Five Internal Communication Assumptions Holding Back Deskless Teams
- Jen Draper
- Jul 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 2
Organisations often struggle to engage deskless employees because communication strategies are built around assumptions rather than frontline realities. Common issues include poor content relevance, fragmented technology, low trust in information, weak adoption planning and ineffective feedback mechanisms.
Despite many different organisational structures, technology implementations and strategies, the challenges on the frontline are often surprisingly similar:
1. We assume people know where to find things
2. We assume messages have landed because they've been sent
3. We assume everyone experiences work in the same way.
Most of the time, those assumptions aren't made because people don't care. They're made because it's really difficult to see the day-to-day reality when you're not living it yourself.
These challenges are particularly common in housing associations, hospitality businesses, healthcare, logistics operations, charities and retail organisations where large proportions of employees work away from desks.
This blog post discusses whether we’re designing work around realities or based on assumptions and includes customer illustrations. It describes how the digital workplace reality - communication, technology, adoption and employee experience - is different from the strategy we build.
Assumption 1: If we've sent the message, we've communicated
Big tick, we’ve built the shiny newsletter, delivered the Town Hall event, written an email to managers for cascading to teams.
The Reality
The newsletter isn’t read. Shift workers and desk-less workers didn't attend the town hall. Emails were lost in the noise.
Customer Illustration
A large and extremely complex UK organisation operating 250+ sites with over 16,000 employees and 80% in deskless roles.
One of the biggest challenges was striking the right balance between simplicity for employees and complexity behind the scenes. The ambition was clear: every colleague should only see information that was genuinely relevant to them, without it getting lost in a sea of content.
To achieve that, we designed the information architecture around the reality of frontline work rather than the organisational structure. Yes, it meant more complexity for the administrators, but it created a much simpler, more personalised experience for employees, and that's a trade-off worth making.
Good employee experience often means accepting more complexity behind the scenes to remove complexity for the frontline.
Key Learnings
Prioritise ruthlessly: send to those who need it, rather than a blanket send to all
Design around needs: not everybody should have the same experience
Relevance beats reach every time
Context beats cascade: enable managers to use their own channels to communicate in a way that makes sense for their team
Measure understanding, the action, the behaviour change, rather than opens and clicks.
Assumption 2: If we provide the tools, people will use them
We’ve given them the tools, we’ve invested in platforms, we’ve integrated, we have systems and processes, everybody has what they need.
The Reality
They can’t access the platform, there’s too many applications, nobody knows where to go, it’s quicker to ask somebody via a private message.
Customer Illustration
A large logistics company, with people offline during their working day, and limited access to a mobile.
One of the biggest challenges was reducing the cognitive load on employees. Over time, different systems had been introduced for HR, expenses, benefits, pensions and communications, each with its own purpose, but from an employee's perspective it meant remembering where to go for what.
Rather than asking employees to navigate an increasingly fragmented technology landscape, we created a single front door that brought everything together. The aim wasn't to replace every system, but to remove the friction of having to remember which system did what. The technology remained complex behind the scenes, but the experience became much simpler for the people using it.
Key Learnings
Create one front door: a structured access to one sign in which opens all applications
Reduce the clicks: every click is a potential lost engagement. Simplify the employee journey
Design around real life: experience the deskless and frontline world and make engagement intuitive
Remove the friction: integrate everything and make it simple to improve employee experience.
Assumption 3: If information exists, employees can find it
They can find it. It’s on Sharepoint! And our intranet.
The Reality
Multiple versions of the document are suggested by the search results. Access is difficult, particularly if the document is on Sharepoint. People trust the response from an individual more than the results on the intranet or Sharepoint.
Customer Illustration
A large UK charity with a large retail workforce and a huge Sharepoint estate.
The biggest challenge wasn't modernising SharePoint, it was rebuilding trust in the information. Over the years, content had grown organically, with hundreds of sites, duplicate documents and information that no longer had a clear owner. Employees often told us that even when they found something, they weren't convinced it was the right version.
The solution wasn't to move everything into a shiny new platform. It was to create clarity first. We reduced duplication, introduced clear ownership and governance, archived what was no longer needed and simplified the information structure. Only then did we look at the potential for a mobile-first frontline experience over the top, giving employees confidence that the information they were seeing was relevant, trusted and up to date.
Key Learnings
Trust beats volume: ensure information is accurate and timely by deleting old files
Remove the clutter. The added bonus - less storage means less cost
Governance is crucial for permissions and roles based access, who owns it, who updates, how is it being maintained
Do the hard hours to make search work: AI can’t create clarity. If content is unclear, fragmented, or outdated, AI will amplify those issues.
Assumption 4: If we launch the platform, adoption will follow
We launched the platform!
But “I have built it, they will come” is wishful thinking.
The Reality
Desk-less teams don’t wake up wanting to login to the comms platform, they wake up wanting to do their jobs. Making working lives better is fundamental: find the value first, drive the adoption and engagement will follow.
Customer Illustration
A 16,000+ complex organisation with 80%+ deskless workforce.
The launch wasn't built around what we wanted people to do; it was built around what frontline colleagues told us they needed to do. Through workshops with General Managers and frontline teams, we deliberately prioritised practical day one use cases like accessing payslips, reducing paper processes and making shift swaps easier.
Launching to GMs first allowed us to validate those priorities against operational reality, challenge our own assumptions and build confidence before the wider rollout. The result is a launch focused on delivering immediate value rather than simply driving activity. Because when people see a platform helping them in their day-to-day job, adoption becomes a consequence, not the objective.
Solve real problems → Adoption → Engagement → Transformation
Key Learnings
Utility drives adoption: understand use cases, focus on what the deskless employee wants. Useful functionality will drive desired behaviour
Build habits not hype: think about the long term, not only a big bang launch
Empower local champions: managers have influence & can make or break
Peer influence often drives more engagement than corporate activity
Focus on everyday value: deliver the things that people want.
Assumption 5: If we ask for feedback, we're listening
We’re listening. Of course employee engagement teams are trying, asking for feedback, doing annual surveys.
The Reality
The people you most want to hear from are not the ones completing your survey. Deskless workers are the frustrated disillusioned ones who don’t feel they’re listened to.
Customer Illustration
An organisation spread across thousands of miles - remote, dealing with the public, away from desks.
The biggest shift wasn't introducing another communication channel, it was creating a space where frontline colleagues genuinely believed they would be heard. Rather than closing down difficult conversations or moving them offline, leaders encouraged open discussion around topics that really mattered to staff, even when those conversations were uncomfortable.
By staying present, responding openly and allowing employees to support one another, leadership built trust over time. The platform became more than somewhere to share updates; it became an ongoing pulse on how people were feeling, helping leaders understand issues as they emerged rather than discovering them months later through a survey.
Key Learnings
Listen continuously, not just through an annual survey. Leaders need to engage, hear the pulse changes, check in regularly
Design with, not for: spend a day with desk-less teams to uncover how they function
Validate assumptions: talk to those who don’t want to talk. Build trust by giving employees confidence that they have a voice
Stay close to reality: every employee has a different reality to yours.
Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Reality
Probably our biggest learning is that the best projects always start in the same place: understanding how work actually happens before deciding how to improve it.
Sometimes that leads to new technology. Sometimes it means simplifying what's already there. Often it's a bit of both.
But the organisations that get the best results have one thing in common. They spend less time asking, "What platform do we need?" and more time asking, "What problem are we actually trying to solve for our people?"
It sounds simple, but it's surprisingly easy to get those the wrong way round.
Key Takeaways
To optimise internal communication for deskless teams and frontline employees:
Design workplace experiences around real employee behaviours
Relevance matters more than reach
Utility drives digital workplace adoption
Trust is essential for effective communications management
Employee listening should be continuous, not annual.
If you need help to improve your frontline communication strategy or employee experience platform, these resources are worth a watch and read. For deeper insight, call us to chat.
