Digital transformation doesn’t fail because the technology is broken. It fails because we underestimate the humans closest to the work.
In a recent Frontline Innovators conversation, transformation leader Kelly Kluge shared a perspective that challenges conventional thinking about frontline adoption: Our frontline workers aren’t just executing directives. They’re our problem solvers. Our thought leaders. Our knowledge workers. And yet, when new systems roll out, they’re often the last group meaningfully invested in.
The Hidden Cost of “Just Push Through”
There’s a persistent pattern in operational leadership:
- We implement new systems.
- We protect throughput at all costs.
- We compress training time.
- We expect adoption to “happen.”
Taking frontline workers off the floor feels expensive. If they’re in training, production slows. KPIs dip. Output drops. Instead of intentionally absorbing short-term impact, organizations push through.
The irony? When adoption struggles later, leaders say, “We should have given it more time.” Kelly reframed this challenge clearly: the issue isn’t capability, it’s incentives. Leaders are often rewarded for short-term output, not long-term resilience. When incentives prioritize hitting quarterly targets over building adaptive capacity, courage gets replaced with caution. And caution doesn’t create innovation.
Innovation Requires Courage, Not Just Calculators
It’s tempting to believe transformation is a math problem. If we could just build the perfect ROI model, show the long-term savings, and quantify the benefits, leaders would automatically invest in frontline adoption. But as Kelly pointed out, spreadsheets can be manipulated to support almost any narrative.
What transformation actually requires is something harder to model:
- The courage to challenge legacy operating models
- The willingness to experiment
- The conviction to try small pilots instead of defaulting to the “safe” path
Playing it safe often means stagnating at steady but uninspired growth. Bold experimentation, even at small scale, creates learning loops. And learning loops are what prepare organizations for the next wave of change.
Mind + Machine: The Future Isn’t Either/Or
Another powerful theme from the conversation was Kelly’s “Mind and Machine” philosophy. Technology isn’t here to replace frontline workers. It’s here to amplify them. Whether we’re talking about AI-driven forecasting or advanced robotics in manufacturing, the pattern is the same: machines increase speed, humans provide judgment, and together, they outperform either alone. Yet fear persists.
Frontline workers often interpret new technology as a signal: “They’re trying to replace me.” Many frontline roles, especially hands-on, mechanical, service-based work, are far less vulnerable to replacement than certain office-based analytical roles. Frontline workers will work to maintain automated systems, train AI-driven tools, diagnose and correct machine errors, and leverage real-time data to make smarter operational decisions. But none of that happens without intentional re-skilling, which requires time.
The Adoption Gap Isn’t Technical, It’s Communicative
There’s another overlooked factor in frontline adoption: storytelling. As Justin noted during the discussion, in the absence of proactive communication, people fill the gaps with their own narratives, as they are rarely optimistic.
If frontline teams don’t understand why the change is happening and how it benefits them, they’ll assume the worst. When fear drives behavior, adoption slows and can even quietly sabotage progress. A speedy solution can be found in what probably feels like over-communicating, because frontline teams need to understand the "why" behind change.
A Simple but Powerful Starting Point
If there’s one piece of advice that cuts through all of this, it’s the one Kelly offered at the close of the conversation: Stay curious. Curious about:
- What frontline teams are experiencing
- What would genuinely make their work easier
- What small experiments could unlock improvement
- What assumptions leadership may be carrying forward unexamined
Curiosity creates better questions, which create better experiments, which create better adoption, and thus better adoption drives real business outcomes.
The Frontline Advantage
Frontline workers are not barriers to transformation. They are the key to unlock the transformation. They see inefficiencies leadership cannot see, understand customer friction points firsthand, and carry institutional knowledge no system can replicate.
When organizations treat frontline teams as thought leaders, not just executors, technology adoption shifts from forced compliance to shared evolution. Transformation stops being something done to them. It becomes something built with them. And that shift changes everything.
Skyllful’s Digital Readiness Platform equips teams with what they need to excel on the frontlines and gives leaders deeper insight into their experiences. With real-world, mobile training, teams gain more accurate data, improved employee satisfaction, and better internal alignment.
Reach out today for a demo of the platform to see Skyllful’s tech in action.
Want to learn more frontline change management strategies from Kelly Kluge? Watch Skyllful’s Frontline Innovators podcast episode, or find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
Frequently Asked Questions: Takeaways From the Frontline Innovators Podcast With Kelly Kluge
Why is frontline technology adoption so hard?
Because frontline teams often don’t have the same time, flexibility, or support that office-based teams do. Taking someone off the floor for training can immediately reduce throughput, so organizations compress training and hope adoption “sticks.”
What's the biggest operational consequence of poor adoption?
When frontline workers are excluded from adoption, organizations miss their day-to-day insights and lose access to the people best positioned to identify problems early and solve them fast. That directly impacts performance, customer experience, and continuous improvement.
Are frontline workers "knowledge workers" too?
Yes, and this matters. Frontline teams operate with deep situational awareness and tribal knowledge. They are often the true “mind of the operation,” making real-time decisions where the business earns revenue.
What is the best first step to improving digital adoption?
Stay curious. Go ask frontline workers what would make their jobs easier, what slows them down, and what they actually need. Adoption improves when technology is built with the frontline, not delivered to them.
