The Retail sector is one of the largest and most bottom-heavy industries in the world, with an array of departments within every organization. IBEF estimates that in India alone it accounts for 10% of the domestic GDP and 8% of the employment. This USD 600 billion industry is set to nearly double to USD 1 trillion by 2020 and lists Employee Training as one of the top 7 viable areas of investments. Currently Retail Companies conduct several employee training programs to train their employees on different topics and aspect of their jobs. It is extremely important to provide adequate training as a large percentage of the Retail workforce deals directly with customers. For example, the floor sales staff must be familiar with the internal processes of the company, product details and sales best practices. In today’s rapidly changing business environment, with customers fast migrating to online channels for purchase, the emphasis is to build a workforce that is not only focused on sales but is keen on delighting the customer with high levels of customer-service and are champion brand advocates on the field.
Keeping the Sales staff informed about new products, policies and procedure is key to success. Giving them the required training often requires a great deal of time and money. E-learning helps in bridging this gap by delivering effective training with use of an effective Learning management software at a fraction of the cost that is incurred using traditional modes of training.
Reason #1: Rapidly deploy training materials
The key here is to quickly reach a wide and geographically dispersed audience. Retailers need to find a way to rapidly create and deliver new product or policy training materials throughout the organization in a consistent fashion.
Reason #2: Keep costs in control
This is something we at Courseplay value very highly. Time is money, and an effective e-learning platform allows organizations to reduce the time taken to train and also the time away from work by setting up an effective training program that can be accessed at any time. Retailers must cut down on travel costs and the traditional expensive classroom based training by allowing staff to access programs from any device at any time, even during their commute!
Reason #3: Reach out to remote locations and offer flexibility in learning
A good e-learning training program offers learners the freedom to get trained at their own convenience – learners get flexibility in the form of the time, place, pace or device for the training that takes place. With the modern advancements in cloud-based technology, retailers can now train staff working out of remote locations who traditionally had trouble reaching training venues!
Reason #4: Blended learning improves training effectiveness
Organizations can easily create refresher training modules to brush up important topics from recent classroom training sessions. A blended learning approach offers better knowledge retention rates and appeals to learners with different learning styles to refresh their memory at any place or time. Take a look at our post about blended learning to learn more!
Reason #5: Keep track of learner activity and reports
An effective learning management system like Courseplay helps retailers keep track of learner progress by offering reporting capabilities at both the macro and micro levels. Administrators and instructors can quickly find how many users have yet to complete a training program, or even which option was chosen by which learner for a specific assessment attempt. Better yet, we send out scheduled reminders and updates directly to your email inbox for your convenience.
Reason #6: On-board new recruits whenever
You don’t have to wait for the next training slot to train or on-board a new recruit. Courses on a cloud-based training platform can be assigned at any time, allowing retailers complete flexibility on how and when they recruit new employees.
Reason #7: Keep the workforce motivated
Training does not just help staff get acquainted with new products or processes, but also helps in keeping them motivated. In the retail sector benchmark report, Towards Maturity outlines the performance of retail industry members compared to an average of all the respondents to the cross-industry benchmark survey. The report highlights that about 38% of those seeking to improve productivity have been able to demonstrate this benefit and approximately the same percentage has also seen an improvement in customer satisfaction post implementation of an online training platform.
Bonus: Some key numbers at a glance on what is driving change in the retail sector
These numbers below clearly highlight the benefits and importance of training using scalable technology like Courseplay in the retail sector.
- 96 % participants have asserted increase in learning access and flexibility with E-learning
- 91 % suggest an improvement in induction process and application of learning in the workplace
- 94 % have achieved greater consistency of the learning experience with E-learning compared to traditional modes of employees training
Are you a retailer looking to discover the advantages of scalable training and fostering business goals by effectively training your workforce? Courseplay can be your partner towards achieving and creating an effective training program. Courseplay offers a robust cloud based platform with an easy to understand interface that makes training simpler for organizations and engaging for the learners. With Courseplay get detailed reports and track progress just with a click of a button. Start a free trial today to learn more!