The Frontline Conversation: Why frontline now?

Josh Bersin [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Josh Bersin Company podcast. I'm joined today by Josh Secrest, who leads marketing at Paradox — now part of Workday — and who has spent most of his career on the frontlines of frontline hiring. Josh, thanks for being here.

Josh Secrest [00:00:18]:
Great to be here. This is a topic I care deeply about, so I'm glad we're having this conversation publicly.

Josh Bersin [00:00:26]:
Let's just start with the scale problem. Why does frontline hiring deserve its own conversation?

Josh Secrest [00:00:33]:
Because the math demands it. More than 70% of U.S. workers — 80% globally — work in frontline roles. Customer-facing, operationally-facing, hands-on. And for decades, the HR technology industry built tools designed for knowledge workers and then tried to squeeze frontline workers through the same system. It doesn't work. The application experience, the ATS, the interview scheduling — all of it was built for someone sitting at a desk with an hour to spare and a laptop. That's not a frontline worker.

Josh Bersin [00:01:30]:
And what does that mismatch actually cost companies?

Josh Secrest [00:01:36]:
Abandoned applications. High time-to-fill. Ghosted interviews. You get someone who sees a job posting, wants to apply, gets to step three of a fifteen-screen application, and gives up. Meanwhile, they've already applied at the competitor down the street using a QR code and gotten a text response in two minutes. You've lost them. And you might not even know it because your metrics don't track abandonment — they track submissions.

Josh Bersin [00:02:20]:
So what does good look like? What are the companies doing it right?

Josh Secrest [00:02:27]:
They've made three moves. First, they've gone mobile-first — genuinely mobile-first, not a desktop site that technically loads on a phone. Second, they've gone conversational. Text or messaging-based application flows that feel like a human interaction. And third, they've gone fast. The best organizations get from application to scheduled interview in under an hour. Some in under ten minutes. The moment you get fast, your completion rates go up, your no-show rates go down, and your candidates start to trust you before they've even walked in the door.

Josh Bersin [00:03:30]:
You spent years at McDonald's. Give me the ground-level perspective — what was the hiring reality there?

Josh Secrest [00:03:38]:
McDonald's hires hundreds of thousands of people a year in the US alone. At that scale, every minute of delay costs you real candidates. When I was there, we were on traditional ATS systems — and the drop-off was significant. We started experimenting with conversational AI before most companies had even heard the term. The results were immediate: more applicants completing the process, faster time to schedule, lower no-shows. It reframed how I think about recruiting. Speed isn't just an efficiency metric — it's a respect metric. You're telling the candidate: we value your time.

Josh Bersin [00:05:00]:
What about frontline managers? They're often doing the hiring too.

Josh Secrest [00:05:07]:
And that's where it gets complicated. A store manager at a restaurant or a service center is usually not an expert recruiter. They're an expert operator. When you dump a full ATS workflow on them, they hate it. They'll work around it — call people directly, keep paper lists, do whatever it takes to avoid the system. The best technology actually removes the manager from the administrative parts entirely. The AI screens, schedules, answers questions. The manager shows up to a scheduled interview with a qualified candidate ready to talk. That's what they signed up for.

Josh Bersin [00:06:30]:
Let's talk economics. Is there a financial case for investing in better frontline hiring technology?

Josh Secrest [00:06:37]:
Massive one. Turnover in frontline roles is brutal — some industries are at 100% or higher annually. Every time you lose someone, you're spending to replace them: recruiting costs, training costs, lost productivity. If you can improve retention by even 10 or 15% through a better hiring and onboarding experience, the ROI is enormous. And that starts with hiring the right people the right way. When someone has a good experience applying and onboarding, they start with a positive impression of the company. That matters. First impressions in the first 90 days drive retention more than almost anything else.

Josh Bersin [00:08:00]:
Josh, this is a great framing for everything we want to dig into in this series. Thanks for kicking it off.

Josh Secrest [00:08:10]:
Happy to. There's a lot more to cover — this is just the start.