Embrace the Agentic Era

The future of business is

Mid-market businesses face challenges adapting to this shift, with traditional ERP often being expensive and monolithic.

Our unified platform integrates these core business functions, empowering you to optimise operations, connect your employees (both desk-based and desk-free), and truly get the most out of AI capabilities. Unlike rigid systems, we off er flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration through open APIs. We understand your unique needs, delivering enterprise-grade capabilities at a mid-market price. Partner with us to navigate the Agentic Era, unlock data-driven insights, and transform the productivity of your workforce. The future is here:

Lead the way and unlock your business’s full potential

The data provides a welcome opportunity for leaders to get to grips with these differences and close the gaps, ensuring that reconnection is possible.

Delivering what employees want and need is not an easy task, made more complicated by the lack of a typical desk-free worker profile. There is no one size fi ts all solution to any of the challenges faced by these workers, but in a sense, that is the point of our survey. We have highlighted some of the challenges that do unify these critical frontline workers, to help leaders do better with attracting and retaining talent, improving productivity and collaboration, strengthening compliance and resilience, and delivering actionable insights that might eventually improve the employee experience.

A lack of flexibility with shifts and tasks is par for the course with many desk-free roles, and workers may simply accept this, while their organisation’s leaders think they have more flexibility than they actually do. Some leaders mistakenly think more frequent paydays would help reduce churn, but our findings suggest that being paid fairly for what they do and not being overworked is more important to staff than the frequency of pay. Despite the inherent differences of perspective regarding pay levels, it is important that everyone feels they are being paid fairly for what they do, even if the pay itself is low in relative terms.

Being offered training opportunities, and opportunities for career progression matter to the desk-free worker, particularly the younger age groups. And since most say they are usually paid on time, this is much less of an issue for these employees than their managers believe it is. Of course, if late payments became more frequent or widespread we would expect this to be seen as a significant problem by workers.

Successfully reconnecting desk-free workers and management requires drastically improved communication mechanisms. Whether it is about their own productivity and targets, organisational strategy, overarching objectives, or job vacancies and training opportunities — frontline workers find these communications much less effective than leadership believe to be the case.

Summary

What does

While it’s true that AI will reshape business processes, driving intuitive automation and evolving job roles, this transformation presents a wealth of possibilities for empowering both desk-based and desk-free workers. We predict that AI will become a powerful ally for these employees. Imagine AI augmenting human capabilities, handling routine tasks, and freeing up desk-free workers to focus on higher-value, strategic activities.

This shift allows for the development of new skills, fostering a more dynamic and adaptable workforce. Leaders are recognising the potential of AI to address staff shortages too, not by reducing employee numbers, but by increasing productivity and efficiency. 29% of leaders already anticipate AI and automation as a key solution to this challenge.

The reality is, the future of work is still being moulded. But while full automation might seem distant, AI is already enabling remarkable advancements. Cloud-based technologies are providing unprecedented visibility, seamless systems integration, and data accuracy. This empowers employees and middle managers to achieve more, leveraging their full skillsets and making more informed decisions.

AI-powered tools that can optimise logistics routes, predict maintenance needs, and provide real-time support to frontline workers, improving their performance and safety.

AI Assist which can respond to user requests, work alongside humans, provide automation around repetitive tasks, and ultimately improve workfl ows, so that workers can focus on complex problem-solving and customer interactions. AI-driven insights that can identify training gaps and personalise learning experiences, ensuring workers stay ahead of the curve. And Agentic AI, which can act independently and provide more general help around strategising, scenario mapping, and problem-solving, learning as it goes (in relation to its business environment).

These capabilities will ensure businesses are more agile and responsive in the face of ever-changing market conditions. To maximise these benefi ts, it will be essential to approach AI implementation strategically. This includes managing risks by ensuring data quality, mitigating bias, and providing comprehensive training to employees.

Many are now changing their organisation’s relationship with the technology they use for these processes, choosing to rent instead of buy, via Software as a Service (SaaS) models to access the most up to date, compliant, secure, and costeff ective applications that can scale with them as they grow. In tandem with implementing bestin- class (and AI-enabled) systems, businesses can use the fi ndings from our survey to better understand their desk-free employees and build a work environment that is more fulfilling.

The current state of

These sectors were chosen for their significant contribution to essential supply chains and service delivery, their reliance on a substantial desk-free workforce, and their shared experience of navigating complex operational challenges.

The interconnectedness of manufacturing, distribution, logistics, wholesale, and retail, forming the backbone of product movement, made their inclusion essential. Similarly, passenger transport and business services are crucial for enabling the efficient flow of people and supporting the operational infrastructure of other industries.

Each sector faces unique pressures in the current economic landscape, including workforce and skills shortages, which are central themes in our data. While our findings are specific to these seven sectors, the underlying issues of feeling unheard, work overload, and inadequate compensation resonate across the broader desk-free universe.

42%

25%

say increased pay and benefits would improve employee retention, compared to just 24% of executive leaders and 34% of middle managers who think this would help with keeping hold of their staff

45% of executive leaders say their staff have some flexibility around shifts/hours, but only 24% of those within the desk-free workforce think this is the case

Strengthening compliance & resilience

Other health and safety requirements, including first aid training, operation of fire and hazard drills, and more, must all be scrupulously managed so that the organisation is operating within the law, as well as remaining compliant for insurance purposes. Failure to do so could have disastrous financial, legal, and reputational consequences—aside from the risk to life.

The Employment Rights Bill, passed in October 2024, introduces 28 significant reforms that will have an impact on many desk-free workers, as well as the organisations that employ them workers in the UK, protecting them from unfair practices and helping keep people in jobs for longer. This is designed to assist employers by reducing recruitment costs, but some of the reforms may have little impact on frontline workers.

Our survey shows that many employers are on board with the main objectives of the Bill, and as reputable businesses, they want to support a positive company culture and working environment.

For example, the Bill will make flexible working the default where practical, a benefit that may not apply for many roles where staff are required to adhere to specific hours, such as retail opening hours, or are required to fill unpopular overnight and weekend shifts.

of HR directors and CHROs, and 40% of all managers, say their business welcomes the new legislation as it chimes with their company culture, built around mutual trust to get the job done and mutual respect.

of HR leaders and 40% of all managers tell us their business is planning to improve performance management and output measurement processes to ensure desk-free workers are delivering a fair return on the additional rights they will receive.