In many ways, frontline employees are the eyes and ears of any consumer brand.
They are the ones out in the field every day, speaking with store managers, documenting display conditions, and flagging situations where merchandising practices are out of step with stated brand principles.
Considering the important role that field teams have assessing product performance across the brand’s entire footprint, administrators need to maintain comprehensive oversight across all frontline activity. As these three examples show, doing so will drive field operations to new heights of success.
Keep tabs on productivity in the field
Despite whatever management structure is in place, frontline employees are often self-directed workers. Limited resources often reduce supervision to verify that teams are visiting as many stores as possible in a given day or week.
Under these circumstances, with little direct oversight, it’s easy for productivity to slow down to a crawl. With more visibility into the day-to-day reality of life in the field, brand administrators can establish accurate baselines for employee performance. They can also identify common bottlenecks and other obstacles preventing frontline employees from getting more accomplished in a given time period.
Cultivate a culture of accountability
Ultimately, enhancing visibility across all field team members helps create an organizational culture that stresses the importance of accountability. As alluded to earlier, holding frontline employees responsible for their actions – or lack thereof – is a tall order when supervisors lack clear insight into their work.
Using an execution management solution, brands can take advantage of real-time reporting that not only delivers lightning-fast field reports but also verifies that each team member pulling his or her weight. Alerts notify administrators and supervisors whenever jobs are completed, ensuring visibility to keep frontline employees on task.
Align field operations with brand objectives
During the daily rigors of life in the field, it’s easy for frontline staff to lose sight of overall brand goals and how their work supports those initiatives. More visibility and direct involvement from management teams will naturally lead to stronger employee engagement, as business units have wide open channels of communication to pass along directives, prioritize tasks, and voice concerns.
Frontline teams should never be just going through motions. To ensure all work holds real business value, brands must achieve total oversight across all field activity. Mobile execution management solutions provide the sweeping visibility needed to monitor every aspect of field operations and improve them accordingly.
