteeism, resulting in higher retention rates and better efficiency.

As you plan for 2025, imagine the impact on your business if every frontline employee felt personally valued. By placing recognition and appreciation at the heart of your strategy, you can ignite engagement and boost productivity – even when resources are limited.

Scale your team’s impact and maximise ROI from your HR programmemes by using digital technology to weave appreciation into your employees’ daily routines. Build a culture of peer-to-peer recognition by making it easy for everyone to celebrate wins and milestones. And refine your programmeme through greater personalisation and direct feedback from employees.