The Workforce Bottleneck No One’s Talking About: Frontline Leadership Development

Most workforce conversations today revolve around AI disruption and the need for upskilling. But one critical area continues to get sidelined: frontline leadership development.

In a recent episode of Tech in EdTech, I sat down with Bijal Shah, CEO at Guild, to talk about what it really takes to build a resilient workforce. What stood out wasn’t just the shift in skills or technologies. It was the shift in who we’re designing for and what it means to plan for resilience at scale.

Leadership Isn’t Trickle Down Anymore

While many organizations focus their L&D efforts on desk-based roles or future-focused tech teams, a growing number of high-impact roles remain under-supported: supervisors in warehouses, team leads in retail, patient-facing coordinators in healthcare.

These roles sit closest to the customer. They manage real-time decisions. They adapt daily to staffing gaps, changing hours, and customer needs. And yet, as Shah pointed out:

“Leadership development tends to focus on desk workers. But resilience lives in the frontline. That’s where adaptability and empathy matter most and get the least investment.”

This isn’t a commonly discussed workforce priority, but it’s emerging as one of the most consequential. Companies building resilience from the ground up are starting to recognize that it’s not just the skills of individual contributors that matter. It’s the mindsets and management abilities of those leading them.

Designing for Mobility, Not Just Learning

Traditional corporate skilling programs often track engagement and completion. But that doesn’t always translate into movement. Shah noted that real success isn’t about how many workers log in. It’s about how many move up.

At Guild, the shift in thinking shows up in the data: learners who go through career-aligned programs are 3.5x more likely to get promoted than their peers. That kind of metric reflects more than knowledge gains. It reflects a workforce design that’s intentionally linked to both opportunity and content.

“We define career-aligned programs as programs that directly map to business-critical functions. If there’s no real pathway, it’s not a mobility program.”

It’s a point that often gets lost in the rush to offer more courses or faster certifications. The goal is to move forward. And that only happens when learning design is tied directly to business outcomes, not general growth.

Resilience Starts with Practical Planning

There’s no shortage of predictions about how AI will impact the labor market. But Shah offered a practical counterpoint: instead of focusing on macro trends that are hard to control, look inward.

“You already know which roles drive revenue. You know what keeps your stores open or your lines running. That’s where to start.”

One case study shared in the episode came from OSF Health. By combining internal data with Guild’s learning platform, they identified a looming nursing shortage and adjusted quickly. The result? A 42% increase in enrollments in nursing-aligned pathways without changing the broader organization structure.

It’s an example of strategic responsiveness that doesn’t require waiting for perfect forecasts or a complete reskilling overhaul. It just requires starting with what the business already knows.

From Platform to Partner: A Shift in Posture

For EdTech and workforce learning providers, the shift from vendor to strategic partner is often discussed, but rarely defined. Shah’s perspective made it clear: the difference is in how closely a provider aligns to the employer’s business, beyond HR goals.

“I’ve walked the floor at meat plants, sat in auto factories, and visited fast-growing restaurants. If you don’t understand what the employee goes through, how can you help design for them?”

Beyond empathy, this kind of partnership also depends on owning the data conversation. For employers with hard business targets, including productivity, retention, and cost-per-hire, learning partners must bring more than content. They must bring proof.

That includes metrics like:

• Promotion velocity
• Wage growth
• Retention rates vs. non-learners
• Internal talent mobility
• ROI per dollar spent on programs

Without that layer, the relationship risks becoming transactional.

You Can’t Wait for Perfect

Perhaps the most understated takeaway from the conversation was this:

“If you wait for perfection, you’ll miss the opportunity.”

Strategic workforce planning rarely happens under ideal conditions. Whether you’re building the tech, designing the curriculum, or leading the L&D function. The teams making real progress are the ones who start with what they have, act on what they know, and build in agility from the start.

This blog doesn’t aim to summarize a podcast. It surfaces a pattern: that resilience in the workforce isn’t a concept, it’s a design problem. And the design needs to change.