The correlation between employee satisfaction and customer experience is well-established. The happier your people are, the more committed and motivated they will be to go the extra mile for your customers.

Leading businesses are implementing initiatives to improve employee satisfaction including:

• Flexible working options
• Training and opportunities for progression
• Additional benefits like healthcare packages and hospitality discounts
• Increasing workplace connectivity

The final item might be surprising. But in today’s digital age, there’s no getting away from the fact that employees need suitable connectivity options. Whether they need it for their job role or for personal reasons, it's now a necessity.

Providing suitable connectivity in an office-based workplace is fairly straightforward. But businesses in the transport sector, particularly railway, must look at more innovative options. Implementing WiFi connectivity will improve your employee experiences – here's why.

An increase in productivity

Thanks to the improved mobility afforded by business technology advancements, your people can work anytime, anywhere. They can access all their work-related apps on their mobiles, which will increase their productivity. An EIU study found productivity increased by 16% when employees connected mobile devices to the staff WiFi.

Historically, it has been difficult to contact staff who primarily work on your fleet of trains. Not anymore. With collaboration applications available on mobile devices, you can reach them much easier. They can also change their status to do not disturb to reflect when they’re busy. Your conductor doesn’t want to receive a call when they’re inspecting tickets, after all.

Feeling more connected

As a railway provider, you have a high number of frontline, customer-facing staff. This is the group of employees most at risk of feeling disconnected from your company and culture. In fact, a Workplace study found that 17% of frontline workers never communicate with head office. The study also showed 54% of those workers feel disconnected from their business. That’s why it's important to help them stay connected with their office colleagues.

The Workplace study found that, when frontline workers are equipped with collaboration platforms, they communicate more with head office. 17% drops to 8%, making those workers feel more connected with the business.

Another way to keep your people connected is via your company intranet. If they can use your train's WiFi to check in on your company news, they'll always be up-to-date. Not knowing what your organisation is up to is a leading cause of disengagement.

Feeling trusted = satisfaction

One downside to advances in business technology is the license it gives some organisations to spy on their people. Even if your business doesn't do this, employees might worry that you do.

Fostering a culture of trust will put your people at ease. By letting them know you won't be snooping on them or disciplining them for looking at their phone, they'll be much happier. Everybody needs a break at work and sometimes, the best way to relax is to look at cat memes on the internet.

But people also use their mobile phones to manage many aspects of their life these days. When an employee is looking at their phone, they might be booking an urgent GP appointment, responding to a message from their child's school or something else important.

The happiness of your workforce directly correlates with your customer satisfaction. This is especially important in the railway sector, which is struggling to keep passengers happy. In today's modern world, internet connectivity is embedded in every area of our lives. We carry out personal tasks online, use social media to stay in touch, and even relax by surfing the web. That's why improving your business' connectivity will make your workforce and, in turn, your customers, happier.