Workday’s Joshua Secrest explains how "invisible software" and automation work together to reclaim lost revenue by accelerating the pace of frontline hiring.
Joshua Secrest
Head of Paradox Marketing
Workday
Audio also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Enterprise innovation is obsessed with the "knowledge worker." We have optimized the digital office to the point of diminishing returns, yet a massive, resource-starved gap remains in the heartbeat of operations: the frontline.
The frontline workforce represents 70% of the US workforce and nearly 80% of the global workforce, yet it represents a disproportionately low amount of corporate investment. A recent study from the Josh Bersin Company showed investment is more than three times higher per white collar worker ($1500 per year) than a frontline worker ($400 per year).
This carries forward to the systems and technologies supplied to this workforce. Whether it is a retail salesfloor, a distribution center, or a hospital wing, the people who interact most directly with our customers and products are often the ones burdened by the heaviest, slowest disparate systems.
As a talent leader who has spent two decades leading teams at global organizations like McDonald’s and Abercrombie & Fitch, I’ve seen this innovation gap firsthand. While corporate teams were adopting increasingly sophisticated collaboration tools, the frontline was given systems that were “passed down” from corporate instead of designed specifically for the store manager or associate.
It’s not for lack of desire. HR teams have spent decades trying to provide better experiences to frontline teams. It is just that until recently, supporting frontline teams to an optimized level meant scaling resources and operations—often to an untenable level for the business.
Within the last few years, there has been a shift.
We have reached a tipping point where underinvesting in frontline teams is not only an HR oversight, but a massive strategic risk. To lead in the next decade, organizations must stop trying to force-fit "desk-based" HR tech onto a "desk-less" workforce and start building for the unique realities of the frontline.
Guide
The greatest mistake tech companies make when building for the frontline is adding more software to a manager's plate. A store or restaurant manager is not a professional recruiter or technologist; they are a multi-tasking orchestrator who is coaching a team, resolving customer issues, and often jumping in to help with operations simultaneously.
The "invisible software" philosophy is about zero-friction technology. It’s software designed to work in the background, handling the administrative load without requiring a manager’s attention.
It's a challenge to create technology that is both incredibly easy and lightweight, while remaining powerful and sophisticated. By embracing a mobile-first approach and leveraging conversational interfaces like SMS, this software becomes easy to use. Crucially, it uses automation to remove the administrative friction that keeps managers tied to their desks, allowing them to spend more time on the sales floor with customers and less time staring at a screen in the back office.
A store or restaurant manager is not a professional recruiter; they are a multi-tasking orchestrator who is coaching a team, resolving customer issues, and often jumping in to help with operations simultaneously.
We’ve seen the power of this at scale with organizations like 7-Eleven, which saved 40,000 manager hours per week by automating the "busy work" of hiring and scheduling. When the software handles the screening, the background checks, and the interview coordination, the manager is freed up to do more critical tasks: mentor, help customers, problem solve, and lead.
Some finance departments may see a headcount vacancy as a budget save. But on the frontline, understaffing is a revenue killer. It’s time to retire "cost-per-hire" and shift focus to the immediate financial damage of "revenue-lost-per-day."
Industry data shows that being understaffed by even one person can cost a single location between $300 and $1,100 in lost revenue every single day.
Moving from an industry-average 21-day time-to-hire down to a 3.5-day benchmark isn't just an efficiency metric for the recruiting team; it’s 18 days of reclaimed revenue for the P&L.
If you want to win over your CFO, start talking about the cost of an empty shift and how long it takes your organization to fill it today.
Industry data shows that being understaffed by even one person can cost a single location between $300 and $1,100 in lost revenue every single day.
One of the most common pushbacks to high-speed automation is the fear that quality is sacrificed for speed. I believe the opposite is true: moving fast and reducing friction can actually improve the quality of your candidate pool.
In a competitive market, a candidate for a frontline job often applies to over 15 roles in a single week. When they apply to your job, they've simultaneously applied to 14 others. The organization that responds first—to qualify, screen, schedule, and interview—is the one that will secure the best available talent.
High-speed automation works by removing the administrative friction that causes candidate drop-off, giving you a significantly larger pool of available candidates. More candidates mean more choice, and more choice paired with smart data allows managers to prioritize human energy on the most promising candidates, resulting in better outcomes.
This speed is also critical for business health: a 'bad hire' is one who leaves prior to their net value breakeven point—the moment their “value contributed” surpasses the cost to hire and train them—resulting in a net financial loss for your business.
Moving with speed helps you win the best candidates before your competitors, reducing the risk of a costly 'bad hire.'
We are moving toward a world where hiring, shift scheduling, payroll, and employee development are handled within a mobile, single, seamless operating system that feels almost invisible to the user.
When we solve for the frontline, we solve for the backbone of the global economy. It is time for HR and business leaders to invest in the frontline experience as a primary driver of brand value and strategic growth.
The conversation is changing, and it’s time we put the frontline at the center of it.
Guide
In the past decade HR has undergone a major evoluton from a supportive role to a strategic one. However, as this report finds, HR teams are more conservative on AI than finance and IT. That makes the potential competitive advantage even greater—learn more below.