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Only 38% of frontline workers say leaders understand their challenges compared to 73% in 2024

Dayforce, Inc., a global human capital management (HCM) leader that makes work life better, today released new research revealing that Australia’s frontline operations are approaching a breaking point. What looks stable on the surface is increasingly dependent on manual workarounds, last-minute adjustments, and in-the-moment decisions to keep work moving - driving higher costs, increasing compliance risk, and placing unsustainable pressure on workers.

Based on a survey of 759 Australian managers, executives, and frontline workers, the findings point to a critical challenge in how organisations manage frontline work in the face of constant change. The result: organisations are struggling to manage frontline performance consistently because employees are left to fill the gaps in systems and processes.

“Frontline operations may look stable from the outside, but they’re under constant strain at the shift level,” says Katerina Hanna, VP of Customer Success, Dayforce, Inc. “Systems and processes aren’t keeping up, and that pressure is falling on frontline managers and workers to fix issues in scheduling, time, and pay just to keep operations running. Those workarounds keep the business moving in the moment, but over time they increase costs, raise compliance risk, and add strain on employees. Closing the adaptability gap requires more than better planning, it requires the ability to see and respond to what’s happening in real time.”

The research highlights a growing divide between how frontline work is planned and how it plays out at the shift level. Small, everyday disruptions – coverage gaps, pay issues, and manual fixes – are compounding into measurable financial and operational impact across industries.

Key Findings

• Disruption impacts performance and costs: 75% of executives and 62% of managers said shift-level disruptions have at least a moderate impact on financial or operational performance, with 45% of frontline managers reporting these issues drive overtime.
• Work is increasingly improvised: Three-quarters (75%) of frontline workers said they rely on manual workarounds at least sometimes, and 91% report finding ways to fill open shifts themselves. Meanwhile, 63% of executives and managers said they spend at least three hours per week responding to issues instead of improving operations.
• Workforce strain is rising: A majority (89%) of frontline workers and 93% of managers said shift-level issues negatively affect their well-being. Sixty-seven per cent of workers and 77% of managers said they have considered leaving their job as a result.
• Risk and accountability are increasing without visibility:97% of executives and managers said shift-level issues create compliance risk, while 45% of executives said they are accountable for frontline decisions that carry cost risk without real-time visibility.
• Leadership disconnect is widening: Only 38% of frontline workers say leaders understand the challenges they face – down from 73% in 2024 – highlighting a growing gap between leadership perception and frontline reality.

Despite the scale of these challenges, most Australian organisations believe they are avoidable. Over three quarters (79%) of executives and 67% of managers said many shift-level disruptions are at least moderately avoidable with better real-time information, pointing to a clear opportunity to improve how frontline operations are managed.

The report introduces the concept of “frontline adaptability” – the ability to manage disruption as it happens through connected systems, real-time visibility, and more flexible workforce strategies. It provides a clear way to measure and close the adaptability gap between how work is planned and how it unfolds at the shift level. More adaptable organisations demonstrate that many of these disruptions are avoidable because they often stem from disconnected systems that lack real-time visibility into frontline operations.

“The good news is that most disruptions are avoidable as the known root cause is limited data availability and visibility in the moment,” says Katerina Hanna, VP of Customer Success, Dayforce, Inc. “Closing that gap means moving beyond reactive workarounds. Organisations getting this right are building more flexible operations grounded in systems that can adapt in real time, which is an essential capability in today’s economic and geopolitical environment.”

Katerina Hanna, VP of Customer Success, Dayforce

Methodology

Hanover Research conducted the adaptive frontline survey from Dayforce online from March 26 to April 13, 2026. The study included 5,693 respondents aged 18+ who work in frontline organizations with at least 100 employees across Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Frontline Adaptability Benchmark was calculated based on respondents’ answers to questions across five areas: demand responsiveness, real-time resolution, skills fluidity, operational enablement, and decision confidence. Each respondent was then assigned an Organisational Adaptability Score. From there, they were segmented into low-, medium-, and high-adaptability groups.

About Dayforce
Dayforce makes work life better. Everything we do as a global leader in HCM technology is focused on enabling thousands of customers and millions of employees around the world do the work they're meant to do. With our single AI-powered people platform for HR, Pay, Time, Talent, Planning, and Analytics, organisations of all sizes and industries are achieving simplicity at scale that creates compounding, quantifiable value for their people and business. To learn more, visit dayforce.com.