Walk into most offices and you’ll see a digital environment: Slack notifications, online forms, cloud documents, calendars filled with Zoom links. Now walk into a warehouse, a job site, a factory floor, or a hospitality breakroom or retail back office. You’re more likely to see paper signs taped to walls, clipboards on desks, whiteboards with old notes, or a supervisor walking around trying to tell people something in person.
It’s not that frontline teams don’t want to be digital. It’s that the tools haven’t worked for them.
The truth is, most software was made with desk-based employees in mind. It assumes people are sitting still, working on a computer, with high-speed internet, corporate logins, and email addresses.
That’s not how the frontline works.
Frontline employees are moving. They're sharing devices. Many don’t have company emails. They aren’t opening five tabs and toggling between systems. They need tools that fit inside their workflow—not ones that add steps or friction to it.
But that’s what they’re usually given: clunky HR portals, confusing apps, printouts taped to a breakroom door.
So they stick with what’s familiar: paper, in-person instructions, manual reminders, and their own memory.
Relying on paper isn’t just outdated. It actively holds things back.
A missing form slows down someone’s daily admin work.
A training record stored in a drawer becomes an annual training audit nightmare.
A verbal reminder about a new procedure gets lost by the next shift.
A schedule posted on a wall doesn’t help someone who’s not on-site.
Every analog gap is a risk or delay. It’s missed productivity. It’s miscommunication. It’s wasted time.
And when things go wrong—when someone doesn’t show up, or isn’t trained properly, or gets hurt—those paper-based processes don't hold up.
Some people like to say frontline workers are “hard to reach.”
They’re not.
They’re just not given good ways to stay connected.
If a tool is hard to use, requires a personal phone, asks for a download, or doesn’t make any part of their job easier—they won’t use it. And they shouldn’t have to.
People want tools that:
Are easy to understand the first time they see them
Don’t need long training sessions
Can be used conveniently
Actually help them get their job done better
If it takes a project plan and a month of onboarding every time you want to replace a piece of paper, it’s not going to work in a fast-moving, high-turnover environment.
Frontline workplaces need simple, usable systems they can plug in and start using tomorrow.
Not giant software rollouts. Not complex “transformation projects.”
Just tools that fit the way the work is actually done.
Tools that can live on a breakroom tablet, a wall-mounted screen, or a mobile device shared by the shift. Tools that make it easier to share updates, deliver checklists, post the schedule, or complete a form—without needing to track someone down.
This isn’t a wild new idea. It’s just what office workers have had for years, adapted to people who move instead of sit.
Right now, most frontline managers are stuck trying to “make it work” with a mix of emails, whiteboards, texts, group chats, and personal favors.
But it doesn’t scale. And it burns people out.
If we want more connected, safe, and productive frontline workplaces, we can’t keep asking these managers to solve their own problems without giving them the right tools with which to do it.