Frontline employees form the largest employee base for organisations and yet, leadership teams struggle to get frontline productivity, attrition and engagement correct. Employee turnover poses a formidable challenge for organisations fuelled by poor management. We have all heard about Great Resignation of 2021-22 but it goes deeper than that. The impact may go beyond financial metrics affecting employee morale which in turn affects the productivity and business.

While the overall attrition rate improved to 13.75% last year compared to 17.09% in 2022, it may point to the employees choosing to hold on to existing jobs in the face of global layoffs and economic disturbances. As per HR consulting firm Omam Consulting’s Salary Projection Survey 2024, here are the top 5 reasons of attrition:
• Lack of growth opportunities
• Inadequate compensation
• Job recognition programmes
• Workplace culture and
• Poor work-life balance

Frontline workers are keen to advance in their careers but face challenges in doing so. One big problem is that employers do not always understand what frontline workers need. This means frontline employees often lack the resources and support necessary for career growth. Additionally, discussions about career advancement may overlook the perspectives of frontline employees, concentrating instead on managerial employees. All employees appreciate investments in human aspects at work. If an organisation chooses to jump to quick fixes like bumping up the compensation or perks without investigating into the real causes of attrition or strengthening the employee relations then it leads to employees sensing transactional relationship with workplace.

Frontline employees also seek clear career paths and chances to grow. They are on the hunt for positions that offer promising career paths. They crave acknowledgment and opportunities for advancement. Organisations can reward employees by not only promoting them to new positions but also by elevating them within their current roles. This approach enables leadership teams to recognize and reward employees for their outstanding performance.

Several factors contribute to organizations' ongoing struggles with frontline productivity, attrition, and engagement:

  1. Complexity of Frontline Roles: Frontline roles often involve direct interaction with customers, clients, or retailers, which can be inherently complex and demanding. Balancing efficiency with quality service is challenging. This often leads to front-line managers focusing on daily operational tasks at hand than long term career development for frontline teams.
  2. Limited Resources: Inadequate, sporadic and conventional training programs are not enough to upskill frontline teams who are on-the-go and having shift timings. These limitations can hinder productivity and job satisfaction.
  3. Communication Gaps: Effective communication between frontline workers and management is crucial for aligning goals, addressing concerns, and implementing changes. However, communication breakdowns or hierarchical barriers can impede this process.
  4. Organisational Culture: A positive workplace culture fosters engagement and reduces turnover. However, creating and maintaining such a culture, especially across diverse teams or in high-stress environments, can be difficult.
  5. Recognition and Rewards: Frontline workers often feel undervalued or underappreciated, which can lead to disengagement and higher turnover rates. Recognizing and rewarding their contributions effectively requires understanding their motivations and preferences.
  6. Work-Life Balance: Frontline roles may involve irregular hours, physical labour, or emotional demands, making it challenging for workers to maintain a healthy work-life balance. This imbalance can contribute to burnout and turnover.
  7. Employee Development: Ensuring frontline talent has opportunities for skill enhancement and career progression is vital for retaining them. When employees perceive a lack of advancement prospects and feel their growth is stalled, they may begin seeking alternative employment. To address this, companies should focus on fostering a culture of ongoing learning, skill development, and well-defined career trajectories.

Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach that involves improving processes, investing in resources, fostering open communication, nurturing a positive workplace culture, recognizing and rewarding contributions, prioritizing work-life balance, adapting to change, and supporting employee development. Microlearning and other frontline readiness platforms can be adapted as a format to engage frontline employees. It can have powerful messaging, is adaptive, ROI driven, and just-in-time.

Frontline Readiness Platforms Can Significantly Enhance Productivity And Engagement By Addressing 6 Key Areas:

  1. Training and Onboarding: These platforms can provide comprehensive training modules and onboarding processes tailored to specific frontline roles. By ensuring that workers have the knowledge and skills they need from the start, productivity can increase, and engagement can improve as employees feel more confident in their abilities.
    A Global Pharma Utilised Frontline Readiness Platform And Gamified Tournaments For Sales Executives : https://www.masteroapp.com/blog/how-a-global-pharma-company-generated-sales-momentum-using-frontline-gamification/
  2. Performance Support: Frontline readiness platforms can offer real-time guidance and support to employees as they perform their tasks. This can include access to manuals, new product launches, competitor comparisons, product videos, troubleshooting guides, and other resources directly on mobile devices, reducing the time spent searching for information and minimizing errors.
  3. Feedback and Recognition: Frontline readiness platforms can facilitate regular feedback mechanisms and recognition programs. By providing timely feedback and acknowledging achievements, these platforms can boost morale, increase motivation, and improve overall engagement levels.
  4. Performance Analytics: Analytics features within frontline readiness platforms can provide insights into individual and team performance metrics. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as adoption rates, skill gap analysis, strong and weak competencies, organizations can identify areas for improvement, recognize high-performing employees, and make data-driven decisions to optimize productivity and engagement.
  5. Adaptability and Scalability: Frontline readiness platforms should be adaptable and scalable to accommodate evolving organizational needs and changing frontline requirements. This flexibility ensures that the platform remains effective in supporting productivity and engagement as the business grows and adapts to new challenges.
  6. Enabling Frontline Managers: Frontline managers are essential in any organization without traditional office spaces. Their primary responsibility is to empower frontline workers to excel in their roles. This entails setting goals, assigning tasks, providing feedback on performance, and driving overall organizational success. However, it also involves offering both praise and constructive criticism: acknowledging accomplishments and intervening when things go awry. Yet, many frontline managers find themselves in their roles by chance. They might have been promoted due to their expertise and experience, but they lack formal training in management or employee engagement to effectively carry out their responsibilities. Designing leadership content dedicated to empowering frontline managers in their leadership can be an effective way to improve communication with frontline employees.

By prioritizing the needs of their frontline teams, employers can unlock the vast potential of a motivated talent pool, a pressing concern during periods of staff shortage and difficulties in recruiting and retaining employees. When employers enhance their support for the progression of frontline teams, they open doors for these employees to significantly enhance their quality of life and financial stability.
Frontline readiness platforms can significantly enhance productivity, engagement, and overall performance within organizations by utilizing these capabilities and functionalities.

Master-O®, a frontline sales readiness and gamification platform, has powered several sales enablement & frontline readiness programs for enterprise customers and been a key driver of sales strategies for leaders across industries. To make capability development, sales enablement & engagement more personalized,

Master-O® empowers sales managers tap into various data points and analytics for coaching & upskilling their frontline reps. This gives sales leaders and managers much-required objective perspective to reimagine their sales coaching, capability development & enablement approach and realign it with performance metrics.

To learn more about Master-O®, please visit masteroapp.com or schedule a demo to discover how Master-O® can redefine sales readiness & frontline capability development for your organization.