3 Ways to Spread Culture to Front-Line Employees

It’s difficult enough to build and spread culture where employees feel valued, engaged and satisfied — but it can be even more difficult in industries with a high percentage of customer-facing roles.

Think servers in food service, nurses in health care, mechanics in automotive or cashiers in retail. These types of employees often don’t interact much with their peers and may not feel a close connection to their company culture.

How do we change that? How do we build cultures and environments that impact everyone, even those who spend their days dealing with external parties?

Why It’s Important to Spread Culture to Everyone

For employees, the culture of where they work is 10 times more important than pay when it comes to sticking around. Not only that, but when employees rate their workplace culture highly, they are 790% more likely to feel satisfied at work, 96% less likely to dread going to work and 83% less likely to look for a new job.

The problem is, at the moment, only 20% of employees feel connected to their company culture. And employee engagement is at a new 11-year low. So in order to get the benefits listed above, leaders need to strive to improve their culture for everyone.

Below are three strategies to build up a culture in such a way that customer-facing employees feel the love.

1. Recognize Achievements

A recent study from Gallup shows that employees who feel recognized for their work feel five times more connected to their company culture. That’s because when employees are recognized by their manager, leaders or peers, they’re instantly shown that they matter and that their work is seen and valued.

Here are some ways to recognize customer-facing employees:

• Use AI to analyze and report on employee performance, then hold one-on-ones with employees to provide personalized feedback to them, including personalized appreciation.
• Allow customers, clients, vendors, patients and other third parties to recognize your employees. This type of external recognition can be particularly validating since these are the people your employees spend the most time helping.
• Create a peer recognition program that lets employees recognize their peers. This takes some of the recognition burden off managers’ shoulders and allows peers to recognize each other in a more specific, personalized way.
• Offer contests or incentives that everyone can participate in, regardless of their role. These types of programs are great at recognizing effort and rewarding those who take part.

2. Host Holiday Activities

After-hours team activities can be a great way to build feelings of camaraderie and team culture. However, don’t settle for the main holidays only. Find creative celebrations throughout the year that keep employees engaged and give them a reason to get together and celebrate.

Examples of fun holiday celebrations include:

• First Friday in March: Employee Appreciation Day
• March 20: International Day of Happiness
• April 21: World Creativity and Innovation Day
• July 30: International Day of Friendship
• September 13: Positive Thinking Day
• November 3: International Stress Awareness Day, and
• November 13: World Kindness Day.

Many customer-facing industries have specific holidays dedicated to them, too, including National Hospitality Workers Day, International Nurses Day and World Teachers Day. And if your industry doesn’t have a specific day, make one up!

3. Provide Professional Development

Many customer-facing roles are entry-level positions, and even if they’re more advanced no one likes feeling like their career is stuck. Build a culture of professional support and growth by offering everyone opportunities to learn new skills and move up in the company.

Professional development opportunities could include:

• Pairing employees up with a senior leader in a mentorship system
• Providing job shadowing opportunities to help employees learn more about other positions in the company
• Helping employees to attend workshops, conferences or other relevant events, and
• Empowering employees to take online courses in relevant skills.

Many of these solutions have the added benefit of creating more touchpoints between employees and their colleagues, which can strengthen your culture in important ways.

If employees aren’t sure where they want to go in their careers, leaders can also help them develop a professional development plan. Even that effort will show employees that they’re cared for.

Create a 360-Degree Culture for All

Leaders in difficult industries have a responsibility to give their employees the support they need through an intentionally created workplace culture, regardless of where those employees work or their roles. Hopefully, these three strategies will help as you try to create a culture that reaches everyone equally, without leaving those in customer-facing roles behind.