OAKLAND, Calif. — In a major push to overhaul how corporate America manages its largest labor segment, leading HR advisory firm The Josh Bersin Company has launched a comprehensive new framework designed to dismantle a costly corporate blind spot: treating all “frontline” workers as a single, homogenous group.
The firm’s latest Frontline-First Initiative research, titled Understanding the Frontline Workforce: The Five Types of Frontline Workers, reveals that lumping these diverse, multi-million-strong roles under the generic umbrella of “non-office-based employees” is driving extreme turnover, exacerbating labor shortages, and costing businesses billions.
Frontline roles account for nearly 73% of total U.S. employment—spanning over 100 million workers and 166 million jobs. Yet despite representing nearly 80% of all jobs globally and acting as a primary growth driver in the labor market, the frontline training sector alone remains heavily under-optimized. It was valued at $25 billion in 2024 and is projected to skyrocket to $88 billion by 2032.
The Five Archetypes of Frontline Work
To help Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) inject precision into their talent strategies, Josh Bersin researchers analyzed more than 600 frontline occupations within the federal O*NET database, condensing them into five distinct worker archetypes:
- Customer-Facing Associates: Entry-level, low-skilled, front-of-house workers such as retail associates, fast-food crew, and restaurant servers.
- Back-Office Associates: Entry-level, low-skilled, non-customer-facing staff, including warehouse pickers, stockroom clerks, and kitchen prep staff.
- High-Skilled Specialists: Experienced, non-licensed operational or technical leaders, including retail managers, pastry chefs, and wind turbine technicians.
- Licensed Specialists: Skilled professionals requiring formal vocational licensure, such as vocational nurses, HVAC technicians, and commercial (CDL) truck drivers.
- Credentialed Professionals: Advanced knowledge workers with ongoing, high-level certifications, including doctors, pharmacists, pilots, and attorneys.
According to the firm’s data, the U.S. currently boasts roughly 32 million customer-facing associates, 30.5 million back-office associates, and a massive 85 million high-skilled specialists.
The High Cost of Generalization
Treating these distinct groups under a one-size-fits-all talent model has left businesses highly vulnerable. The report highlights eye-popping turnover rates—up to 265% for restaurant servers and 160% for fast-food crews. Meanwhile, a looming global shortage of 10 million licensed healthcare workers by 2030 threatens to disrupt operational continuity for healthcare systems worldwide.
The research underscores that the needs, skills, and earning potentials across these tiers vary wildly. For instance, moving from an unskilled role to a licensed trade can double or triple a worker’s earnings. Additionally, forward-thinking companies like Costco are already proving the financial value of distinct frontline strategies, paying $26 an hour compared to the retail industry average of $17.
“It’s time to remove a long-standing blind spot in workforce strategy,” said Nehal Nangia, Senior Research Director and lead frontline researcher at The Josh Bersin Company. “Organizations still reliant on a one-size-fits-all talent model will pay the price in turnover, safety risk, and lost productivity. By reframing frontline as a strategic capability rather than a cost base… leaders can unlock measurable improvements in performance, resilience, and service quality.”
A Roadmap for the AI Era
The timing of the taxonomy is also critical for white-collar workers. As artificial intelligence continues to reshape corporate, desk-bound roles, job seekers are increasingly looking toward previously less-visible, higher-paying, and non-automatable frontline career pathways—over 60% of frontline roles are high-skilled and resistant to automation.
“For decades, business has been very imprecise about the frontline category. Even the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lacks a solid definition,” noted Josh Bersin, CEO and global industry analyst. “The needs of a young fast-food worker vs. those of a licensed nurse, fireman, a warehouse worker, or airline pilot are quite different. Our new model breaks this large workforce into five distinct segments and gives managers and HR leaders very specific best practices, hiring dynamics, and pay models for each.”
The Josh Bersin Company advises CHROs to immediately map their current workforce against these five segments, identify high-risk areas, and deploy tailored hiring, training, and technology investments.
The public-facing resource, developed in collaboration with Paradox (a Workday company), is now available online, while the full comprehensive report has been deployed to corporate members and users of Bersin’s Galileo AI platform to help enterprises fine-tune their operations in real-time.