Workplace Strategy Must Include Frontline Employees

Evidence context

JLL’s 2025 research focuses on office workers, and its subsequent guidance notes that frontline employees operate under different rules. This boundary matters: strategies derived from hybrid knowledge work can exclude employees whose work requires physical presence.

For frontline teams, workplace experience may depend on shift predictability, break areas, lockers, transport, safety, supervisor access, tools and dignity of support spaces. Location flexibility may be limited, but time, task and service autonomy can still improve experience.

Osmos Global analysis

A workplace portfolio should therefore segment by work requirement rather than employment status alone.

Corporate headquarters metrics cannot represent laboratories, operations centres, retail, maintenance or field-based work.

Inclusion begins by measuring the environments that conventional workplace surveys miss and giving frontline employees a voice in improvement decisions.

What this changes for decision-making The practical significance of “Workplace Strategy Must Include Frontline Employees” is that workplace decisions must be framed as testable operating choices rather than expressions of preference. Leaders should identify the affected workforce, the work moment being improved, the constraint being removed and the evidence that would justify further investment. This prevents a global survey average from becoming a local design instruction and makes the decision transparent to finance, employees and operational teams.

The decision record should also include trade-offs. More collaboration space may reduce focus capacity; higher service coverage may increase operating cost; stronger attendance coordination may reduce individual flexibility; and greater data precision may create privacy concerns. A credible workplace strategy does not hide these tensions. It states which outcome has priority, which safeguards apply and when the choice will be reconsidered.

Leadership implications

Workplace, FM, CRE, HR and technology leaders should treat this issue as a connected operating decision. The objective is not to maximise attendance, satisfaction or space efficiency independently; it is to create an environment that supports defined work while using capital and services responsibly. Business leaders remain responsible for specifying the outcomes that workplace investment is expected to enable.

Implementation guidance

Begin with one workforce segment, location or recurring moment where the present experience can be reconstructed. Record employee perception, actual demand, environmental or service conditions and the business purpose of the setting. Design a bounded intervention, establish the expected evidence before launch, and compare the result across peak and normal periods. Scale only when the improvement is repeatable and material.

What the evidence does not prove

The cited research does not demonstrate that the proposed action will increase individual productivity, prevent resignation or produce a specific financial return. Survey respondents describe experiences, preferences and

Practical actions

• Map workforce groups by work constraint. • Extend experience surveys beyond office-based staff. • Measure support spaces and shift services. • Offer autonomy in forms compatible with operational needs.

Risks, limitations and unresolved questions The central global survey is office-worker research. Frontline implications are an Osmos Global extension supported by JLL’s boundary-specific commentary.

Source notes

[1] JLL. Workforce Preference Barometer 2025: Beyond Mandates—The Future of Hybrid Work. 9 September 2025. https://www.jll.com/en-us/insights/workforce-preference-barometer [2] Gensler Research Institute. Global Workplace Survey 2025. 23 April 2025. https://www.gensler.com/gri/global-workplace-survey-2025