Join us for ScreenCloud Studio Live, your weekly interactive training session where you’re in the driver’s seat. It’s your opportunity to ask the questions that matter to you and explore any feature, tool, or app in real time.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to extend Microsoft content to digital screens, use Teams Rooms for signage, and measure engagement through ScreenCloud’s Metrics tab to create real workplace visibility. It’s all about maximizing your Microsoft stack to connect every employee, everywhere.

The Connected Workplace: How IT and Comms Use Microsoft Apps to Drive Workplace Visibility

Learn more about the use of digital signage for different types of workforces: From Millenials and Gen-Z to deskless workers and field employees.

Digital Signage and different Workforces | ScreenCloud

Orbia is a global, purpose-driven company with over 24,000 employees and commercial activities spanning more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Mexico City, Boston, Amsterdam, and Tel Aviv. The organization is focused on tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges, including food and water security, connectivity, and the energy transition, through its five integrated business groups.

While Orbia operates at a high level globally, ensuring effective, localized communication across its vast network of manufacturing plants and facilities became a critical operational challenge, leading them to seek a modern, centralized digital signage solution.

Orbia: Better Frontline Communications using ScreenCloud Digital Signage

The Challenge: Disconnected Employees and Outdated Systems

For Orbia’s Digital Solution Analyst, Raymond Westerveld, the core problem was a fundamental disconnect between corporate information and the frontline workforce.

“The fundamental challenges inside Orbia itself is that we basically, in a day to day, lack any type of communication to our users in the plants itself,” Westerveld explained. “We have eight thousand users, in our plants throughout the world, which are disconnected from information.”

This gap was compounded by fragmented, aging technology. Raymond noted that they relied on disparate methods, including old-fashioned pinboards in some locations, and a dizzying number of different digital tools in others. “We had some legacy systems... in total, there were nine different solutions,” he said. The result was screens showing outdated, unhelpful information, largely because “people found it too hard to update that type of information.”

Orbia needed a unified, easy-to-use solution that could integrate with their existing enterprise data sources. ScreenCloud “really stepped up to the plate to deliver that simplicity and easy access for people to update any type of content.”

The ease of use provided by ScreenCloud quickly allowed Orbia to deploy a powerful content strategy across its global network. The platform is now being leveraged for a variety of information, ranging from HR announcements to crucial operational dashboards. Raymond highlighted their deep reliance on ScreenCloud’s ability to connect to their data, stating that “most of the showcases that basically ScreenCloud is offering, all the technologies that are there, are being leveraged today. We have Power BI, we have Excel, SharePoint, all those services being used.”

The implementation of ScreenCloud instantly improved Orbia’s ability to reach its most important audience: its employees. This central communication channel provided an immediate fix for the large-scale communication deficit.

“It’s benefited Orbia and its employees more of improving the communications means. We really have a lack of communication to eight thousand employees today,” Westerveld observed.

Beyond simply filling a communication void, the solution professionalized the environment and drastically simplified the content management process. The digital screens replaced posters and pinboards, offering a slick, dynamic presence. “Most definitely, it looks good. It’s more professional than old fashioned poster on the wall, and it gives you more some space of easy to issue,” Raymond stated.

Furthermore, content publication became nearly instantaneous, transforming a time-consuming physical process into a quick digital task. “You don’t have to walk through the entire plant, to put something on the wall. Now you all you have to do is sit behind your computer, go to the online portal, drop the content online, and hit the publish button, and you’re done.”

For Raymond Westerveld, the decision to choose ScreenCloud was simple, emphasizing the quick adoption rate and intuitive platform: “I would surely recommend ScreenCloud to other companies. The simplicity and ease of rolling it out, but also the simplicity of getting content on the screens, it’s a no brainer. It sells itself.”

Find out more about manufacturing digital signage with ScreenCloud.


As a global company, Orbia needed to connect with employees across their frontline network. ScreenCloud's digital signage solution offered a solution to communicate across the business.

As a global company, Orbia needed to connect with employees across their frontline network. ScreenCloud's digital signage solution offered a powerful tool to connect the corporate and the frontline features of their business.

Orbia Transforms Internal Communications with ScreenCloud

People are the beating heart of every organization - and keeping people informed and engaged has become a critical focus of business leadership. And for good reason. Studies show that employees who feel they are appreciated by their manager and co-workers have a greater sense of job satisfaction, and communication plays a big part in this. 

The challenge: Disengagement in the workplace

Consider the landscape of modern work. While digital tools have proliferated, they haven't always translated into better internal communication. In fact, for many, the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming, leading to crucial messages being missed and a sense of detachment.

Research consistently highlights the cost of this disengagement. A Gallup study revealed that only 36% of U.S. employees are engaged in their work. This isn't just a morale problem; it's a performance crisis. Disengaged employees are less productive, more likely to seek new opportunities, and can even negatively impact customer relationships. 

Shockingly, that same Gallup report estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the global economy $7.8 trillion in lost productivity.

Beyond the numbers, the challenges are palpable:

Information Overload: Employees are bombarded with emails, chat messages, and internal platform notifications, making it difficult to discern what's truly important.

Reaching the "Unreachable": For a substantial portion of the workforce - frontline staff in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, or logistics - traditional digital channels like email are simply not part of their daily workflow. They lack consistent access to company intranets or even corporate email addresses.

Lack of Personalization: Generic, one-size-fits-all communications fail to resonate with diverse employee groups who have varying roles, needs, and access points.

Missed Critical Updates: When communication is fragmented, vital safety alerts, policy changes, or strategic directives can go unnoticed, leading to operational inefficiencies or even risks.

Cultural Divide: A lack of consistent, inclusive communication can foster a "them and us" mentality between leadership and employees, or between different departments.

The problem isn't a lack of desire to communicate; it's often a lack of effective channels and strategies that genuinely connect with every single employee.

Firstup: Building a more connected workforce

With a mission to overcome these communication barriers, Firstup offers a powerful platform to reach workers where they are. Firstup creates an intelligent communication and workforce orchestration platform built to personalize and deliver messages across an entire organization.

Firstup’s strength lies in its ability to centralize and tailor communications, ensuring every message reaches the right person, at the right time, through their preferred channel. Firstup helps organizations of all sizes unlock the full potential of their workforce communications and achieve key business outcomes including improved efficiency, productivity, employee engagement, safety, and topline growth.

Here’s how Firstup addresses the core challenges:

Content Creation: Firstup provides comprehensive content creation tools including drag-and-drop campaign builders, AI-powered content generation, brand governance templates, and multi-language translation capabilities to help organizations create consistent, engaging employee communications.

Intelligent Communication: The platform delivers personalized employee communications through multiple channels (email, web, mobile app) by leveraging unified employee profiles, audience segmentation, behavioral data, and intelligent delivery optimization to ensure the right message reaches the right person at the right time.

Journey Orchestration: Firstup enables organizations to create automated, multi-step communication sequences using a visual no-code builder with flexible triggers (dates, events, data changes), decision splits based on employee attributes and exit criteria to guide employees through structured communication experiences.

Engagement Insights: The platform provides comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities, from essential campaign statistics to executive dashboards and journey analytics, allowing organizations to measure communication effectiveness, track ROI, and export data for further analysis.

Integrations: Firstup seamlessly connects with existing HR and productivity systems to sync employee data for targeting and personalization while also delivering communications to where your people are already working including other applications and digital signage screens. 

Firstup moves beyond simply sending messages to actively engaging employees, fostering a sense of belonging and purpose that directly impacts productivity and retention.

ScreenCloud: Reach workers wherever they are

While Firstup excels at intelligent message delivery, the medium through which those messages are received is equally critical. This is where digital signage steps in, and ScreenCloud leads the charge.

Digital signage isn't new, but its application in employee communication has evolved dramatically. It's no longer just static slides; it's a dynamic, highly visible, and incredibly effective channel for reaching every corner of your workplace.

ScreenCloud's role is to make digital signage accessible, powerful, and easy to manage - under the mantra of ‘screens that communicate’. The cloud-based digital signage platform turns any screen into a smart communication hub, allowing businesses to display a wide range of content – from company announcements and performance dashboards to social media feeds and engaging videos – with ease.

How ScreenCloud and digital signage boost engagement across various environments:

Head Office: In corporate environments, digital screens in common areas, reception, and meeting rooms can display real-time company news, meeting schedules, KPIs, and celebratory messages. This keeps office-based teams aligned and informed without adding to email clutter. Imagine a screen in the breakroom showing the latest sales figures or a rotating display of employee achievements – it builds transparency and a sense of shared success.

Factory Floor: This is where digital signage truly shines for the "unreachable." Factory workers often don't have personal computers or company email access during their shifts. Large, strategically placed screens can display critical safety information, production targets, shift schedules, company-wide announcements, and even personal messages from leadership. This ensures everyone is aware of operational changes, safety protocols, and feels connected to the broader organization, improving both safety and efficiency.

Retail Shop Floor: For customer-facing staff, digital signage can provide instant updates on promotions, product information, customer service tips, and daily sales goals. In the breakroom, screens can share internal training videos, team performance data, and messages of appreciation, empowering staff with timely information that directly impacts their customer interactions and boosts morale. Of course, retail digital signage is also a great way to engage your customers.

Hospitality & Healthcare: In dynamic environments like hospitals or hotels, screens can display staff rotas, urgent updates, training modules, and internal recognition, ensuring that critical information is always visible to busy teams who are constantly on the move and have limited time for traditional communication channels.

For large and fragmented businesses, the core benefit of digital signage is its omnipresence and visual impact. It cuts through the digital noise because it’s a physical presence. 

Messages are delivered passively yet powerfully, ensuring that even those who aren't actively seeking information will encounter it. ScreenCloud simplifies the deployment and management of these screens, making it possible for any organization to leverage this visual communication channel effectively.

The power of the partnership: Firstup x ScreenCloud

With both ScreenCloud and Firstup looking to answer the question, ‘How can I better reach and engage my workers’, the solution is best solved by connecting both platforms.  

On their own, Firstup is an intelligent communication platform, and ScreenCloud is a visible method of delivery for workplace messaging. Together, they form a unified, intelligent communication experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The partnership integrates Firstup’s powerful content personalization and distribution capabilities directly with ScreenCloud’s seamless digital display management. This means:

Seamless Content Flow: Content created and managed within Firstup – be it a company announcement, a new policy, an employee spotlight, or performance metrics – can be effortlessly pushed to ScreenCloud displays. There's no need for duplicate efforts or manual uploads.

Targeted Visuals: Firstup’s intelligence ensures that the right message is delivered to the right screen. A factory in one region might display specific production targets and safety reminders, while an office in another region shows different corporate news or project updates. This hyper-targeting makes every screen a relevant communication point.

Comprehensive Reach: By combining Firstup’s multi-channel strategy with ScreenCloud’s visual impact, organizations can ensure that absolutely no employee is left out of the communication loop. Frontline workers, often the hardest to reach, now receive crucial information through highly visible and engaging displays, directly connecting them to the company’s pulse.

Enhanced Engagement: The visual nature of digital signage, powered by Firstup’s engaging content, captures attention more effectively than text-heavy emails or static posters. Dynamic updates, videos, and visually rich information increase retention and foster a more connected and informed workforce.

Strategic Alignment: This integration allows communication teams to execute a truly comprehensive and strategic communication plan. They can manage all internal messages from a single platform (Firstup) and confidently know that it will be delivered across every relevant channel, including the high-impact visual channel of digital signage managed by ScreenCloud.

In essence, Firstup provides the brains and the content, while ScreenCloud provides the captivating visual voice. This partnership offers a powerful answer to the pervasive problem of employee disengagement and communication breakdowns.

For any organization striving to move beyond fragmented communications and truly empower every employee, the combined solution of Firstup and ScreenCloud represents a compelling and future-ready choice. 

The Firstup app is available in the ScreenCloud app store, allowing you to quickly and seamlessly connect your Firstup account in minutes. 

Find out more about how Firstup and ScreenCloud reach the unreachable in this webinar.

Firstup and ScreenCloud are two great tools designed to improve the employee experience. How can you use these two tools together to achieve your workplace goals?

How Firstup and ScreenCloud are Redefining Employee Engagement

Office communication has come a long way, especially as many businesses now span multiple sites, across cities, regions and even trans-national locations. And while every business is different, communication styles differ and one strategy might not work for another - the truth is that effective employee communication is more important than ever.

In our recent study with Unily, we found that poor communication with frontline teams costs US businesses $80.6 billion every year. This isn't even factoring in international teams or organizations with interconnected global networks such as those in freight and logistics, transport and travel. But the challenges of global comms aren't limited to these industries; here at ScreenCloud, we operate five offices across three different countries in three continents. So we understand a bit about how to communicate across a global network.

So lets look into how to leverage the skills and the technology to improve corporate communications across global teams.

Global workforce communication is, as it sounds, the process of communicating with departments, team members or specific individuals within a global organization. An example of this is within the freight and logistics industry where a dispatch center in country A might need a process to communicate easily and openly with country B but also with regional hub X. 

But it goes beyond mere point to point communication too. Global corporate offices might want to share changes to processes, alert employees to security issues, or remind workers across their global offices that a deadline is looming to apply for a company rewards program.

As well as this, SMB and enterprise companies are increasingly sharing ideas, managing projects and collaborating via communication tools. This typically requires a range of tools, from a preferred messaging tool such as Teams or Slack, to a file sharing solution, an intranet and various collaborative tools. 

Problems associated with global workforce communication

Managing a global workforce comes with a few obvious challenges, such as communication across time zones, missed messages, crossed wires, language or cultural differences, differing infrastructure and the feeling of being disconnected from your team mates in different locations. 

There is also the challenge of managing online security across multiple global locations, and ensuring processes and protocols are adhered to. Having the right access to the right tools at the right time means less chance of short cuts being taken, especially with regards to security (such as in the case of shadow IT).

In recent years, however, technology has bridged a number of these gaps and enabled better real-time collaboration through instant messaging apps, access to an intranet and screen based team meetings.

How to improve global workforce communication

The rise of company wide initiatives such as the all hands or town hall meeting have made it easier to share company culture and messaging, and also to connect across time zones. But these occasional events are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to effective communication across regional departments and locations.

Improving communication usually means a few simple factors need to be taken into consideration:

To break these down to the individual points.

Ease of access usually means a single place where most messaging is shared, or access to the 'single source of truth'. In some businesses, this might be the communication tool (Slack, Teams, etc); project management platforms (Monday, Asana etc); or an intranet hub (Unily, Firstup etc).

Clarity of messaging means keeping communication clear and simple - especially across global departments or when dealing with multiple language barriers. Long emails with lots of points are easy to ignore. Two or three clear action points and a call to action are easier to manage and track responses.

Consistency simply means that people expect to see certain messages or forms of communication at certain times. Your company all hands meeting might be monthly, but you might also release team performance data every Friday, or share action plans on the first and third Monday of the month. 

These three steps are the critical ingredients in effective communication, regardless of company size or locations. Enshrining these as clear communication protocols can greatly help to create a more cohesive communication strategy across businesses with international teams.

The tools to build better global communication in business

Most modern businesses use some form of instant messaging platform, whether that's MS Teams, Slack or Google Chat. These often form the basis of real-time collaboration for office based teams.

Project management software: Monday, Asana, Trello etc

Collaborative workplace tools: Google Workspace, Microsoft Office Suite, Notion.

However, with 80% of the global workforce being non-desk based, there needs to be a more cohesive approach to global workforce communication. 

How to use digital signage for global communication

When it comes to employee communications, digital signage is key to engaging employees and helping to get important messages seen. A strategic approach using digital signage can help cut through the noise of multiple comms tools or intranet platforms and get your messages seen.

For multi-location teams, this can be a literal lifesaver. When it comes to policy updates, business announcements or even real-time data the ability to share this information visibly can ensure everyone is on the same page.

Lets look at some of some specific examples of using digital signage for organizational comms.

One of the big benefits of digital signage, and one of the main reasons for it's success as a workplace communication tool, is it's highly visible nature. And as research shows that digital signage has a recall rate of 83%, it's clear that this makes it an excellent employee engagement platform - especially when paired with other employee experience platforms.

From new global safety measures to birthday announcements, treat your digital signage as a real-time digital notice board and get that message noticed, without waiting for people to open their email. Controlled by a central CMS, these global announcements can be created and scheduled in accordance with varying time zones to show up during specific hours.

When it comes to quickly connecting the whole company, digital signage is unrivalled. With a quick 'cast to screen', you can share your company all hands meeting with the whole organization, or bring departments together with a meeting. This allows the humble meeting to have a truly global scale - something more important than ever in today's interconnected world.  

Often, global workforces struggle to build empathy with their interoffice colleagues because they don’t know anything about them, other than their email addresses. And it can be hard to foster company culture. Digital signage is an open canvas where teams can paint a picture of who they are behind the avatars. 

Some great examples are to stream social media posts, run a photo competition, broadcast an interactive yoga class or stream a company AMA.

Three global workforce communication case studies

Seeing examples of digital signage in use for internal communication helps to spark new ideas about how you can use digital screen networks to challenge and improve your traditional interoffice communication flow. Here are a couple of examples:

1. ScreenCloud: Connecting our own global workforce

Here at ScreenCloud, we operate 5 offices across three countries, with bases in the US, UK and Thailand. As such, we know a bit about connecting global teams and the value of collaboration tools and open communication.

We do use a variety of communication tools such as Slack, Asana and Notion. But we do, of course, display key messages and data on digital signage displays across our offices. 

Our office digital signage usually has a mix of business and company culture content, such as what we've been up to with the 5-a-side football team, work arrivals and anniversaries, new family arrivals such a babies - and sometimes dogs. Business content can include reminders of company policies, sales targets and data, reminders of announcements and other useful info.

The favourite integrations we use include pulling messages from our Slack channel, our own Team News app and sharing messages via our own QuickPost app.

2. 3M: Sharing information beyond the inbox

3M recognized that employees already had an abundance of communication methods – but that the key announcements weren’t getting through. This led them to creating a strategic digital signage journey. With internal updates happening all of the time, they began using digital screens located throughout their 150 offices to surface the stuff that was most important.

For Granger Waste Services, communicating well to its employees is a key consideration, given that it has four different locations and that some of the associates are only onsite for around 10 minutes each morning before they head out to serve customers.

By putting up digital screens in break rooms and throughout each of its four locations, Granger makes use of the key times its employees are in the office. Sharing training videos, company announcements and customer feedback through scheduled content.

Digital signage easily connects to your choice of screens and is a hugely effective communication tool for global teams. Whether you're linking team members in different buildings within the same town, or connecting regional and international hubs, the benefits for productivity are well documented.

As our study found, 28% of workers want information tailored to their location, and digital signage positively engages 84% of staff. 

In short, digital signage is built to improve effective cross cultural communication, and to bridge the gaps between locations and time zones in modern business. 

Find out for yourself and get started with our 14-day free trial, or book a demo today.

When your workforce extends not just beyond your head office, but globally, using effective communication strategies like digital signage is even more crucial.

A global workforce is just that – global. And while distance makes the heart grow fonder, it also makes communication harder. Which is where digital signage comes in…

How to Communicate Effectively with a Global Workforce

If recognition occurs without an audience, does it resonate as powerfully? This question mirrors the age-old adage about the tree falling in the forest. 

Recognition is a critical component, not just in workplace satisfaction, but of individual happiness and organizational productivity. In fact, studies suggest recognition of success in the workplace can boost productivity by up to 22%, and reduce staff turnover by 31% (source). 

The partnership between Awardco and ScreenCloud is rooted in addressing this real - and often overlooked - gap: How to make recognition visible, meaningful, and accessible to your greater workforce, from the office to your deskless employees.

Studies show that recognition and fairness are one of the most important and intrinsic motivators. And having perceived organizational support, in the form of recognition, has been shown to have a positive impact on both work satisfaction and personal well-being. (study)

Putting it in simple terms: Positive feedback results in positive impact on your workforce. 

When recognition is publicly visible, it creates a positive feedback loop, motivating others to emulate the recognized behavior. As such, recognizing that what gets acknowledged gets repeated could have a huge impact on behavior across the organization.

For the frontline worker, whose daily tasks often mean they miss internal announcements, visibility is paramount. Enterprise businesses need systems that broadcast appreciation where they are, not just where managers are sitting or in siloed corners of the business.

Awardco is designed as a unified platform to ensure all employees - from corporate office staff to deskless frontline workers - are recognized and rewarded in a meaningful and accessible way. 

Whether it’s workplace milestones such as onboarding, work anniversaries or hitting specific targets, through to personal achievements such as a new family arrival; Awardco offers a comprehensive suite of recognition programs. And because it integrates with popular internal comms tools, intranet platforms - and of course digital signage - it’s an excellent way to share the good news across multiple platforms. 

Of course, the fundamental recognition processes are the same (points-based, value-driven) across the workplace. But the methods of delivery and visibility can be tailored to different work environments.

Digital signage: Your visible communication platform

More and more businesses are discovering the benefits of digital signage as a tool to surface important communications. Whether this is a simple welcome screen in the office foyer, through to digital bulletin boards, live production dashboards and business intelligence interfaces.

ScreenCloud has been at the forefront of the screens that communicate revolution, connecting businesses large and small with their distributed workforces. 

Integrating recognition for maximum impact

The integration between Awardco and Screencloud is designed to be frictionless, eliminating the administrative overhead that often kills the consistency of internal communications. 

It operates on a powerful and intuitive principle: as soon as recognition is given and points are awarded within the Awardco platform, that recognition is formatted and published to the organization's network of Screencloud-managed displays in real-time.

But it’s is not simply a matter of displaying raw text. The sophistication of the integration lies in its automation and visual presentation. Screencloud is built to study the content of an Awardco recognition post - the recipient, the program, the associated values, and any accompanying image or GIF - and automatically generate an engaging, aesthetically configured design specifically optimized for the screen.

"Our integration with ScreenCloud takes recognition to the next level. By putting shoutouts on display, it keeps appreciation front-and-center and builds a culture of connection you see throughout each day,” so says Landon Johnson, Group Product Manager at Awardco.

For business users in HR, Internal Communications, or Operations, the benefit is immediate: they gain a real-time communications channel without needing to involve graphic design, manually download and upload content, or worry about screen specifications. They focus on fostering the culture of recognition within the Awardco platform, and the physical visibility of that culture takes care of itself.

As Mark McDermott, CEO and Co-Founder of ScreenCloud, highlighted, this seamless collaboration is driven by a focus on the user experience:

"By collaborating with specialised vendors, we can offer a superior product that is deeply connected to the needs of our users. Our goal is to make it effortless for customers to amplify recognition, ensuring that every shoutout translates directly into visible, morale-boosting content, especially for the employees who need it most."

This synergy means recognition is no longer just a moment but a cultural focus, visible in high-traffic areas where it can make the greatest impact.

Tools designed to improve workplace engagement

Employee recognition has long been treated as a standalone HR tool. The Awardco and Screencloud partnership redefines it as a core layer of internal communication. It’s a strategic decision to make employee value a fundamental component of the visual landscape of the workplace.

The strategic choice for business leaders is clear: do you want recognition to be a private event that must be actively sought out, or a public celebration that is passively absorbed by every member of your workforce? 

When it comes to the end goal for most business managers, it’s to build a more engaged workforce to improve everything from performance to output. 

And better communication is how modern businesses are bridging the gap between their digital recognition efforts and the physical reality of their workplace.

Awardco integrates with ScreenCloud via our app store - included with Pro and Enterprise plans.

Find out more - try ScreenCloud for free for 14 days or book a demo today.

Find out how to use Awardco and ScreenCloud to drive workplace engagement and improve company culture - the benefits of digital signage and engagement platforms.

How Awardco + ScreenCloud Bring Recognition to the Workplace

Recognition of employee contributions is a key part of driving workplace engagement and improving company culture. Find out how to use Awardco and ScreenCloud to boost productivity and job satisfaction.

It takes on average 4.5 days for the average frontline worker to receive important information, according to a study of frontline friction by Unily and ScreenCloud. As if that wasn’t bad enough, 27% of frontline workers feel that they receive conflicting information and that this impacts their decision to do their job effectively.

These challenges go beyond mere inconvenience. Our study estimates that frontline friction cost enterprise businesses $80.6 billion per year in the US alone. 

The study, ‘Disconnected and disengaged: The economic cost of frontline friction,’ is the result of a shared mission by ScreenCloud and Unily; to help enterprises identify and improve the challenges of managing large, dispersed teams across multiple departments and geographies.  

The challenges of managing frontline workers

Whether it’s on the factory floor, working hospital shifts, or keeping the wheels turning from the supply center to an airport, frontline workers are usually the linchpin of the modern enterprise. And while tools such as email and mobile devices might have made communication quicker and easier behind the scenes, there remains a huge disconnect between senior leadership and their frontline teams.

Bulletin boards and paper notices are slow to update, easily overlooked, and unable to provide the dynamic, real-time information that today’s fast-moving businesses require. 

This reliance on outdated methods creates a number of pressing issues for business leaders and their internal comms teams.

1. The digital divide: The most significant challenge is the fundamental communication gap. While office-based employees can access company intranets, team chats, and email with ease, their frontline colleagues are often left in the dark. This creates a two-tiered workforce where a large segment of the company feels disconnected, uninformed, and undervalued.

2. Lack of a ‘Single Source of Truth’: Without a centralized, accessible platform, important information becomes fragmented. Team leaders might relay corporate messages with inconsistencies, leading to confusion and errors. This is particularly problematic for safety protocols, operational updates, and procedural changes - all of which must be universally understood to ensure efficiency and compliance.

3. The rise of "Shadow IT": As our study showed, when official tools fail to meet their needs, frontline employee communications don't grind to a halt. Instead, workers find their own solutions. Using personal messaging apps like WhatsApp or social media to coordinate work is a widespread practice, but it's fraught with risk. It creates a massive security vulnerability for sensitive company data and makes it impossible for the business to govern or track communication.

4. The employee engagement crisis: Feeling disconnected from the company’s mission and having no voice in the organization directly impacts employee morale and retention. When frontline workers don't understand the "why" behind their work or feel that their feedback is ignored, they are more likely to become disengaged and eventually leave, contributing to high turnover rates that are costly to a business.

Unily x ScreenCloud: A shared vision for the frontline

With frontline workers representing the face of the company, or being intrinsic to its operation, everyone involved wants the best result. Whether this is the frontline workers themselves or senior management and leadership - ensuring the right tools and information are available to perform is essential.

Both ScreenCloud and Unily have moved to solve the problem of communication in the workplace. And while they both solve the challenge in their own way, the partnership underscores how both tools combine to provide a formidable platform.  

Unily is a comprehensive employee experience platform, going beyond the traditional ‘intranet’. And here at ScreenCloud we know that screens have the power to change how businesses communicate, surfacing siloed content and improving visibility for legacy communication channels (we’re looking at you pin boards).

How Unily is a hub for company communications

Taking the intranet from a passive platform to a broader employee experience platform, Unily serves as a hub for modern business comms. Accessible via desktop and a mobile-first app, internal communicators can create, manage, and distribute targeted content across the workforce. 

Targeted communications: Content can be personalized based on an employee's role, location, or department, ensuring messages are always relevant.

Social features: The platform allows for two-way communication, knowledge sharing, employee idetion, and peer-to-peer recognition, fostering a sense of community.

Seamless integrations: Unily integrates with a wide range of enterprise tools (like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and Workday), allowing employees to access all their necessary resources from a single, intuitive interface.

For a frontline worker, Unily's mobile app becomes a pocket-sized intranet, providing a reliable and secure way to receive updates and connect with colleagues. However, for many frontline workers, accessing personal devices during their shift is usually off limits, meaning messages can be missed - highlighting the challenges faced by leadership teams.

Digital signage has become a ubiquitous tool across retail and hospitality, but increasingly global corporations are also seeing the value in screens for communication. Whether that’s sharing internal comms messaging across factories, logistics hubs and head office, or creating visible messaging in healthcare facilities, schools or mult-site facilities.

Passive, high-impact reach: Digital signage captures attention in high-traffic areas without requiring employees to check their phones or emails. It's a "broadcast" medium that ensures messages are seen by everyone who passes by.

Dynamic and real-time information: ScreenCloud can display everything from live data dashboards and operational KPIs to safety alerts and company news.

Ease of use: The platform simplifies content creation and remote management, making it easy for internal comms teams to deploy and update content across multiple locations from a central dashboard.

While digital signage is a useful and powerful tool in it’s own right, it’s at it’s best when connected to live data or feeds. And it’s when connecting communication or data sources, from internal comms tools such as Unily, to live dashboards, or social media feeds, where ScreenCloud can make the difference. 

The Unily x ScreenCloud partnership provides a solid solution for a diverse workforce. Unily serves as the personalized, interactive digital hub for every employee - the place for two-way communication, collaboration, and accessing personal information like pay stubs or schedules. 

Simultaneously, the content created and approved within Unily can be automatically pushed to ScreenCloud displays.

For the frontline employee who may not check their phone for company news, they can see the most recent corporate announcements, safety alerts, or a colleague's work anniversary on a screen in the breakroom. 

2. Real time data to enhance safety and productivity

The integration allows for the display of operational data and business intelligence on screens where it matters most. A business manager can use Unily to create an important announcement about a new quality control process, and that message, along with a live KPI dashboard from Power BI, can be automatically displayed on ScreenCloud monitors on the factory floor. 

This provides frontline teams with real-time, actionable insights that help them make better decisions, improve performance, and maintain safety protocols. Immediate access to information via screens helps to cut down on the 120+ hours lost per employee each year due to information-related friction.

For internal communications teams, the Unily and ScreenCloud integration is a massive time-saver. Instead of having to manage a variety of disparate systems for email, intranet, and digital signage, they can create content in a single platform. 

The integration automatically formats and pushes content from Unily to ScreenCloud, ensuring that visual assets and messages are always on-brand and optimized for the big screen. 

The partnership is a powerful tool for employee engagement. By using ScreenCloud, internal comms can visually celebrate wins, recognize top performers, and highlight team achievements. 

Content can be pulled directly from Unily's social feed, providing a seamless loop of recognition that makes every employee feel seen and valued. This is crucial for frontline employees who often feel invisible to leadership. 

The ability to see their own work, and that of their colleagues, celebrated publicly helps to reinforce a culture of appreciation and teamwork, which can directly address the dissatisfaction and turnover issues highlighted in our study.

You can read the full report by Unily and ScreenCloud here. 

If you’re ready to change how you communicate with your frontline, get started with a free trial of ScreenCloud, or book a free demo to find out more. 

Frontline workers are the linchpin of enterprise but poor communication often impacts their ability to do their job effectively, causing frontline friction.

Forging Better Frontline Communications with Unily x ScreenCloud

Whether it’s on the factory floor or keeping the wheels turning from the supply center to an airport, frontline workers are the linchpin of the modern enterprise. Tools such as email and mobile devices have made communication quicker and easier behind the scenes, but there remains a huge disconnect between senior leadership and their frontline teams.

Frontline workers are the lifeblood of enterprise businesses - the engine of your business. Yet, a new study by Unily together with ScreenCloud reveals that these essential employees are being held back by a critical communications crisis, costing enterprises billions in lost productivity and creating significant security risks.

The report, “Disconnected and disengaged: The economic cost of frontline friction,” looks at the challenges for frontline workers and the deskless workforce and how this impacts business performance. 

Produced by Unily in collaboration with ScreenCloud and market research consultancy Censuswide, the report surveyed 800 frontline workers across major North American enterprises with over 10,000 employees and more than $10 billion in revenue. The findings are a wake-up call for any organization that relies on its frontline staff to succeed.

The Staggering Cost of a Disconnected Workforce

The most startling finding of the report is the sheer financial impact of frontline friction. The study quantifies the annual cost of poor information access to employees at an astonishing $80.6 billion. This figure isn't just a number; it represents a massive strategic blind spot that is silently draining the bottom line.

The study breaks down this cost by looking at the specific time lost by a typical deskless or frontline worker each year due to digital underinvestment and a disconnected employee experience. Based on an average of 240 shifts per year, a single frontline employee could spend:

A study by ScreenCloud together with Unily looks into the challenges of frontline workers in enterprise companies and the impact in terms of cost, security and productivity.

How it works:

Workforce

Orbia Transforms Internal Communications with ScreenCloud

How Firstup and ScreenCloud are Redefining Employee Engagement

How to Communicate Effectively with a Global Workforce

How Awardco + ScreenCloud Bring Recognition to the Workplace

Forging Better Frontline Communications with Unily x ScreenCloud

Tackling the Challenges for Frontline Workers - with Unily

What is a Field-Based Employee?

Employee Engagement & the Deskless Workforce

The Neuroscience of Visual Media

Unleashing the Hidden Dashboard

The Internal Toolbox For Corporate Comms

Guide to Employee Engagement in 2020