Deskless means mobile. There’s a cliché that having a job meant you had a desk somewhere that you went to and sat at all day. Then cordless phones were invented, and you could walk around while talking. Then laptop computers were invented, and you could take all of your work files with you, wherever you went. Along came the cell phone and then the smartphone and suddenly you could work from almost anywhere on the planet. With all that freedom came innovations in communicating with deskless employees, which encompasses more than just former desk jockeys and now includes restaurant and retail workers.
Create in-house tools for communication
There are a couple of options for communicating with deskless employees. One option is to build or brand an in-house tool. When you create a communications tool, you are free to design it to your specifications, including connections to your existing communication systems - calendars, e-mail, file storage. Building can be quite costly and timely, however, even if you have the design and development resources in your organization. Branding an existing tool can cost significantly less in development and design. You can get full-featured tools that have messaging capabilities along with on-device storage for text or video content. Either of these options allow you to get your employees the information they need, where they need it - on their mobile device.
Use communication software already developed
If you’re not building your own, you can set up a collection of other apps designed around easing the difficulty of communicating with distributed teams. Apps like Slack, HipChat, Asana, Basecamp, PlayerLync, or Google Docs have messaging structures that extend to include video & text chat, file storage, and some even have file editing ability.
Whichever way you set up your contact channels, in one way or another all of these options to break down the silos between corporate and the communication you have with your deskless employees. Additionally these highly mobile deskless workers are more efficient and effective when they can leverage mobile devices, while on their feet to communicate with headquarters. In addition to two-way, group discussions or sharing best practices you can configure your apps to deliver training and orientation materials as well, which eliminates the need for a separate app or login.
When you put your messages where your employees are, you empower employees to take action where the work is being done. Are you reaching your deskless workforce efficiently?
