Stop Thinking About Your Frontline Workers Like Second-Class Citizens

Recently, I had a conversation with an HR leader, and they lumped their workforce into two broad categories. There were knowledge workers — and everyone else. Categories and labels are useful for communication and a shared lexicon can make it easier to get things done. Except when they don’t.

What can feel efficient, good enough, or harmless can actually be counterproductive. It can telegraph that you are thinking about parts of your workforce in a limited way, or tell them a story...