Boston, Stockholm, London - April 28, 2022 — Quinyx, a leading AI-powered workforce management provider, released its highly-anticipated annual State of the Deskless Workforce report 2022. This benchmark survey helps employers understand the needs and wants of their hourly employees—also referred to as frontline workers or deskless workers. The survey, conducted in March 2022, polled over 9,300 frontline workers in North America, Western Europe, and the Nordics. The report explains frontline workers’ views on what their job represents to them, and the results show that their priorities and perspectives have dramatically shifted over the past year.
“If you are part of the 90% of global organizations relying on frontline workers to keep your doors open, caring about your employees is vital; but so is taking action to retain them, influence their wellbeing, and care about their career progression,” said Erik Fjellborg, Founder and CEO of Quinyx. “Around the world, people working hourly jobs are exhausted, feel undervalued, and fed up with the way things have been for too long”. Sectors like retail, hospitality, healthcare, and logistics are experiencing an unprecedented volume of resignations and equal difficulties attracting new employees to fill the gaps.” He continues, “We need to make frontline workers feel valued and empowered. Organizations need to pivot towards a digitally enabled frontline, providing them with the tools to be more engaged and in control of their work lives. Staff who are well informed, trained, engaged, and rewarded will translate to higher employee retention, more efficient business operations, and a more productive workforce.”This year’s report highlights three significant themes organizations should act on:
The Big Shift:
From the poll, a total of 48% of frontline workers considered quitting in the last year and an additional 70% of them are confident they will find another job quickly—a 20% increase from 2021. This shift in mindset has played a significant part in the labor shortage and made hiring more challenging for employers. In addition, employers need their hourly staff more than their employees believe they need the organization.
Facing Inflexibility and not feeling heard:
While office workers have enjoyed newfound flexibility over the past year, many deskless workers have not, with 33% saying they have no control over their schedule. Scheduling changes are also an issue; 25% of respondents felt like asking for a schedule change would be negatively perceived. Another 22% said they felt like their employers would penalize them for not picking up someone else’s shift, while 62% felt uncomfortable speaking to their managers about the impact of their work schedule on their health, and 62% worried that telling a manager how scheduling issues impact their life would cause them to be penalized.
Working uncomfortable and understaffed shifts:
Frontline workers are the heroes who went to work to feed, transport and protect the rest of us during the pandemic while continuing to wrestle with a supply chain crisis today. Despite this, almost 38% reported uncomfortable working conditions resulting from the labor shortage; out of these, 65% said that the understaffing has led to a more stressful work environment. Speaking up about reducing working hours to achieve a work-life balance made 72% of frontline workers feel nervous, and 69% felt anxious about raising issues about understaffing with their employer.
Is there a solution?
Quinyx believes there is. There are steps employers can take to improve the lives of their hourly employees—starting with acknowledging that frontline workers need to feel valued and empowered. But that’s not all; for organizations to stay relevant while attracting and retaining their workforce, they need to embrace technology that allows their frontline to be more engaged and in greater control of their working lives. Staff who are well informed, well trained, engaged, and rewarded will translate to higher employee retention, which leads to more efficient operations, and a more productive workforce.
About Quinyx
Quinyx is a leading workforce management software providing technology that simplifies scheduling, time reporting, communication, task management, budgeting, and forecasting. Quinyx helps organizations worldwide remain compliant, improve efficiency, reduce labor costs, and engage employees through advanced and flexible features.
Today, Quinyx helps some of the world’s biggest businesses save time and money, boost productivity and enjoy work. Quinyx has offices in the U.S, U.K, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Clients include McDonald’s, Domino’s, Oatly, Well Pharmacy, Maersk, Sysco, Virgin Atlantic, Palace Entertainment, IHG, Rituals, Swarovski, Odeon Cinemas Group, and DHL.
Quinyx is backed by leading SaaS investors Battery Ventures, Alfvén & Didrikson, and Zobito.