New research: Empower managers to unlock the value of your frontline workforce

It has never been more challenging for organisations to realise the full potential of their frontline workforces — people who work from floor to field in industries like retail, healthcare, and manufacturing.  

These “deskless” workers make up more than 80% of the global working population, and companies employing them are facing what we at Dayforce call a “complexity crisis.” This includes an explosion of different types of work and workers, ongoing labour shortages, a mismatch between available skills and evolving roles, and an ever-changing compliance landscape.  

Dayforce recently conducted a study of more than 6,900 frontline workers, managers, and executives to explore how people at all levels of an organisation experience the pain of this crisis. In our new report, Conquering the frontline manager complexity crisis, we reveal that managers’ and frontline workers’ perspectives are closely aligned when it comes to vital issues like rostering, pay, and culture and connection. Executives, on the other hand, are disconnected from this frontline reality and consistently more likely to believe their workers are appropriately rostered, paid, and appreciated.  

Read the full report 

This poses both a challenge and an opportunity for organisations, as frontline workforce performance is often driven by managers. When executives can’t clearly see the challenges they face, managers are stuck in a balancing act where they’re managing up and down at the same time.  

“The employee-manager relationship is essential for fostering employee retention, motivation, and productivity, making this alignment between managers and workers more than just interesting data. It’s the key to unlocking the power of today’s frontline workforce,” says Justine Janssen, Chief Strategy Officer at Dayforce.  

Our report identifies five key areas where this perception gap exists and where organisations have the greatest potential to unlock frontline worker value through the right investments and supports for managers. Two of the top areas were rostering and pay, and the results tell a compelling story about how organisations can move forward.   

Rostering can make or break retention 

If companies think rostering is a big issue for deskless workers and managers, they’re wrong. It’s a HUGE issue, with roughly nine in 10 frontline employees and managers saying they’d consider leaving their current job for one with a better roster. On top of that, 70% of people from each group said they had rostering issues at their current employer. These results suggest that significant worker-manager turnover can be traced at least in part to rostering.  

Roughly nine in 10 [frontline] employees and managers say they'd consider leaving their current job for one with a better roster.

But executives don’t seem that concerned. In the study, they were much more likely than managers to say their companies had the right people rostered at the right time, and much less likely to worry about how staffing shortages might impact the customer experience. Executives will need to see past this gap and empower managers if they want to move the needle on key business outcomes like worker retention and customer loyalty.  

Organisations need to rethink pay 

Companies like IKEA and Walmart have made recent news by prioritising compensation as a key way to improve performance and reduce turnover. But in our latest study, many executives didn’t see any issue with the way their workers were being paid. Eighty-three percent of executives surveyed said employees in their organisation were paid fairly for the work they do — 21% higher than managers and 19% higher than workers.

“The employee-manager relationship is essential for fostering employee retention, motivation, and productivity, making this alignment between managers and workers more than just interesting data. It’s the key to unlocking the power of today’s frontline workforce.” — Justine Janssen, Chief Strategy Officer at Dayforce    

What’s more, when we asked executives whether financial stress prevents employees from doing their best work, half of those surveyed also agreed. There seems to be a disconnect here, as executives know financial stress is harming productivity, but simultaneously feel their workers are paid fairly. This isn’t to say that more money is the only way for executives to address financial stress among workers and managers. In a previous Dayforce research study, 82% of workers said they would be less likely to look for a new job if their current employer began offering more financial wellness tools, including on-demand pay, which gives employees the option to get paid after every shift they work.  

Our new frontline research findings show that workers are interested in on-demand pay, but that managers value it even more. And the benefits to organisations go beyond making their people happy. If they had the opportunity to be paid after each shift, managers said it would motivate them to pick up additional shifts (51%), encourage them to refer potential employees (40%), and increase their motivation to work harder (40%). These results suggest that employers might need to rethink compensation from the more holistic perspective of financial wellness to find powerful new ways of boosting productivity and performance. 

Learn more 

There are many more compelling insights to be found in the full research report. As we’ve seen in a growing number of news stories, the complexity crisis currently facing companies with large deskless workforces has major implications for over 80% of the world’s workers, but it’s also something we all feel on the consumer side. People want better service and workers want to feel secure, appreciated, and connected in their workplace. These are the things organisations can achieve if they conquer the current complexity crisis, and the positive results will be felt everywhere.  

Read the full report here