Winning the 2025 Holiday Season With a Connected Frontline Workforce
This holiday season will be won by retailers who work smarter, not harder — by empowering a connected frontline workforce.
By John Shapiro, Chief Product & Technology Officer,
Lightspeed Commerce
Retail seasonal hiring in 2025 is expected to fall to its lowest point since 2009. Retailers heading into the busiest season have an opportunity to strengthen existing teams and make the most of smaller seasonal hires.
Keeping current employees may be the most practical way to get through this shortage. A recent Beekeeper survey found that retail employees are changing jobs 6% more often than last year, with understaffed shifts and workplace culture as the main factors. Retailers who address these pain points now can turn their existing teams into their greatest strength this holiday season.
Condensed suggestion: Retailers who focus on communication, engagement, and training will not only survive staffing shortages — they’ll build stronger, more connected teams. These strategies survive staffing problems and build stronger teams.
Build a Connected Workforce
Most retail communication still relies on bulletin boards, group texts, or email. These methods fail frontline workers who spend their days on the sales floor, in stockrooms, or moving between locations. During the holidays, when things move fast, a missed schedule change or policy update can create problems that ripple through the entire day.
Mobile-first communication closes the gap. Workers need a single place to check their schedules, get updates, and report issues in real time. The best systems send targeted messages based on role, location, and shift so employees only see what is relevant to them.
Two-way messaging makes a difference, too. Employees can ask questions and flag problems immediately instead of waiting for their manager to check their email or walk by. For teams with multiple languages spoken, built-in translation support means everyone stays informed.
For the holiday rush, this means push notifications for last-minute schedule changes reach workers instantly. Store managers can update entire teams about new promotions or policy changes in seconds. Workers can request shift swaps through the same platform.
Retain Your Core Team
Toxic culture, understaffed shifts, and lack of recognition are pushing retail workers out the door. The same Beekeeper survey found that 26% of frontline workers feel that a lack of recognition for their work directly affects their productivity. Holiday stress only makes this worse. When November and December bring longer hours and more demanding customers, employees who already feel undervalued start looking elsewhere.
Retailers can reverse this trend by focusing on what workers value most: recognition, balance, and communication.. For example, recognition matters more than most managers realize — 36% of workers in a recent MustardHub survey say they want regular appreciation and feedback. When a team member handles a difficult customer well or stays late to help during a rush, acknowledging it right away builds morale. Set up systems where employees can recognize each other, not just wait for manager feedback. Many leading retailers now tie recognition to meaningful rewards or points programs..
Giving employees a voice matters just as much. Short pulse surveys can catch problems like understaffing or unrealistic workload expectations before they become reasons to quit. When workers see that their feedback leads to actual changes, that builds trust.
Employees who feel valued and heard stay through the busy season and perform better under pressure. Keeping good workers costs less than constantly recruiting and training replacements.
Getting Seasonal Workers Ready, Fast
Many retailers rush seasonal training, assuming temporary workers won’t stay — but this approach can backfire.. Unprepared seasonal workers make more mistakes, need constant supervision, and deliver worse customer experiences during the most important sales period of the year.
Digital onboarding is the solution to these issues. New hires can start training before their first shift through mobile platforms on their own time. Microlearning modules break complex tasks into short, focused lessons that workers can complete in a few minutes. Instead of overwhelming someone with an eight-hour training session on day one, they can learn register operations in one module, return policies in another, and customer service basics in a third.
Self-service resources mean workers can look up answers at 2 a.m. or during a lunch break without bothering a manager. Interactive checklists keep training consistent across all new hires and let managers see who has completed which modules.
This approach results in new hires who feel prepared and confident from day one. Managers spend less time answering basic questions and more time coaching, and customers get help from well-trained staff.
This holiday season will be won by working smarter, not harder, through connected employee experiences. The retailers who succeed this holiday season won’t just manage through shortages; they’ll redefine what a connected workforce looks like.
