Frontline employees shape the customer experience, spot operational friction first, and determine whether new tools improve work or simply create more of it. Their motivation, judgment, and skill are mission critical for any change—large or small, tech-based or not.

Yet large organizations often fail to harness the inherent power of their frontline workforce. In our research and advisory work, we have seen one major reason: flawed systems for listening to frontline workers and working with them to address the obstacles they face in carrying out their jobs. We have observed the same pattern repeatedly: Companies carry out broad engagement surveys that don’t adequately capture those obstacles. They result in well-intended but incomplete fixes, employees see little change, and trust erodes further.

One effective remedy is a disciplined process for listening to employees and engaging them in cocreating solutions to the challenges they face. We saw the power of this approach at a major pharmaceutical company, which built on previous initiatives led by the BCG Institute (formerly the BCG Henderson Institute) in retail, manufacturing, and professional services as part of its knowledge-development work.