You know first-hand that communicating with your manufacturing workers comes with many unique challenges.
You’ve tried everything from email, to printed handouts in the lunchrooms, to PA announcements, to digital signage, to posters, but your messages STILL don’t seem to be reaching your workforce. You hear things, like “I’m out of the loop,” “I was never told about that,” or “I didn’t see that message.” Talk about frustrating!
There are so many factors that affect your ability to communicate critical information to manufacturing workers. In this article, we’ll explore some of those factors and explain how mobile apps and SMS and may help cut through the noise (literally).
Challenges communicating with manufacturing workers
Many manufacturing facilities are noisy with machines buzzing and humming constantly. With employees wearing hearing protection, verbal and audio communications are simply ineffective.
Employee engagement in the manufacturing sector is low. In fact, manufacturing employees are 8% less engaged at work than the average US employee, according to Gallup. Poor communication is one of the major contributing factors.
Unlike “professional” employees (meaning employees who spend the majority of their time working at a desk), manufacturing workers typically don’t have a computer in front of them while at work. They’re unable to check their email or visit an intranet during a shift, which makes email and intranets much less effective for this audience.
Manufacturing is one of the industries where some, or maybe even all, of the employees are not necessarily full-time permanent employees. Contract, seasonal or short-term workers likely don’t have a company email address and they don’t want to receive company-related news in their personal inboxes. Yet, another reason that using email to connect with these workers isn’t the most effective.
These are only a few of the many factors that make communicating with manufacturing workers challenging.
If you haven’t tried using mobile apps or SMS to communicate with manufacturing workers, it’s worth a try. Here’s why:
They likely check their phones on their breaks and after their shifts to check in with friends and family. It’s hard to miss or ignore a text or push notification from an app.
To communicate with manufacturing workers via SMS, all you need is their phone number. With a modern internal communications platform like Sparrow Connected, your employees simply add their mobile phone number to their account and follow the steps to opt-in to receive texts from your company. As the admin, when you want to send a communication, you simply select the SMS channel and your text is delivered directly to their phones.
The process is similar with the mobile app. Employees download your company’s white labeled app on their phone then create an account using their existing social media logins. No corporate email required. As the admin, when you want to send a communication to the mobile app, you simply select the mobile channel and your message is delivered via a push notification.
Our customers who use the mobile app and SMS features to communicate with employees see higher engagement with their content. One of the reasons for this is the ability to trigger reminders when messages go unread. With important communications right at their fingertips, it’s so much easier for employees to stay informed and in the loop.
Add mobile app and SMS communications channels to your strategy. Soon enough, the days of hearing “I’m out of the loop,” “I was never told about that,” or “I didn’t see that message” will be over and you’ll have a much more informed and engaged manufacturing workforce.