What is the Solution to Retaining Deskless Workers?

As the economy continues to add news jobs, many companies face a serious problem filling all their open jobs and retaining existing employees. In this environment, you must keep the workers you already have happy, so you aren't compounding the problem.  This means keeping high job satisfaction with workers at their desks and "deskless workers" who comprise over 60% of the workforce.

Consider that the U.S. unemployment rate was a mere 3.9% in April, and the U.S. had a record number of openings in March (6.6 million) — the same number of people actively looking for jobs. The Washington Post reports, “March marked the first time there has been a job opening for every unemployed person since the Labor Department began keeping track of job openings in 2000…It's likely that the United States will soon be in a situation where there are more job openings than job seekers.”

It’s more important than ever that companies keep their existing employees. And perhaps the best way to do that, Mark Feffer points out in his article in TechTarget “Why mobile HR apps are key to engaging deskless workers” is to keep employees highly engaged in their work and the workplace. He writes, “Research supports the idea that employee engagement impacts recruitment, retention and performance, turning it into a valuable investment. For example, according to research by benefits provider Aon Hewitt, manufacturing plants with higher levels of engagement have 75% fewer quality defects and 26% fewer safety-related workers compensation claims. Gallup reports that ‘highly engaged business units realize a 41% reduction in absenteeism and a 17% increase in productivity.’”

How Can You Better Engage Deskless Workers?

Employee engagement is a particular problem for so-called “deskless workers” such as field service employees, truck drivers, remote workers and others. They generally don’t work at an office with other people, which can make them feel isolated and not engaged with their companies.

Feffer writes that HR mobile apps are an important way to make sure those workers feel engaged. The mobile apps can perform a wide variety of functions, from simple ones such as checking into and out of work, to filling out paperwork and to help them do their daily tasks, such as tracking deliveries or maintenance.

For example, he writes, PetroChoice, a lubricants distributor in Fort Washington, PA, gives all its truck drivers iPhones pre-loaded with several mobile apps. Marilena Acevedo, the vice president of human resources at the company, said the apps are “very helpful to them and very helpful to us because they're able to be very self-sufficient.”

What’s the Best Platform for Writing Apps to Engage Deskless Workers?

Looking to write mobile apps to engage deskless workers? We’ve designed Alpha Anywhere to be the ideal platform for doing that. Many companies have used it to write field service apps, inspections apps and other apps that increase employee engagement. A major offshore drilling company, for example, was able to use it to have a mobile app for capturing live maintenance information designed, tested and implemented in just four days. American Pool, the largest commercial swimming pool management, maintenance, construction and recreational facility management operation in the United States, used Alpha Anywhere to give supervisors and maintenance technicians mobile access to its CRM platform wherever they were, for purposes such as collecting data in the field. And the Inventory Services Network used it to build a powerful, high-speed inventory data capture solution.