goHappy, the app-free engagement solution purpose built for frontline employers, today released its second annual State of the Frontline Worker Report, produced in partnership with Lighthouse Research & Advisory (LHRA). The report benchmarks more than 52,000 frontline worker survey responses from across goHappy’s customer base against an independent LHRA study of 2,000 US frontline workers, revealing a clear and widening gap between employers with an intentional focus on frontline engagement and the broader market.
goHappy customers reported 72.2% favorable employee engagement in 2025, compared to 57.0% in the LHRA market benchmark, a difference of 27%. Year over year, goHappy customer engagement scores climbed 8.5 percentage points while the broader market remained largely flat.
Those gains are translating directly into retention. Across the goHappy customer base, overall turnover declined from 99.0% to 89.1% in a single year, and employers earning goHappy’s Happiest Frontline Employees Certification pulled turnover down to 80.2%.
Key Findings
- The gap is widening. goHappy customers improved across every measured engagement dimension year over year. The market did not.
- Leader behavior is the lever. The biggest separation between goHappy customers and the broader market shows up in daily, observable behaviors: coaching (77.0% favorable vs. 32.6%), appreciation (77.9% vs. 40.0%), and connection between leaders and their teams (79.8% vs. 45.2%).
- Engagement is showing up on the P&L. A 10-percentage-point reduction in turnover at a 10,000-employee frontline organization translates to roughly $4,700,000 in annual savings, based on an average replacement cost of $4,700 per frontline employee. goHappy customers cut overall turnover by 9.9 points year over year.
- Even the lowest-scoring goHappy dimension beats the market. The Commit dimension, the lowest-scoring area for goHappy customers at 71.1%, still outperforms the LHRA market benchmark of 63.0%.
A different starting assumption
“For years, frontline employers have been told that high turnover and low engagement are just the cost of doing business,” said Shawn Boyer, CEO and Founder of goHappy. “This data tells a different story. The organizations who have a maniacal focus on helping their frontline feel more valued and connected through intentional leader actions—being authentic, appreciating, connecting and coaching—are pulling away from the rest of the market. And they’re doing it with simple, repeatable practices that any leader can put to work tomorrow. The frontline doesn’t have to be the hardest place to drive engagement. It can be the place where it shows up the strongest and has an outsized impact on the business.”
Ben Eubanks, Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, who led the independent benchmarking study, added: “As a research organization, we are always trying to push the boundaries of what we know about the workforce and the workplace. Partnering with goHappy to explore the real trends and changes in frontline industries isn’t just about comparing data. 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.”
Live webinar: May 14
goHappy will unpack the full report in a live webinar on Thursday, May 14, featuring Shawn Boyer (Founder & CEO, goHappy), Jeremy Edmonds (EVP of People and Culture, Snooze), and Ben Eubanks (Chief Research Officer, Lighthouse Research & Advisory). Attendees will get the first walk-through of the findings, plus practical guidance on how to apply them inside their own organizations.
Register: https://www.gohappyhub.com/state-of-frontline-worker-2026-webinar
The full 2026 State of the Frontline Worker Report will be available at gohappyhub.com.
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