At WorkStep, I’ve always believed the frontline deserves more than check-the-box engagement. They deserve a seat at the table.

Recently, I had the chance to sit down with my co-founder, Justin Butler, and Les Thompson, CHRO at Love’s Travel Stops, for a candid conversation about the state, and future, of frontline engagement. We reflected on where we’ve been, where we are today, and where we’re heading as we look toward 2025 and beyond.

Why we started: Giving the frontline a voice

WorkStep was founded to solve a glaring problem: frontline teams were unheard, undervalued, and largely absent from critical business decisions. Traditional employee engagement tools weren’t built for them. They were designed for the office, not the warehouse.

The shift we’re seeing: From real-time data collection to hyper-personalized action

The traditional playbook for engagement includes annual surveys, delayed insights, and generic action plans. It’s not just outdated, it’s ineffective. At WorkStep, we’re shifting from passive data collection to targeted, hyper-personalized action.

That means moving beyond “real-time” as a benchmark and towards proactive leadership enablement. It means surfacing personalized insights and AI-suggested actions that are tailored to what your employees are actually saying in their own words, at scale.

Think less dashboard, more embedded leadership coach. A co-pilot that not only identifies what matters most in the feedback, but also recommends concrete, data-backed next steps drawn from a mix of employee voice, best practices, and proven successful actions across your organization.

Where we are today: From visibility to impact, at the individual leader level

Over the past 18 months, we’ve helped rewire how leading organizations approach engagement. Continuous listening, accessibility for frontline workers, and operations leadership buy-in are now expected. But we’re pushing the market further.

The next evolution? Hyper-personalized action based on real-time, super-granular feedback—not just high-level themes. WorkStep surfaces the exact pain points your employees are sharing, like “attendance policy confusion” or “break room cleanliness,” and then delivers clear, immediate recommendations tied to those specific insights.

That includes:

• Targeted Comment Insights at the moment of need.
• AI Suggested Actions that are pre-vetted, sourced from industry best practices, historical success, and actual employee feedback.
• Automated impact tracking to measure what worked—and what’s working.

What’s coming in 2025: Death to the dashboard

In 2025, WorkStep is ditching the passive “view-and-guess” approach in favor of an intelligent co-pilot that lives where leaders work and helps them act with confidence every single day.

WorkStep’s co-pilot will be a task-focused, action-first experience that:

• Prioritizes your daily to-dos based on what your team is saying.
• Delivers AI-powered recommendations in plain language.
• Coaches in real-time, surfacing just-in-time insights contextualized to your location, role, and what’s happening on your team.
• Closes the loop with automated impact tracking, so you can see what worked—and what didn’t—without needing an analyst.

It will be a true frontline leadership co-pilot that thinks, plans, and acts with you.

The future is fast, personalized, and proactive

WorkStep is focused on delivering a leadership co-pilot, a system that cuts through the clutter, surfaces what matters most, and offers clear, timely guidance. It’s built to empower every leader, from a first-time frontline supervisor to an experienced regional VP, to act with confidence and drive meaningful change.

Watch the full webinar recording here