There is a paradigm shift witnessed in the way businesses function. Conventional processes have been revamped, and new technologies have been adopted to compete in the post-covid era of continuous innovation. Unfortunately, despite being at the forefront, frontline workers are not given the training they need to thrive and grow.
Being the link between the customers and the company, the frontline team needs real-time attention and learning opportunities to put their best foot forward. With the right frontline training and development opportunities in place your employees will have the knowledge and tools needed to be successful.
Combat the rise of attrition with effective frontline training
Throughout the “great attrition,” there has been a significant increase in the number frontline employees resigning due to job dissatisfaction.
As per a survey, almost 41% of workers globally are thinking of handing in their notice.
After investing time in hiring and introducing the distributed workforce to your product and processes, it would surely be exasperating to go through the same cycle all over again. You end up losing time, productivity, and valuable resources when the employee decides to leave the company.
Moreover, frontline workforce turnover even harms the customer experience. So, it is pivotal to identify and fill the gaps where frontline training is needed to reduce the attrition rate and offer the utmost customer satisfaction.
Empower your frontline with training, upskilling, and reskilling
Frontline employees are boots-on-the-ground executors of various business strategies and agendas. It is imperative to upskill and reskill them in real time to make the most of this valuable resource.
While considering upskilling and reskilling your frontline employees, it is important to think about how you will deliver the learning and training materials to the frontline.
Most frontline workers are on the field; they find it challenging to find extra time to go back to the office and focus on their development. So it is pivotal to connect to a platform that is able to make frontline training part of the employees’ work routine. As per research, completions for self-enrolled courses are 82% compared to 34% for assigned courses for all learners.
8 Best Practices for frontline employee training in 2024
Your frontline requires real-time training, upskilling, and reskilling to excel at their job and take up new responsibilities. We spoke to several CLO, HR, and Learning & Development teams to garner more insights on frontline workforce development.
Based on the research, here are the 8 best practices to make your frontline employees future-ready.
1. Well-planned, faster onboarding
2. KPI-based coaching
3. Multilingual content
4. Microlearning
5. Mobile learning
6. Gamification
7. Blended learning
8. Assessment based learning
1. Well-planned, faster onboarding
Ambiguous, obsolete, or incomplete instructions are bound to confuse the new hire. Be it delivery personnel or a factory executive; they need a clear map to get to speed quickly. A well-structured onboarding is crucial to save time and help the frontline gain confidence and skills to perform their job efficiently. Employees who have good product knowledge and understand how things function in an organization can add value and contribute to its growth.
Well-structured onboarding is a frontline training best practice that is even more crucial for businesses having multiple branches. It is important to provide the same onboarding experience to frontline hires in different branches. Modern learning solutions are not only renowned for their upskilling capability but also for creating impactful onboarding. For instance, with Disprz, you can create a five-day onboarding drip journey.
Through deep analytics like productivity score and skill score, you can determine the time-to-productivity of the frontline and take real-time actions to reduce it.
2. KPI-based coaching
KPI-based coaching is the best way to gauge if the frontline is on the right track. First, you identify the role of the learner. then map KPIs according to the role, and then link them back to modules/skillsets that will support his KPIs. When the person falters or lags behind in reaching his targets, the manager gets notified to provide him extra coaching to get him on track.
Nowadays, you’ll find an advanced feature in LXP where you can set a target value to track the KPI. This can serve as an early indicator to coach in time to fill the performance gap. Whether you have a small or large team, you can easily see the KPI score of each team member on the learner’s dashboard. The low score can work as a red flag to step in and provide timely coaching. Most LXPs even provide a detailed history to view the employee strength and improvement area and plan frontline training accordingly.
3. Multilingual content
Most of the employees avoid frontline training and upskilling programs because they don’t understand the language. Maximum frontline employees live in tier 2 or 3 cities where regional language work best. If the same learning programs are presented in their local language, they are highly likely to engage with it.
So opt for a learning solution that supports multi-lingual content. Make sure you limit the use of jargon and wordplays while creating courses in different languages. Try to make the learning programs as simple as possible so that the frontline can easily understand.
4. Microlearning
Microlearning is one of the best ways to bring frontline training in the flow of work for the frontline.
Through short, engaging content, they can conveniently learn at any hour of the day. For instance, there aren’t many customers entering the store in the afternoon, so the retail sales rep can easily consume knowledge nuggets during that time.
Whether it’s an industry trend or a new business procedure, you can easily take it to the frontline and keep them updated through microlearning.
5. Mobile learning
The frontline is the soul of your company. That means those employees must perform their routine tasks correctly. Mistakes from their end can jeopardize the reputation of the company. However, being on the field, they need a tool that fits right into their schedule. Rather than relying on obsolete training methods, you can leverage advanced tools to enhance your frontline training efforts.
Mobile learning is one such solution that can help the distributed workforce learn on the go. With a wide array of courses at their fingertips, frontline can easily take a course at their convenient time. Mobile learning helps break the cycle of learning and forgetting. Frontline can effortlessly learn something new and apply it to work. Various courses on mobile can help the frontline keep pace with the changing trends in the market as well as the company.
6. Gamification
Gamification has captured the attention of several businesses. Starbucks uses the gamification element in its reward app, where customers have to earn points to claim prizes. The impactful gamification strategy can be used even in learning to engage your frontline employees.
Gamification is a fun way for your employees to engage in frontline training. You can bring your distributed workforce on a single platform and have interactive sessions. Through a roulette wheel or a quiz, you can test their knowledge about a product or check who is aware of the current industry trends. Through leaderboard, you can strike healthy competition between your frontline employees and propel them to work harder.
7. Blended learning
The frontline cannot be confined to traditional training strategies. Blended learning can help boost their overall growth. A perfect mixture of classroom and self-paced learning can help the frontline in enhancing their skills. Disprz being an AI-powered learning solution, offers recommendations to your frontline at different levels. So they can explore the content that interests them through their frontline training experience. Besides, you can have multiple formats on a single platform. For instance, a frontline can watch a video, then read a blog, then watch a podcast and then take an assessment,
Moreover, most of the frontline team do not have proper bandwidth. So they can easily download and access content offline.
8. Assessment based learning
Are your frontline employees engaging with your training materials? Are they benefitting from the learning material that you are providing? Where are the frontline employees in the learning journeys?
You can find out answers to these and many other questions through in-depth analytics. Just creating a wide array of learning material isn’t the end of the road when it comes to frontline training. You need to assess the employees, track their proficiency level and then create effective learning programs to improve the performance of your employees.
Implement frontline training to drive workforce success
One of the leading pharmacy retail chains understands the value of frontline training, so they implemented the best skilling suite for the overall development of their distributed workforce. This helped them keep their frontline workforce up-to-date on essential skills.
If given the right attention, frontline can contribute to your organization’s growth. So try to create a culture of continuous learning for your frontline employees with impactful on-the-job training. disprz an all in one skilling suite can help you transform your skilling journey.
Using its extensive features you can effectively onboard, upskill, and reskill your frontline employees. With this AI-powered solution, you can personalize learning for your frontline squad and motivate them to expand their skills.
Through in-depth analytics inside this intuitive tool, you can identify improvement areas and enhance your frontline training program.
Whether you are looking for a frontline learning management system or a frontline experience platform, Disprz can provide the best of both worlds.
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