State of the Frontline Worker Report 2026

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Better frontline engagement drives lower turnover. The data backs it up.

The most comprehensive study of frontline worker engagement. 52,971 survey responses. 7 industries. 12 engagement dimensions. And a 27% gap between employers who invest in their frontline teams and those who don't.

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72.2% vs. 57.0%

Intentional employers have engagement scores 27% higher than the market

99% → 89.1%

Turnover declined year over year

80.2% vs. 89.1%

Turnover rate for employers with engagement scores >75%

The central finding

The engagement gap is real.
And it's growing.

Nearly half of the frontline workforce shows up every day without a strong connection to their work, their team, or their organization. That's the market baseline. But some employers are operating at a fundamentally different level.

The market

57.0%

overall engagement (LHRA 2025)

Nearly half of frontline workers aren't strongly connected to their work. The LHRA data points to specific gaps in everyday leadership behavior.

32.6% Coaching
40.0% Appreciation
45.2% Leader communication

goHappy customers

72.2%

overall engagement +8.5pp YoY

Outpace the market across every measured dimension. Every dimension improved year over year. No declines.

77.0% Coaching +136%
77.9% Appreciation +95%
79.8% Leader communication +77%

Where the gap concentrates

goHappy 2025 LHRA market

Coaching

77.0%

32.6%

+136%

Appreciation

77.9%

40.0%

+95%

Leader communication

79.8%

45.2%

+77%

Be Authentic

76.1%

57.8%

+32%

Overall engagement

72.2%

57.0%

+27%

Drawn from 52,971 frontline survey responses (goHappy 2025) compared to LHRA's independent benchmark of 2,000 U.S. frontline workers in the same timeframe.

See how your industry compares

The business case

Higher engagement. Lower turnover. Real business impact.

Engagement sounds like an HR metric until you connect it to turnover. Then it becomes an operating cost, a productivity number, and a line item that finance cares about.Across goHappy's customer base, turnover declined meaningfully from 2024 to 2025.

Overall turnover

99.0% 89.1%

−9.9 pts year over year

Certified Happiest Frontline Employees

80.2%

turnover among certified employers

Replacing a frontline worker typically costs between one-third and one-half of their annual salary. SHRM estimates the average cost at $4,700 per departure. When fewer people leave, hiring costs drop, productivity stabilizes, and teams stop absorbing the constant disruption of vacancies.

But the cost isn't only financial. Turnover lands on the people who stay — the manager re-running an onboarding for the third time this quarter, the teammate covering an open shift, the customer noticing a less experienced face. The full report breaks turnover down by industry, by role, and by certification status, and connects specific engagement dimensions to retention outcomes.

See the full turnover analysis

Get the full report

Everything we found, in one PDF.

Unlock the complete State of the Frontline Worker Report 2026. Full data tables, industry deep dives, dimensional analysis, and practical action recommendations based on 52,971 frontline worker survey responses.

Full comparison tables across all 12 engagement dimensions
Manager vs. non-manager breakdowns by industry and dimension
Turnover analysis by segment and by industry
Five highest-leverage practices from top-performing organizations
Cross-industry comparisons showing where each sector leads and lags
Downloadable PDF of the complete 30+ page report

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The complete data

12 dimensions, three data sets, one picture.

Every dimension improved year over year. The lowest-scoring goHappy dimension (Commit at 71.1%) still exceeds the LHRA market baseline. The floor is rising, not just the ceiling.

Every dimension improved. That's a story worth paying attention to.

It's easy to fixate on the biggest numbers — the 136% coaching gap, the 95% appreciation gap. Those are real, and they matter. But the most important pattern in the 2025 data is quieter.

Every single engagement dimension improved year over year. No declines. No backslides. Not one.

That kind of consistency doesn't happen by accident. It happens when organizations treat engagement as an operational practice rather than a periodic initiative. When coaching, communication, appreciation, and transparency become part of the daily rhythm, the impact spreads across all dimensions instead of concentrating in one.

Engagement comparison: goHappy 2025 vs. 2024 vs. LHRA market

Engagement dimension	goHappy 2025	goHappy 2024	YoY	LHRA 2025	vs. market
Employee Engagement	72.2%	63.7%	+8.5pp	57.0%	+26.7%
Employee Experience	77.8%	68.5%	+9.3pp	57.0%	+36.5%
Feeling Connected	77.3%	67.7%	+9.6pp	55.7%	+38.9%
Feeling Valued	78.3%	69.2%	+9.1pp	58.3%	+34.2%
Appreciate	77.9%	68.6%	+9.4pp	40.0%	+94.9%
Be Authentic	76.1%	62.9%	+13.2pp	57.8%	+31.7%
Coach	77.0%	68.9%	+8.0pp	32.6%	+136.2%
Commit	71.1%	63.4%	+7.8pp	63.0%	+12.9%
Connect	79.8%	72.1%	+7.7pp	45.2%	+76.7%
Leader Actions	77.8%	68.5%	+9.4pp	43.9%	+77.3%
Promote	75.1%	66.0%	+9.1pp	51.0%	+47.3%
Perform	70.4%	61.8%	+8.5pp	—	—

Pattern 01

The floor is rising, not just the ceiling.

The lowest-scoring goHappy dimension (Commit at 71.1%) still exceeds the LHRA market baseline (63.0%) by a meaningful margin. There is no dimension where goHappy customers are behind the broader market.

Pattern 02

The largest gaps cluster around leader behaviors.

Coach (136%), Appreciate (95%), Connect (77%), and Leader Actions (77%). These are the daily interactions between a frontline leader and their team. The market data says they're inconsistent or absent. The goHappy data says they don't have to be.

Pattern 03

Commit moved ahead of the market — a leading signal.

In 2024, goHappy customers were level with the market on Commit (63.4% vs. 63.0%). By 2025, they'd moved ahead. Intent to stay typically shifts before turnover does. This is a leading indicator, and it's pointed in the right direction.

Engagement doesn't just make people feel better. It makes them stay.

Engagement sounds like an HR metric until you connect it to turnover. Then it becomes operating cost, productivity, and a line item finance cares about. The relationship isn't theoretical — it's visible in this data.

Turnover benchmarks by segment and industry

Segment	2025 turnover	2024 turnover	YoY change
Overall	89.1%	99.0%	−9.9pp
Happiest Frontline Certified	80.2%	85.0%	−4.8pp
Food Service	99.9%	98.8%	+1.1pp
General Services	73.7%	73.7%	Flat
Manufacturing	33.0%	37.2%	−4.2pp
Retail	102.8%	119.4%	−16.6pp
Healthcare	68.3%	—	—

The Certified pattern

Employers who earned goHappy's Happiest Frontline Employees Certification report turnover of 80.2%. The overall average is 89.1% — a 10% relative improvement that holds across years (85.0% vs. 99.0% in 2024). The organizations that invest most consistently in engagement retain the most people.

Where the real money is

Non-manager turnover dropped from 103.3% to 86.4% — a 16.9 point swing. These are the highest-volume, highest-churn roles. SHRM puts the average frontline replacement cost at $4,700; McKinsey puts it at one-third to one-half of annual salary. At scale, this changes the cost structure of the operation.

Retail tells the clearest story

Engagement jumped 13.7 points. Turnover dropped 16.6 points. The Perform dimension (clarity and expectations) improved by more than 16 points. When workers know what's expected and feel like leaders are communicating clearly, they stay. Retail went from 119.4% to 102.8% — still elevated, but a directionally significant shift at scale.

Food service shows the other side

Engagement improved by 9.1 points, but turnover barely moved (99.9% vs. 98.8%). Scheduling volatility, seasonal demand, and an applicant pool with high mobility are structural. The engagement gains are real — the retention impact may take longer to materialize, or may require additional operational changes to unlock.

And then there's the compounding effect.

Turnover and engagement compound. Lower engagement leads to more exits; more exits disrupt the workforce that remains. When that cycle breaks, both metrics improve. That's what this data is showing.

18%

Gallup

Productivity drop in business units in the bottom engagement quartile vs. the top.

7.9%

University of Chicago

Labor productivity gain when turnover-driven instability is reduced.

Turnover is a lagging metric. Commit tells you where retention is headed.

Most organizations track turnover as it happens. By the time the number moves, the people are already gone. The Commit dimension offers a different view — it captures whether employees see a future with the organization. It's a measure of intent, and intent tends to shift before behavior does.

goHappy Commit score

63.4% → 71.1%

+8.1pp ahead of LHRA market (63.0%)

That shift reflects a change in how employees view their trajectory. Not just whether they like the job today — whether they see a reason to be there next year.

The LHRA data points to what drives this: schedule flexibility, autonomy in how work gets done, and visibility into growth opportunities. Workers with flexible schedules are 2.6× more likely to plan to stay.

For leaders reading this data: if your Commit scores are improving, your turnover is likely headed in the right direction. If they're flat or declining, turnover pressure is building — even if your current retention numbers haven't changed yet.

Engagement doesn't show up the same way across every industry. Neither should your approach.

The numbers vary, but a common thread runs through all of them. The environments that show better engagement aren't necessarily easier places to work — in many cases, they're just as demanding. The difference is how employees experience that work day to day.

Industry-by-industry summary

Industry	Engagement '25	Engagement '24	YoY	Turnover '25	Turnover '24	Notable
Food Service	72.6%	63.6%	+9.1pp	99.9%	98.8%	Be Authentic largest gain
Retail	73.5%	59.8%	+13.7pp	102.8%	119.4%	Largest YoY improvement
Manufacturing	67.1%	64.5%	+2.6pp	33.0%	37.2%	Lowest engagement, turnover improving
General Services	70.2%	66.4%	+3.8pp	73.7%	73.7%	Turnover unchanged
Healthcare	72.9%	72.3%	+0.5pp	68.3%	—	Stable amid staffing pressure
Hospitality	86.3%	83.6%	+2.7pp	—	—	Highest engagement
Transportion & Warehouse	79.8%	—	—	—	—	Strong first-year scores

“Every associate, regardless of role, has a regular touchpoint with their leader every two weeks — covering both tactical work and personal growth. Employees want to feel invested in, not just reviewed once a year.”

— Manufacturing executive, LHRA 2025 research

That perspective aligns with what shows up across the data. Engagement is shaped in small, repeated interactions. A conversation. A check-in. A moment where the employee feels seen beyond the task in front of them.

The LHRA data quantifies this: there's a statistical near-certainty that employees won't feel supported by their leader if they don't first feel known as a person. Across industries, the specific challenges differ. The underlying drivers don't.

Each industry page in this report includes the full 12-dimension breakdown, leader vs. non-leader splits, and action recommendations specific to that sector. Explore yours:

Five practices that show up consistently in higher-performing organizations.

These aren't theoretical recommendations. They're patterns that emerge from the data across industries and workforce segments. The organizations that score highest on engagement and lowest on turnover aren't doing anything exotic — they're doing a small number of things more consistently than everyone else.

Build coaching into the rhythm of work, not the annual review.

The 136% gap in coaching between goHappy customers and the market isn't about having a better coaching program. It's about frequency and consistency. Coaching that happens weekly in small moments outperforms coaching that happens annually in a formal setting.
Prioritize frontline leader development.

Prioritize frontline leader development 70% of engagement variance ties directly to the leader. The four dimensions with the widest market gaps: Coach, Appreciate, Connect, and Be Authentic are all behaviors that can be taught, measured, and improved.
Be transparent. Consistently.

Be Authentic showed the strongest relationship to overall culture health. Workers at low-transparency employers are 9× more likely to call their organization's culture dysfunctional. This isn't about occasional town halls. It's about making communication predictable and credible.
Communicate proactively, not reactively.

The gap in leader communication is driven by inconsistency. When communication becomes regular and expected, it removes friction that shows up as disengagement. This sits almost entirely within a leader's direct control.
Design for the frontline reality.

Frontline workers aren't sitting at desks checking email. Schedules are variable. Access to technology is limited. Workers with flexible schedules are 2.6× more likely to plan to stay. Build engagement practices that meet workers where they are.

Translate this data into a conversation your leadership team will act on.

For many organizations, the barrier to improving frontline engagement isn't belief — it's prioritization. Engagement competes with other operational demands, and it's often framed as a longer-term investment that's hard to quantify. This data gives you something concrete to bring to that conversation.

Start with turnover cost.

SHRM estimates $4,700 per frontline departure. McKinsey puts it at a third to half of annual salary. Calculate what a 5-, 10-, or 16-point reduction in turnover means at your scale. The numbers tend to get attention.

Connect engagement to metrics leadership already tracks.

Does turnover connect to lower customer satisfaction, increased safety incidents, or service quality issues at your organization? Align the engagement conversation to business outcomes that already have executive attention.

Use the three data sets to tell a progression story.

The LHRA benchmark shows what the market looks like without sustained focus. The 2024 goHappy data reflects a starting point. The 2025 data shows what changes when practices are applied consistently. That progression moves the conversation from theory to evidence.

Track a small set of leading indicators.

You don't need a dashboard of 50 metrics. Employee engagement favorability, rolling 12-month turnover, and Commit and Promote scores as leading indicators of retention give you a clear signal directly tied to workforce stability.

Methodology

About this report.

Three data sets, collected within the same timeframe. Direct, apples-to-apples comparison between participating employers and the broader market.

52,971 participants

goHappy 2025

Primary data set. Frontline workers across goHappy's customer base, spanning seven industries. The current-state view of engagement.

46,250 participants

goHappy 2024

Baseline. Prior-year responses enabling direct year-over-year comparison across dimensions and industries.

2,000 participants

LHRA 2025 benchmark

Independent market reference. U.S. frontline workers surveyed by Lighthouse Research & Advisory in the same timeframe.

Engagement favorability reflects the percentage of respondents selecting a 4 or 5 on a five-point scale. The alignment in timing between the goHappy 2025 data and the LHRA benchmark allows for a direct comparison between participating organizations and the broader market.

The goHappy engagement model measures three layers: Employee Engagement (Perform, Commit, Promote), Employee Experience (Feeling Valued, Feeling Connected), and Leader Actions (Be Authentic, Appreciate, Connect, Coach). Together, these 12 dimensions provide a complete view of what frontline workers experience and what drives their engagement outcomes.

The app-free engagement solution that helps employers reach and engage more than 1 million frontline workers every day.

Independent HR and talent research and advisory firm.

Now you're really getting through.

Frontline engagement doesn't have to be
a foregone conclusion.

See how goHappy helps employers really get through to their frontline teams.

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Better frontline engagement drives lower turnover. The data backs it up.