Staff shortages are starting to bite. Almost two-fifths of hospitality venues have had to totally or partially close during the past two years due to lack of staff. Over the same period, care homes have seen a 60% rise in staff turnover and retailers faced a record number of over one million vacancies.
A number of causes have been put forward to explain this crisis. The complications associated with Brexit are undoubtedly a factor. Low salaries are another reason people are leaving their roles and employers are struggling to replace them. Issues around training must also be considered. The pandemic has additionally given many employees an opportunity to reflect on their work-life balance. Burnout is a big issue.
Deskless workforces are the hardest hit. Job roles that don’t involve working at a desk account for the highest proportion of vacancies when you look across food service, retail, facilities management, frontline healthcare and logistics.
Not only have these roles been poorly paid but they have been more broadly neglected in terms of value, communication and digital enablement.
Large swathes of the deskless workforce are disconnected, disengaged and disenchanted.
This is despite the vital role many of these deskless employees have played during the pandemic – looking after the sick, keeping essential facilities clean and safe, maintaining the supply chain, providing food and making sure we have our medicines.
These workers are vital but undervalued and until this is addressed, the recruitment and retention of deskless employees will continue to be a problem far beyond the current crisis.
Deskless workers represent an astonishing 80% of the world’s workforce, equivalent to approximately 2.7bn people.
But they have received only a tiny fraction of the technology investment afforded to their desk-based colleagues.
According to one survey, 73% of frontline employees are still using pen-and-paper checklists. Elsewhere, actions might be logged in unconnected spreadsheets or legacy systems that are no longer fit for purpose.
At home, deskless workers are accustomed to a very different experience. From smart speakers to on-demand TV streaming and doorstep security, employees know what good technology feels like. Yet when they arrive in deskless jobs they are confronted with working practices that have barely changed in years. This is an issue that will become more pressing as a generation of digital natives enter the workforce. A smoother digital experience is what deskless employees increasingly expect.
What will new recruits face on their first day in a new job? The process of onboarding and training staff can eat up many hours of valuable time – particularly in sectors with high levels of staff turnover. Some deskless staff, including international recruits without native language skills, may struggle with traditional written documentation. Flexible working arrangements also make it more likely that people will work in different places, covering for colleagues or temporarily relocated. But they need to get up to speed quickly. One way employers can address this is to make on-the-job guidance more digitally accessible. Delivered digitally, on-the-go learning is a more practical approach that accelerates onboarding.
Another priority for new starters is health and safety, which has become a key area of concern during the pandemic. Employers can ensure safer working conditions and reduce the risk of errors and accidents if they have real-time visibility of what’s happening on the frontline. Outdated paperwork and associated reporting methods are slow, inflexible and prone to errors and falsification. The result is that organisations succumb to ‘dark operations’ – making them blind to risks that they are unable to see. A survey in January 2021 suggested that 71% of workers did not feel completely safe in their workplace. The survey also suggested only 45 per cent of workplaces had safety protocols in place such as social distancing and mandatory mask wearing. Risk reduction will be crucial for organisations aiming to thrive in the post-pandemic world.
Management of deskless workers has historically been built around command and control. However, an academic study has highlighted how giving frontline workers greater control over their time and scheduling could drive up their productivity. Enabling greater autonomy is key to the future of work. One example would be to replace retrospective checklists with digital assistants, available on a mobile device, that prompt and guide activity as well as capturing it. New technology of this kind also opens up more opportunities for frontline colleagues to collaborate and complete jobs more quickly.
At the same time, it’s important for leaders to accurately and synchronously capture performance data in order to properly recognise and reward essential frontline work.
Defining, capturing and sharing individual contribution to overall performance helps to embed a sense of purpose in everyday work.
Leaders now have an opportunity to implement the necessary retain existing workers and attract the new recruits they need to fill vacancies. And it’s not only about stabilising the deskless workforce but empowering these employees to make an even greater contribution to growth, customer experience, productivity and safety.
