As labor shortages intensify across healthcare, retail, logistics, hospitality, and skilled trades, HR leaders are facing growing pressure to rethink how frontline employees are managed, trained, and retained. The Josh Bersin Company has introduced a new five-tier frontline workforce taxonomy designed to help organizations build more targeted hiring, compensation, workforce analytics, and employee engagement strategies for deskless workers.
The research and advisory firm’s latest Frontline-First Initiative report argues that many enterprise HR strategies fail because organizations continue treating frontline employees as a single workforce category despite significant differences in skill levels, licensing requirements, pay structures, and career trajectories.
The new framework categorizes more than 600 frontline occupations from the O*NET database into five workforce segments: Customer-Facing Associate, Back-Office Associate, High-Skilled Specialist, Licensed Specialist, and Credentialed Professional.
The classification model is intended to provide CHROs, workforce planners, and HR technology teams with a more structured approach to talent management for frontline-heavy industries.
The timing is notable. Frontline work has become one of the most strategically important — and operationally strained — segments of the labor market. According to the report, frontline roles account for nearly 73% of total U.S. employment, representing more than 100 million workers across industries ranging from healthcare and transportation to retail and manufacturing.
Yet many enterprise HR systems still approach frontline labor through generalized workforce management frameworks originally designed for office-based employees.
That disconnect has created challenges across hiring, scheduling, retention, learning and development, and workforce planning.
The Josh Bersin Company argues that workforce segmentation is becoming increasingly necessary as organizations confront rising turnover, skilled labor shortages, and AI-driven changes to white-collar employment.
The report cites turnover rates reaching 265% for restaurant servers and 160% for fast-food workers, while healthcare systems globally face projected shortages of 10 million licensed workers by 2030.
Those labor pressures are forcing organizations to modernize frontline workforce strategies using more precise workforce intelligence and talent analytics.
For HR technology vendors, the research also reflects a broader shift in the enterprise software market. Frontline workforce management is rapidly evolving beyond scheduling and payroll into a larger ecosystem involving AI-driven workforce analytics, skills intelligence, employee experience platforms, and career mobility systems.
The five workforce categories outlined in the report each require different HR infrastructure and management models.
Customer-facing associates include retail workers, restaurant staff, and call-center employees who often experience high turnover and require rapid onboarding systems. Back-office associates include warehouse staff and operational support workers whose workflows are increasingly shaped by automation and logistics technology.
High-skilled specialists — including operational managers and technical trade workers — represent a growing talent category that many employers struggle to recruit and retain. Licensed specialists such as vocational nurses and commercial drivers face regulatory compliance requirements that affect workforce availability and compensation structures.
Credentialed professionals, meanwhile, operate within highly regulated environments requiring continuous certification management and advanced workforce planning capabilities.
The report suggests that applying identical workforce policies across these groups leads to operational inefficiencies and weaker employee engagement outcomes.
That argument aligns with broader trends emerging across HR technology platforms. Vendors including Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle, UKG, and ADP have increasingly expanded investments in workforce intelligence, frontline employee engagement tools, skills analytics, and AI-powered workforce planning systems.
The research also arrives as AI adoption reshapes workforce strategies across industries. As automation changes the nature of administrative and white-collar work, many organizations are re-evaluating frontline and skilled trade career pathways that were previously overlooked in long-term workforce planning.
The Josh Bersin Company highlighted significant wage disparities between frontline segments. Licensed skilled workers such as HVAC technicians, vocational nurses, and electricians often earn two to three times more than lower-skilled frontline workers, creating alternative career mobility opportunities that organizations may need to support through internal learning and development initiatives.
According to McKinsey & Company, labor shortages in operational and skilled trade roles are expected to remain a persistent challenge through the decade, particularly as aging workforces accelerate retirement rates in healthcare, logistics, and manufacturing sectors.
The report also identified the frontline training market as a major growth area, estimating the segment could expand from $25 billion in 2024 to $88 billion by 2032.
That projected growth is attracting attention from workforce technology providers developing AI-powered training systems, mobile learning platforms, digital coaching tools, and workforce productivity analytics specifically tailored to deskless workers.
The Josh Bersin Company said organizations should map roles against the five workforce categories, identify segments facing the highest operational risk, and tailor talent strategies accordingly.
The framework is also integrated with the company’s Galileo AI platform, allowing HR teams to model workforce strategies and operational decisions across different frontline categories.
For enterprise HR leaders, the larger implication is becoming increasingly clear: frontline workforce management is no longer simply an operational staffing issue. It is emerging as a strategic discipline that intersects with AI adoption, workforce analytics, employee experience, learning technology, and long-term business resilience.
Market Landscape
Frontline workforce technology has become one of the fastest-evolving segments in HR software as employers struggle with labor shortages, rising turnover, and operational complexity.
Enterprise HR platforms are increasingly investing in AI-driven workforce analytics, mobile-first employee engagement systems, skills intelligence platforms, and frontline learning tools. Industries such as healthcare, retail, logistics, hospitality, and manufacturing are driving demand for more specialized workforce management infrastructure.
The market is also shifting toward precision talent strategies rather than broad workforce policies. HR leaders are increasingly using workforce segmentation, predictive analytics, and AI-enabled planning tools to address different operational risks across frontline employee categories.
Top Insights
- The Josh Bersin Company introduced a five-tier frontline workforce taxonomy to help organizations improve hiring, retention, compensation, and workforce planning strategies.
- The framework separates frontline workers into distinct operational categories based on skill level, licensing, customer interaction, and workforce complexity.
- Frontline workforce management is becoming increasingly tied to AI-powered workforce analytics, employee experience platforms, and skills intelligence technologies.
- Labor shortages across healthcare, logistics, and skilled trades are pushing HR leaders to adopt more specialized workforce segmentation models.
- The frontline workforce training market could grow from $25 billion in 2024 to $88 billion by 2032 as organizations invest in upskilling and retention technologies.
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