This week, we’re talking about readiness – the ultimate measure of frontline enablement. Restaurants are struggling to execute. Workers are thinking twice about becoming managers. And organizations are starting to realize that completing training doesn’t mean people are ready to perform.

It’s time to clock in!

🍔 Strategy can change overnight. Operations cannot.

Frontline work is already hard enough.

Unrealistic labor budgets. Demanding customers. Operational fires. And that’s BEFORE corporate piles on with new campaigns, process updates, tech rollouts, and cost-cutting initiatives.

For a long time, organizations relied on frontline teams – especially location managers – to keep the business moving forward. No matter how difficult things got, they could absorb the change, fill the gap, find a workaround, and still make sure numbers got hit.

Well … that crutch is breaking.

You can see the impact in the latest business updates from two of the world’s biggest food service companies.

At Wendy’s, new CEO Bob Wright acknowledged that years of decisions focused on efficiency and cost savings hurt ingredient quality, weakened value, and contributed to uneven service and inconsistent operations.

At McDonald’s, a rapid sequence of promotions, menu changes, and new products overwhelmed restaurant teams. Service slowed. Customer satisfaction dropped.

Of course, frontline execution is only part of the challenge facing these businesses. Affordability is a real concern. Costs continue to rise. AI ROI remains TBD. But these stories expose an operational vulnerability that extends far beyond food service.

Frontline teams can only absorb so much.

Every new initiative adds complexity to an operation that’s already far more demanding than the SOP would have you believe. Eventually, managers run out of tricks. Employees decide the job isn’t worth it. Customers notice the decline in service. And the impact starts showing up on the spreadsheet.

This is a readiness problem.

Organizations must consider their teams’ ability to execute as part of every strategic decision, rather than make the call and assume they’ll figure it out. Remmeber: every decision, from every function, eventually lands in the same place: the frontline.

This requires systems that help frontline teams absorb change at the pace the business demands. It also means giving managers permission to lead – with the time, tools, and training to balance running the operation with supporting their people.

You can change the menu. Adjust pricing. Launch a campaign. Roll out new technology. Hire new executives. But none of it will deliver the intended results if the frontline isn’t ready to execute.

Strategy can change overnight. Operations cannot.

Read the Wendy’s story in The Wall Street Journal.

Read the McDonald’s story in Food Business News.

📰 HUDDLE NOTES

Who’s the boss?

Pretty soon, we may not know! More employees are questioning the decision to move into management. Maybe it’s because 77% of frontline managers don’t receive the guidance needed to handle operational issues. Fixing the leadership pipeline starts with fixing the job itself.

Why so many workers are turning down promotions | Fast Company

Readiness over completion.

Learning is never the goal. Danielle Ford, SVP of Technical Training and Development at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, reinforces this point in a recent Chief Learning Officer feature. Can the employee do the job safely, consistently, and confidently? That’s readiness. And that’s the true measure of L&D impact.

Learning Insights: Danielle Ford upholds curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge | CLO

Your frontline has the answer.

We always say frontline workers know the job better than anyone. Well, here’s more evidence! A recent Harvard Business Review article highlights how the people closest to the work can identify the everyday ridiculousness that adds friction, wastes time, and costs money. You just need listening posts that actually capture their insights and turn them into action. And no, the annual engagement survey doesn’t count!

Frontline Workers Know How to Solve Your Organization’s Biggest Problems | HBR

▶️ IN THE QUEUE

Training for the Trades: Workforce Development in Action

See a case study from The Frontline Enablement Playbook come to life directly from the people who made it happen! Diane Elkins and Jill Marshall show how a trade association moved beyond a list of training topics to identify and address the workforce challenges that actually mattered.

Watch the recording | Training Magazine Network

🗓️ ON THE SCHEDULE

Join me September 9 at 3pm ET for Next Manager Up: Rethinking Development for Frontline Leadership. Traditional leadership development doesn’t work for frontline managers. We’ll explore a more practical approach to supporting today’s managers while preparing the next person to step up. Plus, I’ll announce my next book giveaway!

Save your spot | Training Magazine Network

Great job today! I’ll see you back on the clock soon.

Be well. JD

I was 20 years old the first time I said those words. I didn’t want to have that conversation. I’d hired this person just a few months earlier. In fact, she was one of the first people I’d ever hired. But we’d had multiple coaching conversations. The message wasn’t getting through. Now I was starting to get complaints.

It was time.

That didn’t mean I was ready. But I was the manager. It was my job. So I let her go – and I was questioning myself the entire time.

This is reality for most frontline managers. Eighty-two percent of new managers are “accidental bosses,” thrown into the job without any real training. I didn’t attend a class until months after someone handed me the keys to my first gig. My boss couldn’t find time (or interest) to schedule me for training, so I figured it out on my own.

Frontline managers lead the vast majority of the workforce. They make up the bulk of the management team in industries like retail, hospitality, grocery, food service, and healthcare. Yet we routinely put them in charge without providing the support they need to feel capable and confident doing the job.

Frontline managers deserve better. Frontline workers deserve better.

It’s time to throw traditional leadership development out the window. I don’t usually advocate for getting rid of everything we do and starting over. This is a rare exception.

The everyday reality of frontline management simply doesn’t fit the typical leadership curriculum. Sure, you can schedule a Zoom session months in advance. But then the truck is late, three closers call out, and a customer demands to speak to the person in charge. Even managers who know they need help struggle to make time for development. They have numbers to hit, mandates to execute, and employees who need their attention. When something has to give, their own development is usually the first thing to go.

There’s still a place for structured programs and classes … when they’re the right solution. They just can’t be our default approach to building manager capability. Instead of trying to design the perfect leadership development program, we must reshape enablement around the reality of the job.

Here are three things you can do to build frontline manager capability and confidence from day one.

Eliminate the guesswork.

Do I make an exception to the policy for this customer?

Should I handle this employee concern myself or escalate it to HR?

What does the union agreement allow me to do in this situation?

Frontline managers make hundreds of decisions every shift. Some follow the SOP. Many fall into the gray area between documented policy and real-world practice. Experienced managers know what to do because they’ve seen it before. But what about someone who just stepped into the role? How can you help them make a confident decision instead of an educated guess?

Right-fit manager enablement starts with access to reliable information. You must go beyond the “standard” and offer managers guidance for the gray areas, edge cases, and unexpected situations that pop up every day.

Curate a knowledge base that integrates formal policies with real-world know-how. Tap into your most respected managers to capture the proven practices they’ve developed over the years.

Then make this information ridiculously easy to find. Busy managers don’t have time to hunt through SharePoint for resources they hope exist. They need answers RIGHT NOW. Apply AI to connect managers with trusted information in the moment, then tap into the collective wisdom of your team to keep this knowledge current as the workplace evolves.

This shared knowledge foundation is your manager safety net. In fact, your documentation should be so good that you could throw a polo shirt on a customer, hand them a device, and they could do a solid job running the location.

Give managers somewhere to turn for answers so they don’t have to make it up as they go.

Connect with peers.

Being a frontline manager can be a lonely experience. I was often the only manager in my location. Even when I worked on larger teams, I only saw my peers during shift handoffs and occasional meetings. Sure, I could call my boss for help when needed. But admitting you don’t know how to do your job can be uncomfortable. Even worse, some senior managers will hold this against you later.

It’s unfortunate, but it’s also true.

There were so many times I ran into an issue and thought, “Someone else has to have dealt with this before.” I just didn’t know where to turn. I share a story in The Frontline Enablement Playbook about a salon manager who calls a peer at another location 10+ times every shift. Sometimes she needs advice. Sometimes she just needs to vent.

Every manager needs someone to turn to, someone who gets it. And you’re in a great position to help managers build these connections. You don’t need to create a full mentoring program. Instead, just make it easier for managers to find their peers.

It might be a group chat. It might be a Teams channel. It might be a regular Zoom session where managers can swap stories and solve problems together. Give people options for connecting. Get their feedback. Then get out of the way.

Don’t over-structure things or make people feel like it’s yet another thing they’re expected to do. The goal isn’t to build a community for the sake of having a community. Just help every manager find two or three people they trust enough to call when the job gets extra hard.

Foster empathy.

Empathy is a manager’s most important capability. To lead a frontline team effectively, managers must understand what people are dealing with and what they need to succeed.

Unfortunately, we tend to think about empathy in one direction: managers showing empathy for their employees. But what about the managers? How can we better understand and support what they’re carrying every day?

Frontline management is the middle seat of the workplace. On one side, they’re dealing with corporate goals and priorities. On the other side, they’re faced with customer and employee needs. Managers are expected to turn HQ decisions into operational reality – and do it with as few labor hours as possible.

You must acknowledge their reality in everything you do.

Before adding another task to a manager’s list, look for something you can take off. Find ways to make the job easier. Get closer to the workflow so you can design solutions that fit how the work gets done. Make sure stakeholders understand manager reality so this perspective is baked into every decision that impacts the frontline.

We can also help frontline employees demonstrate empathy for their managers. Some of my favorite manager moments came during the toughest shifts. We’d finally get through the chaos, and someone would turn to me and say “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

We all knew I was getting paid modest bucks at best. It was their way of saying “We see what you’re carrying. And we appreciate what you do here.”

In those moments, we were more than employees and managers. We were a team working toward a common goal. Help employees see the job through their manager’s eyes. When employees understand the pressures managers face, they’re more likely to see them as people who need support, not just an extension of corporate.

A better path to manager development.

I spent the first half of my career in frontline operations. I also spent most of that time avoiding corporate functions like HR and L&D. They weren’t teams I turned to for help. Instead, they usually got in my way, added to my workload, and made an already difficult job harder.

Still, I was lucky. Over the years, I worked alongside some exceptional managers who showed me what great leadership looks like. I didn’t need to go to class because I had Cathy, Joey, Dan, Jay, and Alison.

I’m willing to bet your best managers learned the same way. They didn’t become great because they attended all the classes. They built their know-how through experience, trial and error, and relationships with people who had been there before.

Unfortunately, not every manager gets that lucky. And with the pace of change managers are expected to navigate, we can’t wait years for them to build capability through experience.

Your frontline managers need your help. They need a reliable place to go for answers. They need trusted peers to turn to when they’re stuck. And they need people to acknowledge that the job is hard and they’re doing their best.

This is the foundation of modern leadership development: support that starts on day one, fits the reality of frontline work, and grows with managers as they gain their footing.

Then, when a course, workshop, or practice session is the right solution, you’re building on a foundation that’s already equipping managers do their best every shift.

Want to provide your frontline managers with right-fit support from day one? Let’s talk →

I still love going to the movies. The smell of popcorn. The sticky floors. The shared experience. One of my favorite parts of working in theaters was slipping into an auditorium just before a big moment in the film. I’d stand in the back and watch the audience react. The laughter. The screams. The applause. It never got old.

I managed movie theaters for nearly six years. It’s where I learned how work really gets done. Eventually, the job became routine. Working nights and weekends lost its luster. I was ready to try something new … and maybe see the sun once in a while.

But that’s not why I quit.

As the manager, I was the one who handled confrontations. I threw people out of the building almost every night. I had customers arrested for everything from theft to fighting to vandalism. I even charged a 16-year-old with arson one time (true story). Eventually, it got so bad that the police walked me to my car at the end of every shift.

Eventually, the job wasn’t worth the abuse.

The cost of customer service

Frontline workers have enough to deal with already. Low pay. Limited staffing. Inexperienced managers. Physically and emotionally demanding work. Every shift brings a new challenge. I spent years managing custodial teams, so I know firsthand that shit literally happens on the frontline. Someone has to clean it up, solve the problem, and keep the business moving.

This is why I bristle every time someone refers to these roles as “unskilled jobs.” Fine – you work a clopen serving tables in a busy restaurant and tell me that gig doesn’t require an incredible amount of physical, mental, and emotional skill!

And then there’s the public.

The biggest challenge frontline workers face today isn’t bad pay or limited career opportunities. It’s asshole customers. Fifty-three percent of workers experienced verbal abuse, threats, or unruly behavior from customers in the past six months (Perceptyx). Two-thirds have considered quitting because of customer aggression, and more than four in five reported lower job satisfaction.

Think about that.

Imagine going to work every day knowing there’s a good chance a complete stranger will yell at you for something that isn’t your fault. Maybe they’ll pull out their phone and livestream the whole thing on Instagram for people to watch.

You wouldn’t accept that as part of your job. So why do we expect frontline workers to? Only 14% of frontline employees say their employer consistently follows up after a serious incident involving customer abuse.

Somewhere along the way, we accepted bad behavior as part of doing business. Today, 39% of frontline workers say it’s simply “part of the job.” I don’t buy it.

Exacerbating the problem

Most customers don’t walk into your business looking for a fight.

I don’t have research to back this up, but I do have years of experience dealing with my fair share of jerks. Only a small percentage were clearly looking for conflict, trying to get away with something, or simply convinced the rules didn’t apply to them. They’re the people who demand a refund for something they never bought, insist they’re entitled to special treatment, or set your building on fire in the middle of the afternoon (still a true story).

Most people aren’t like that.

One of the most important lessons I learned about customer service was that I wasn’t dealing with that moment. I was dealing with everything that led up to it. People were stressed out. They might have been having a bad day. Then they ran into a problem with my team. Most of it wasn’t my fault, but it was now entirely my problem.

The first step to reducing frontline abuse has nothing to do with frontline employees. We must identify the moments in your customer experience that create unnecessary friction and set your team up to fail.

Look for recurring sources of frustration, such as long waits caused by short staffing, confusing promotions, out-of-stocks, equipment failures, hidden fees, or policies that make perfect sense on paper but frustrate people in real life.

Every one of those corporate decisions lands squarely on the shoulders of the frontline workforce. The face of your brand becomes a target of customer resentment. Remember, employee experience and customer experience are inseparable. You can’t improve one without fixing the other.

Addressing the unfortunate reality

There’s no simple fix for this problem. It requires action on multiple fronts.

We need stronger laws that take abuse of all frontline workers seriously. Technology has a role to play, such as the growing use of body cameras as a deterrent. Businesses operating in high-risk environments should employ security personnel. I was fortunate to have off-duty police officers protecting my theaters.

There are also practical steps you can take today to better protect your frontline teams.

Set clear expectations. Define acceptable customer behavior and stick to it. Your employees can’t enforce standards that don’t exist or make confident decisions when you constantly waver in your enforcement. Make it clear that protecting your team (people you rely on every shift) is more important than prioritizing the customer (people you may never see again).

Empower frontline managers. People are less likely to do stupid things when the authority figure is standing right there. Reduce administrative work so managers can spend more time on the floor instead of behind a desk. Give them the authority to address abusive customers and back their decisions. Make sure they have the training, resources, and practice to intervene with confidence instead of guessing.

Staff your operation. Broken systems ignite bad behavior. Working alone makes employees more vulnerable. Proper staffing reduces friction before it becomes a problem while ensuring employees have the support they need when difficult situations pop up. It also gives people the flexibility to step away and recover after a difficult interaction without bringing the operation to a halt. Establish baseline staffing levels that prioritize employee safety alongside profitability.

Talk about it. An annual safety meeting isn’t enough. Customer abuse should be an ongoing conversation, not a surprise. Prepare employees for this reality, and make it clear that protecting them is the priority. Discuss potential challenges during huddles, especially before busy periods, so people know the company has their back before something happens, not after.

Provide realistic training. Toss the ideal scenarios where employees say the perfect things and customers walk away happy. Prepare people for the real world — bad language, emotional reactions, uncertainty. Build scenarios from real incidents your teams have experienced so employees know what to expect before they’re standing in front of an angry customer. It might scare a few people away, but that’s better than leaving them unprepared when reality shows up.

Follow up. Treat abuse like any other operational incident. Document what happened. Look for patterns. Identify repeat offenders, even if an individual incident seems minor, and take appropriate action. Most importantly, check in with the employee. Show your people that you take these moments seriously and that they won’t have to deal with them alone.

Protecting frontline workers requires a system of support that shows up before, during, and after a difficult interaction.

Caught in the middle

If you open The Frontline Enablement Playbook to the exact middle of the book, you’ll find one of my favorite stories.

It’s about a flight attendant who got into a physical altercation with a passenger at 30,000 feet on his first day on the job. I won’t spoil the ending, but here’s the final line of the story:

“In this job, you don’t get to pick the emergencies that come your way. You just have to handle them.”

This issue isn’t just the center of my book. It’s one of the defining challenges facing frontline teams today. We don’t get to choose who walks into our restaurants, healthcare facilities, hotels, retail stores, theme parks, or movie theaters. Assholes will always exist. But we do get to choose the environments we create for the people who do the work. We set the standard for acceptable behavior. We decide whether to back our employee or the customer who crossed the line.

We decide whether someone clocks in expecting to be abused or confident they’ll have the support they need if something goes wrong.

We can’t prevent every incident. But we can reduce the friction that causes them, prepare people for the reality of the job, and stand up for them when difficult moments happen. We can make this better — if we want to.

The people who show up for us every shift deserve to know we’ll show up for them when it matters most.

If you want to find better ways to protect and empower your frontline, let’s talk →

They’ve spent months pursuing this opportunity. They’ve completed round after round of interviews. They might have even relocated to take this job. They’re going to stick it out for a while, even if the role isn’t exactly what they expected.

Frontline work is different.

A lot of deskless workers quit during their first shift. Some never make it past their first break. They may have applied, interviewed, been hired, and started within a matter of hours. If the experience doesn’t feel right, there’s another opening just down the street.

Quick quits are a uniquely frontline challenge in industries like retail, food service, hospitality, contact centers, and logistics. With turnover rates at 70+ percent, businesses are trapped in a constant cycle of recruiting, hiring, and training. Managers spend more time filling staffing gaps than running the operation. Experienced employees carry the extra burden, which exacerbates burnout and disengagement. Customer service suffers. Productivity stalls. The operation never has the chance to build forward momentum.

Frontline retention isn’t a 30-60-90 day concept. It starts on day one.

What brings someone back tomorrow?

Fixing the quick quit problem starts with understanding why people take the job in the first place.

A small percentage of frontline employees are looking to build a long term career with your company. Most are there because they need a paycheck. They need predictable hours to support themselves and their families. They still want to do good work. But future opportunities won’t keep them clocking in (at least not right away).

Whenever I visit a frontline workplace, I ask employees why they choose to stay. Their answers are always the same:

“I like the people.”

“My manager takes care of me.”

“I feel like I belong here.”

Everyone deserves a living wage. At the same time, many frontline employees are willing to leave a little money on the table to work with people they trust and a manager who has their back. If you want people to come back tomorrow, you must give them a reason to believe they’ve found a place worth coming back to.

Make the first shift count.

Your ability to retain frontline workers ultimately rests with your local teams, especially the managers who hire, coach, and support your employees. But you can set them up for success by structuring your onboarding and enablement strategy to help new hires integrate into the workplace community more quickly.

Here's a shortlist of tactics that are helping organizations reduce quick quits, even in demanding environments like manufacturing and healthcare.

Set clear expectations before day one.
Be upfront about the job, pay, and schedule during hiring. Many quick quits happen because the reality of the role doesn’t match what people were sold. Clarity builds trust before an employee ever starts.

Prioritize connection over content.
Don’t bury new hires in paperwork and online training. Get the required stuff done as quickly as possible, then spend the rest of the first day introducing them to the people they’ll work with. When they go home, you want them thinking about the awesome people they met, not the compliance training.

Meet the manager ASAP.
Require every manager to sit down with new employees as early as possible on the first day. This is the person they’ll rely on, so the relationship should begin with an intentional conversation, not a passing introduction. Make it easy by scheduling the meeting as part of the onboarding process, ensuring managers have dedicated time blocked on their calendars.

Assign a buddy.
Give every new hire an accountability partner who can answer questions, offer encouragement, and help them navigate the workplace. It’s much easier to get to know new people when someone is showing them how things work, making introductions, and sharing the things they won’t find in the SOP.

Manufacture early wins.
Front load simple tasks that allow new employees to experience success quickly. Every accomplishment, no matter how small, builds confidence and reduces the anxiety that comes with starting a new job. End the first day with people thinking, “I can do this,” instead of feeling overwhelmed by everything they still have to learn.

Protect the newbies.
New Disney Cast Members wear an “Earning My Ears” ribbon on their name tags. It acts like an informal force field, encouraging guests and coworkers to give them a little extra patience as they learn the job. Find your own way to protect new employees from being thrown into the deep end too quickly, even when your operation is short staffed or under pressure. Building confidence on day one is far more valuable than squeezing a little more productivity out of the team.

Provide a reliable go-to.
Give new employees a place to find information and get answers without relying on people they don’t trust yet. Whether it’s a knowledge base, job aid, or AI assistant, help should always be easy to find. The easier it is to get answers, the more confident people become that they'll get the support they need.

What story will they tell?

Every new employee talks about their first day at the new job when they go home. It might be with a spouse. A parent. A roommate.

What do you hope they say?

“I watched training videos all day.”

“I can tell you when the company was founded and who started it.”

“I clicked next to continue so many times!”

Or …

“I met some really cool people.”

“I think I made the right decision.”

“I’m excited for my next shift.”

Organizations often define a successful first day by how many tasks a person completed. New employees define it by how the day made them feel. Long after they’ve forgotten the compliance modules and onboarding forms, they’ll remember the people who welcomed them, the manager who made time for them, and the feeling that they found a place worth coming back to.

Need help solving your quick quit problem? Let’s build a better first shift together →

These words are a GIANT RED FLAG in frontline operations. Variability creates risk. Risk leads to injuries, quality issues, higher costs, and lost productivity. So companies work relentlessly to standardize the work. Every task is documented. Every process is defined. Every step is audited. Consistency is key in industries like manufacturing, transportation, logistics, construction, and healthcare. Follow the process, and the outcome will be the same – regardless of who is doing the job.

But then something strange happens.

A veteran employee retires. An experienced supervisor leaves. A senior technician moves on. Suddenly, cracks begin to appear in the operation. The SOPs are still firmly in place. The training hasn’t changed. Yet problems take longer to solve, mistakes become more common, and performance suffers.

In reality, the job is more than the process. Experienced employees know how to spot problems early, adapt when conditions change, and make smart decisions when the situation doesn’t match the playbook. They aren't taking shortcuts. They're applying years of experience in situations where the SOP isn't enough.

Companies can provide weeks of training. They can require every employee to complete an online course called “Adapting to Changing Conditions”. That doesn’t mean people will have the confidence or skill to handle difficult situations in real life. Those capabilities are built through countless reps dealing with the exceptions, surprises, and edge cases.

It turns out “this is how we really do it here” really is how we do it here.

An aging, frustrated, essential workforce

The situation is rapidly evolving from a talent management issue into a full-blown operational crisis.

For years, organizations have focused on finding enough qualified people to fill open positions. Now, a growing number of industries are confronting a more dire challenge: losing the know-how that keeps their operations running.

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. workers are age 55 or older, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Research from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute projects that manufacturers may need to fill 3.8 million jobs by 2033, with nearly half of those positions at risk of going unfilled. Meanwhile, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing estimates that roughly 1.6 million registered nurses (40% of the workforce) could exit by the end of the decade.

This isn’t just a staffing problem. It’s a capability cliff.

The threat extends beyond retirements. Burnout, frustration, and relentless pressure have pushed many experienced leaders out of frontline operations. During the pandemic, countless managers decided the job was no longer worth the stress and walked away. As a result, many organizations are trying to “do more with less” while relying on leadership teams with far less experience than they had just a few years ago.

Every experienced employee leaves with a piece of the operation. Much of their tacit knowledge is never captured. It existed only in application. The HOWs that drove outcomes never became part of the organization.

Truth be told, we created this situation. Companies optimized themselves into a corner. They streamlined work, reduced headcount, and pushed people to spend every available minute executing. On the frontline, there’s always another shift to cover, another order to fill, another problem to solve. Little time is left to capture expertise, share lessons learned, or preserve knowledge for the next generation.

Now the bill is coming due. Organizations aren’t just losing employees – they’re hemorrhaging skill.

Elevating frontline expertise

You can’t train your way out of this mess.

No onboarding program or certification course can compress twenty years of lived experience into a few weeks of instruction. Sure, you can teach the process. But expertise is built through practice, and practice takes time. That’s just how people work.

Many stakeholders struggle with this reality because training remains the default response to almost every performance challenge, regardless of the root cause. If people are struggling, create a course. If someone gets hurt, schedule a refresher. If a process changes, make the entire staff “click next to continue” so we know they know about it.

You don’t need more content. You need a way to scale expertise – to identify, capture, and share the knowledge that drives performance so every employee can benefit. This requires rethinking how expertise moves through the organization and creating the time, space, and systems needed to turn individual know-how into organizational capability.

Find expertise. The first step to scaling know-how is recognizing it. Stop relying on job titles, tenure, or performance metrics as proxies for expertise. Look for the people others turn to when problems pop up. Ask employees a simple question: Who makes your job easier? Those are the people whose experience, judgment, and practical know-how can have the greatest impact across the organization.

Recognize expertise. Don’t make this about the company. Knowledge is personal and hard-earned. Many employees tie their value to what they know, so don’t expect them to give it away for nothing. Once you’ve identified your experts, elevate them. It could be as simple as a visible designation, such as a pin or different color uniform to signal expertise. It could also be more significant, like a pay bump or advancement opportunities. The organization benefits from their expertise. They should too.

Scale expertise. People already share knowledge on the job, but conversations on the line or in the break room don’t scale. Create systems that help expertise spread beyond isolated exchanges. For example, I once designated experts in our knowledge base with special profile badges so employees could quickly find help on specific topics. Remember: the goal isn’t to make everyone an expert. It’s to give people practical ways to benefit from expertise when they need it.

You can’t close the retirement gap with a one-time project. Organizations must make knowledge sharing an everyday priority, just like any other essential task. That’s how you keep pace with the business while ensuring expertise doesn’t disappear.

AI: the expertise multiplier

Frontline know-how is difficult to spot. Employees are spread across shifts, teams, and locations. Many of the people keeping your operation running every day are outside your field of view. Even when you identify your experts, getting their knowledge into other people’s hands can be slow, expensive, and difficult to sustain.

This is where AI can help turn the tide.

AI is already helping organizations better understand how their businesses operate by uncovering patterns hidden within mountains of data. The same capability can be applied to human know-how. By analyzing performance data, communication patterns, and collaboration networks, AI can reveal who people turn to for help, what your best teams have in common, and where valuable expertise exists across the organization. This technology can uncover the know-how buried deep within your operation before it fades.

You can also leverage AI-enabled technology to capture and scale capability. Many experts struggle to explain exactly what makes them successful because much of their expertise has become instinctive. Traditionally, uncovering these insights required hours of interviews and observation. By analyzing a range of inputs, AI can identify the behaviors and patterns that separate top performers. These insights can then be applied automatically to improve processes and generate support resources.

Want to see how organizations are using AI to identify, capture, and scale frontline know-how? Contact me at jddillon.com. I have some really cool solutions to share.

This is an example of next-level AI potential – making large, unwieldy businesses feel more manageable.

Hidden in plain sight

Aging is predictable. HR has mountains of workforce data. We should have seen this problem coming years ago. Unfortunately, short-term priorities pushed the retirement issue further and further down the list.

Now we’re late to the party.

The good news is that we have a renewed opportunity to act. We have better technology. We have a clearer understanding of how know-how drives performance. Most importantly, we’re finally recognizing that this isn’t an HR problem, a training problem, or a talent problem. This is a business priority.

The organizations that will thrive moving forward won’t simply replace retiring headcount. They’ll elevate the people doing the work, recognize expertise as a strategic asset, and scale the hard-earned know-how that drives performance every shift.

For years, “this is how we really do it here” sounded like a red flag. It was actually an unlock.

I can help you solve your company’s retirement problem before decades of frontline know-how walks out the door. Learn more about my Frontline Enablement Services →

I hear this question all the time from L&D and HR teams. And it’s a fair one.

Deskless workers spend their shifts serving customers, stocking shelves, caring for patients, building buildings, and responding to unexpected challenges. Every minute away from the job carries a cost that extends beyond labor spend. Plus, they tend to have limited device access, making them even more difficult to reach with information.

Corporate training was not designed for this reality.

For years, we’ve searched for ways to make training fit the frontline. We shorten content. We make it available on mobile devices. We search for new channels, new technologies, and new ways to reach people in the moments they have available.

But what if time is just a symptom of a much deeper problem?

You Don’t Have a Training Problem

Too many organizations view frontline enablement as a distraction. Training means lost productivity, coverage challenges, and additional labor costs. As a result, we’re constantly searching for a few minutes between customers, patients, deliveries, and service calls to help people improve.

I understand this mindset … because I used to think this way too.

When I was an operations manager, L&D wasn’t a team I turned to for help. They were the people who scheduled my employees for classes I didn’t know about and pulled them away from an operation that was already short-staffed. L&D made my difficult days even more difficult.

Training didn’t help me hit my goals. It was just another demand competing for my attention.

Organizations make time and spend money on activities that deliver clear value. Nobody questions safety inspections because they understand the risks of injury and fines. Nobody questions maintenance because they understand the cost of equipment failure. Nobody questions inventory audits because they understand the financial consequences of poor execution.

The connection between the activity and the outcome is obvious. L&D rarely comes with the same clarity.

For decades, we’ve conditioned people to think of development as classes, courses, workshops, and programs. We’ve taught them to associate learning with time away from work rather than improved performance at work. So when business pressures increase, development is one of the first things pushed aside.

Employees often carry a similar perspective. Most frontline workers aren’t asking for more training. They’re looking for ways to do their jobs better, solve problems faster, stay safe, reduce frustration, and create opportunities for themselves. If they can clearly see how your solution helps them achieve those goals, they’ll engage. If they can’t, they’ll tune out just like management.

Rebuilding enablement to fit into the flow of work is critical because organizations aren’t going to redesign their operations to accommodate L&D. But making tools, resources, and support more accessible doesn’t automatically create engagement. People still need a reason to offer their time and attention.

Building an Enablement Culture

I recently had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of frontline enablement professionals at ATD26, the world’s largest talent development conference. I can only cover so much ground during an hour session, so I invited attendees to submit questions digitally. I then answered every question in a virtual Q&A video on my LearnGeek YouTube channel.

Most of the questions were tactical. People asked about device access, time constraints, training engagement, leadership buy-in, and reinforcement methods. But rather than focusing on tools, formats, or delivery methods, I kept coming back to the core challenge: how do we foster a culture where frontline enablement is valued, prioritized, and embedded as part of the job?

Right-fit tactics still matter, but they only work when supported by a culture that values development, reinforces expectations, and holds people accountable for performance.

Here are a few ideas I explore in the Q&A.

Put deposits in the bank. Don’t expect people to give you time. Earn it. Find small but meaningful problems that make work easier, reduce frustration, improve performance, or help managers hit their goals. Solve one problem. Then solve another. Over time, people stop viewing L&D as the group that adds work and start viewing you as a partner that helps them succeed.

Foster accountability on the job. Too often, we measure participation instead of performance. We focus on who completed the training and have no idea if people apply what they learned on the job. One of the most powerful and overlooked forms of reinforcement is peer accountability. Equip trainers and experienced employees to support coworkers, reinforce standards, and correct poor habits. When people hold one another accountable for doing the job right, enablement becomes a shared responsibility rather than an L&D initiative.

Make reinforcement part of the operation. Managers are already burned out. We often make it worse by asking them to support L&D projects. Instead, give them simple ways to reinforce performance on the job. When I managed theme parks, I was required to ask team members one reinforcement question every shift. It took less than a minute, but it helped identify knowledge gaps, spark coaching conversations, and build confidence that employees were ready to handle challenges in the moments that matter.

Elevating frontline enablement doesn’t require new technology, a bigger budget, or the perfect training program. It starts with helping people see the connection between the value we provide and the outcomes they care about most.

A Better Way Forward

It’s easy to get wrapped up in familiar frontline challenges: limited time, low engagement, lack of buy-in, and restricted access. We’ve been having many of the same conversations for years. And it’s frustrating when you invest months building programs that employees don’t complete, managers don’t reinforce, and stakeholders don’t prioritize.

If we want people to see the value of frontline enablement, we need to embrace a new perspective first.

Your frontline team doesn’t need the perfect solution. They need the right solution. They need help solving problems, reducing frustration, building confidence, and making their day a little easier. When you consistently deliver that kind of value, people stop viewing enablement as another request competing for their attention and start seeing it as a resource that helps them succeed.

Over time, you stop being the person who delivers training and become a trusted partner in delivering results. You don't need to ask for a seat at the table because you’re shaping the conversation.

And when that happens, you’ll be surprised how often people start coming to you for help — and how much easier it becomes to find the time.

Not CEOs. Not heads of IT. Not strategy teams sitting in conference rooms at HQs building decks about the “future of work.” What happens if your VP of Marketing doesn’t show up tomorrow? Probably nothing. A few meetings get pushed, but most employees won’t even notice.

Now consider what happens if a store manager doesn’t clock in. Or a shift supervisor. Or a line lead. The doors don’t open. The shift falls apart. Employees and customers feel the impact immediately. And the business loses money.

That’s the difference.

Nearly 80% of the global workforce is on the frontline in industries like retail, manufacturing, healthcare, food service, construction, grocery, hospitality, and transportation. The vast majority of people experience leadership through frontline managers, not corporate executives. For roughly 2.7 billion people, a frontline manager – the person who hires them, trains them, schedules them, coaches them, pays them, answers their questions, and actually knows their name – is the company.

And yet somehow, managers have become one of the easiest groups to dismiss – especially of late.

The New AI Narrative: Managers Are Replaceable

There’s a growing chorus of “thought leaders” claiming AI will eliminate managers. The argument usually sounds something like:

AI can handle repetitive tasks like scheduling, monitor productivity, summarize conversations, track performance, and automate communication. Therefore, managers will soon be unnecessary.

Brian Chesky recently boosted the conversation by expressing doubt that people managers “will have any value in the future.” He went argued that leadership styles centered around recurring one-on-ones “are not going to survive.”

Honestly, this perspective makes a lot of sense – if your worldview is shaped primarily by software companies, desked work, and corporate offices buried in hierarchy. In those environments, excessive management can absolutely gum up the works with superfluous administration (complex approval processes, excessive status updates, back-to-back meetings, etc.).

But most of the working world isn’t a software company.

This is yet another example of the frontline being left out of the future-of-work conversation. Frontline managers don’t exist in vast numbers to add complexity. Their job is to navigate constant operational pressure with limited time, limited resources, and limited margin for error. Every shift, they’re dealing with staffing shortages, customer issues, safety concerns, interpersonal conflicts, operational disruptions, and unpredictable situations while still being expected to hit the targets handed down from HQ.

That’s a very different kind of people management, and it deserves a very different conversation when it comes to organizational value and the role technology should play in enabling it.

A Misguided Perspective

You might read these comments and assume they’re talking about corporate managers, not frontline teams.

Unfortunately, I’ve had the same conversation multiple times over the past year with people making similar claims about managers in restaurants, retail stores, hotels, and other frontline operations. They posit small operations teams can monitor locations remotely using AI, cameras, and real-time data. Therefore, organizations no longer need managers on-shift at all times.

I always offer the same response:

What happens when a rogue customer sets the building on fire and you don’t have a manager on-site to take control of the situation, protect employees, calm customers, coordinate emergency response, and make real-time decisions under pressure?

Because that actually happened to me as a frontline manager!

That’s the part of management these conversations ignore. The role is about far more than tracking tasks, hitting numbers, or making sure operational boxes get checked. The job requires sound judgement, fast decisions, constant problem solving, and lots of empathy. And when sh*t does hit the metaphorical fan, the company needs someone ready to take control.

It’s hard to fully understand and respect what frontline managers do every day if you’ve never lived the reality of the job yourself.

The Real Manager Problem

The truth is most companies haven’t allowed frontline managers to lead people in a long time. Instead, they’ve overloaded managers with administration, buried them in reporting, turned them into communication middlepeople, drowned them in compliance requirements, and forced them to react rather than lead.

Now, we’re trying to define their value based on this distorted version of the role.

Of course, AI can replace a lot of this work. It should. But that doesn’t mean the role inherently lacks value. It means we designed the job wrong. According to McKinsey, only 11% of companies shape manager roles to prioritize coaching and team development. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that 82% of managers step into leadership roles without formal training. Many frontline operations already rely on “working managers” built directly into labor models, meaning they spend most of their shift working alongside their teams while trying to squeeze coaching, development, and management responsibilities into whatever time remains.

Think about how absurd that is.

We promote people into the most operationally critical leadership roles in the business, provide almost no preparation, slash labor hours, overload them with administrative work, and then publicly debate whether they’re still necessary. Of course, there are managers who aren’t good at the job and shouldn’t be in the role. But in far too many cases, frontline managers struggle because the system sets them up to fail.

This is our real manager problem.

AI Should Elevate, Not Replace

To be clear, AI absolutely should change frontline management.

Staff scheduling should be automated so employees know when they’re working weeks in advance based on business needs. Managers shouldn’t have to spend their days approving shift swaps, fixing payroll errors, or digging through dashboards. And employees should be able to quickly find answers to common questions without always needing to ask their managers.

The goal shouldn’t be to replace managers. It should be to remove administrative burden so managers can spend more time running their businesses, serving their customers, and leading their teams.

The best frontline managers — the people running your highest-performing locations with the lowest turnover and strongest CSAT scores — do things AI can’t replicate. They build trust. They understand context. They notice when someone is struggling or lacking confidence. They know that letting an employee leave a few minutes early for their kid’s soccer game can foster goodwill that benefits the team long after that shift ends. And they make sound judgment calls when the environment gets messy, emotional, and confusing.

This work matters.

Scott Galloway showed he gets it when he said:

Every generation of executives has a fever dream of flattening the organization. The version from the 1980s was called Reengineering. But the truth is, management is the connective tissue in any organization. A lot of companies are about to discover that institutional memory was not inefficiency, it was the f*cking company.

Leadership is more than information transfer, especially on the frontline.

Managers Deserve Better

Stop insulting frontline managers! Instead of looking for ways to replace them to protect the bottom line, start looking for ways to elevate the role to grow your business.

Leverage technology to remove friction rather than adding noise. Automate low-value admin tasks so managers can spend more time coaching team members, developing your talent bench, and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Remember: we’re talking about the group that leads 80% of the global workforce. This isn’t a side conversation. This is the future of work.

We have the tools to craft a workplace operating system that gives frontline managers the time, capacity, and permission to lead. But first, we have to fix the job.

APSH dictated my professional life during the first six years of my management career. It drove staff scheduling decisions. It represented half of my bonus. And if we missed it, I got a phone call from senior management.

Most frontline operations rely on some version of this metric to drive their labor models. Retailers forecast based on sales targets. Restaurants focus on transactions. Movie theaters rely on attendance. The formula might shift a bit by industry, but the logic remains the same: hours are allotted based on revenue opportunity to strictly control costs.

Frontline businesses have worked this way for years. But today, this approach to labor management is failing to meet the moment. In many workplaces, revenue-based staffing is undermining both the customer (CX) and employee (EX) experiences.

And operations are starting to buckle under the pressure.

The problem with revenue-based staffing.

Labor is usually the largest controllable expense in frontline operations. Therefore, management needs a predictable way to allocate resources across locations with fluctuating demand. Revenue-based metrics offer a simple, scalable mechanism for managing costs and maintaining consistency.

However, this mindset is based on a version of frontline work that no longer exists.

Over the past few years, organizations have fundamentally reshaped how work gets done. Omnichannel operations along with increased automation and self-service blurred the lines between physical and digital workflows. Pandemic-enduced disruptions forced organizations to operate with fewer people, creating a new baseline of “acceptable understaffing.” Ongoing pressure to “do more with less” has pushed many organizations to optimize labor for efficiency rather than effectiveness.

The result is a growing mismatch between how staffing is planned and how work actually happens on the ground.

Customers may have tolerated skeleton crews in 2020/2021, but their patience has worn thin. Long lines, inconsistent service, and repeated system breakdowns are pushing customers to reconsider where they spend their time and money. Expectations have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, operating models remain stuck in crisis mode.

Frontline employees feel this tension first, long before it hits the bottom line. They’re expected to deliver exceptional experiences while navigating shorthanded shifts, expanded responsibilities, rising prices, and systems that fail to reflect the true complexity of their work. Frustrated customers are the visible symptom, but the underlying issue is structural: staffing models that underestimate workload and over-optimize for cost.

When labor allocation fails to account for how work has evolved, both EX and CX suffer. Teams operate in constant catch-up mode, development and coaching vanish from the to-do list, and organizations lose the very consistency and performance they were trying to protect.

The cracks are showing.

Understaffed teams struggle to execute the basics. Shelf availability slips. Lines grow. Cleanliness declines. Safety falls off. Service becomes transactional rather than transformational. Customers notice, but employees feel it. Burnout increases. Turnover follows. Managers struggle to fill staffing gaps. Executives respond by tightening controls even more, reinforcing efficiency targets rather than digging into the root of the problem.

And the cycle continues …

Some organizations are starting to acknowledge the consequences of running too lean for too long. Target and Starbucks both included new staffing models as part of their turnaround plans. Redirecting investment toward frontline operations reflects a recognition that capacity, not just efficiency, drives customer loyalty and financial performance. An increasing number of companies are also boosting labor investment to free managers from coverage duties so they can focus on leading teams, developing employees, and running the business effectively.

Still, many organizations act only after performance indicators deteriorate, whether through customer dissatisfaction, revenue pressure, or operational instability driven by turnover. Forward-looking organizations have an opportunity to move beyond reactive fixes and proactively redesign how labor supports both execution and experience.

Shifting to a modern labor model.

You don’t need to abandon financial discipline to fix this problem. Meaningful CX and EX improvements don’t require a blank check. Rather, organizations must rethink how they define workload and shift labor decisions to reflect the modern realities of frontline work.

Today’s deskless roles extend far beyond basic customer service and operational tasks. Employees are no longer just stocking shelves or ringing up purchases. They manage local fulfillment operations, handle multi-channel returns, engage with online customers, navigate high-pressure and safety-critical situations, and maintain standards while bringing your brand promise to life. These roles drive short-term performance while building long-term value. Labor models must reflect this reality.

A modern staffing approach balances corporate oversight with local context. Rather than relying on stock formulas and narrow ratios, organizations must incorporate multiple inputs into labor planning. This includes:

• Workload complexity alongside transaction volume

• Channel mix across physical and digital environments

• Customer experience indicators such as wait times, service recovery needs, and execution quality

• Employee capability levels, onboarding demands, and development needs

• Local operating realities and frontline management insight

This approach shifts staffing from a rigid, unforgiving target to a data-informed set of guardrails. Corporate defines the strategy, expectations, and accountability. Location and shift management applies their judgment based on real-time conditions while maintaining business goals as their north star.

Modern labor models must also acknowledge the importance of staff development as part of the operational workload. Hours must be budgeted for building capability, not just executing tasks. Time allocated for training, upskilling, and coaching strengthens internal talent pipelines, improves retention, and reduces long-term staffing risks.

Challenging the convention.

I never pushed back on APSH. I didn’t question how our target often conflicted with other critical measures like concession sales or guest satisfaction. It was simply the way we ran the business. Thankfully, my targets weren’t as tight as those facing today’s frontline managers. A single call-out could throw an entire shift off balance, but there was usually enough flexibility to figure it out.

Labor models shape more than the weekly schedule. They influence culture and signal what an organization truly values. They tell employees and customers where priorities sit. Too often, they communicate that cost control outweighs the human experience.

When labor is viewed solely as a cost to minimize, organizations limit their own potential. When labor is treated as a strategic asset, staffing becomes a lever that can elevate the customer experience, boost employee capability, and drive sustainable growth.

Revenue-based staffing models were built for a more predictable era. Today’s workplace demands context, agility, and a broader understanding of how complex work gets done. While frontline employees and customers may not sit in the boardroom, their voices shape business outcomes. They make their opinions known through everyday performance and spending decisions. The organizations that win in this next phase will be those that listen early, rethink convention, and design labor models that support people as much as performance.

These organizations will effectively balance short-term operational targets with long-term growth by acknowledging that every decision made via spreadsheet ultimately shapes what happens on the floor, at the counter, and in every customer interaction.

Thank you for everything you do. Let me know how I can help. Be well. JD

Sure, the C-suite sets the direction. Stakeholders make the decisions. But the frontline turns your strategy into everyday action. They own the relationship with your customers. They pick up the slack when things break, when staffing is short, and when the unexpected happens.

Frontline employees make up 80% of the working world. Yet they’re barely part of the conversation. We experience the frontline every day in the places we shop, eat, stay, and seek care. We may see the work, but how often do we make the effort to understand the person behind the uniform and what it takes to do their job well?

Yesterday, I released The Frontline Enablement Playbook — the first practical guide for equipping deskless teams to execute with clarity, confidence, and impact. It pulls together everything I’ve learned over 20+ years supporting the frontline across roles, functions, and industries. Across 650 pages, you’ll find hundreds of field-tested practices, dozens of case studies, and 35 real-world stories that reflect what it takes to do this work.

It’s an important book — possibly the most important book about workplace performance in the past 20 years. But a book has limits.

A book captures a moment in time. The themes and practices endure, but the workplace will keep changing. There’s a lot more to say about frontline enablement than even a book this size can cover.

So I’m starting DESKLESS.

Subscribe now

It’s a newsletter about how work gets done right on the frontline. This is for the people who rely on frontline teams to drive outcomes — Ops, HR, L&D, Comms.

We'll explore the connection between business results and human experience in today’s workplace. We'll dig into how organizations set their frontline teams up for success, where the gaps between strategy and execution emerge, and what the best operators do differently. We'll draw on timely themes and stories from frontline workplaces across industries like hospitality, healthcare, retail, logistics, manufacturing, grocery, and more.

When you help the frontline do their best work, the business reaps the reward. When people have clarity, tools, and support, they show up with confidence, consistency, and pride every day. Every shift is another chance to get it right, make small improvements that add up, and help someone feel connected to the bigger picture.

On the frontline every shift counts.