A new workforce engagement report from goHappy and Lighthouse Research & Advisory found that employers with a structured focus on frontline employee engagement are reporting stronger retention and higher engagement scores than the broader market.
The second annual State of the Frontline Worker Report compared more than 52,000 frontline worker survey responses collected from goHappy customers with an independent study of 2,000 U.S. frontline employees conducted by Lighthouse Research & Advisory.
According to the report, goHappy customers reported a 72.2 percent favorable employee engagement rate in 2025, compared with 57 percent in the broader market benchmark. The study also found that engagement scores among goHappy customers increased 8.5 percentage points year over year, while broader market figures remained relatively unchanged.
The report linked those engagement gains to improved retention outcomes. Across goHappy’s customer base, overall turnover declined from 99 percent to 89.1 percent over the past year. Employers that earned the company’s “Happiest Frontline Employees Certification” reported turnover of 80.2 percent.
“Partnering with goHappy to explore the real trends and changes in frontline industries isn’t just about comparing data,” Ben Eubanks, chief research officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, said in a statement. “It’s about helping employers take care of the workers that are building their products, serving their customers and solving real problems. As this report shows, employers don’t have to take high turnover and low engagement for granted when it comes to their frontline workforce.”
“For years, frontline employers have been told that high turnover and low engagement are just the cost of doing business. This data tells a different story,” noted Shawn Boyer, CEO and founder of goHappy.
Researchers identified leadership behavior as one of the strongest differentiators between higher-performing employers and the broader market. Areas including coaching, employee appreciation and leader-team connection showed substantially higher favorable scores among goHappy customers than in the benchmark study.
The report also examined the financial impact of turnover reduction, estimating that a 10-percentage-point decrease in turnover at a 10,000-employee frontline organization could represent approximately $4.7 million in annual savings, based on an estimated replacement cost of $4,700 per frontline employee.