Field notes › Choosing software
Why workers won't install your app (and don't need to)
Every workforce software vendor has a beautiful mobile app, and every labour hire firm that has rolled one out knows the punchline: a chunk of the crew never installs it. Not because they are being difficult. Because the ask is bigger than it looks from the office.
The install wall is real
Look at it from the worker's side. They might work for two or three agencies at once, each with its own app. Their phone might be old, short on storage, or running a version of the operating system the app no longer supports. They might not remember their app store password, and resetting it from a camp room with patchy reception is nobody's idea of onboarding. Casual work also cuts both ways: someone who might get a handful of shifts this quarter is being asked to give a permanent slot on their phone to an employer who has made no permanent commitment to them.
Some of the crew will install it on day one. The rest become an enrolment project your office runs forever, and every worker outside the system is still a phone call for every shift, every availability change and every certificate. You end up paying for a portal and running the manual process anyway, which is the worst of both.
Apps age worse than websites
A native app is software your workers have to keep updated, on hardware you do not control. Old phones stop getting operating system updates, the app eventually drops support for them, and a worker who could see their roster last swing suddenly cannot. A web portal has none of those moving parts. If the phone has a browser, it works, and the version is always current because there is nothing on the phone to update. For a workforce whose phones range from this year's model to a cracked hand-me-down, that difference decides who is actually reachable. It also decides how much of your office's week disappears into being tech support. Every "the app won't open" call lands on your coordinators, and a native app generates far more of them than a link ever will.
What workers need is smaller than an app
Strip away the app store listing and what a worker needs from the system is a short list: see my shifts, set my availability, put my hand up for open shifts, and photograph a certificate before it expires. None of that needs push notifications or a home screen icon. It needs a link that opens fast on whatever phone is in their pocket. That is what the Mustr worker portal is: availability, own shifts, open shifts and certificate upload in the browser, on any phone, with no app to install and nothing to maintain.
Adoption is the whole ballgame
The value of workforce software depends on how many workers actually use it, because every non-user still generates calls, texts and chasing. A slightly slicker app used by part of the crew loses to a plain web portal used by nearly all of it, every single time. So when you compare products, do not ask which portal looks best in the screenshots. Ask which one the worker with a cracked screen and a forgotten app store password will actually use this week, from a mine site, on one bar of reception.
Low friction does not have to mean low security, either. Mustr's portal is invite-only with no public signup and 2FA on every login, so the door that opens easily for your crew stays shut to everyone else.
If you want to see how fast a worker can get from a text message to their roster, book a demo.