Since Axonify’s last deskless survey in 2022, the challenges and complexities faced by frontline workers have shifted—yet they remain as pressing as ever. The pandemic brought crisis management and burnout to the forefront, leaving nearly half of managers feeling overwhelmed and 39% of workers considering a career change. But as we move beyond the intense turbulence of recent years, frontline employees are beginning to feel more optimistic, though persistent hurdles still block a truly sustainable future.  

This year’s report, explores the insights and perspectives of frontline teams and industry leaders across retail, hospitality, and logistics to shed light on today’s top challenges and actionable strategies for empowering deskless workers with the support and consistency they deserve.

What’s inside the report?

1. Focus on today to earn their tomorrow: What frontline employees need to feel stable, successful and satisfied on the job.
2. The unhappiness myth: Frontline employees aren’t dissatisfied at work, but they need stability and support.
3. 5 insights (and intentional changes) to improve the frontline experience:
   ‍Insight #1: Go all-in on empowering managers
   Insight #2: Prepare employees to deal with (more) customer incivility
   Insight #3: Turn communication challenges into opportunities
   Insight #4: Invest in building a frontline community  
   Insight #5: Lean on frontline tech (aka less hype, more help)
4. Final thoughts

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Some key takeaways:

1. The frontline’s biggest challenges:

Both managers and employees find difficult customer interactions to be one of their top challenges. For managers, navigating these situations while supporting their teams adds to an already demanding workload, while employees face these interactions firsthand, often without enough resources or training to handle them effectively.  

This shared challenge accentuates the need for focused support and training to help frontline teams feel prepared and confident to turn challenging encounters into positive experiences.

2. Empowering managers to lead:  

67% of managers report “making it up as they go along,”. They are dealing with the same challenges as their frontline teams—such as understaffing, demanding customers, and intense workloads—alongside the extra responsibility of guiding their team. a trend that This points to the need for better training and support to avoid burnout and build leadership skills.

It’s time to truly empower your frontline! Download the full Deskless Report 2024 and discover how to turn today’s challenges into tomorrow’s successes for your frontline team.

Download the full report!