From Day One | Stories

Elevating the Frontline Experience: Engagement, Growth, and Retention

Creatively engaging frontline workers can strengthen teams, improve retention, and dramatically speed up employee readiness. One recent solution: by pairing new hires with trained peer mentors during their first 90 days, Intermountain Health created a support system that helped employees feel welcomed, build confidence faster, and develop stronger connections across their teams. “In that first year, we were able to reduce time to independent performance by 41% across six departments, so that equated to $1.9 million in productive time that we were able to return to the business,” said Bette Kidane, senior director of learning & development at Intermountain Health, during a panel discussion at From Day One’s May virtual conference.Creating a Supportive Environment for Frontline Workers“Frontline workers power businesses around the world, day in and day out. Without them, we probably wouldn't be able to advance as an organization worldwide,” said Angie Parsons, director of product marketing at LumApps. But they are often at a disadvantage. “Those frontline workers typically don’t have the same tools and technology that the rest of the workforce has.” Equity and inclusion initiatives are key to helping them to feel just as connected as their in-office peers. Access to information and communications tools can impact “safety, productivity, promotion, [and] career growth.” Michelle Anderson, VP of global learning & development at AmTrust Financial Services, says the best way to address those needs is “listening often and responding visibly,” via pulse surveys with public results. Embedding growth opportunities within the flow of work is another way to encourage frontline development, she says, relying on software tools like Viva Learning and Microsoft Teams to push content during work hours. Keeping managers well-trained and consistent can help frontline workers feel secure and supported. “The immediate manager is the world to people,” said Yulia Denisova, VP of talent and development at Fanatics. “That’s the reason why people stay in the organization, and that’s the reason why people decide to leave the organization.” Making those pathways to information and support clear is crucial, both to the workers and to your overall business success. “Many times, frontline workers interact directly with customers, so when they have questions or are unsure about something, knowing where to get those answers quickly and confidently is critical, and that reflects both back to the worker as well as to the customer,” Kidane said. Tackling the Challenges of the Frontline ExperienceFrontline workers can often be harder to acquire and retain because of the unique challenges that come with their positions. One of the biggest roadblocks to retention can be a feeling of disconnection. “It feels like decisions are made to them, so things are happening to them, but they’re not with them. They’re not part of the decision process,” Anderson said. Clear, honest communication can help combat this, often requiring creative solutions to meet frontline workers where they are, in ways that are accessible in their unique position. Anderson’s philosophy is “engage, embed, impact,” meaning any engagement or professional development opportunities should be embedded within an employee’s workday, as they may not be able or willing to seek it out when off the clock. “What systems are they already in? What actions are they already taking? Are there meetings that are already happening that we can embed ourselves into?”Panelists connected virtually to share best practices for supporting the frontline workforce (photo by From Day One)In terms of hiring, frontline workers are often spread across various geographic regions, ages, languages, and demographics—but messaging still must be able to reach and inspire them all. “It’s very important that you are not discriminating against those things and you are as inclusive as possible, and very thoughtful in terms of your learning approach and in terms of your communication approach,” Denisova said. In an organization like Fanatics, which hires a high volume of seasonal workers, having a well-defined, attractive company culture can inspire those employees to keep coming back. Fanatics recently launched its BOLD initiatives, Denisova said: “B stands for Building championship teams, O for being truly obsessed with fans, L for limitless entrepreneurial spirit, and D for determined and relentless mindset. Finding that true differentiator for your company is helpful.” Parsons sees hiring and retention as a cycle with each impacting the other. “If there’s really terrible morale and culture, it’s going to impact [attrition], or the other way around. If the culture is great, then they’re going to want to refer their friends or for their family,” she said. Kidane agrees that word-of-mouth is of utmost importance. “That building the brand of your organization and the culture is paramount to attracting talented workers,” she said. “And when you create a culture of excellence and a culture of caring, and your advertising out in the community reflects that, then people want to come and be a part of it.” Investing in Frontline WorkersDenisova’s team has launched an ambassadorship program at Fanatics that lets frontline workers take on leadership roles to train new hires and teach them how to operate equipment, answer questions, and provide company onboarding. It gives those employees an opportunity to test out if they might be interested in becoming a shift manager down the line. “Those types of initiatives help create a broader engagement and a broader career advancement within the organization,” Denisova said. Sometimes, the best professional development programs are the simplest ones, says moderator Corinne Lestch, journalist and founder of the Off-Site Writing Workshop, citing “the benefits of not overthinking these programs.” For Anderson, it means incorporating growth opportunities in discussions that workers are already having with their managers. “First, reflecting on your own personal goals and values. What do you want to do? What do you like to do? Really getting to know, not what am I doing [now], but what do I enjoy?” Anderson said. “And then helping them build a realistic learning plan and equipping the managers to have regular development conversations with them,” which can help direct them to the in-house learning tools available. “Simplicity is what is going to drive adoption.” Offering mentoring opportunities and ways to engage in in-house networking through employee resource groups are excellent ways to encourage growth within the company. It’s also important to help frontline workers understand how their role impacts the business, to inspire them to want to do more. “Empowering the workers to see how their contributions to the business impact the bottom line can help them see, it’s not just me clocking in and clocking out,” Parsons said. “[This] coupled with performance checks and succession planning can also help inspire them to have those bigger aspirations for long term career growth.” Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by NewSaetiew/iStock)

Live Conference Recap BY Grace Turney | June 02, 2026

Skills That Stick: How Tech and Tools Are Boosting Learning and Development

When Christine Karel, head of enterprise learning at Ameriprise Financial, joined early conversations around enterprise adoption of Microsoft Copilot, she pushed for learning and development to be included from the outset to ensure the investment translated into real business value. She observed that many AI rollouts are initially centered on technology, risk, and compliance, without a clear strategy for how employees would apply these tools to drive performance and productivity outcomes. Karel emphasized that deploying AI at scale is only part of the equation. Organizations are now focused on closing the gap between access and impact by helping employees build the capability to use AI in meaningful, role-specific ways. When done well, this shift enables faster decision-making, improved productivity, and a stronger return on technology investments“If you launch a massive investment like Copilot across an organization,” said Karel, “how are we, as talent and learning and HR, supporting that initiative?” That question, and the lessons behind it, set the tone for a lively panel discussion at a From Day One’s Minneapolis conference. A panel of leaders dug into how companies are scrambling to build AI fluency among employees, why the pace of change keeps outrunning their strategies, and what it will take for L&D to earn a permanent seat at the table. The panel was moderated by Evan Ramstad, business columnist for the Minnesota Star Tribune.When the Tool Launches Before the TrainingThe story Karel told about Copilot wasn’t unique. Michelle Anderson, VP of global learning & development at AmTrust Financial Services, described almost the same experience. “A couple years ago, we launched Copilot to the entire company without us, they didn’t come to L&D at all, and then they wondered, ‘Well, why did this fall flat? Why isn’t anybody using it?’” The company pulled the tool back and is now building its own internal solution. L&D has a seat at that table now, Anderson says, but only because the first attempt failed.The pattern reveals something important: AI adoption isn’t primarily a technology problem. It’s a learning problem. People arrive with wildly different baselines: some treat AI like Google, others are genuinely uncertain what it can do. And without a deliberate strategy to meet them where they are, even well-funded rollouts stall.Anderson’s team at AmTrust has responded with a framework called Grow, designed to weave learning into employees’ daily workflow rather than tacking it on as a separate task. The system uses job descriptions and self-reported skills to recommend relevant development, surfacing nudges through Microsoft Viva Learning directly inside Teams. Managers are expected to reinforce the habit (a minimum of one hour of learning per month is company policy) because, as Anderson put it, “if your manager doesn’t support something, you’re not going to find the time to do it.”Measuring Comfort, Not Just CompletionOne of the sharper debates among panelists was how, and whether, to assess employees’ comfort with AI tools. Anderson said AmTrust deliberately chose not to survey its workforce on the topic. “We were worried that there would be fear associated with it,” she said. “And I don’t think we’re ready to address that fear yet.”Panelists shared insights on "Skills That Stick: How Tech and Tools Are Boosting Learning and Development" during the discussion in Minneapolis Carita Hibben, VP of HR at C.H. Robinson, took a different approach. About two years into what she described as a comprehensive AI transformation at the logistics company, her team conducted a pulse survey asking employees to rate their comfort with AI in their daily work. Around 73% said they were comfortable—a result Hibben called encouraging, and one that also yielded “actionable insights on areas that we might need to dive deeper into.”C.H. Robinson has also leaned into AI-powered role-play simulations. Using a platform, employees and managers can practice challenging conversations by either playing themselves or switching roles to see the scenario from the other side. The same kind of simulation is used by the company’s sales and account management teams to prepare for difficult customer conversations. Hibben noted that utilization spikes during performance review periods and other high-stakes moments, even without formal requirements to use the tool.AmTrust has built out similar functionality through LinkedIn Learning, with the added ability to create custom simulations tailored to specific roles. The platform scores participants and recommends follow-on coursework based on performance. Anderson’s team is now exploring how to embed those simulations into new-hire programs for claims associates.Closing the Loop at the C-Suite LevelMoses Berkowitz, chief revenue officer at Censia AI, works closely with CHROs, CFOs, and CEOs on workforce strategy. He offered a bird’s-eye view of what’s driving urgency at the top of organizations. “This is a CEO and board-level conversation right now,” he said, “and the conversation in 10 out of 10 rooms is that this is going to have a massive impact on our workforce. Not in a scary way, but jobs are really going to change.”What gives him optimism, Berkowitz said, is that conversations previously happening in silos are now happening in the same room: What skills does the business actually need? What do our employees have? Where’s the gap? That alignment, he says, is the foundation for meaningful progress.Karel echoed that framing, describing how Ameriprise’s AI Leadership Council, originally composed of technology, risk, and compliance leaders, has expanded to include talent, communications, and business unit representatives. The lesson she drew was pointed: you can only get so far with a tool. “The people that run the tool, that think through the tool, and actually work around the tool are really what we need to be thinking about.”Berkowitz added a striking data point from his firm’s work with one of the world’s largest consulting companies: out of 400,000 employees, the single heaviest user of their internal AI tools is the CEO. “That sends a message to everyone that we take this seriously.”The Half-Life ProblemSkills are expiring faster than ever, and AI is accelerating that trend at a remarkable pace. Berkowitz says that the half-life of a skill has collapsed to under five years, and for anything AI-adjacent, it’s compressing even faster.The implications for L&D are significant. Berkowitz described working with a university that invested $250,000 in an AI training program. Six months after launch, the program was obsolete—the underlying technology had moved on. “As the half-life of skills compresses, we need to think about how we build programs differently,” he said.The panelists largely agreed that the answer isn’t to build more programs faster, but to build differently. That formal, comprehensive training curriculum may simply become too time-intensive to justify, says Anderson. “We’re going to have to get to the point where we’re not building big giant formal programs anymore. We’re building more in the flow of work, in the place that they need it.”Karel put it plainly: AI makes it faster and easier to create content, but that won’t solve the structural problem if organizations are building around the wrong model entirely. What will endure, Karel says, are the foundational capabilities: critical thinking, adaptability, ethical judgment. “Those are old skills. If you could just base the foundation on some of those things, those are going to be the things that take you along the way.”The Human Element Doesn’t DisappearAs the conversation turned to productivity, Berkowitz gently pushed back on the framing that tends to dominate headlines. “The topic of productivity, it’s all we want to talk about in the media, and we’re replacing workers, but I think it’s a bit of a red herring.” The more useful question, he says, is how organizations can deliver more value to customers per unit of human capital. He cited the example of bank tellers after ATMs arrived: The work changed, but the role didn’t disappear. Tellers shifted from handling cash to greeting customers, and the experience actually improved.Anderson made a similar case, pointing to research suggesting that some roles could see 40% to 50% productivity gains through automation. But she was quick to add the counterweight: “There has to be a human at the center of it. How do we teach people to be better critical thinkers and thought partners?” She envisions a future where managers become more important, not less, not because AI will replace their authority, but because coaching, psychological safety, and human judgment will matter more as digital tools handle more routine tasks.What L&D Looks Like in Five YearsClosing the session with a rapid-fire look ahead, each panelist offered a vision for where learning and development is headed.Karel predicted that the function will shift its focus from teaching specific topics to shaping workforce design, with learning as one lever among many, grounded in deep knowledge of what skills the business actually needs.Hibben emphasized agility above all else. “What we know is that there’s going to be continuation of skills needed, and those talent practitioners need to be flexible and agile.”Anderson was less focused on where L&D sits in the org chart than on whether it maintains strong partnerships with the business and stays aligned on outcomes.Berkowitz offered a challenging take: the United States spends roughly $150 billion annually on upskilling and reskilling, he says, and he believes that figure still dramatically underestimates what’s needed. “If I were to wave the magic wand, we’re going to invest a lot more in L&D.” The catch is that it will be managed like a business. “We’re going to run it like a P&L.”Anderson’s response was immediate: “I would be okay with that.”Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)