To succeed in today’s digitally driven production ecosystem, leaders must embrace a fundamental mindset shift—one that views frontline workers as an essential investment in a company’s success rather than a cost line. This evolution in operational philosophy is at the core of the Frontline Talent of the Future Initiative, a collaboration between the World Economic Forum and McKinsey to recognize companies at the leading edge of talent innovations—those that have direct, measurable impact on productivity and workforce stability metrics. To explore the initiative in depth, read more on The Workforce of the Future.
The initiative recognizes that leading organizations make targeted investments across six critical talent capabilities:
- Work design and safety: reimagining frontline work to create safe and productive workplaces and processes
- Talent planning: understanding the frontline skills needed at the organization and site levels; matching demand and supply through dynamic scheduling
- Attraction and onboarding: finding and activating the next generation of frontline talent
- Talent development: building distinctive frontline capabilities for operators and supervisors
- Talent effectiveness: managing performance for operators and supervisors, driving the right behaviors to achieve performance aspirations
- Culture and experience: defining and delivering a compelling employee value proposition
Maintenance operations in focus
We conducted interviews and site visits with dozens of frontline operations around the world to learn about the innovations they have leveraged to create real impact. Among the most compelling innovations are those transforming maintenance operations. A high-caliber maintenance team can ensure that equipment and facilities are always ready to not just meet but exceed customer expectations. Despite its criticality, maintenance is often an underinvested function within industrial operations.
Leading companies are changing that, however, with investment in transformative innovations—and they’re realizing substantial benefits. Aramco, Unilever, and Western Digital have all engaged effective programs that build talent capabilities while improving both productivity and stability. They’re achieving these gains through talent investments that are changing how their teams work and ultimately, how their enterprises perform.;
Aramco: Gamified training bolsters skills development and improves workplace safety
Imagine a company fundamentally transforming its approach to training in order to boost engagement and effectiveness while also cutting expenses by nearly half—and reducing the maintenance backlog. That’s the story of Aramco, where gamification has brought a new level of impact to training while addressing workforce safety and process skill gaps among a young workforce.
Refinery maintenance is especially critical, because technicians frequently work with equipment that operates under high temperatures and pressure and contains materials that can become highly flammable or explosive if mishandled. Virtual reality (VR) training provides technicians with hands-on experience while minimizing safety and operational risks. Aramco’s maintenance training program includes lifelike simulations that integrate essential safety protocols into routine maintenance procedures. More than 60 certified VR courses engage workers in immersive, multiplayer collaborations that cover operational requirements along with leadership development, onboarding, safety, and well-being.
Reducing training-related travel and in-person training sessions has cut related operating expenditures by 43 percent. But the main advantage is that operators and technicians benefit from simulation-based preventive maintenance training that replicates rigorous conditions and real-life scenarios involving vital systems beyond what would be possible in a classroom environment—and without having to shut down production for hands-on, on-site learning. The initiative has boosted maintenance technician competency and reduced the maintenance backlog by 11 percent.
Unilever Brazil: Technical operators develop skills and reduce maintenance dependency
When maintenance teams are overwhelmed with reactive basic tasks, sitewide performance suffers. The solution at Unilever’s Pouso Alegre site in Brazil lay with empowering technical operators by boosting their autonomy and reducing dependency on maintenance teams. Operators who already had high technical aptitude underwent three months of training. In addition, Unilever partnered with a technical school to offer scholarships to yearlong night courses in automation, mechatronics, and mechanics. This provided he opportunity for motivated workers—particularly women—to become highly capable technical operators.
Upward mobility into technical careers was the primary aim, and the impact has been considerable—technical operators now comprise about 12 percent of operators on the floor. The program has enhanced skills, improved efficiency, and fostered continuous improvement and autonomy. It has also increased overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by 4 percent, reduced breakdowns due to basic conditions by 42 percent, and decreased maintenance activities by 35 percent.
Western Digital: Digital control room redesigns process and offers a career path
By developing a digital control room, Western Digital achieved a massive boost in engagement while redefining almost half of job roles—many of them shifting up to more advanced skills. The system has transformed what it means to work as an operator, reducing involvement in repetitive manual tasks by engaging touchless interfaces for progress control. Likewise, it integrates automation, redesigns shop floor process flow, and incorporates industrial Internet of Things signals with a command center.
Western Digital saw improvements in OEE, a reduction in flow disruptions, and labor productivity increase by 21 percent. Among the most dramatic impacts of the new system is that the process to diagnose equipment failures now takes a mere ten seconds, down from two hours, and with over 90 percent accuracy.
Learn more about the Frontline Talent of the Future Initiative
These maintenance innovations offer a compelling look at the talent advancements driving real change in frontline work. But it is only a glimpse. To learn more about how other leading organizations are transforming what it means to work in today’s production value chain, check out Putting Talent at the Centre: An Evolving Imperative for Manufacturing.