Over the last 26+ years of working in the frontline HR tech space, I've heard the same assumption repeated as if it were a law of nature: high turnover in the frontline is just the cost of doing business. Accept it, budget for it, and move on.

I've never believed that, which I know I’m not alone in, and this year’s State of the Frontline Worker Report data proves it.

Across the industries that lean hardest on frontline teams—hospitality, food service, retail, manufacturing, transportation and logistics and healthcare—high turnover has faded into background noise. Not a problem to solve, but a condition to manage.

But, when you dig into the data, it clearly shows that the high churn is largely correlated to the frontline not feeling valued by or connected to their employer. They're usually the last to hear important news and the least likely to be asked how things are going. The tools most companies lean on to build culture—all-hands meetings, internal email, shared channels—were built for a different kind of worker. They were never designed to reach a dispersed, deskless team.

So you end up with people who show up, do the work, and still feel disconnected from and unvalued by the organization. That then manifests itself as high turnover, and because the disconnection is structural, the high turnover starts to feel structural too.

That's the assumption we set out to test in the 2026 State of the Frontline Worker Report. We pulled together three data sets: current-state results from more than 50,000 frontline workers, a year-over-year view of how those same organizations moved, and an independent market benchmark of 2,000 US frontline workers from our partners at Lighthouse Research & Advisory. Read together, they tell a consistent story, just not the one most leaders expect.

The gap is real, and it's growing

Across every measure we can compare, the organizations using goHappy operate at a different level than the broader market. Engagement among our customers hit 72.2% in 2025 against a market benchmark of 57.0%. That's a 27% advantage.

What is even more interesting is the trend line. These organizations didn't start ahead and coast. In 2024 they sat at 63.7%. One year later, 72.2%. That's a jump of 8.5 points in a single year, while the market held roughly flat. The organizations who are investing in helping their frontline team members feel valued and connected aren’t just coasting, they are pulling away from their competition.

Turnover followed

This is where it stops being just an HR metric and becomes an important business/finance one. Across our customer base, turnover fell from 99.0% in 2024 to 89.1% in 2025. Nearly ten points in a single year.

The employers with the highest engagement did better still. The ones earning our Happiest Frontline Employees Certification, meaning 75% favorable engagement or higher, came in at 80.2% turnover, roughly ten points below the overall average.

When you factor in the cost of turnover for a frontline employee at the SHRM rate of $4,700, that 10% differential for a 1,000 person company translates into a $470,000/year bottom line improvement. Thus, the emphasis that this is a business/finance metric.

See the full picture

What I've shared here is a fraction of what's in the report: all twelve engagement dimensions, seven industry verticals, and the turnover data underneath them. Get your copy of the 2026 State of the Frontline Worker Report and see where your teams stand against the market.

Get the full picture >>

Frontline Turnover FAQ

What is frontline turnover?

Frontline turnover is the rate at which frontline employees, meaning the deskless, customer-facing, and production workers who keep an operation running, leave their jobs over a given period. It has long run high in industries like hospitality, food service, retail, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and healthcare, to the point that many leaders treat it as a fixed cost of doing business.

Why is frontline turnover so high?

Much of frontline turnover correlates with workers not feeling valued by or connected to their employer. Frontline teams are often the last to hear important news and the least likely to be asked how things are going, partly because the tools most companies rely on for culture, such as all-hands meetings, internal email, and shared channels, were designed for desk-based workers and never built to reach a dispersed, deskless team.

Is high frontline turnover inevitable?

No. When employers invest in frontline engagement, turnover moves with it. In the 2026 State of the Frontline Worker Report, engagement among goHappy customers climbed to 72.2% in 2025 against a 57.0% market benchmark from Lighthouse Research & Advisory, and turnover fell from 99.0% in 2024 to 89.1% in 2025. High turnover tends to track with workers feeling disconnected and undervalued, which means it can be changed rather than simply absorbed.

How much does frontline turnover cost?

Using SHRM's replacement cost of $4,700 per frontline employee, turnover adds up quickly. For a 1,000-person company, a 10-point reduction in turnover translates to roughly $470,000 in annual savings, which is why frontline retention is increasingly treated as a finance metric and not only an HR one.

How can employers reduce frontline turnover?

The clearest lever in the data is helping frontline workers feel valued and connected. That means reaching them where they are with communication built for deskless work, asking for their input regularly, and closing the gap between the frontline and the rest of the organization. An employee engagement and communication platform designed for the frontline makes this consistent rather than occasional, which is what moves engagement and retention over time.