Why Pilla
Frontline teams spend too much time on work that doesn’t drive the business forward.
Staff are left guessing. Managers are buried in admin. Leaders can’t see what’s happening until something goes wrong. The work that actually protects the business, develops people, and raises standards gets pushed aside every single day.
The problem
Everyone is busy, but the important work never gets done
In frontline organisations, every role is stretched. Staff arrive for a shift and spend the first twenty minutes figuring out what they are supposed to be doing. Instructions are verbal, scattered across group chats, or written on a whiteboard that was last updated three days ago. When they get stuck, they interrupt the nearest manager. When they are new, they shadow someone for a week and hope they absorb enough to get by.
Managers are no better off. They are reminding people to clock in, checking if checklists got done, following up on training that was assigned weeks ago, and sending the same message for the fourth time this week. Deloitte surveyed 10,000 business leaders across 93 countries and found that managers spend nearly 40% of their time firefighting. Only 13% goes towards developing people. For every eight-hour shift, that is roughly one hour to do the part of the job that actually moves the business forward.
Leaders, meanwhile, are making decisions based on incomplete information. They rely on managers to report upwards, but those managers are too busy firefighting to give accurate updates. Problems surface when a customer complains, an audit fails, or someone gets hurt. By then, the damage is already done.
The result is that the work which actually drives the business forward falls through the cracks. Risk assessments go overdue. Training programmes stall. Compliance checks get ticked without evidence. Onboarding is inconsistent. Performance conversations never happen. Not because people do not care, but because there is never time.
This is not unique to one industry. It happens in warehouses where manual handling training is three months overdue. In care homes where risk assessments are done on paper and filed in a drawer. In retail chains where onboarding varies wildly between stores. In cleaning companies where supervisors drive between sites just to check whether the work was done. The pattern is the same everywhere: the urgent always wins, and the important always waits.
The tools that exist do not help. Staff juggle six or more apps daily. Shift scheduling apps tell people when to work but not what to do. Paper checklists get ticked and lost. Communication happens across WhatsApp, iMessage, email, and verbal instructions forgotten by lunchtime. 80% of the global workforce, 2.7 billion people, work in deskless roles. Yet less than 1% of venture capital funding goes towards building technology for them.
Staff are guessing
Instructions are verbal, scattered across group chats, or out of date. New starters shadow someone and hope for the best.
Managers are chasing
40% of a manager's time goes to firefighting and admin. The work that drives the business forward gets pushed aside.
Leaders are blind
Problems only surface when a customer complains, an audit fails, or someone gets hurt. By then the damage is done.
Staff get clarity
One app with their shift, tasks, training, and step-by-step instructions. They know exactly what to do and how to do it.
Managers get control
Design how the operation runs. Poppi handles the reminding, chasing, and following up across every shift and location.
Leaders get visibility
Real-time data across every team and site. Compliance evidence, training progress, and operational performance in one place.
The solution
One app for your teams. One AI agent for your organisation.
Pilla gives every person in the organisation the right information at the right time. Staff open the app and immediately see their shift, their tasks for the day, and their training, all in one place. Step-by-step instructions tell them exactly how to complete each task. If they need to reference a policy or watch a training video, it is right there. They do not need to ask, search, or guess.
When doing the right thing is the easy thing, people do it consistently. That is what changes when staff have clarity.
For managers, having all the tools in one place removes the need to switch between systems. But the real shift happens when you layer AI on top. Poppi, the AI agent inside Pilla, takes care of the administrative work that has consumed managers for years. If someone has not watched their assigned training, Poppi nudges them. If a checklist keeps getting missed on the evening shift, Poppi flags it. If a team member has been late three weeks in a row, Poppi spots the pattern and brings it to your attention before it becomes a bigger problem.
Poppi does the reminding, the checking, the chasing, the following up, across every shift, every location, every team member, simultaneously, 24 hours a day, without burning out.
For leaders, Pilla provides something that has never existed in most frontline organisations: real-time visibility. You can see which sites completed their opening checks with photo evidence, which teams have overdue training, and where compliance gaps are forming, all without chasing anyone for an update. When an auditor walks through the door, the evidence is already there.
The high-value work stops falling through the cracks. Risk assessments become scheduled work with step-by-step instructions and photo evidence. Food safety checks happen every shift, tracked and timestamped. Health and safety training is assigned, monitored, and chased automatically. Onboarding follows a structured programme from day one. These are not admin tasks, they are the things that protect your business, develop your people, and raise your standards. Pilla makes them part of the daily routine rather than an afterthought.
The impact
When the fundamentals run properly, everything else follows
When staff know exactly what is expected of them and have the tools to deliver it, they work more independently and make fewer mistakes. They are not disengaged because they do not care. They are disengaged because nobody gave them the structure to succeed. Pilla gives them that structure.
When managers are freed from the cycle of chasing and reminding, they get something back that most of them have not had in years: headspace. They can walk the floor and actually be present. They can spot that someone is ready for more responsibility, or that there is a process problem causing the same issue every week. Gallup found that when a manager has just one meaningful conversation per week with each direct report, those employees are four times more likely to be highly engaged. The potential has always been there, managers just have not had the time.
When leaders have visibility across every team and location, they stop reacting and start planning. They can see which sites are running well and which need support. They can prove compliance without scrambling. They can make decisions based on real data instead of gut feeling and second-hand reports.
Gallup’s research shows that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. Highly engaged teams see 23% higher profitability, 18% higher productivity, and up to 43% lower turnover. The difference between a strong operation and a struggling one almost always comes down to whether the people running it have the time and tools to do it properly.
These things compound. When training is completed on time, staff make fewer errors. When compliance checks are done properly every shift, audit results improve. When onboarding is consistent, new starters become productive faster and stay longer. When managers have time to develop their teams, turnover drops. None of this requires anyone to work harder. It just requires the right system so that the important work actually gets done, every day, across every site, without someone heroically holding it all together.
Standards run consistently
Training, compliance checks, and risk assessments happen on schedule, every shift, every site, with evidence.
People develop faster
When managers have headspace, they coach, mentor, and have the conversations that keep people engaged and growing.
The business grows
Lower turnover, fewer incidents, consistent standards, and audit-ready at all times. The fundamentals compound.
