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Market Impact
Why “Continuous Improvement” Isn’t Continuous When It’s Not Integrated Into The Daily Work Of Frontline Teams
A FORRESTER CONSULTING Thought Leadership STUDY Commissioned by SAFETYCULTURE, January 2026
Market Impact
A FORRESTER CONSULTING Thought Leadership STUDY Commissioned by SAFETYCULTURE, January 2026
Leaders often cite growing improvement maturity and heavy investment into continuous improvement, but frontline supervisors report a different reality, facing increased workload, unclear authority, and inconsistent reinforcement. The result is an improvement system that signals intent but fails at execution.
When improvement remains episodic or compliance-led, organizations incur the cost of activity without corresponding productivity gains. The disconnect between leadership perception and frontline experience reveals a systemic execution problem. Few organizations regionally report that improvement is fully embedded into daily work, underscoring the difficulty in moving from intent to integration at scale.
In October 2025, SafetyCulture commissioned Forrester Consulting to assess how improvement operates across organizational layers. Forrester surveyed 427 frontline supervisors and 213 decision-makers across manufacturing, transport and logistics, retail, and hospitality sectors in North America, the UK, and Australia, spanning roles from C-suite leaders to site-level operators responsible for productivity, safety, capability building, digital tools, supply chain optimization, and analytics.
The findings point to a consistent pattern: Misaligned priorities, fragmented ownership, and centralized governance slow the translation of insight into action. Tools, routines, and cultural enablers are often in place, but operate in isolation.
Closing this gap requires a shift from initiative-led improvement to system design. Improvement must function as a connected work system that accelerates rather than constrains action. Only then can improvement become a part of how work gets done — not an activity layered on top of it.
Belief in daily improvement is high, but execution is fragmented. While 73% of frontline supervisors and 82% of leaders believe improvement should be embedded in daily work, only 39% of frontline supervisors say it actually is, compared to 76% of leaders. This perception gap creates a structural disconnect between intent and day-to-day execution.
System-level misalignment is the primary barrier to improvement. Frontline supervisors cite capacity constraints and workload pressure as the main reasons why improvement stalls, while leaders point to behavioral issues like unclear ownership or inconsistent goals. This mismatch drives interventions that target symptoms rather than root causes, reinforcing the perception that improvement is “extra work” rather than part of daily operations.
Tools, governance, and routines exist but do not reinforce each other. Adoption is high, yet only 29% of frontline supervisors find tools very effective. Feedback loops are the weakest link: 81% of frontline supervisors say reviews occur, but only 63% hear what happens to their suggestions.
Improvement maturity rises when autonomy, clarity, and follow-through converge. Teams with both empowerment and timely feedback are far more likely to say that improvement efforts succeed. At higher maturity levels, having integrated systems, clear decision rights, and consistent leadership rhythms turn improvement from an initiative into the operating system.
Improvement efforts often default to enterprise standardization: Tighter controls, uniform processes, and centrally-mandated tools. These approaches are intended to increase consistency and reduce risk, but they often do not align with frontline reality. Forrester’s research on manufacturing standardization shows that local variation is not noise — it reflects the situational awareness, adaptation, and judgment required to keep work moving.1 When systems overprivilege central control, they strip away the conditions that enable effective frontline problem-solving.
The same dynamic appears in improvement. Organizations assume stronger governance, tighter routines, and enterprise-wide systems will close the gap between intent and execution. Instead, operating procedures often constrain autonomy, slow feedback, and distance decision-making from the point of work. Frontline teams are asked to surface issues but lack the authority or visibility to act — pushing improvement outside the flow of work and turning it into an additional task rather than part of the job.
Decision-makers broadly recognize the value of worker-centric improvement. Both frontline supervisors and leaders strongly endorse embedding improvement into day-to-day work (73% and 82%). The strategic north star is shared — but belief alone does not create practice.
The gap is experiential, not ideological. While 76% of leaders believe improvement is mostly or completely part of how work gets done, only 39% of frontline supervisors agree. This gap reflects the different vantage points each group occupies. Leaders report seeing positive outcomes they associate with improvement, citing gains in morale (77%), reliability (72%), and customer experience (CX) (69%). Frontline supervisors, however, report a very different reality in daily operations: They observe far lower progress in morale (37%) and reliability (33%), even as they acknowledge significant improvement in output quality (80%) (see Figure 1).
Improvement appears to be delivering results, but not relief. What registers as progress at the top is experienced by the frontline as continued operational strain, reinforcing confidence among leaders while weakening belief among supervisors that improvement is practical or sustainable.
Note: Showing only responses for "Slightly improved" and "Significantly improved"
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Improvement still feels bolted-on to work, not embedded within it. In early-stage organizations, fewer than half of frontline supervisors say improvement is part of daily work. Even for organizations at the mid-maturity stage, a third of them still experience improvement as a separate program. When improvement is rarely integrated into everyday workflows — and is constrained by misaligned governance and limited time — teams perceive it as an additional effort rather than part of how work gets done.
This is reinforced by a gap between leadership intent and frontline experience. While more than two-thirds of leaders describe their approach as empowering, frontline teams often conversely experience improvement as inconsistent or reactive.
When improvement adds to operational load instead of reducing it, teams disengage. Frontline supervisors report that improvement is experienced as additional work rather than embedded into daily workflows, meaning participation may increase but the work itself does not get easier. Over time, improvement is learned as a program to comply with, rather than a practice that helps teams do their jobs better.
The outcomes mirror this reality. Fewer than 20% of frontline supervisors and leaders say most improvement initiatives deployed had fully succeeded in the past year. Activity is happening, but benefits are not adhering. Improvement feels episodic; a series of isolated efforts rather than something embedded in the way work gets done.
Weak improvement success also carries cultural consequences. Frontline teams feel the strain more acutely: Nearly half point to wasted time, resources, or budget, and increased rework, while 38% highlight declining trust and engagement. Similarly, leaders report negative customer and growth implications on top of what frontline supervisors reported (see Figure 2). Together, these impacts show that improvement effectiveness is not just an operational measure — it is a proxy for workforce optimism and resilience. When improvement does not work, the cultural foundation weakens.
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Improvement breaks down not because frontline teams resist change, but because leaders optimize different layers of the system for different outcomes. Frontline supervisors prioritize relief — stability, capacity, and smoother execution — while leaders prioritize acceleration — growth, efficiency, and measurable returns. These goals are rational in isolation, but when pursued through separate priorities, governance models, and accountability structures, they create conflicting signals about what improvement is for and how it should be executed.
The result is a system-level misalignment. Frontline teams are encouraged to surface problems but are measured on operational throughput, while leaders invest in tools and programs but govern them through centralized controls. Improvement is simultaneously expected to reduce friction and increase performance — without resolving who decides, who acts, and what trade-offs matter. Over time, this misalignment shapes how improvement unfolds across the organization.
Priorities pull in opposite directions. Frontline supervisors prioritize improvements that make work more manageable, focusing on daily operational efficiency, performance learning, and better communication with management. Meanwhile, leaders push for growth, cost reduction, and technology adoption (see Figure 3). These priorities are not mutually exclusive, but they compete in practice. When the frontline seeks stability and leadership seeks growth, improvement is resourced and evaluated through different lenses.
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Different experiences produce different diagnoses. These priorities shape how failure is interpreted. Frontline supervisors attribute breakdowns to operational constraints, such as limited time, added workload, and insufficient support. Leaders point to behavioral factors such as low ownership, weak sponsorship, or unclear goals (see Figure 4). These are not contradictory but rather reflections of two different experiences of the same system. These influence which problems receive attention and which are dismissed as execution gaps.
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Centralized governance slows action at the edge. Although frontline supervisors surface most improvement opportunities (i.e., 40% cite frontline observation), governance remains centralized. Nearly half of decision-makers (49%) describe improvement governance as centrally controlled. Insight originates at the edge, but approval and resourcing sit far from the work. This widens the loop between detection and action, causing promising opportunities to stall or degrade.
Fragmented ownership dilutes follow-through. Responsibility patterns mirror the broader coordination gap. Both frontline supervisors and leaders view co-supported improvement — where responsibility is shared across roles — as the most effective model. Frontline supervisors also favor bottom-up initiatives, while leaders express notable confidence in top-down approaches (see Figure 5). These are not opposing views, but incomplete halves of the same system.
When responsibility is distributed without clear decision rights and escalation paths, follow-through breaks down. Good ideas lose momentum not because they lack value, but because no single role has the mandate, capacity, and visibility to carry them through. Coordination is stronger where accountability is more evenly established across levels: 41% of UK respondents report that responsibility is shared equally across levels at their organization, compared with 32% in North America and 29% in Australia — highlighting how unevenly this condition is realized in practice.
Accountability rests at the top while execution rests at the bottom. Leaders assign responsibility for improvement outcomes to executives (31%) and department leaders (28%), while frontline supervisors believe responsibility should be shared equally across levels (30%). This creates an accountability paradox: Leadership owns the results while frontline teams carry the execution without the ability to control prioritization, sequencing, or resources. Those accountable cannot shape the work, and those doing the work cannot shape the conditions.
Note: showing top five responses
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Most organizations have put the core components of an improvement operating system in place. These include digital tools, routines, measurement processes, and cultural signals that encourage participation. But these components operate alongside each other rather than as a single, reinforcing system. What looks mature from the center often feels fragmented at the frontline because the technology platforms, work processes, and decision routines do not work together in the flow of daily work as one integrated operating system.
Tools are widely adopted but rarely drive daily decisions. Most organizations have digital systems in place, from quality and compliance, to operations and service tools. Yet, effectiveness remains limited, with only about one-third of leaders and frontline supervisors viewing them as highly effective. This gap suggests the issue is not access to tools, but how they are embedded into work. Many tools function primarily as systems that capture and record information, but provide limited support for next-step decisions or in-the-moment action. As a result, technology documents improvement activity rather than actively reducing steps, removing friction, or accelerating resolution.
Leaders see technology system integration, frontline teams experience workflow fragmentation. Leaders feel confident that their technology portfolio is integrated: 70% say digital tools provide visibility and help sustain improvements, and 64% believe those systems are well integrated. However, frontline supervisors report far less alignment: Only 59% see visibility, and just 40% believe their day-to-day workflows work well together.
This gap reflects differences in how integration is evaluated. Leaders tend to assess integration through portfolio-level connectivity and reporting visibility, while frontline supervisors judge it by whether systems work together in the flow of daily work. As a result, systems may appear to be integrated from an oversight perspective while remaining fragmented at the point of execution. Technical integration exists, but operational integration does not.
This gap reflects differences in how integration is evaluated. Leaders tend to assess integration through portfolio-level connectivity and reporting visibility, while frontline supervisors judge it by whether systems work together in the flow of daily work. As a result, systems may appear to be integrated from an oversight perspective while remaining fragmented at the point of execution. Technical integration exists, but operational integration does not.
Cultural conditions appear supportive, but behaviors don’t reinforce them. On paper, the environment for improvement looks positive. Frontline supervisors report strong psychological safety to speak up about problems or improvement opportunities (75%), perceived time to improve beyond just getting the job done (72%), and autonomy to make small changes (72%). These measures reflect cultural permission to improve.
In practice, that permission is not consistently converted into operational capacity. While conditions appear supportive, fewer frontline supervisors say improvement is embedded in daily work (68%) or that responsibility is genuinely shared (65%). Competing operational demands and uneven follow-through mean that improvement activity remains deprioritized when operational pressure rises. Without reinforcement thorough routines, visible follow-up, and timely feedback, improvement stays adjacent to work rather than part of how work is completed.
Empowerment is signaled through intent but inconsistently reinforced through the operating system. Most leaders (83%) believe that frontline improvements are recognized, while only 67% of frontline supervisors agree. Similarly, 75% of leaders say decision rights are clear, while only 67% of supervisors agree. Furthermore, when it comes to acting on frontline ideas, 72% of leaders think leadership follows through, but only 57% of supervisors share that view. The gap reflects inconsistency in how empowerment is operationalized daily. Some teams experience strong backing, while others see it applied unevenly depending on the manager or the situation.
Recognition alone is not enough. When expectations of ownership rise without consistent follow-through, accountability outpaces support. Teams are encouraged to take initiative but cannot be sure their efforts will be sustained, resourced, or rewarded. As a result, autonomy feels conditional and teams become cautious about taking ownership — not because they lack motivation, but because the operating system does not reliably reinforce their actions.
The weakest link is feedback and it undermines the whole system. Feedback loops remain the weakest part of the operating system. Eighty-one percent of frontline supervisors say progress is reviewed, but only 63% are cognizant of what happens to the improvement initiatives they raise. Leaders think feedback is more consistent (75%), which highlights how easily gaps in follow-through can be missed. This weakness is visible across regions: Only 29% of frontline supervisors in Australia and 32% in North America strongly agree they receive feedback on improvements, compared with 41% in the UK — elucidating how uneven reinforcement remains.
These gaps carry real consequences. When teams do not know what became of their ideas, effort feels wasted, momentum fades, and confidence erodes. Improvement without feedback becomes a reporting system, not a learning system. Organizations cannot improve faster than they close loops. Without clear follow-through, each cycle starts from scratch; and without continuity, improvement struggles to take hold.
While most organizations aspire to build a culture of continuous improvement, outcomes depend on the maturity of their underlying capabilities. True integration requires more than activity or intent — it depends on alignment, clear ownership, and systems that embed improvement into the operating rhythm of work rather than layering it on top.
Understanding where organizations sit today, and how behaviors, structures, and outcomes differ by maturity is critical to closing the gap between intent and impact.
Organizations are grouped into four maturity stages, namely reactive, compliant, proactive, and integrated — categorized based on observable differences in how leadership, tools, routines, and culture operate in day-to-day work. This is a progression model, not a conceptual typology. Reactive organizations rely on ad-hoc efforts; compliant organizations establish basic routines and discipline; proactive organizations embed improvement consistently across operations; and integrated organizations achieve a self-sustaining model where improvement is fully integrated into the operating system.
Today, most organizations cluster in the middle: 37% are compliant and 36% proactive. A further 15% remain reactive, while only 12% have reached the Integrated stage where improvement is fully embedded (see Figure 7).
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
At higher maturity levels, improvement is engineered into the system itself. The differences across stages are material: They shape how culture is enabled, the way leadership governs, how systems support work, and how feedback drives action.
Improvement only endures when teams can act without waiting for approval and the system reliably closes the loop. Less mature organizations (i.e., those in the reactive and compliant stages) depend on individual effort and inconsistent leadership signals. In contrast, more mature organizations (i.e., those in the proactive and integrated stage) build operating systems that remove friction, accelerate decisions, and embed improvement into daily work.
The difference is not in intent, but system reliability. Where governance, routines, and systems reinforce one another, improvement becomes repeatable and self-sustaining. Where they do not, progress remains fragile and episodic.
Sustained improvement shows up when two things happen consistently: When teams have the room to act, and they hear about what happens after they act. Improvement without feedback is merely reporting — without closure, even empowered teams stall. Organizations with higher success rates show a clear pattern in how these elements work together.
Teams agree on what drives success. Frontline supervisors and leaders point to the same top four factors for success. These include clear ownership, simple goals, active leadership support, and improvement that happens in the rhythm of daily work (see Figure 8). However, the difference lies in emphasis: Frontline teams rank ownership and engagement highest, while leaders prioritize sponsorship. The shared view provides a strong base and signals strong alignment on what matters, but leadership sponsorship that empowers rather than direct is required.
Empowerment works when feedback is clear and visible. Success is highest when autonomy and feedback appear together. Among frontline supervisors, 41% of those who feel empowered and receive feedback report near-universal success, compared with 25% to 27% who feel the same when only either variable is present. Decision-makers show the same pattern: 54% report high success when leadership visibility is paired with delegation, compared to 19% when either exists alone. Autonomy without feedback creates hesitation, while feedback without authority limits action.
Daily integration strengthens autonomy. Cross-analysis shows higher success among teams that treat improvement as part of daily operations and can make small changes themselves. When improvement fits naturally into the workday, teams act more often. Frequent action reinforces the expectation that improvement is part of the job, not an add-on. Similarly, integration enables autonomy, and autonomy in turn reinforces integration.
Note: Showing top four responses
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Durability depends on tools, goals, and leadership lining up. Frontline supervisors and leaders identify the same three enablers of lasting improvement: Tools that support daily decisions, goals and measures that are easy to understand, and leadership that follows through on ideas (see Figure 9). When these elements work in concert, they create a predictable environment where improvement progresses smoothly and consistently. When they do not, improvement becomes procedural, thought of as something logged and reviewed but not actively carried through.
Source: Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637] and Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Continuous Improvement Survey [E-65637]
Organizations do not strengthen improvement culture through tools or processes alone — they do it by aligning authority, behavior, and feedback in the flow of work. The data shows that the fundamentals are likely to already exist, but are inconsistent, fragmented, or operating in isolation. These recommendations outline the core actions organizations should take to turn intent into execution and make improvement a reliable part of daily operations.
Forrester’s in-depth survey yielded several important recommendations:
In Forrester’s Q4 2025 Frontline Improvement Survey, Forrester conducted an online survey of 427 operational managers and site leads responsible for their organization’s day-to-day operations and team oversight. All respondents work for retail, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, or hospitality institutions with US$250 million or more in annual revenue and are based in North America, the UK, or Australia. The custom survey began and was completed in October 2025.
In Forrester’s Q4 2025 Decision-Maker Improvement Survey, Forrester conducted an online survey of 213 strategic decision-makers (i.e., at least at the director level) with responsibility for driving operational excellence across the organization by embedding a culture of continuous improvement. All respondents work for hospitality, manufacturing, retail, or transportation and logistics institutions with US$250 million or more in annual revenue and are based in North America, the UK, or Australia. The custom survey began and was completed in October 2025.
| Company HQ | % |
|---|---|
| UK | 34% |
| Australia | 33% |
| North America | 33% |
| Number of Employees | % | |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 to 4,999 | 43% | |
| 5,000 to 8,999 | 38% | |
| 9,000 or more | 19% | |
| Annual revenue ($) | % |
|---|---|
| $250M to just under $500M | 16% |
| $500M to just under $1B | 34% |
| $1B to just under $5B | 37% |
| $5B or more | 12% |
| Industry | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Retail | 26% | |
| Manufacturing | 25% | |
| Transportation and logistics | 25% | |
| Hospitality | 24% | |
| Job title | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Manager, supervisor, or equivalent (manages a team of function practitioners) | 59% | |
| Project manager (manages ad hoc project teams) or equivalent | 41% | |
| Level of responsibility | % | |
|---|---|---|
| I am not involved in making decisions for my organization’s continuous improvement strategy, but I manage its implementation | 56% | |
| I am part of a team that drives the implementation of continuous improvement strategies at my organization | 44% | |
| Stage | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Piloting | 19% | |
| Previously implemented but have plans to stop | 8% | |
| Implemented | 28% | |
| Implemented and expanding | 30% | |
| Fully embedded | 15% | |
| Company HQ | % |
|---|---|
| North America | 34% |
| Australia | 33% |
| UK | 34% |
| Number of Employees | % | |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 to 4,999 | 51% | |
| 5,000 to 8,999 | 38% | |
| 9,000 or more | 11% | |
| Annual revenue ($) | % |
|---|---|
| $250M to just under $500M | 15% |
| $500M to just under $1B | 36% |
| $1B to just under $5B | 35% |
| $5B or more | 14% |
| Industry | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Hospitality | 26% | |
| Manufacturing | 25% | |
| Retail | 25% | |
| Transportation and logistics | 24% | |
| Job title | % | |
|---|---|---|
| C-level executive (e.g., CEO, CTO, CIO, CRO, CHRO) or equivalent | 21% | |
| Vice president (in charge of one/several large departments) or equivalent | 36% | |
| Director (manages a team of managers and high-level contributors) or equivalent | 44% | |
| Level of responsibility | % | |
|---|---|---|
| I am the final decision-maker for my organization’s continuous improvement strategy | 41% | |
| I am part of a team making decisions for my organization’s continuous improvement strategy | 36% | |
| I influence decisions related to my organization’s continuous improvement strategy | 23% | |
| Stage | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Piloting | 11% | |
| Previously implemented but have plans to stop | 6% | |
| Implemented | 28% | |
| Implemented and expanding | 34% | |
| Fully embedded | 21% | |
In October 2025, SafetyCulture commissioned Forrester Consulting to assess how improvement operates across organizational layers. Forrester surveyed 427 frontline supervisors and 213 decision-makers across manufacturing, transport and logistics, retail, and hospitality sectors in North America, the UK, and Australia, spanning roles from C-suite leaders to site-level operators responsible for productivity, safety, capability building, digital tools, supply chain optimization, and analytics.
This study was conducted by Forrester’s Custom Content Consulting Practice. Get in touch to discuss your custom content needs and goals. Learn more about all of Forrester's consulting capabilities.
Michael Lung, Senior Market Impact Consultant
SiDing Wang, Market Impact Consultant
Jamie Macaulay, Associate Market Impact Consultant
Contributing Research:
Forrester’s Technology research group
January 2026
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