New Report: $80.6 Billion Annual Loss Due to Communications Breakdowns, Underinvestment

Unily, the leading enterprise Employee Experience Platform, 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 undermining organizational performance.

“This is more than a productivity issue – this is a strategic blind spot,” said Jenny Shiers, Chief People Officer at Unily. “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.

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.

“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,” said Sharn Kleiss, Strategy Partner at Gallagher’s Communication Consulting Practice. “Businesses need to act now – to secure the agility of their frontline and reduce the risk of lost productivity.”

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