Empowering Frontline and On-The-Move Workers with Microsoft Technology

Frontline workers and on-the-move employees are a cornerstone of the economy. These team members make up around 80% of the global workforce. Yet many still feel they don’t have the technology they need to collaborate and work efficiently with their colleagues.

While in-office staff members can easily access the benefits of collaborative platforms and desktop apps, many tools aren’t designed to address the specific requirements of “deskless employees”. The result is a significant portion of your workforce, isolated from the rest of the team.

Companies need to overcome this issue, not only to improve business performance but to ensure they can continue to engage and hire the best talent in a skills-short environment. Fortunately, Microsoft Teams, when paired with the right support and mobility-first solutions, could be the answer.

The Challenges Facing Deskless Workers

Today’s employees are reliant on a huge range of different tools, applications and technologies to remain productive and efficient in their roles. Unfortunately, many frontline workers and mobile employees feel they don’t get the same support, or digital experience as their colleagues.

36% of workers say they don’t have the right tools to do their job effectively, and 54% feel they’re forced to learn how to adapt on the fly.

They can struggle to connect directly with the colleagues they need in the office, with tools that simply connect them to a “place” rather than an individual. Often, they’re also left to manage countless factors alone, from maintaining compliance with “lone worker” regulations to resolving issues and overcoming common problems.

This problem is particularly significant in certain industries. For instance, in the manufacturing industry, digital transformation is accelerating, driven by the rise of advanced AI and automation. Up to 72% of manufacturers are implementing smart factory strategies.

Yet mobile and frontline workers are unable to evolve at the same rate. They’re stuck relying on Tannoy’s and occasional broadcasts for updates or working with old-fashioned legacy technology, like DECT phone systems. All of this leads to a series of issues with:

Employee engagement: Mobile workers who can’t consistently collaborate and connect in real-time with their colleagues feel isolated and disconnected from the rest of the team. Around 32% of frontline workers believe their voice isn’t heard at work.
Efficiency: With an inability to effectively collaborate and leverage cutting-edge technologies, the efficiency of deskless workers can dwindle. 33% of employees say they want to access tools that help them to automate repetitive tasks.
Compliance issues: Frontline workers can struggle to consistently adhere to security and governance practices, due to their anywhere, anytime work schedules.

Bringing Frontline and Mobile Workers into Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams, already the central work hub for countless organisations and office employees, could be the solution to the growing frontline and mobile worker issue. Used correctly, and implemented with the right support, this technology can help companies to enhance internal communications, increase efficiency, and preserve compliance.

There are a few different components companies will need to consider when building the ideal ecosystem for their frontline workers, including:

Microsoft Teams for Frontline Workers

Microsoft has recognised the value and importance of frontline and mobile workers in the business landscape for years now. Today, it offers organisations the opportunity to leverage a specific version of Microsoft Teams, specifically designed for mobile and deskless employees.

Microsoft Teams for frontline workers helps to pull mobile employees back into the collaborative workplace, allowing them to share knowledge, orchestrate effective corporate communications and collaborate with staff members on the move.

The solution combines intranet, learning, social, and wellbeing features, with tools to help businesses safeguard their business and enable Teams functionality on any device. It even features “Push-to-Talk” or “Walkie Talkie” functionality, so employees can instantly connect with colleagues on the move, with simultaneous group conversations one-on-one hands-free discussions and more.

Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile

Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile solutions, such as the Resonate Voice for Teams Mobile offering, unlocks the full potential of smartphone devices for deskless workers. It’s as simple as adding a Teams phone number to an existing device, allowing companies to reduce cost overheads, mitigate issues with lack of visibility and compliance and re-align the disconnected workforce.

With Teams Phone Mobile, businesses can align all of the features of Microsoft Teams, with a system, tuned for mobile workers. Workers just add their Teams number to their personal mobile device, and every call enabled through the solution (via Direct Routing and Operator Connect), will include the calling benefits of Teams.

This means employees can use their cellular signal to answer calls without a mobile app or the internet, but still access contact and call history, active directory solutions and more. Plus, businesses can overlay company compliance recording features on all Teams mobile devices, ensuring frontline calls are also recorded and stored securely.

Resonate’s Voice for Teams Phone Mobile solution, now available for both new and existing customers, offers a simplified and enhanced user experience, to empower deskless teams.

A Strategy for Continuous Transformation

Once Microsoft Teams becomes a ubiquitous solution for end-to-end collaboration between all employees, businesses can leverage comprehensive strategies to consistently reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance user experiences.

Lone Workers can take advantage of their preferred devices, integrated with Teams, and enhanced with location-aware, personal alarming, and critical messaging features. Business leaders can begin digitising workflows, aligning crucial apps and integrations throughout the organisation, to facilitate better collaboration and productivity.

With Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile, and the Microsoft Teams for Frontline Workers solutions, companies can take advantage of Microsoft technologies to create apps, automation and analytics such as:

Employee management features: Integrated solutions for shift management, task assignment, sign-offs and approvals, and enhancing resource allocation.

Data capture: Comprehensive templates for data capture, and compliance, ensuring ongoing security, as well as real-time insights for consistent improvements.

Built-in AI: With the ability to add AI functionality such as Copilot into Microsoft Teams, companies can even give every employee their own personal intelligent assistant, to help with content generation, meeting summarisation, productivity enhancements and more.

The Benefits of Leveraging Teams for Deskless Workers

Combining Microsoft Teams for Frontline workers, with an intuitive solution for Microsoft Teams Phone via mobile delivers a host of benefits to companies. First, it ensures businesses can reconnect their distributed and mobile workforce with the wider business community.

Embedded mobile solutions ensure every team member can contribute to collaborative workflows, connect with staff, and stay informed, regardless of their location. Additionally, these solutions can also help companies to:

Reduce costs: Companies can achieve significant cost savings by replacing legacy devices like DECT solutions, and various other licenses with a comprehensive solution. Plus, they can spend less on dedicated mobile devices and calling for team members.
Improve compliance: With better visibility into the activities of mobile and front-line teams, companies can boost their compliance standing and reduce the risk of regulatory issues. They can implement tools for personal alarming, and compliant call recording.
Enhance efficiency: With automation and AI-powered solutions in Teams, companies can give frontline workers access to the latest cutting-edge resources they need to work more efficiently and effectively in any environment.

Enable Frontline and Mobile Workers with Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams isn’t just a powerful solution for enhancing collaboration and communication between office-based workers. With the right solutions, such as Microsoft’s Frontline Worker plan for Microsoft Teams, and Resonate’s Microsoft Voice for Teams Phone Mobile and apps and automation, every employee can benefit.

With these systems, business leaders can finally create an equitable work environment, where every deskless worker and desk-based employee has access to the same tools. To learn more about how you can empower frontline and mobile workers with Microsoft Teams, contact Resonate today.