The frontline manager effect: Why some teams thrive while others burn out
Why do people leave?
By the time you ask this question, it’s already too late. Exit interviews might surface useful insights, but they can’t undo the fact that employees are already walking out the door. Even stay interviews—meant to get ahead of problems—become a box-checking exercise, more about HR optics than improving the workplace.
In tough economic times, employee experience tends to take a backseat to productivity. Companies slip into old habits, reducing workforce investments and pushing people to “do more with less.” After all, employees should just be grateful to have jobs, right? People end up tolerating less-than-great environments to keep their paychecks. It’s an unfortunate cycle that keeps repeating.
The deskless perspective
This cycle plays out differently on the frontline. Turnover is a constant reality—in good times and bad—in industries like retail, food service, healthcare, and hospitality. The work is physically demanding and emotionally draining. The same company might see 30% turnover in one location and 200% in the next.
This variability highlights the fragile nature of deskless operations. Every departure damages a team’s ability to deliver value to customers. With lean labor budgets, schedules include just enough people to get through the day. A single call in sick can throw off an entire shift. A permanent departure leaves an even bigger hole, especially when it’s someone managers lean on.
Overtime costs spike. Team members burn out. Managers spend more time hiring than running the business.
The frontline can only deliver on corporate priorities when people have the capability, confidence, and motivation to perform at their best. Chronic turnover destabilizes teams, making it harder to execute consistently and manage through change. Customers feel the strain—slower service, disjointed experiences, and fading loyalty.
With jobs this tough and expectations this high, how do you convince frontline workers to stay?
Asking the right question
I’ve been chasing this problem for 25 years—first as a manager of deskless teams in movie theaters and theme parks, and now as an advisor and technologist focused on frontline performance.
Research on employee retention surfaces the same recurring themes, including growth opportunities, benefits, and recognition. They’re all important, but the corporate conversation ignores the unique realities of frontline work. For starters, people take these jobs for very different reasons. Some hope to build a career. Many just need a paycheck. When it comes to advancement, the math doesn’t work. The frontline workforce is simply too large and distributed to offer clear career paths for everyone.
The best way to understand why people do this work is to talk to the people doing the work. No matter the company, industry, or region, I always get the same answers when I ask frontline employees why they choose to stay. In fact, two factors influence frontline retention more than anything else, including pay. People stay when they like the people they work with and trust their manager.
Some organizations draw people in with a strong culture, bold mission, or deeply held values. Think about legendary companies like Disney, Chick-fil-A, Patagonia, and Wegmans. But even within these storied businesses, the corporate narrative takes a backseat to everyday reality. On the frontline, what matters most is the bond employees share with the people working right beside them.
Culture isn’t corporate
When I advise organizations on improving frontline performance, I always start by asking the same question: How many communities exist within your company?
Everyone answers differently (and gets it wrong). Most say “one,” pointing to the company mission and values. Some break it down by brands, business units, or interest groups. But no one acknowledges the truth: corporate can’t dictate community. Your organization has as many communities as you have frontline locations.
Community is shaped by the people doing the work. It comes to life every shift in the way teammates show up for one another. You can see it in your numbers. One location consistently hits its targets while another struggles with sales, customer satisfaction, and retention—despite having the same training, technology, benefits, and labor budgets. The difference isn’t the tools. The magic is in the community.
Sadly, community is often dismissed as a “soft” concept. It gets piled into the HR bucket alongside wellness initiatives and engagement surveys. Few companies treat it as a core driver of business performance, every bit as critical as standard operating procedures and marketing promotions. Too many corporate stakeholders assume frontline employees are motivated by the same quarterly goals that matter at HQ. Spoiler: they’re not.
Frontline workers understand your company priorities. Most just don’t care. Why should they? Their day-to-day lives don’t change if the stock price climbs. What matters is their ability to count on their team to help them make it successfully through the next shift—and maybe have some fun along the way.
Making space for community
Operational priorities will continue to shift, and frontline teams will be required to adapt. Consistent execution requires a reliable, capable, motivated workforce. To drive frontline performance, you must first prioritize frontline community.
This can feel like a daunting challenge, especially in a large, distributed operation with hundreds of locations. It’s much easier to send out a mandate and assign a training module. That might check the box, but it won’t unlock the full potential of your workforce.
Instead, you must put the pieces in place to foster a connected workforce—one that celebrates shared victories, collaborates to solve problems, shares actionable feedback, and holds peers accountable. The good news is you already have the key to making this happen. A community-based approach hinges on one person: the frontline manager.
Frontline managers are the most important people in your company. They are your community leaders. They set the tone each and every shift. However, most of them are struggling. They’re squeezed between corporate priorities, employee needs, and customer demands. You can’t elevate frontline performance unless you first take care of the people leading it.
Organizations must shift investments from HR programs that attempt to manufacture community to frontline managers who live it. This starts with taking a hard look at the everyday demands of their jobs. Choose managers for their capacity to build strong communities, not just their ability to execute tasks. Provide them with permission to lead, including realistic labor budgets so they aren’t forced to act like your highest-paid employees.
Equip managers with the tools needed to shape local communities. Give them the time, flexibility, and budget to craft community programs, including recognition efforts, team-building activities, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and unique local traditions. Connect them with peers across the company who are proven to be strong community builders. Hold managers accountable for people metrics like turnover, engagement, and promotion rate with the same weight as operational results.
Holding it together
A few years ago, I met a retail store manager named Fran. She was the kind of manager who put community first. Her store consistently delivered outstanding numbers, employee turnover was low, and customers felt the difference every time they walked through the door. On Fridays, Fran would bring in a crockpot of chili to feed her team. It wasn’t fancy, but it showed how much she cared. The aroma drifted from the breakroom onto the floor, and customers would often ask if there was enough to share.
But over time, the demands of the job wore Fran down. Endless task lists, shrinking labor budgets, and corporate pressure chipped away at her ability to focus on her people. The store suffered. Employees left. And eventually, so did Fran.
This is the hard truth of frontline operations: even the best managers can’t sustain community when the system works against them. The strain ultimately takes a toll. When they break, the whole team suffers. To unlock frontline performance, companies must see employees as more than headcount. They must invest in building strong, resilient communities—teams that show up for one another and, in doing so, deliver results for the business.
Your frontline doesn’t work for you. They work for one another. The sooner you acknowledge it, the more your company will benefit.
About the Author
JD Dillon started his career on the frontline – managing movie theaters and theme parks. After 25 years leading operations and L&D with dynamic organizations like Disney, AMC and Kaplan, he’s become an authority on frontline enablement and a staunch advocate for improving the employee experience. As the CLO of Axonify and Founder of LearnGeek, JD builds technology, content, and services that empower frontline workers in retail, grocery, financial services, hospitality and beyond to do their best work every day. His latest book – The Modern Learning Ecosystem – is available at jdwroteabook.com.
