Studist Survey Finds Company Size Does Not Guarantee Standardized Frontline Operations

Studist Inc., a company supporting lean operations, conducted a survey on frontline inefficiencies from February 12 to February 16, 2026, targeting 1,233 frontline executives, officers, managers, and employees in manufacturing, retail, wholesale, services, and related industries. The survey found that many workplaces lack sufficient manuals, procedures, and standardized systems regardless of company size, resulting in operations that depend heavily on specific individuals. Even among companies with 300 or more employees, 59.2% reported work that only certain people can perform, while 57.7% had experienced situations where they did not know what to do because manuals or procedures were insufficient. Among companies with fewer than 300 employees, 58.0% also reported personalized, person-dependent operations. The survey also revealed that manuals often exist only in name. In companies with 300 or more employees, 43.6% had manuals that had not been updated for more than three years, and 43.1% had manuals that nobody used. In companies with fewer than 300 employees, 59.1% said no particular standardization efforts were being made. When employees encountered problems, the most common response was to ask supervisors or senior colleagues directly, at 63.8%, while only 25.7% referred to manuals or procedure documents. This shows that frontline operations still rely heavily on verbal confirmation. These inefficiencies do not merely waste time; they may also affect employees’ sense of growth and motivation. Employees who felt more stress from time lost during work were more likely to lack a sense of growth through their jobs. Among those with declining motivation or an intention to change jobs, around 70% did not feel they were growing. Among managers, 70.3% felt a perception gap with executives regarding frontline operational efficiency, and 60.7% had experienced systems or tools introduced by management that ended up increasing the workload. Managers said successful tool adoption requires selecting tools suited to frontline realities and listening sufficiently to frontline opinions before implementation. Among executives and officers, 75.8% said they were concerned about maintaining frontline productivity and quality in the future or believed it might become impossible, while 40.1% said they had not yet implemented measures to address the declining labor force. For employees, the top condition for a workplace they would choose or continue working at was standardization that allows operations to continue even when someone is absent, selected by 50.2%. In addition, 66.7% of executives and officers said a new standard is needed to solve problems through systems rather than individual effort. Studist says that amid labor shortages, companies need to turn frontline knowledge into organizational assets and build sustainable operations that do not depend on individual experience, supported by manual maintenance, updates, knowledge management, and technologies such as AI.