Deskless Not Voiceless - It’s Time to Connect Your Frontline

On the 11 of October, we had our event: Deskless Not Voiceless: It is time to connect your frontline.
The event took us through the benefits of Workplace by Meta and why it’s a great tool for keeping
your people connected and engaged and forecasted the future of technology and collaboration in the
workplace. We’re giving you an insight into some of the discussions and insights from that day.

The Frontline Barometer and the Forrester Impact Report

A look at the Forrester Impact report shows a major reason for the ‘Great resignation’ is a feeling of
some sort of disconnect between employee and their companies. The report shows that:

• 45 % of frontline employees don't feel connected to their organisation – the great resignation is here

• 75 % don't trust their organisation because they can't see behind the scenes

• 43 % said they reached their limit of growth within their company

The report contains many more facts that you might find interesting – you can download the report and have a look here.

In conversation with Chris Lees from Cote Brasserie

Chris Lees, Head of Internal Communications and Engagement at Cote Brasserie, took centre stage with Caleb Chisholm, our Digital Consultant Lead, and shared their journey with Workplace from Meta.

The following is a transcript of the conversation:

Why did you choose Workplace?

Because it's all about making connections and connecting your company's people to their leadership, businesses are changing, and getting info to the right people at the right time is important. So, we can use our employee's voices and drive user-generated content.

How did you launch Workplace?

I came in post-launch. I knew Workplace was launching, so it was all about familiarity and helping people feel involved. We wanted to create hype around the launch and maintain the momentum well past the implementation of Workplace. There's what people need, and then there's what people want. We know we had to give people what they needed, like information and documents related to their work, but what was most important to their adoption of Workplace was giving people what they wanted, which meant creating content around what people wanted.

One of the great benefits of Workplace is how it creates a company-wide community. Can you share some success stories of how Workplace has not only united your restaurants (front and back of the house staff), but connected HQ with them for the first time? And the impact that is having on your business?

We have a Cote Stars award which is where we nominate our star employee based on brilliant work at Cote. Before Workplace, we had loads of nominations through email. Then we introduced a bot and went from 20/30 nominations to over 500, which shows people want to get involved.
Another great advantage of Workplace is that it's truly democratic, everyone has a voice; employees have a direct line to share their opinions and feedback with senior leadership. What ideas have surfaced from the frontline that have been actioned and delivered results for the business?

At Cote, we're very focused on standards. When leadership changes, standards change. But some who have been there for a while set up a group called 'this is how we do it'. They send videos that show how to do things. These videos go into the Knowledge Library for new starters and help those passionate frontliners to be heard.

Let's look back and look forward. What have you learned over the last year? And what's next on your Workplace journey?

We are launching what we call Workplace 2.0, so that we can do more and maximise our content campaigns, Cote social, zero carbon analytics, cote star, etc. What have I learnt? Learning to deal with curve balls.

The future of work with Meta and the Metaverse

We finished the session with a conversation on the future of work with Lydia Webster, Enterprise Client Partner at Meta. Lydia talked about how, though Meta doesn't own the Metaverse, there are some key elements that they are trying to change.

Key Takeaways:

• Technology has democratised connection and expression, and every 10 to 15 years, it evolves to take a new step in enhancing our reality.

• It began with phones replacing the need for letter communications. Then PCs, then smartphones. The Metaverse is the next phase in creating a new reality and breaking down the barrier of physical distance and communication.

• There is no set metaverse world – Metaverse is a set of digital, interconnected experiences that can be accessed by any device, anywhere, with anyone. It could include smartphone applications, augmented reality and, most famously, virtual reality.

• The Metaverse will change industries, and these new products will create an immersive and engaging world.

There are many applications in the Metaverse. In social settings, it's being used for things like concerts and theatre productions (think the ABBA voyage show) or for gaming and your personal avatars. Meta is even hiring hiring some of the best animators from the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks, to really help bring to life a moment where you truly inhabit your own avatar.

Examples of how it could be used:

• Teleporting to a shared space

• Learning from new mentors

• Taking your bubble anywhere

• Being in the room where it happens

• Overcoming physical barriers with Quest

But in the video that was shared during the session, some of the most recent examples shared of the Metaverse in workplaces were related to:

• For work, it will enhance Work From Home abilities with systems like Horizon worlds and desktops.

• How the virtual world can be a platform to train staff securely

• Training in the hospitality industry and showing head office employees what it is like to work on the frontline to promote empathy and improve work practices.

• Reducing the designing process in the automobile industries from days to hours

And there has been a turning point in our culture. Meta reports that there has been a 92 % shift towards thinking about employee experiences. With the Metaverse, this could mean a more connected, collaborative, flexible and accessible work environment.

To end, our session in partnership with Meta shows us that most employees want to feel connected to their workplace – but they can't always access the right tools to do that. Case studies like Cote's show that adopting Workplace from Meta can give your people easy and familiar tools to collaborate and connect with from HQ all the way through to your frontline. And the effects of that can only mean better performance for all your people individually and the company as a whole. The Metaverse is just the natural next step in the journey towards a more connected and empathetic world, and it's our mission to help brands unlock that future.

How Cocentric’s Workplace, integrations can transform your business?

Cocentric and Workplace from Meta help your team go beyond the basics of standard email communication to ensure that your team stays as connected as possible from its head office through to its frontline. Workplace from Meta brings very simply and humanly social solutions to complex communication problems to truly bring your workplace and its people together. Our solutions are highly customisable to reflect the information that your teams need as well as the unique content that will bring them joy and help them feel more connected to their company.