Deskless Workforce in Sports and Hospitality: 2026 Industry Statistics Report

The deskless workforce is the largest and least-equipped segment of the global labor market. About 80 percent of the world's workers, roughly 2.7 billion people, do not do their core job at a desk, yet historically only about 1 percent of enterprise software spending has been built for them, according to Emergence Capital's State of Technology for the Deskless Workforce. In sports and hospitality, those workers are the suite attendants, concession runners, cabana servers, housekeepers, and facilities crews who carry the entire guest experience on their feet.

This report pulls together the numbers that matter for venue and hospitality operators in 2026: how big the deskless workforce is, where the technology gaps sit, what fractured communication does to turnover and engagement, and how all of it shows up in service speed and revenue. We separate two kinds of data throughout. External, industry-wide figures are cited and linked to recognized research, labor, and industry sources. Listo's own first-party numbers are labeled "Listo reports" and tied to the named customer they came from, so you always know which is which. We build workforce-communication software for exactly these teams, so we read this data as a map of where service breaks down and where the recoverable revenue sits.

The size and composition of the deskless workforce

The deskless workforce is not a niche. It is the majority of all work.

• About 80 percent of the global workforce is deskless, roughly 2.7 billion people who do not perform their core role at a fixed desk, per Emergence Capital.
• Despite that scale, historically only about 1 percent of enterprise software investment has been directed at technology purpose-built for deskless workers, according to the same Emergence Capital research.
• Sports, hospitality, retail, foodservice, and logistics are among the most deskless-heavy sectors, and they are the industries Listo serves, including stadiums and arenas, hotels and resorts, casinos, and entertainment venues.

In sports and hospitality the deskless share is close to total. The people who define whether a game day or a hotel stay feels premium are almost entirely mobile, moving between suites, concourses, kitchens, pool decks, cabanas, guest rooms, and back-of-house warehouses. That mismatch, a huge frontline running on the thinnest slice of technology investment, is the structural problem every statistic below traces back to.

The technology adoption gap on the frontline

Deskless workers want better tools and lean on technology constantly, but the equipment gap is real and measurable. Emergence Capital's State of Technology for the Deskless Workforce found:

• 75 percent of deskless workers spend most of their time on the job using technology.
• 70 percent believe more technology would help them perform better.
• 56 percent use their own personal technology to fill gaps their employer leaves, meaning more than half are subsidizing their own toolset.
• 57 percent are provided a smartphone or tablet by their employer, and only about 5 percent are provided a smartwatch, so wearables remain rare even though frontline work is hands-busy and on-the-move.
• 14 percent are provided no device at all by their employer.

The takeaway for venue operators: the appetite for better frontline tools is already there, and a large share of staff are improvising with personal phones because purpose-built systems were never given to them. Group texts, two-way radios, paper run sheets, and front-desk phone calls are the default in many venues, and none of them route a request to a specific available person or prove it was completed. This is the exact gap Listo's core platform was built to close, with tap-and-go requests that smart-route to the right available staffer on whatever device they already carry, including the Samsung Galaxy smartwatch.

Communication, turnover, and engagement

When frontline communication is broken, people leave. Sports and hospitality already sit at the top of the turnover charts, and the data shows why.

Communication quality

• 74 percent of frontline employees find their organization's communication at least somewhat helpful, compared with 89 percent of managers and executives, a gap that points to information not reaching the floor cleanly, per Axonify's 2024 Deskless Report.
• 40 percent of frontline managers report being burned out, and 54 percent say they feel short-staffed, according to the same Axonify report, so the strain runs up the chain as well as down.

Turnover and retention

• Leisure and hospitality consistently records the highest quit rate of any major industry in the United States, well above the economy-wide average, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
• Nearly 50 percent of frontline workers changed jobs in 2023, based on Beekeeper's 2024 Frontline Workforce Pulse Report of more than 8,000 frontline workers, managers, and administrators.
• 32 percent of frontline workers were considering leaving their jobs, per Axonify's 2024 Deskless Report.

The cost of that churn

• Replacing an employee costs roughly one-half to two times their annual salary, and for frontline workers specifically the replacement cost is about 40 percent of salary, according to Gallup.
• In hospitality specifically, the cost of replacing a single frontline employee averages about $5,864, with up to 70 percent of that cost coming from lost productivity while a new hire ramps, per Cornell University's Center for Hospitality Research study by Timothy Hinkin and J. Bruce Tracey, summarized by the Cornell Chronicle.

Multiply that $5,864 across a venue that turns over dozens or hundreds of seasonal and hourly staff a year and the number becomes a budget line, not a footnote. Better day-to-day communication is one of the few levers that addresses the root cause rather than the symptom: when requests route cleanly, get acknowledged, and close out with proof, the floor runs calmer and managers stop relaying every message by hand. Listo reports an average reduction of about 15 percent in monthly labor hours across customers.

The service-and-revenue impact

Frontline communication is not only an HR problem. In sports and hospitality it is a revenue problem, because slow or missed service directly shrinks per-guest spend. The clearest external evidence comes from Oracle Food and Beverage's "Stadium of the Future" report, a survey of 2,008 sports fans across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada:

• 58 percent of fans said they would spend even more on food and beverages if they did not have to wait in lines.
• 59 percent said they would spend more on concessions if their wait time were cut in half.
• 10 minutes was the maximum wait time fans found acceptable to buy food and drink.
• 68 percent were highly interested in using a mobile application to order, and 76 percent said in-seat delivery would improve their stadium experience.

The pattern is consistent: speed of service is the spending throttle. Every minute a guest spends waiting, or every request that never reaches an available staffer, is margin left on the table. This is where Listo's first-party results land, and each figure below is tied to its named venue rather than presented as a guaranteed outcome.

• Listo reports that at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions and operated by Levy, each service request generates more than $100 in food and beverage revenue.
• Listo reports a 30 percent boost in cabana service revenue and a 9 percent increase in guest average spend at Great Wolf Lodge Niagara, with one-to-two-minute response times across 24 private cabanas.
• Listo reports that at TD Garden, operated by Delaware North, the platform supported an average response time under 5 minutes and 1,472 completed guest requests in 6 months across 90 premium suites.
• Listo reports that at American Family Field, also operated by Delaware North, the Milwaukee Brewers venue saw a 67 percent reduction in IT downtime, zero missed back-of-house restock orders, and a 92 percent increase in reporting efficiency.
• Listo reports that Specsavers, the world's largest privately owned optometry company, achieved a 26x return on its Listo spend and a 30 percent increase in operational efficiency after unifying 10 staff across 9 service areas at one clinic.

Across customers more broadly, Listo reports an average increase of 15 to 20 percent in food and beverage revenue. These are reported averages and per-customer outcomes, not guarantees, and results depend on venue type, staffing, and deployment.

How the numbers connect

The data tells one story. The deskless workforce is enormous and under-equipped, frontline communication is weaker than at HQ, that gap feeds industry-leading turnover, and slow service caps the revenue a venue can capture. A real-time communication and task layer addresses all four at once: it gives frontline teams the modern tool the technology gap denied them, routes and proves work so the floor runs calmer, and compresses response times so more requests convert to revenue. For how venues put this into practice, see Listo's coverage for stadiums and arenas and hotels, resorts, and casinos, or browse the resources and blog library.

Turn frontline service into measurable revenue

The data is consistent across every source in this report: the deskless workforce is the majority of work, it has been starved of purpose-built tools, and in sports and hospitality that gap shows up as turnover and as revenue left waiting in line. Closing it starts with giving frontline teams a fast, accountable way to communicate and serve guests in real time.

To see what that looks like in your venue, including how response times, staff hours, and per-guest spend can move, book a demo or get in touch with the Listo team. We will walk the platform through your service areas, your staffing model, and the outcomes that matter to your operation.

Methodology and sources

This report combines two clearly separated categories of data.

• External, industry-wide statistics are drawn from recognized research, labor, and industry sources and are linked inline at each claim. They describe the deskless workforce and the sports and hospitality industries broadly, not Listo specifically.
• First-party Listo figures are labeled "Listo reports" and paired with the named customer they came from. Per-customer results (Ford Field, Great Wolf Lodge, TD Garden, American Family Field, Specsavers) are specific outcomes, not guarantees. Platform-wide figures (about 15 percent fewer monthly labor hours and 15 to 20 percent higher food and beverage revenue) are reported averages, and actual results vary by venue, staffing, and deployment.

External sources cited:

• Emergence Capital, "The State of Technology for the Deskless Workforce 2020," for global deskless workforce size (about 80 percent, 2.7 billion), the roughly 1 percent software-investment figure, and device and adoption statistics. https://www.emcap.com/technology-for-the-deskless-workforce-2020
• Axonify, "2024 Deskless Report," for frontline communication quality, manager burnout, short-staffing, and intent-to-leave figures. https://axonify.com/deskless-report/
• Beekeeper, "2024 Frontline Workforce Pulse Report," reported via Business Wire, for the share of frontline workers who changed jobs in 2023. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240117733401/en/Beekeeper-Study-Finds-Nearly-50-of-Frontline-Workers-Changed-Jobs-in-2023
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), for leisure and hospitality quit rates relative to other industries. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.htm
• Gallup, "This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion," for employee replacement-cost ranges by role. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx
• Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research, Timothy Hinkin and J. Bruce Tracey, summarized by the Cornell Chronicle, for the cost of replacing a frontline hospitality employee. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/12/study-finds-hidden-costs-hotel-employee-turnover
• Oracle Food and Beverage, "Stadium of the Future," for sports fan concession wait-time and spending data. https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/concession-wait-times-043019.html