How to get employees to actually use your employee app

You can spend months choosing a platform, preparing content, connecting systems and getting everything ready for launch. Then comes the big day. You announce the app, send an email, put up posters with QR codes and perhaps even organize a company event. And then you wait for employees to download it.

Some do. Many don't. A few weeks later, you find yourself asking a familiar question: Why aren't more people using it?

The problem is often not the app itself, but the way it was introduced. We've seen companies achieve more than 90% regular monthly usage of their employee app. Not because they had a particularly clever launch campaign, but because they made onboarding a real part of the project. They involved managers, made help available and gave employees a clear reason to get started.

Here are some of the approaches we've seen work, along with a few mistakes worth avoiding.

1. Start with a reason, not an announcement

Think about an employee working in a warehouse, a production facility or out in the field. They have a job to do, may not have a company email address and probably don't spend much time in front of a computer. Their phone is likely their personal device.

Now imagine telling them: "We've launched a new employee communication platform. Please download the app and complete your registration."

From their perspective, you've just given them another task. Compare that with telling them they can now access their payslips, check their remaining vacation days or find important company information directly on their phone.

The first message explains what the company has done. The second explains what the employee gets. It's a small difference in how you communicate, but an important one when asking people to change their habits.

People generally don't want another app on their phone. They want to do something useful with less effort. For one employee, that might be checking their work schedule. For another, it might be receiving an important update without having to ask their manager. Someone else might simply want to see photos from a company event or find out what's happening in another department.

Before planning your launch, ask yourself what will make an employee glad they downloaded the app. If the only answer is that management wants to improve internal communication, you probably need to think a little harder.

2. Let managers lead by example

One of the most effective approaches we've seen comes from Automatic servis, a Slovenian company with more than 300 employees, many of whom work in the field.

When Automatic servis introduced its employee app, Moj AS, they didn't simply send installation instructions to everyone and hope for the best. They started with the people who were already connected to employees in their everyday work: management, department heads and team leaders.

These groups received practical training and were onboarded on the spot. They didn't just hear a presentation about the app. They installed it, logged in and learned how to use it themselves. Then they repeated the same process with their own teams.

This created a simple chain of adoption. Instead of one central project team trying to reach hundreds of employees, the company relied on people who already had relationships with their colleagues. The rollout became part of everyday team communication rather than another initiative coming from head office.

There's a practical reason this works. An email from HR can tell an employee that an app exists, but when their team leader takes a few minutes to show them how to install it, helps them log in and points out something useful, the experience is different. Employees can ask questions immediately, and any difficulties can be resolved before they give up.

Today, more than 90% of Automatic servis employees are active in an average month. Of course, onboarding alone doesn't explain long-term usage. Moj AS also provides useful company information, personal documents, employee stories and opportunities to participate. But the approach to the rollout helped the company reach employees who might otherwise never have installed the app.

You can read more in the Automatic servis customer story.

The lesson for other organizations is fairly straightforward. Managers don't need to become technical experts, but they should be among the first people to use the app. Give them a short practical training session, show them the features their teams will find useful and make sure they know where to get help. Then give them the time and responsibility to introduce the app to their colleagues.

3. Don't underestimate the effort of the first login

Another interesting example comes from one of our customers, a large pharmaceutical company in Slovenia. The company introduced an employee app that gives employees secure access to personal HR information and documents. Many employees work in production and don't have the same access to corporate systems as office-based colleagues.

Because the app contains sensitive personal information, employees need to prove their identity before they can access it. The company chose SI-PASS, Slovenia's national online identification and electronic signing service, which supports secure authentication using different digital identity methods.

This was an appropriate way to protect personal information, but it also introduced an onboarding challenge. While some employees were already familiar with SI-PASS, others needed help setting it up or using it for the first time. The company understood that sending instructions to thousands of employees would not be enough.

Instead, it organized physical support stands at multiple company locations. Employees could visit these stands, get assistance with SI-PASS and complete their first login to the employee app. The company also appointed internal champions who actively explained the benefits and helped colleagues get started. Middle management was involved as well, with managers encouraging their teams to onboard and explaining why the app would be useful.

What stands out about this approach is the effort the company made to bring help to employees rather than expecting employees to figure everything out themselves. This is particularly important in organizations with production workers, shift workers or people spread across many locations.

A login process that takes an experienced office worker two minutes can be a real obstacle for someone who rarely uses digital work tools. Perhaps they need to activate an identity method, have forgotten a password or simply aren't sure which option to choose. Once someone has tried and failed to log in, convincing them to try again can be difficult.

Physical support doesn't have to be complicated. A small stand near the entrance, a meeting room where colleagues can get help or a few people available around shift changes can make a real difference. The important part is that employees can complete the process while help is available, rather than being sent away with another instruction sheet.

When personal credentials or digital identities are involved, employees should always enter and control their own login details. Helping someone through the process should never require taking their password.

4. Give employees time to get started

There's another aspect of onboarding that companies sometimes overlook: employees need an opportunity to do it.

Someone working on a production line may not be able to spend 15 minutes installing an app and completing registration during their shift. Asking them to figure it out at home, in their free time, isn't always reasonable either. Even employees who are interested in the app may postpone the process simply because there's never a convenient moment.

This is something both customer examples addressed in different ways. Automatic servis used existing management and team structures to reach employees. The pharmaceutical company created opportunities for employees to get help at their workplaces.

It's worth considering this when planning your rollout. Can managers dedicate a few minutes during a team meeting to help employees get started? Can support be arranged before or after shift changes? Are there locations where employees may need more assistance than elsewhere?

Behaviour change research offers a useful way to think about this. People need a reason to do something, the ability to do it and a practical opportunity to act. A good employee app may provide the first two, but if nobody makes room for onboarding in the working day, adoption can still be slow.

5. Make the first experience useful

Imagine an employee has finally installed the app and logged in. What happens next? Do they see a welcome message from the CEO, five old news articles and a list of company policies, or can they immediately do something they care about?

Companies sometimes put so much effort into getting employees through registration that they give less attention to what happens immediately afterwards. But this first experience can influence whether someone sees the app as useful or simply another corporate tool they were asked to install.

A good onboarding session should therefore go one step further than login. Help employees find their latest payslip, check a relevant update, look up a colleague's contact details or try another feature that matters to them. The exact action will depend on what your app offers, but it should demonstrate a real benefit.

This also means your launch message needs to match what's available. If you promise access to HR information, make sure it works. If you promote the app as the place for company news, have relevant content ready. And if you want employees to participate, give them something worth responding to.

Getting someone to download the app is a good start. Helping them discover why they might want to open it again is much more valuable.

6. Find your champions, but don't turn them into salespeople

There's a reason the pharmaceutical company's use of champions is worth mentioning separately. Employees don't always take their cues from senior management. They also listen to colleagues they know and trust, especially when trying something unfamiliar.

In most organizations, there are people others naturally approach when they have a question. They might be an experienced production worker, a well-connected colleague or a shift coordinator who enjoys helping others. These people can become excellent champions because they understand their colleagues and can explain things in a way that feels natural.

A colleague saying, "I used it yesterday to check my document. Here, I'll show you," can be more convincing than a polished presentation about the benefits of digital communication.

Champions don't need a long training programme or responsibility for technical support. Give them a chance to use the app early, help them understand its main features and provide a simple way to report problems. They can also become a valuable source of feedback, telling you which instructions are confusing, what people are asking about and where onboarding tends to get stuck.

Most importantly, don't turn them into salespeople whose job is to convince everyone to download the app. Let them demonstrate what they find useful and help colleagues who need assistance. That is usually a much more natural way to build interest.

7. What not to do: Common mistakes that make adoption harder

Even a well-planned rollout can struggle if the app is difficult to access or employees are uncomfortable with what's being asked of them. Some of the biggest obstacles are created by decisions that seem perfectly reasonable from the company's perspective.

Requiring company device management on personal phones without considering trust

Many organizations want employees to use the app on their personal phones, especially when most of their workforce doesn't have company-issued devices. That can work very well, but it becomes more complicated when employees are told they must first install company device management software.

Some employees will immediately wonder whether their employer can see what's on their phone, track their location or delete personal information. These concerns are understandable. Modern device management solutions can provide strong privacy protections, and some are specifically designed to separate personal and work data, but employees may not know the difference.

The problem isn't necessarily the technology. It's the trust you're asking for. Requiring someone to give their employer a level of control over a device they bought themselves can be a difficult starting point, particularly when the purpose is simply to access company news or personal HR information.

Before making device management mandatory, consider whether it's genuinely necessary for the services you're offering. Could the required security be achieved through secure authentication and protection within the app instead? If additional controls are unavoidable, explain clearly what the company can and cannot access, and consider alternatives for employees who don't want to enroll their personal devices.

Security matters, but so does employee trust. A good solution should account for both.

Making the first login unnecessarily complicated

Every extra step in registration creates another opportunity for someone to give up. A new username, temporary password, activation email, separate authenticator and mandatory password change might all make sense individually, but together they can become frustrating.

Some security steps are necessary, particularly when sensitive personal information is involved. The goal isn't to remove important protections, but to make the process as straightforward as possible.

Test onboarding with employees who haven't been involved in the project. Ask them to install the app, complete registration and find something useful without guidance. Watch where they get stuck, especially if they don't have a company email address or aren't comfortable with digital tools. Those observations will usually tell you more than another internal review of the instructions.

Announcing the app once and expecting everyone to join

A single announcement is rarely enough, especially when you're trying to reach employees who don't regularly use existing company communication channels. If your production workers don't read corporate email, announcing a new communication app by email isn't going to reach very many of them.

Use the places and moments where employees are already present. Team meetings, shift handovers, noticeboards and conversations with managers may be more useful than another message from head office. Give people several opportunities to get started and continue offering assistance after the official launch.

Pushing employees instead of helping them

Management involvement is important, but there's a difference between encouraging people to use a useful tool and pressuring them to install something they don't understand.

If a manager keeps asking why someone hasn't downloaded the app without understanding what is stopping them, the conversation can quickly become uncomfortable. Perhaps the employee has an older phone, doesn't want to use a personal device for work or has already tried to register and failed.

Find out what the obstacle is before assuming the employee simply isn't interested. Managers should help people access the benefits, not turn adoption into another performance target.

Launching an app that has little worth coming back for

You can have a very successful onboarding campaign and still end up with poor long-term usage if employees discover there's not much in the app for them.

An app filled with occasional corporate announcements might attract attention during launch week, but it needs more than that to become part of everyday work. At Automatic servis, for example, Moj AS includes personal documents, operational information, company and team stories and ways for employees to contribute ideas. It's not just a noticeboard on a phone.

The same principle applies to any employee app. Keep information relevant, make useful services easy to access and give employees opportunities to participate. Sending more push notifications won't make an app more valuable if the content behind them isn't worth reading.

8. Treat the rollout as a process, not an event

A launch date is useful because it gives everyone something to prepare for, but it shouldn't be the finish line. The most successful rollouts we've seen involve preparation before launch, hands-on support during the rollout and continued attention afterwards.

Before launch: Prepare the people who will help

Identify the managers, local coordinators and champions who will support employees, and make sure they are onboarded first. They should be able to demonstrate the first login, explain the main benefits and know where to send colleagues if something goes wrong.

Prepare the app with useful content and services from day one. Test registration with employees using different phones and different levels of digital experience, and plan when and where support will be available. Don't forget people working different shifts or at smaller locations.

During launch: Help employees get started

Use team meetings and smaller onboarding sessions rather than relying entirely on a large launch presentation. Where necessary, arrange physical support points so employees can complete registration with someone available to help.

Pay attention to what actually happens during these sessions. How many people managed to log in? Which steps were difficult? Did they find something useful in the app? If several employees are struggling with the same problem, fix it rather than repeating the instructions.

After launch: Keep working on the gaps

Some employees will join immediately, while others may need more time or help. Look at which departments and locations are using the app and where adoption is slower. Talk to managers and champions to understand what is happening, and continue providing assistance where it's needed.

Just as importantly, keep the app useful. Publish relevant information, introduce services employees need and listen to their feedback. The first month is an opportunity to establish good habits, but those habits need to be supported long after the initial campaign is over.

The experiences of Automatic servis and the pharmaceutical company show that successful onboarding doesn't require an elaborate campaign. It requires people who are prepared to help, enough time for employees to get started and a useful experience once they're in.

Ultimately, the real success of an employee app isn't how many people download it on launch day. It's how many have a good reason to open it again next month.