Frontline employees – essential workers not working behind a desk – are a vital part of the economy, making up an estimated 70% of the total U.S. workforce. They are also a key ingredient in their companies’ success, often representing the public face of the business to customers, as well as creating the goods we buy and performing the services we need. However, many companies struggle to retain talented frontline staff, with 50% of U.S. frontline employees reporting they have considered quitting and leaving their industry entirely. As employers know, this leads to more time and money spent on recruiting and essential training.
How can employers encourage their frontline workers to stay and grow within the company? What are frontline employees’ career aspirations, and how do they want their employers to support them? To find out, we collaborated with market research consultancy Researchscape to survey 1,626 full time frontline workers in the U.S.. Get all our insights and key findings from the survey, as well as actionable tips for using Kahoot! to support frontline employees, by downloading the Kahoot! 2023 Workplace Culture Report.
Career advancement is key for nearly all frontline employees
While higher turnover rates among frontline staff may lead some employers to assume these workers are only interested in short-term employment, most frontline personnel do in fact report wanting to stay in frontline careers. However, career development is a must. More than 9 in 10 frontline workers surveyed said they want to advance in their careers, either through upskilling within their current role or new roles, including manager-level positions and above.
Frontline workers are motivated to learn and develop their skills
With strong ambitions for long-term career advancement, frontline employees show that they’re committed to developing their skills and knowledge as an essential step to achieving their goals. Among survey respondents, 93% said they feel motivated to continue learning and developing their skills. However, many frontline employees are calling for more support for learning from their employer, including for key skills like using AI, and some workers say their company isn’t investing adequately in frontline professional development.
Better training and career development = increased worker retention
Improving retention rates is a key workforce priority for many businesses. When workers stay at their company longer, they become more skilled and knowledgeable, while saving the company from having to start over with new employees.
Frontline staff training and support for their career development can be a game-changer in this goal, according to respondents. Nearly two-thirds said they would stay at their company at least six years longer with enhanced support for learning and growth, and 44% said they would stay at least a decade longer.
Empower frontline employees to level up their skills and knowledge with Kahoot!
Today around half of our customers use Kahoot 360 to engage their frontline workers. When I talk to customers it is clear that whilst a live experience is perfect for weekly or biweekly team “huddles,” the only way to reach frontline workers more frequently than that is via self-paced experiences.
That’s why we’re excited to launch Kahoot! 360 Engage, our latest offering which includes an employee app which gives frontline employees – as well as trainers – 24/7 access to engaging self-paced learning and development. And what’s more, it also includes internal communication functionality, designed specifically to help employers reach their frontline workers wherever they are. As the findings of our 2023 Workplace Culture Report demonstrate, this will help increase employee retention by enabling both live and self-paced learning and communication experiences, anytime, anywhere. With our Kahoot! 360 solutions, companies of all sizes can support frontline professional development, creating engaging opportunities for upskilling, reskilling, and beyond.
For example, customers can:
- Combine training, communication and team building in regular team huddles
- Gather input and ideas from employees with our brainstorming or polling your team members with Kahoot! to see what workers most want to learn
- Transform your training into engaging learning journeys with Kahoot! courses. Now, you can also turn dry PDFs into our interactive content format “story” in seconds!
- Connect deskless employees and encourage more peer-to-peer learning. All frontline workers using the Engage platform can collaborate within the employee app, find the learning content they need to develop their skills and even engage their colleagues by initiating presentations or self-paced learning experiences .
Kahoot! 360 is used to engage millions of frontline workers around the world in learning and developing their skills. With Kahoot!, businesses can create a culture of continuous learning among all their employees, showing workers that their organization is a place where they can grow.
Learn more about how Kahoot! can help you unlock your frontline employees’ potential by contacting us today at business@kahoot.com.
