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Breakdowns in communication don’t just lower employee engagement—they erode morale and accelerate turnover. New research from Staffbase reveals that 58% of employees who are considering leaving their jobs cite poor internal communication as a contributing factor. For frontline workers, the problem is even more acute: Only 10% of non-desk employees report being very satisfied with the quality of internal communication they receive.
Alaska Air Group faced this exact challenge across its 30,000-person workforce spanning pilots, flight attendants, ground crews and corporate staff. Their solution offers a compelling blueprint for HR executives grappling with similar communication gaps in distributed organizations.
Custom engagement for a distributed workforce
Before implementing its new communication strategy, Alaska Airlines struggled with what David Henrich, senior manager of communications operations, describes as a “one-size-fits-all” approach that wasn’t “customized to different workgroups.” The airline relied on a fragmented mix of emails, bulletin boards and legacy intranet systems.
David Henrich, Alaska Airlines
Though Henrich himself had originally built this engagement ecosystem, he felt it left frontline employees—the majority of Alaska Airlines’ workforce—consistently underinformed.
“We had created a news app, but it was hard to maintain,” Henrich explains. Past COVID-related disruptions and subsequent growth periods only intensified these challenges, creating
