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A recent report from Harvard Business Review has shown the power of putting data analytics in the hands of workers in frontline jobs, but it also reveals that leaders must drive a culture change and shake up the decision-making hierarchy to make this strategy pay off.

The report, commissioned by ThoughtSpot and released last month, concludes that putting data in the hands of frontline workers -- such as store managers, sales teams, sales clerks, nurses, and others -- can significantly improve both their productivity and quality of work.

Of the 464 business executives surveyed, an overwhelming 87 percent said their organizations will be more successful when frontline workers have access to data and tools to help them make decisions in the moment. But only one-fifth of respondents said their workers are empowered to make those decisions today.

The HBR report makes a strong case for democratizing access to data and describes the key steps executives believe are important for doing so successfully. Here are the five main takeaways from the report:

Empowering frontline workers yields better results

Respondents believed strongly that both productivity and quality of work increase significantly when frontline workers can make data-driven decisions of their own accord. Nearly half of those classified in the report as "leaders" (those organizations whose frontline workers are both empowered and digitally well equipped) said they have grown revenue by 10 percent or more in the past year, with 16 percent growing it by 30 percent or more.