Increasing the social mobility of frontline workers

One out of every 5 frontline workers in the UK, or 7.7M people, is employed by the retail, healthcare and hospitality sectors and close to 50% of them are considering quitting (McKinsey, 2022). This is important as this portion of the workforce is predominantly made up of those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, is younger (55% under 35) and is more diverse (40% of Asian or Black ethnicity) (ONS, 2017). Lack of growth opportunities and career development consistently score among the top two reasons frontline employees consider switching jobs.

Our innovation consists in scaling opportunities to hundreds of thousands of frontline workers with the help of a smart digital coachbot, NEO, which will guide people along customized career growth paths, tailor-built by roles and company. NEO, the coachbot, will be 'trained' not only to nudge employees to actively pursue their upskilling journey, but also to build rapport with each employee to understand their particular circumstances and help them overcome barriers.

NEO addresses the two main challenges of mid-sized companies in upskilling frontline staff - a lack of quality company-provided growth paths as well as an often reported employee lack of confidence in one's own ability to pursue training given internal barriers or external factors.

NEO has the potential to be a game changer in advancing the social mobility of frontline workers, increasing their skill set, productivity and engagement. It will be able to simultaneously upskill thousands of employees, 24/7, infinitely scaling the resources of any HR department.