London, May 20, 2025: Unily, the leading enterprise Employee Experience Platform, today unveiled its latest research report, Disconnected and Disengaged: The Economic Cost of Frontline Friction, exposing a staggering $80.6 billion annual loss among enterprise organizations due to communication breakdowns and digital underinvestment in frontline workers.
The report, developed in partnership with digital signage leader ScreenCloud and global research firm Censuswide, surveyed 800 frontline employees across major industries – including aviation, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and telecommunications – in North America. The findings are a stark warning for business leaders, revealing widespread inefficiencies, disengagement, and security risks that are undermining organizational performance.
Jenny Shiers, Chief People Officer at Unily, commented:
“This is more than just a productivity issue – it's a strategic blind spot. At a time when agility defines competitiveness, enterprises cannot afford to leave their frontline workers disconnected and underinformed. Every minute lost to friction is a dollar lost to inefficiency.”
Key findings:
- Frontline workers spend 376 hours per year – nearly 10 full workweeks – searching for, waiting on, or redoing tasks due to inaccessible information.
- 71% of frontline workers use personal devices or unsanctioned apps to complete their jobs, posing significant security and compliance risks.
- 72% say they don’t understand their company’s strategy; only 24% feel their customer feedback reaches leadership.
- Nearly a third (31%) would leave their current employer for a company with a more modern digital workplace.
The business consequences are especially stark in certain industries: 42% of telecom frontline workers and 37% in aviation report that poor access to information directly hampers the customer experience.
Download the exclusive research here
The cost of inaction
For an enterprise with 10,000 frontline employees, poor communication can cost more than $27 million annually in lost productivity alone. Yet the risks aren’t just financial: disconnected workers feel unheard, unsupported, and unmotivated, undermining morale and retention. With only 39% reporting job satisfaction – and over a fifth (21%) looking to leave in the next year – the frontline turnover crisis looms large.
A call for change
Unily’s report doesn’t just diagnose the problem – it provides a roadmap for transformation. It identifies the hallmarks of high-performing organizations that are thriving by investing in:
- A centralized, mobile-first Employee Experience Platform (EXP)
- Real-time, role-relevant communication
- Secure, intuitive access to critical knowledge
- Two-way feedback to capture frontline insights
Sharn Kleiss, Strategy Partner at Gallagher's Communication Consulting Practice, added:
“This report gives a voice to the frontline and quantifies what internal communicators and HR leaders have long suspected about the true cost of underinvestment in communication. Businesses need to act now – to secure the agility of their frontline and reduce the risk of lost productivity."
Disconnected and disengaged:
The economic cost of frontline friction
ENDS
About Unily
Unily is the only true enterprise Employee Experience Platform, driving organizational velocity for the world's most iconic brands. In today’s fast-changing world, Unily helps industry leaders like Shell, CVS Health, and American Airlines move faster, align teams, and drive execution excellence. As the only company in the industry recognized as a Leader by Gartner, Forrester, and IDC, Unily is redefining the future of work – empowering enterprises to eliminate friction and operate at the speed of success.
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