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Four areas where learning technology is improving compliance in retail

Blog posts | 18.10.2019

Dan Muller

Content Marketing Manager at Kineo US

Have you ever worked the register in a retail or food service environment? For many of us, this was our first introduction to the working world. You probably remember a lot of things about your first job, but the training you received probably doesn’t stand out as especially impactful. This is doubly true in the case of dry and procedural compliance trainings.

The good news is that there’s been some notable improvements within retail/quick-service training and development over the years. Let’s take a look at four common challenges in retail compliance training and examine how modern L&D is helping to solve them.

Common challenges in training retail sector staff

1. A disengaged workforce

Retail and quick service jobs are often the first workplaces for many. The teenagers and young adults working in retail environments often don’t absorb compliance information from outdated videos or boring slide decks. Historically this has presented a challenge, but new gamified learning solutions are improving engagement in compliance training. It is now more common for these courses to resemble video games complete with points, badges and leaderboards. Not to mention that these gamified courses are shorter and more frequent as well. They engage employees regularly with short, sharp experiences. Organizations may also offer physical rewards or bonuses for completing items or earning high scores. Regardless, the result is often more-engaged and better-trained employees.

2. Training information is not retained

Retail training courses may be more engaging these days, but what about retention? A common problem with compliance training is that they’re taken once and never revisited. We know now that spaced learning campaigns are more effective than the compliance training videos of yore, but executing these efforts can be a huge administrative challenge. Fortunately, today’s learning management systems can be setup to trickle out relevant compliance courses and information based on any number of factors, including hire date, role, language, location, and more. Messaging can be adapted based on these factors and a regular cadence of content keeps compliance information relevant and top of mind for employees that might have otherwise forgotten.

3. High turnover is difficult to admin

In the same way that training reminders and updates are difficult to administer manually, such is the case with onboarding employees in a retail sector known for its high turnover. With such a high churn volume, it can be near impossible to ensure new employees are getting the standardized compliance training they need, but modern LMS has solutions for this challenge as well. Technology allows administrators to create groups of employee-based data, like hire date, region, role, and just about any field in their HRIS. These groups can then be mapped to courses and curriculum so every learner gets the right content they need, even amidst high turnover periods.

4. Inability to measure on-the-job-skills

One of the trickiest areas within a retail or QSR work environment is the difficulty that comes with knowing employees can competently do physical tasks, like cleaning a slicer, driving a forklift, or even folding a shirt correctly. At best, most organizations take it in good faith that a local manager or trainer observed the task being completed competently. Digital learning can be used to introduce these physical skills, then employees must practice them under the guidance of a manager or trainer. LMS technology helps this process run smoothly by capturing and documenting these steps. From there, managers can observe and assess all competencies under one roof with a documented checklist in the LMS that acts as a single source of truth for the organization.

Want to know more? 

If any of these challenges sound familiar, we invite you to join our upcoming Raise Your Retail Game Webinar. We’ll discuss how you can upskill your staff and the ways you can tailor your training to make it more effective, faster, and an overall better fit for your workforce. We’ll touch on everything from onboarding to gamification and beyond. The presentation will also include demos of successful implementations used by Kineo clients.

Click here to reserve your spot

Dan Muller

Content Marketing Manager at Kineo US


Dan Muller is the Content Marketing Manager at Kineo US and will occasionally post his thoughts around custom elearning content and digital trends on the Kineo blog. He's not an expert, but he is a life-long learner, which seems relevant.