First-hand Accounts From Frontline Women Reveal Their Workplace Needs Are Not Being Met

Catalyst’s new report, in partnership with Accenture, identifies systemic changes needed to create more respectful and rewarding workplaces for women.

Women in frontline roles convey needs in the workplace including physical well-being, employee-centered scheduling practices, and growth and advancement opportunities and this report shows that if companies address these needs, they are likely to see an increase in retention, productivity, and engagement. 

Direct frontline managers have a crucial role to play and need tools, training, and authority for management decision-making with empathy.

A new report from Catalyst a global nonprofit promoting gender equity and workplace inclusion – reveals that women in the United States working in frontline roles need more respectful and rewarding workplace experiences that value their life circumstances, health, well-being and talent.

The report, Women on the Front Line: Enabling Them to Thrive, Stay, and Perform, analyzed interviews with women in frontline roles and direct managers in retail; manufacturing; and hospitality, which includes accommodation and food service; to understand workplace experiences for this vital but often overlooked segment of the U.S. workforce. It uncovered an imbalance between the needs of women in these roles and the facilities, policies, and systems their employers provide.

Through interviews and a diary study, the report reveals that women in frontline roles and their managers feel:

• Frontline women’s physical needs, safety, and well-being are often unacknowledged or ignored.
• Rigid scheduling policies and practices often overlook or ignore the needs of women, who are disproportionately responsible for caregiving.
• Advancement pathways are not always clear or accessible.
• Direct managers need to be allowed to make team-level decisions guided by empathy.

Amid labor shortages and high burnout and attrition rates in the frontline workforce, companies must invest in the physical well-being of women, employee-centered scheduling practices, clear growth and advancement opportunities, and empathic frontline management to create environments that attract and retain frontline women.

The research identified four key steps companies must take to create respectful and rewarding workplaces that engage, support and retain women at the front line:

• Invest in physical well-being. Women’s bodily safety, physical needs, well-being and autonomy should be centered. Organizations must design or refresh facilities and policies to accommodate women.
• Adopt employee-centered scheduling practices. Companies must remove sources of instability, unpredictability and rigidity from scheduling systems to account for women’s lives outside work.
• Create and clarify growth opportunities. Companies must clearly communicate well-structured opportunities for growth and advancement designed to meet women’s needs.
• Enable managers to lead empathically. Company leaders should enable managers of frontline employees to create positive environments so that employees feel valued, supported and connected.

“Women in frontline roles are essential to the daily operations of many of the world’s largest companies,” said Lorraine Hariton, president and CEO of Catalyst. “They were also disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and still feel its effects. Companies have told us that attracting and retaining women in the frontline workforce is a priority. And women’s voices, well-being and contributions must be central to these efforts. Building respectful and rewarding workplaces of all kinds is at the core of this report and Catalyst’s broadened focus on women in frontline roles.”

Jill Standish, senior managing director and global retail lead at Accenture, said, “Fostering a culture of equality and diversity where everyone feels their safety is a priority, that they are seen and heard, and that they can learn and advance is not only the responsibility of every organization today, but also a powerful multiplier of innovation and growth. It is critical that organizations across retail, hospitality, and manufacturing reimagine how women in frontline roles experience their work. The good news is that a wide range of digital technologies can contribute to advancing more flexible and meaningful workplaces everything from providing employees with wellness exercises and healthy eating guidance that promote well-being to enabling remote scheduling of shifts for more desirable work patterns helping these essential women build more rewarding careers.”

This report is the first from Catalyst’s Frontline Employees Initiative, which seeks to understand the unique workplace challenges faced by women in frontline jobs and provide research and tools to shed light on their specific experiences and needs. The Frontline Employees Initiative is a new pillar of work in Catalyst’s more than 60-year history creating workplaces that work for women, driving equity at all levels. In this report, we engaged in interviews and a diary study with women whose perspectives on a range of workplace issues are often not included in workplace research directed at senior leaders.

“I would feel much happier in my position if I felt like my input was valued or my work/life balance was much more balanced,” stated a woman frontline manager in the manufacturing industry in a diary entry.