Updated from the original August 2021 post
Restaurants to retail, warehouses to utility sites, hospitals to factories — deskless employees keep companies in business with their ability to deliver, stock, box, manufacture, ship, care, build, and maintain. In many cases, the public — your customers — know them as the people who actually make things happen. They are, in every sense, the faces of your brand when it matters most: in those day-to-day, real-life moments of service and delivery.
And yet, despite their visibility and their value, these workers remain among the hardest people to reach with effective internal communication.
According to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, global employee engagement has dropped to 20% — its lowest level since 2020, and the first time Gallup has recorded two consecutive years of decline. Deskless workers, who make up the majority of the global workforce, are disproportionately affected because the tools and channels most organizations rely on were not built with them in mind.
The question for communication and operations leaders is not whether the problem exists. It is whether your organization is actually doing something about it.
Why Deskless Workers Are Disengaged — and Why Volume Is Not the Problem
It would be easy to frame this as a volume problem. Organizations are certainly sending enough messages. But according to the 2026 State of Workplace Communication report, produced by Korbyt in partnership with Reworked, the issue runs deeper than that.
Half of workers say the volume of messages they receive is “about right” — but 44% still feel overwhelmed. Employees are not asking for fewer messages. They are asking for better ones. The survey found that satisfaction with message volume may actually mask deeper disengagement: 89% of respondents said they were only moderately confident they were not missing important updates, even though they reported the volume felt manageable.
The challenge is compounded by the nature of the work itself. As deskless employees, most on-site workers spend their time on the move, on their feet, or in environments where a laptop or company inbox is simply not part of the job. Most do not have company email or regular access to the intranet. This limits their exposure to the communications their desk-based colleagues receive as a matter of course. Traditional channels do not reach these workers — and blasting the same message across every platform does not solve that.
What Makes Frontline Employees Pay Attention to Internal Communications?
The 2026 State of Workplace Communication report makes clear what earns on-site workers’ attention and what does not. Messages land when they are timely, urgent, or carry a clear action. Specifically, 57% of workers say they pay attention when a message is timely or urgent, and 56% engage when a clear action is required. Nearly half (47%) say relevance to their specific job is what makes a message feel worth reading.
What causes your people to tune out? According to the report, repetition across channels tops the list at 46%, followed by too many messages (43%) and content that feels generic (40%). When official channels fail workers this way, they do not simply go without information. They find it elsewhere: side chats, group messages, hallway conversations. This shadow communications network thrives precisely where official channels create friction.
The lesson for internal comms leaders is clear: the goal is not more communication. It is more signal, less noise.
Trust matters too, and it is built differently than most organizations assume. According to the report, 73% of workers say who a message comes from is one of the most important factors in whether they trust it. Not the channel, not the format — the sender. Employees trust their direct manager more than any executive title or communications team. If managers are not equipped to cascade and contextualize messages, engagement stays flat regardless of what else you invest in.
Why Digital Signage Is the Most Underused Channel for Deskless Workers
The 2026 State of Workplace Communication report asked workers directly which channels felt least disruptive to their workday and which made them feel most informed. Email remains the preferred low-friction channel — 69% of workers value it for uninterrupted communication. Chat tools like Teams and Slack ranked second.
But the channel organizations are consistently underutilizing? Workplace screens.
According to the report, 72% of workers see digital signage as a low-friction way to stay informed. And critically, 40% agree and 32% strongly agree that workplace screens are valuable specifically because they deliver information without interrupting their work. That is a meaningful distinction. Unlike a chat notification or an email that demands a response, a screen in a common area, on the floor, or in a break room communicates passively. It informs without interrupting.
This is what makes digital signage particularly well suited for on-site and shift-based teams. It does not require a login. It does not require company-issued hardware. It does not require an employee to stop what they are doing and check a device. It meets your people where they are, with information relevant to their environment. Workers say the most useful screen content includes company-wide announcements (60%) and operational updates (51%) — the exact categories that matter most on a production floor, a hospital ward, or a distribution center.
For manufacturing specifically, the data is especially clear. The report found that 94% of manufacturing workers — combining those who agree (67%) and strongly agree (27%) — said workplace screens are valuable because they provide information without interrupting their work. That is near-universal buy-in. The primary gap is not belief in the channel; it is the relevance of the content on it.
An important operational note: digital signage earns its place when content is specific, timely, and local — not generic or decorative. Before putting a message on a screen, ask: would this make sense to someone walking by in five seconds? If not, it probably belongs somewhere else.
How to Build an Internal Communication Strategy for Deskless Workers
Getting this right is not about adding another channel to the mix. It is about being deliberate: the right message, on the right channel, for the right audience. The 2026 State of Workplace Communication report offers a clear framework for making that happen.
- Listen. Give on-site employees a real-time, low-friction way to provide feedback — not a quarterly survey, but something they can actually respond to in the flow of their day. If they can only receive communication, you are just broadcasting.
- Prioritize operational content. Half of all survey respondents say that clear operational updates — priorities, safety information, goals — contribute most to their sense of being connected at work. Recognition matters, but clarity comes first. Lead with what people need to do their jobs.
- Assign each channel a role. Repetitive messages across channels are the top reason workers tune out. Email, digital signage, team meetings, and messaging tools should each have a defined purpose. Signage is for ambient operational updates and company-wide announcements. Email is for direct action items. The same message should not live everywhere.
- Personalize where possible. The more a message reflects the actual role and location of the employee receiving it, the more likely it is to be read and acted on. This is true across all channels, but it is especially important on workplace screens, where manufacturing workers in particular cite irrelevant content as their primary complaint.
- Celebrate visibly. When distributed or isolated workers can see team wins, milestones, and recognition on workplace screens, it creates a sense of shared success that is harder to build through email alone. A recognition moment on a screen in a common space carries a different weight than a message most people will not open.
The Cost of Poor Frontline Communication — and How to Fix It
Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost the global economy more than $10 trillion in lost productivity annually — the equivalent of roughly 9% of global GDP. That is not an abstract number. For organizations with large deskless populations, a meaningful portion of that cost lives on the floor, in the warehouse, or on the road — in workers who are present but not connected.
The path forward is clear. Your people are not asking for more communication. They are asking for communication that helps them do their jobs: timely, specific, relevant, and delivered through channels that do not add to their daily friction.
Digital signage, used well, is one of the most effective tools available for reaching on-site teams at scale without demanding their attention. It informs without interrupting. It reaches employees who do not sit at desks, check company email, or attend all-hands meetings. And when paired with a purposeful internal communications strategy — one that segments by role, location, and work model rather than treating the entire workforce as a single distribution list — it becomes part of a communication infrastructure that actually works.
Your people are keeping things running. The communication strategy you build around them should do the same.
Ready to see how Korbyt can inform and engage your team?
