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Within the retail industry, staff training, teaching and upskilling is a widely recognized challenge. Several factors play into this, and unfortunately, things aren’t getting easier for educators in retail.
First, the retail industry continuously demonstrates some of the highest staff turnover rates, especially for frontline workers. This means that onboarding is a continual process for many mentors. Low motivation is another challenge: Retail staff often struggle staying motivated, especially if the learning curve is steep or training feels irrelevant to their everyday work. Then, of course, there’s time constraints: retail operates on very tight schedules and under immense pressure. Shifts in store traffic and consumer demand also can make priorities, schedules and expectations change very quickly.
All of the above factors make organizing staff training a tough quest, whether it be through an in-house mentorship system, eLearning solution or working with hired or external business trainers. All of these approaches have their own pros and cons, but with this article, we’ll outline some key factors to consider while determining the right approach for your retail business.
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1. Clear Communication and Transparency
According to the 2024 LinkedIn Learning Report, 91% of learning and development (L&D) specialists believe that soft skills training is increasingly important. Soft skills allow workers to create a better and more unique user experience for customers, which is particularly important in the retail sector.
Now, let’s imagine that a coach or eLearning provider you consider doesn’t create an excellent user experience for you from the very first communication touch point. Do you think they will help you teach your retail staff how to craft great user experiences for your customers? Probably not.
If communication with a potential staff training partner stalls from the start, if they sound evasive, if they are not clear about their pricing policies, and their customer support fails to answer your questions, this is a big red flag.
2. Domain Knowledge and Expertise
The retail industry faces very specific challenges when it comes to staff training. That is why, when deciding how to organize and execute your training, you should make sure potential vendors and partners demonstrate a traceable history of proven cases in the retail industry. It would be especially valuable if they have detailed case studies outlining clear objectives and problems stated, as well as in-depth details on the means used to reach their appointed goals.
For instance, for a Learning Management System (LMS) provider, it would be helpful if they had their own research and statistics regarding how their retail clients have successfully reached their milestones. For individual trainers and mentors, look for published materials on the subject as well as well-documented cases. Consider it a good sign if their website features well-established retail companies as partners. It also is a good sign if there’s a large and active community surrounding the expert or service provider: people exchanging knowledge, sharing tips, and engaging in various activities.
If you decide an eLearning system is the best fit for your business, there are some more specific factors to consider when researching and comparing options in the market. Let’s take a look at some of these additional considerations, so you can make the right choice for your corporate education efforts.
3. Transparent and Acceptable Tariff Plans
Hiring business coaches and organizing mentorship is going to be much more expensive than using an LMS. But there are still caveats. Retail industry turnover makes it impossible to operate an LMS where licenses are attached to individual workers. Make sure your LMS system allows you to transfer the license you acquired from one worker to another, in case employees quit. It’s also best practice to learn upfront about all fees, such as additional licenses, extensions and upgrades.
4. Employee Motivation and Gamification Tools
Most retail frontline workers are not habitual learners. That is why it is hard to motivate them to learn, even if a course you offer is quite simple, such as learning the details of your new seasonal promotion.
There are several things to look for to determine if a solution can effectively spark employee motivation.
First, consider whether the LMS platform strives to introduce the learning gradually, thus making it a habit. For example, is it capable of offering learning nuggets you can use to have your learners see quick results, activate their reward system and gain motivation? A solid LMS must make excellent use of adaptive learning principles.
It also is wise to look at additional tools and capabilities systems provided to make course engagement and completion easier. For example, in the authoring tool of iSpring Learn, you can quickly create a helper character that your employees can relate to or use gamification to make dull content more engaging.
5. Seamless Course Design
According to our recent research, only 33% of retail companies create and conduct their training in-house, despite the fact that outsourcing staff training is often more expensive than in-house training.
If you plan to do staff training on a budget, look into how well the LMS supports in-house training. If instructional design is not your forte and you largely rely on experts with domain expertise as mentors, this factor is especially important. In this case, an LMS should have features that allow you to handle learning and create educationally sound courses without heavy dependency on instructional design knowledge. For example, iSpring Learn offers tools for educationally sound test creation that require no instructional design skills.
6. Regular Updates and Consistent Product Development
Retail industry standards develop rapidly. Scripts for cold calls or in-store customer engagement that worked a few years back are now outdated. This also applies to educational standards for the retail industry. Practices and processes that were considered up to date only five years ago are no longer relevant.
That is why it’s crucial to make sure the LMS of your choice accommodates fast industry development speeds, regularly releases updates and proactively follows industry trends.
7. Accessibility
Retail workers have stacked schedules, so they often have to study on the go: when commuting, when on their break, or even after tucking their kids in to sleep. They often are pressed for time and cannot devote hours at a time to sitting and completing training courses.
The LMS you choose needs to make the learning process simple and accessible anywhere, everywhere — in quiet environments, from mobile devices as well as materials provided as text, voice and visuals — all aligned to your learners’ preferred media channels and formats. For instance, iSpring Learn allows you to scale your courses up and down easily and deliver them to your learners anywhere, from any device.
Conclusion
When you select a solution to train retail staff, you’re choosing more than software, a business coach or an instructional design expert. You’re choosing a partner to make your learning processes easy and efficient. A suitable choice will address the unique challenges of the retail industry and offer solutions that are tailored to these challenges. Ultimately, this decision is a cornerstone for creating a knowledgeable, motivated and efficient workforce that can drive your retail business forward in a competitive sector, so you better choose wisely.
Michael Keller is an experienced IT professional with a rich background in product development, marketing, and sales. Currently, he serves as a Chief product officer at iSpring Solutions. His lengthy career at iSpring has been marked by progression through various key roles, providing Michael with a comprehensive understanding of iSpring products, the wider-industry, and customer needs. He leads the constant development of iSpring core products, inc. iSpring Learn (an LMS or learning management system) & iSpring Suite (a robust authoring tool).
