Employers may be struggling to invest in training beyond that required to keep their businesses running, according to a report from RedThread Research released April 24. Schoox, a front-line workforce training company, licensed the report.
The report sorted front-line worker development into three domains: keeping the lights on, improving the work and planning for the future.
“[L]eaders emphasized that there should be balance across them — and right now, for many organizations, that balance is out of whack,” the report said. The research included a literature review of business and academic reports as well as a roundtable with 17 L&D and HR leaders and in-depth interviews with 22.
Most organizations are fully invested in what RedThread referred to as “license-to-operate” training efforts — which includes safety training and compliance measures — and while that development is critical, the report said, companies are leaving “too little time, budget, and other resources” to invest in not only future-proofing but improving current performance.
Balance does not mean an equal investment in every area, however, RedThread emphasized. Instead, leaders need to pick priorities in each domain.
For example, license-to-operate efforts can be distilled to focus on the absolute essentials. To do so, employers may focus on tightening up proficiency requirements or reducing inconsistency in training content, the report said.
Improving current performance, on the other hand, may require employers to gather data on what is missing to deliver “the biggest bang for the buck,” according to RedThread. Those efforts may include improving onboarding efforts, offering targeted development, cross-training workers and better equipping front-line supervisors.
Preparing for the future may involve efforts such as building career frameworks and offering coaching, the report said.
Organizations more broadly are shifting their focus from recruiting to fostering current talent, according to a SHRM report released earlier this year — but heavy burnout caused by turnover may limit the reach of these goals.
A separate report from the Association for Talent Development noted similarly that turnover is thwarting plans for front-line worker training, particularly on-the-job training. Corroborating this finding, an Axonify report from November 2024 said that better staffing overall might help front-line workers — especially managers — more than most forms of professional development.
