Table of Contents
- Why Is Career Advancement for Frontline Workers Crucial for Business Growth?
- Recommendation
- Take-Aways
- Summary
- Post-pandemic remote work policies left frontline workers behind. Reconsider your policies.
- 1. Look beyond outdated job skills and remove the “paper ceiling.”
- 2. Compensate frontline workers equally with their white-collar counterparts.
- 3. Provide internal “bite-size” training and management.
- 4. Give frontline workers opportunities to advance.
- About the Authors
Why Is Career Advancement for Frontline Workers Crucial for Business Growth?
Discover how empowering frontline workers with equitable pay, targeted training, and clear advancement paths improves employee retention and business growth.
Read the full article to explore practical strategies for upskilling your frontline workforce, removing outdated hiring barriers, and creating a thriving company culture.
The trend to underinvest in the front line continues, but rethinking the frontline talent lifecycle can help build a competitive advantage.
Recommendation
Frontline workers are vital to their companies, but organizations often fail to treat them as having the same status as their white-collar colleagues. McKinsey’s Kelli Moles and Michael Park explain why companies need to invest in frontline workers, compensate them fairly, train them, empower them to fulfill customer service needs, and offer them a route to management. Explaining that frontline employees are becoming increasingly important to a company’s survival, the authors call on companies to recognize their customer-facing employees’ worth and treat them accordingly.
Take-Aways
Post-pandemic remote work policies left frontline workers behind. Reconsider your policies.
- Look beyond outdated job skills and remove the “paper ceiling.”
- Compensate frontline workers equally with their white-collar counterparts.
- Provide internal “bite-size” training and management.
- Give frontline workers the opportunity to advance.
Summary
Post-pandemic remote work policies left frontline workers behind. Reconsider your policies.
Frontline workers make up 80% of the workforce, and companies must invest in them to remain competitive. Organizations should consider the following policy areas when evaluating the role and the future of their frontline employees:
1. Look beyond outdated job skills and remove the “paper ceiling.”
Many frontline workers remain mired in tasks that are becoming obsolete and that companies no longer regard as useful.
“Cultivating a strong culture for talent must involve deeper participation of the entire organization, including its core value creators — frontline workers.”
When hiring, companies should weigh what individual candidates offer based on their learning experiences, training certificates, and parallel job skills — not just their current role. For example, a company seeking to fill positions that required finesse and a focus on details hired former manicurists and sushi chefs.
2. Compensate frontline workers equally with their white-collar counterparts.
Give your frontline workers remuneration commensurate with their peers, including those who hold office jobs. Consider including frontline personnel and office staff in employee well-being and compensation packages and in incentive programs, such as offering stock participation instead of cash bonuses.
3. Provide internal “bite-size” training and management.
Small training modules can enable employees to grow in their roles and take a more active approach to their jobs and careers. Teach current staff members new skills to help them become more effective and to enable them to advance within your organization. Consider skill-building areas such as cake decorating for bakers or knife-skill classes for butchers.
A retail warehouse helped its frontline employees reach their career development objectives by delivering small learning packages via handheld electronics. This enabled the employees to practice what they had just learned in real time and in the real world.
4. Give frontline workers opportunities to advance.
Employees are less likely to leave your company, and job candidates are more likely to join it, if they believe they can advance to more important, better-paying roles. Advertising that new employees have a pipeline to management roles will entice new applicants.
Create “formalized career paths,” job rotations that help frontline workers grow in their careers and give them advancement-oriented experiences. For example, one retail corporation offered a fast-track program for those with college degrees to become store managers within a year of their graduation.
Businesses with talent-centric cultures thrive. Reach out to your frontline employees to discover and nurture their hidden gifts, for their benefit and the benefit of your business.
About the Authors
Kelli Moles is a partner at McKinsey & Company with 10 years of experience in management consulting and investment banking. Michael Park is a Senior Partner in McKinsey & Company’s People & Organizational Performance Practice.