Three signs frontline enablement is off-course (and how to get back on track)

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: frontline worker involvement is necessary for any maintenance initiative to succeed. If your frontline team isn’t on board, your project is in trouble, whether it’s a process change, a CMMS implementation, or AI adoption.

One of the strongest predictors of frontline involvement is enablement and how well-equipped your frontline is to do their best work. In a recent Wrench Factor episode, our host Tyler Hufstetler sat down with Chris Hutson, Director of Manufacturing Solutions at MaintainX, to talk about frontline enablement and how it goes hand in hand with a successful maintenance culture.

“[Frontline] enablement is built incrementally. It’s based on trust and team communication,” said Hutson, highlighting a theme that resurfaced throughout the conversation. 

We all know the quantifiable signs that a company’s maintenance culture may be in danger, like high turnover, downtime, and cost of maintenance. But measuring trust and communication is a little trickier, although if you look closely, the evidence is there.   

In this article, we’ll outline three clues that enablement may be in danger, and how you can address them before your maintenance culture is impacted.

Key takeaways

• Trust and communication are essential for enablement. When they’re prioritized, enablement thrives. When they’re not present, enablement suffers.  
• Technicians need access to modern technology and cutting-edge tools to feel empowered. When they’re asked to get by with sub-par technology, they feel devalued.
• KPIs should be tied back to each individual’s purpose within the organization. This takes technician focus from task-oriented to mission-oriented.
• Many technicians worry they’ll be replaced by AI. Without training and communication that addresses those fears, enablement will suffer. 

1: Technicians don’t have access to modern technology 

Modern maintenance technology directly impacts business outcomes, but it also greatly influences how frontline technicians work, and often how they feel about their work. 

Enablement is stunted when frontline workers don’t have the tools they need to do their best, most informed, and efficient work. If a maintenance team is doing their work with pen and paper, Excel, or a legacy CMMS, they simply don’t have the best tools for the job. 

We saw this trend reflected in the State of Industrial Maintenance 2025 Report, where 58% of respondents reported that they dedicate less than half their time to planned maintenance. Deficiencies in technology are a major roadblock to carrying out preventive maintenance.

Over time, being consistently under-resourced sends a message that maintenance is not a priority, which erodes trust and impacts communication both within and between teams. 

How to get back on track

Trust is built when teams have the right information at the right time. That starts with technology that lets them access both. Invest in systems that give your technicians the opportunity to do their best work. A mobile CMMS that allows technicians to access exactly what they need, when they need it, greatly impacts enablement. 

2: KPIs are only tied to company performance

When you can tie maintenance key performance indicators (KPIs) to company performance, you can tie maintenance work to the organization’s bottom line. That’s a great thing, but it can’t be the only thing. 

Maintenance metrics must be made personal for the frontline. When they’re not, enablement suffers. As Hutson mentioned, without communicating why KPIs are important for each frontline worker, technicians will only ever be asking themselves, “What do I have to do today?” rather than, “What’s the mission I’m helping to drive towards today?”

There’s a big gap between those two mindsets, and enablement tends to get lost in it.

How to get back on track

When you communicate not only how KPIs are tied to the organization’s mission, but also how they’re tied to each frontline worker’s individual purpose within the organization, you can enable technicians to do their best work. 

There are a few ways you can do this: 

• Over-communicate the maintenance team’s goals and how they’re helping the organization.
• Build digital procedures with scorecards to simplify and gamify your technicians’ to-do lists. 
• Create checklists that people actually want to complete. When you add point-of-use photos and quantifiable data, there’s more overall context and available information, which shows technicians how they’re contributing. 
• Build a leaderboard that aligns to common objectives to gamify output and celebrate individual wins. 

3: Technicians are afraid they’ll be replaced by AI

All the talk about AI in manufacturing and maintenance stirs up as much excitement as it does fear. Some technicians worry that their jobs will be replaced, which is bad for both morale and the business. In fact, a recent 2025 Gartner survey found that workers who fear AI will replace their jobs are 27% less likely to stay with their employer. 

AI is making great strides to improve technician productivity, but there’s no replacement for institutional knowledge. And in an industry where as much as 40% of the current maintenance workforce is expected to retire within the next five years, nobody wants to lose additional frontline talent to the fear or anticipation that their job is not valuable. 

This fear can be counteracted with training and communication around AI. But if you’re doing nothing to combat a worst-case narrative, why should your workforce expect anything different?

How to get back on track

Communication and training are key to reining in fears around AI. If you’re hoping to bring AI systems into your facility, the more you can communicate now, the better. 

• Ask your frontline how they feel about AI. Are they fearful? Confused? Worried about how it will impact their work? Weave these fears into your training. 
• Educate your frontline on the benefits of AI—how it can automate repetitive tasks, improve workflows with recommendations, and avoid downtime with predictive capabilities.
• Work AI training into your technicians’ workflow. Have them play around with tools like CoPilot to see what it’s actually like and how it affects their daily tasks. 

Enablement is built one step at a time

Enablement doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s something you can make incremental changes to improve every day. When you focus on fostering trust and prioritizing communication with your technicians, you’ll see enablement strengthen and grow. 

If you’d like to learn more about trends in today’s maintenance landscape, download the State of Industrial Maintenance 2025 Report.