By Clayton Pyne, CEO, Humanforce
Australia’s productivity debate is often framed in broad, abstract terms, but on the frontline it is far more practical. Employers are trying to respond to fluctuating businesses conditions, manage complex compliance obligations and maintain service quality, while employees are balancing work with study, caring responsibilities and wellbeing. In many frontline industries, particularly retail, healthcare and hospitality, the way work is organised has not kept pace with these realities.
That is why recent comments by CEO of Woolworths Limited, Amanda Bardwell struck a chord. She said:
“Despite what is sometimes claimed, it is possible to make changes which achieve productivity improvements and benefit the team, such as the ability to split a shift so you can pick up the kids from school. The current award doesn’t provide the flexibility our frontline teams are looking for, nor does it deliver the best productivity for business.”
Amanda’s reflections on modern award reform and frontline flexibility spoke to a growing recognition that productivity and employee experience do not have to sit in opposition. When flexibility is structured carefully, it can support both operational efficiency and better outcomes for workers.
This perspective reflects what many organisations are experiencing today. Productivity challenges are rarely the result of effort or intent; more often, they stem from job design that no longer aligns with how frontline roles function.
In frontline and flexible workplaces, demand changes daily – sometimes hourly. Employees expect transparency, flexibility and fairness. Yet many frameworks still assume fixed patterns and uniform roles. Managers are left trying to reconcile operational reality with rigid interpretations, while employees feel disconnected from decisions that directly affect their income and wellbeing. Reform doesn’t need to mean removing protections. It means building smarter rules that enable flexibility safely, rather than restricting it by default. That includes guardrails that protect fairness, fatigue management and compliance certainty for employers and employees alike.
The real productivity drag is outdated work design, not people or cost
Productivity debates in Australia are often framed through the lens of labour costs, from wages and penalty rates to perceived inefficiencies. But after years working alongside frontline employers, a different reality is clear. Productivity does not fail because people cost too much today, it fails because work and the systems that support it are designed for a world that no longer exists.
The consequences of this mismatch are measurable. Research commissioned by Humanforce and conducted by Forrester Consulting shows that 32% of frontline workers feel overburdened by inadequate HR resources, 30% feel unsupported, and 28% say these barriers increase their risk of burnout. In a labour market already grappling with persistent workforce shortages, these kind of pressures on staff can lead to ongoing (and unnecessary) productivity losses.
This is also why cost cutting rarely delivers sustainable productivity gains. Reducing hours, tightening labour budgets or pushing teams harder may create short-term relief on paper, but it almost always introduces longer-term friction resulting in less engaged workers, higher turnover and increased overtime, greater reliance on agency labour and elevated compliance risk. Most organisations do need transformation and efficiency over time, but sustainable gains come from redesigning how frontline work is deployed and supported, not simply doing “less” on the frontline.
The frontline efficiency problem hiding in plain sight
How work is scheduled and matched to people sits at the heart of frontline productivity. For decades, this process was treated as an administrative task, optimised for cost and compliance. Fill the shifts, stay within the rules, move on. That approach no longer works for modern, frontline-heavy organisations.
When rosters and scheduling tools feel opaque or inflexible, managers spend more time firefighting and filling gaps than leading teams, impacting on business output and customer service.
For scheduling to support productivity rather than undermine it, four elements need to work together. It must respond to real demand, remain cost-aware and compliant, and be designed around the people doing the work. When any one of these is missing, productivity and engagement begin to erode.
This is where flexibility becomes tangible. Done well, it means employees have visibility and input into when they work, easier access to additional shifts, transparent allocation, the ability to manage split shifts where appropriate and simple, compliant shift swaps. It also means better visibility of availability and skills so managers can match the right people to the right shifts without guesswork or last-minute churn.
The impact on retention and productivity is significant. As many as 89% of frontline workers say they would consider leaving their current role for one with a better schedule, underscoring that flexibility is no longer a perk, it’s a necessity. When flexibility is designed properly, employees feel respected and in control of their time, while organisations benefit from higher fill rates, stronger retention and more productive teams.
Employee experience is now a productivity lever
Productivity on the frontline is now shaped as much by how people experience work as by how efficiently it is planned. Our research found that 36% of frontline workers identify an empathetic, positive and accommodating workplace culture as the most important driver of engagement. And when employees feel in control of their schedules, financially secure and connected to their teams, productivity rises and attrition falls.
In an AI-driven world, the human dimension matters more, not less. The skills hardest to automate, including judgement, empathy, manual dexterity and human connection, are the essence of frontline work. AI is not taking the shift, but taking the paperwork, freeing people to focus on the moments that actually drive service quality, care and performance. That’s where frontline value is created and where better work design shows up in customer outcomes, quality of care and team performance.
Why technology needs to remove friction not add complexity
Productivity starts to break down when frontline workforce systems operate in silos. Hiring, onboarding, rostering, time and attendance and payroll are often managed in separate platforms, with disconnected data and inconsistent experiences. The result is manual workarounds, delayed decisions and frontline employees navigating systems that feel fragmented and unintuitive.
The biggest gains come when these frontline essentials are connected. When onboarding flows straight into compliant rostering and pay, people become productive sooner. When skills, certifications and availability are visible in real time, managers can deploy labour more effectively and safely, without introducing compliance risk or administrative burden.
A modern human capital management (HCM) approach brings these elements together. When hiring and onboarding connect seamlessly with scheduling and payroll, employees become productive sooner. When skills, certifications and availability are visible in real time, managers can deploy labour more effectively and compliantly. And when performance insights and development pathways are linked to how work is actually performed, organisations can build capability rather than simply plug operational gaps.
Where meaningful change actually begins
If Australian business leaders want to lift productivity in a meaningful and sustainable way, the answer is unlikely to be found in another round of cost cutting. The bigger opportunity lies in redesigning how frontline work actually happens today, not how it was structured ten or twenty years ago.
That redesign does not need to start with sweeping reform or wholesale change. It starts with the most everyday, operational decision in frontline organisations: how work is scheduled and matched to people. The roster is where demand, cost, compliance and employee experience intersect. When those elements are treated in isolation, productivity becomes a constant struggle. When they are designed to work together, productivity becomes a natural outcome rather than a forced one. And when that happens organisations don’t just reduce waste, they lift service quality, team stability and performance in the moments that matter most.
For more information, please visit: https://humanforce.com/
