Building a Successful Employee Mobile App: A Comprehensive Guide

Not all mobile apps are intended for mass consumption on the app store. Mobile apps can be used as powerful tools in the workplace as well. Small businesses and large enterprises alike can benefit from an employee mobile app.

An internal communications app is a great way to improve any inefficiencies in your HR department while simultaneously future-proofing your operation. 

Common tasks that can be solved with an internal business app include:

• Corporate communication
• Management self-service
• Employee self-service

An app can improve the way information is sent to your employees, which is a major HR challenge for businesses. Mobile apps can also give your managers access to crucial information, such as company financials, while they’re on the go.

The employee self-service functionality gives your staff access to everything they would have from a company computer while they are working remotely. 

These are three broad types of tasks that can be solved with an employee mobile app for your business. As we continue through this guide, I’ll cover some more specific features that make these apps successful.

So for those you of you who are thinking about creating an app for your employees, use this resource to guide you through the process. 

Benefits of a Business App For Employees

An employee mobile app is not something you should create just for the sake of doing it. If you don’t understand the benefits of an internal business app, then it doesn’t have a chance of being successful.

You should keep these benefits in mind when you’re designing the app. This will ensure that all of the app features are implemented with a clear purpose. 

Increase Productivity and Engagement

Mobile apps can improve HR efficiencies, making it easier for your employees to complete basic tasks. Rather than having to visit the HR office or calling the HR department over the phone, your staff can access and make changes to their personal profiles directly from the app.

If someone wants to request vacation time or needs to call out sick, they won’t need to make a call or use their computer. All of this can be managed in an app.

Traditional Method	App-Based Method
Visit HR office or call	Access via mobile app
Request vacation via email or paper	Request vacation directly in app
Manual profile updates	Update profiles in app

Your staff is already using their mobile devices on the job. 

In fact, 60% of employees say they use apps for work-related tasks. An additional 71% of people spend at least two hours per week accessing company information from their phones and tablets. 

By giving them an employee mobile app, you’re making it easier for your staff to do the things that they’re already doing from these devices.

As a result, this will improve employee productivity and engagement on a day-to-day basis. 

Overall, this will improve the employee experience. According to the infographic above, happier employees are more creative, more productive, and generate more sales.

Once you recognize that your employees prefer to use their mobile devices for workflow-related tasks, you can build an app to improve those processes. 

Reduce Human Error

Mistakes happen. This is just part of running a business. While some mistakes are obviously more significant than others, you’ll obviously want to reduce faulty actions as much as possible.

Your business is more susceptible to making internal mistakes if the majority of your processes are handled manually by your staff. Here’s what I mean.

Let’s use your human resources department as an example, as it pertains to your employees.

What is your current process for staff requesting time off? Some company policies require staff to email the HR department. Others even accept hand-written requests dropped off at the office. 

These types of procedures leave too much room for human error. An email can be overlooked, misunderstood, or accidentally deleted. Paper requests are tough to keep track of and can easily get lost.

But an app can eliminate these types of mistakes. Your staff can request time off and add their vacation schedules directly from the app. This information will automatically sync up with your HR system. 

Instant Feedback

How often do you get to sit down with your employees and review how they’re doing? What’s your process for listening to employee feedback?

Your staff is the driving force behind your operation. They are on the front lines, so they know what’s working and what can be improved. If they have a suggestion to improve the process, it shouldn’t have to wait until their annual review meeting. 

Set up a function within the app specifically designed for employee feedback. The possibilities here are endless.

It can even be used for requests to fix a broken microwave in the break room or an oversized pothole in the parking lot. You can send out surveys to your employees on a regular basis to encourage their feedback as well. 

Overall, this will keep your employees happy knowing that you actually care about their input. 

Improve Employee Communication

Effective employee communication is the key to success in the digital workplace. 80% of employees say that proper communication actually helps improve the performance of their work. 

60% of people want their employers to keep them informed with company news.

However, roughly 30% of the entire workforce believes that their company’s existing methods for internal communication is not working. That’s a major problem for businesses today.

Here are some of the most common reasons why internal communication is failing.

Furthermore, 86% of business executives and employees say that ineffective communication is the number one reason for workplace failures. 

The majority of businesses use email to communicate with their staff. But the average office worker receives 120 to 150 emails per day. Sorting through those to find the vital internal announcements is ineffective. This relates back to employee productivity, which we discussed earlier.

But an app can provide the main hub for all important announcements. You can use an in-app news feed as a way to reach employees. Important notices can be sent to your staff via push notifications, so everyone will see it immediately. 

Real-Time Information

Another top benefit of an employee mobile app is access to real-time information. This is a major flaw in the workflow process for many businesses, especially ones with deskless employees.

Let’s say you have an employee who is on the road completing a job remotely. When the task is complete, they can update their progress directly in the app as opposed to waiting until they return to the office. This can drastically improve your scheduling procedures and workflow statuses. 

Here’s another example, from a completely different angle, to show you how versatile these apps can be. 

Your company might have a shuttle bus that takes your employees to a parking lot, public transportation, or central location in a nearby city. Your staff can access the shuttle sch

Statement	Portrayed Company Culture
Free beer in the break room! Help yourself.	Casual and relaxed
There will be complimentary beverages and snacks for all faculty at 1:00 PM today	Formal and structured

Each of these portrays a different type of company culture. Which one do you want to be? The choice is yours, but an app gives you the chance to emulate your vision. 

Don’t Forget About Your Deskless Workforce

80% of the global workforce is considered to be deskless. While this group makes up the vast percentage of employees, just 1% of enterprise software funding goes towards them.

Workforce Type	Percentage of Global Workforce	Enterprise Software Funding
Deskless Workforce	80%	1%

So when you’re designing an employee app, you need to keep your deskless employees in mind. These are people who work remotely, work on the road, on-site, or bounce around between multiple locations.

You can’t treat them the same way as your in-house staff who you see every single day from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday to Friday.

Depending on the type of business you have, it could be days or even weeks before your remote workforce needs to report to an office. 

Recently, BuildFire helped build a mobile app for Preferred Materials. The company has nearly 1,900 employees, but only 20% of them are office-based. By creating an app to target their deskless workforce, they were able to increase employee engagement by 300%.

You can check out the full Prefered Materials case study here. 

Set Up Instant Messaging

Communication has been a major theme throughout this guide. It’s one of the main benefits of building a successful employee mobile app.

But most of the communication that we’ve discussed so far has been between management and the staff. Human resources or the CEO sending out updates, memos, or other types of information. However, you’re not just limited to those examples.

You can set up instant messaging within your employee mobile app. This will allow your staff to communicate with each other, from anywhere, in real-time. 

Many companies might have some type of instant messaging software that they use for this. But in order to access it, your staff needs to be logged in to their computer. 

By adding this feature to your mobile app, it extends that communication outside of the office and doesn’t chain your staff to a desk. 

People are used to texting and sending quick messages from their smartphones all day as it is. So this will be easy for them to adapt to. They may even prefer it over email or phone calls.

It’s another great way for your remote staff to feel like they are still connected to the office when they are on the road. If they have a question, need some assistance, or want to provide an update, your employees can simply send an instant message within the app. 

Test the Usability

Building a successful employee mobile app goes far and beyond just adding the right features. You also need to make sure that the app is user-friendly. 

If your app doesn’t load quickly, crashes often, and can’t perform basic functions, then people aren’t going to use it. This is not a situation that you want to be in.

A mobile solution is supposed to improve your efficiencies, not make things more difficult. If your staff tries to use the app for something but is unable to do so, then they are forced to revert back to their old ways.

This essentially makes your process even less efficient than it was before. Here are some statistics to keep in mind when you’re testing the usability of your app. 

So don’t rush to get your app in the hands of your staff until it’s been thoroughly tested. Maybe release a beta version to a select few members of your team to get their feedback before you launch at scale. 

Maintain High Performance

Your employee app won’t be perfect. Don’t worry; no app is perfect. 

Even the best apps out there have room for improvement. While it’s important to test the usability before launching it, understand that the process doesn’t end there. 

You’ll still need to come out with updates to ensure that the app is always performing at a high level. Since this is something that your staff will be using on a daily basis, you can’t cut corners when it comes to performance. 

Take feedback seriously. If your employees are experiencing problems or difficulty using the app, encourage them to share that information with you so you can make the necessary adjustments. 

Conclusion

Nearly any company can benefit from an employee mobile app. But before you start this project, it’s important to understand exactly what makes these apps so successful.

Don’t just build an app for the sake of doing it. There needs to be a reason and purpose behind your decisions, like building an app to streamline the employee onboarding experience. 

Every business is different, but there are certain common features that every employee app should include. So use this guide as a reference for building your app. 

Once you’ve decided that you’re ready to move forward, you need to figure out exactly how you’re going to build it. Here at BuildFire, we have the tools you need to build a workforce app.