The Importance of Frontline Leadership and Defining Key Training Opportunities

How are your operations looking? It’s no secret that service industries have had to weather a storm of constant disruptions, economic uncertainty and quickly changing environments. That means we’ve all had to find greater efficiencies where possible, whether that’s through adopting new technology, establishing new KPIs through data analysis or training up more employees.

That means your workforce needs to adapt and adjust to changes in processes, especially as manufacturing increasingly trends toward implementing “as-a-service” business models to win and keep customers. Fortunately, you can utilize your frontline leadership as an effective force multiplier. That’s because your frontline managers are more than just supervisors and problem-solvers, they’re instrumental in realizing your strategic vision of continuous improvement and more efficient operations — but only if they have the proper support.

Here’s what you need to know about the benefits generated by frontline leaders, the challenges facing them and how you can best support all of your frontline personnel.

What Is Frontline Leadership?
What Are The Key Frontline Leadership Skills?
Frontline Training Opportunities Companies Should Focus On

What Is Frontline Leadership?

When we talk about frontline leadership, we’re referring to the management and leadership roles that directly oversee and guide the day-to-day operations of an organization. Frontline leaders will supervise or manage frontline employees who are directly involved in the core activities of the organization, which can include production, delivery or the execution of goods and services. Depending on the industry or organization, they may be referred to as office managers, shift managers, team leaders or supervisors.

It’s important to understand that frontline leaders can be the least experienced managers in a company, as many of them are often first-level or first-time managers that have been newly promoted into their leadership roles. As a result, they’re likely to receive less training than more senior-level managers — even though they arguably need it more.

The Importance Of Frontline Leadership

That relative lack of training is a problem when frontline leaders are often an organization’s largest management population and the center of everything that’s going on. It’s been estimated that frontline managers directly supervise as much as two-thirds of the workforce.

On top of the day-to-day supervisory duties of your frontline leaders, they need to provide direction, support, feedback and motivation for most of your frontline workforce. That can be a heavy burden, especially for newly promoted supervisors, who may lack confidence or the communication skills that are essential for employee engagement and retention.

Furthermore, frontline leaders serve as a direct point of contact between team members and upper levels of management. They need to be able to confidently escalate issues and concerns from the floor to the leadership team just as clearly and efficiently as they communicate directives from executives to their peers and other frontline personnel.

Benefits from effective frontline leadership

When frontline leaders are confident, well-trained and supported they are more likely to contribute to the overall success of their organization. Key benefits can include:

• Improved team performance: Frontline leaders play a crucial role in motivating and guiding their teams. By providing clear expectations, support and feedback, they can enhance overall team performance and productivity.
• More productive communication: Frontline leaders can ensure that information flows smoothly between management and frontline employees, reducing misunderstandings and improving coordination.
• Effective problem solving: Frontline leaders often need to make quick decisions and solve problems on the spot. When supported in their decision-making, frontline leaders can create a more agile and responsive organization.
• Increased employee engagement: Frontline leaders who actively engage with their teams are better able to help them feel valued. This can lead to higher levels of job satisfaction, lower turnover and increased loyalty.
• Reduced conflict and employee complaints: The flipside of increasing engagement is reducing harms. Skilled leaders can mediate disputes and prevent conflicts from escalating to foster a positive work environment.
• Greater customer satisfaction: Frontline leaders are essential in ensuring that frontline employees are well-trained and motivated, contributing to improved employee performance and more positive customer experiences.
• A more efficient workplace environment: Being on the frontline allows leaders to respond more quickly to changes and disruptions. This adaptability can help their teams minimize disruptions and maintain productivity.

Challenges facing today’s frontline leaders

So, what’s preventing frontline leaders from realizing their potential? When we look at modern workplace demands, a few specific challenges stand out:

• Having to account for increased diversity without sufficient training: Today’s frontline leaders manage a workforce that is increasingly multicultural and diverse. This is in addition to leading a multigenerational workforce who are accustomed to different ways of working and are at different places in their careers. While increased diversity and inclusion is shown to drive innovation and increase revenue, organizations need the right systems of support in place to enable communication, collaboration and transparency.
• Disruptions in the workforce and workflow caused by technology: Frontline leaders are often the tip of the spear for companies that want to implement new automated processes for training frontline workers and solving any errors or issues. While the idea is that automation will increase efficiencies, frontline managers need support and training to overcome the initial shock of disruption. At the same time, the rise of hybrid and remote work conditions means that leaders are managing teams that aren’t co-located. Employees and employers alike are still adjusting to this hybrid environment, which means frontline leaders may be having to manage without clear direction.
• Adjusting to the increased speed of business: Frontline leaders face an accelerating rate of change in the digital age. This includes an increased amount of real-time information, customer expectations for immediate responses and the implementation of new technologies to automate processes. Expecting the same level of performance while demanding faster responses to customers and more effective production can be a recipe for frustration and burnout.
• Having to spend time on administrative tasks: A McKinsey study found that many frontline leaders spend only 10% to 40% of their time actually managing frontline employees, partly because 30% to 60% of their time is spent on administrative work. In contrast, frontline leaders at best-practice companies were able to allocate 60% to 70% of their time to floor tasks, such as individual coaching. Frontline leaders need tools to reduce their burden of administrative tasks and the support and training needed for frontline coaching.

What Are The Key Frontline Leadership Skills?

So, what’s the best way to overcome these challenges and maximize the benefits? Let’s start by looking at the essential skills every frontline leader needs.

While every position is different, all frontline leaders need to have a mix of managerial and leadership skills. Managerial skills being more task-oriented and focused on efficiency, control and completing immediate goals, while leadership skills are people-oriented and focused on sharing a vision, inspiring and motivating others and understanding how to achieve long-term goals.

Clearly both sets of skills are important, but in our experience with clients, it’s leadership skills that are often overlooked and underserved. While some frontline managers are natural leaders, others don’t intrinsically possess those essential leadership skills. For them, it takes training and experience to develop interpersonal skills, to understand how to approach customer interactions, to truly listen to pain points from employees and customers and to have the ability to respond and adapt to business disruptions.

Educational and upskilling training programs can give frontline leaders the tools they need to build up these important skills.

Frontline Training Opportunities Companies Should Focus On

Upskilling is not only important for your frontline leaders, it’s a powerful way to earn engagement. A McKinsey study found that the opportunity for job growth or promotion is an even higher priority for frontline employees than pay or benefits alone.

That study found that most employers assume that a higher job title is a top motivator, when it’s actually among the bottom five attributes for frontline employees. In actuality, job growth and learning opportunities were both top-five attributes for employees. That disconnect may explain why frontline employees cite a lack of employer-provided development opportunities as a primary barrier to their advancement.

Well-designed training and professional development programs don’t provide one-and-done solutions, they instead change behaviors and establish new habits that can continue beyond the classroom. This approach establishes a culture for sustainable change that can allow frontline leaders and managers to share what they’ve learned with their peers and the employees they supervise.

Once that process takes hold, frontline leaders will have fewer fires to put out, allowing them to take on larger tasks, such as making sure organizational objectives are met, implementing new processes and technology and ensuring that operations are meeting the challenges of the modern workforce.

Ready to talk about training for your frontline leaders and supervisors? Fill out our contact form and a member of our team will reach out to you directly.