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Continuous learning to accelerate careers
5 key learning challenges facing Retail in last year and continuing
• Approximately 31% of Retail frontline employees do not receive regular training to develop their skills, according to the 2022 Employee Experience Survey. That means, lack of trained staff and lack of frequent training are key challenges.
• Retail sales training is not relevant to the employee's role. The problem with most Retail training is that employees get too much information (so they do not remember the important things) or not enough (so they never learn the important things).
• Retail sales training is not convenient for a deskless workforce. Retail employees tend to be younger, working part-time or seasonally and on the run between job #1 and job #2. They also now have extra responsibilities and even less time, as they take on bigger workloads on a reduced staff rota. That means ‘learn in the flow of work’ is a challenge.
• Most Retail sales training is passive and one-sided - employees listen to their manager or supervisor. No social or collaborative learning is happening which may create a positive and engaging learning environment and keep the employees motivated, even if they cannot all be together at once.
• Most Retail sales associate training does not evolve with store associates, nor does it give them a sense of agency in choosing what they want to learn – training becomes stagnant .
Fig 1: Retail engagement Stats
Fig 2: Retail technology stats
Digital tools that aid collaboration continue to be a priority for Retail Sales Trainings.
Fig 3: Change in preferred learning modes over the years
The Retail sector has experienced a significant transformation in the last 10 years with modern technologies, changed employee expectations and an increasingly informed consumer market contributing to its evolution.
File and presentation sharing applications, virtual classroom tools, webinar tools, communication and collaborative tools and conferencing tools see the maximum increase in use. Use of Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), online journals and immersive learning environments have seen significant increase in popularity.
Bite-sized learning: it is as simple as it sounds, also known as microlearning. Breaking down eLearning content into digestible chunks (bite-sized information), which is easier for learners to take them regularly and at a pace that suits them. iDL makes the learning much easier for learners from the Retail segment to fit into their work schedules.
Anywhere, anytime access for courses:In the Retail segment learners are looking for flexible learning options, as scheduled learning programs are difficult to attend. Device agnostic learning is a key to ensure quick skill acquisition. In addition, offline learning is also a requirement in some locations. iDL provides the benefits of being available on any device; it also has an offline learning feature.
Synchronous and asynchronous learning – Research shows that learners prefer a combination of self-paced and facilitator led learning. iDL provides them the ability to go through self-paced learning as well as attend virtual classrooms, webinars, etc. through the integration with conferencing tools like Vidyo, MS Teams, Zoom, etc. For self-paced cases, we are integrated with a host of content publishers and learners can access this content through a single sign on from iDL.
One-stop-Shop: : To address the Retail sales learning needs, content may need to be sourced from different platforms – industry knowledge platforms, LMS of the organisations, etc. TCS iON iDL follows an Open Architecture. We enable APIs for reading/writing of data and SSO support for SAML2. Which means that we can easily integrate with multiple platforms, thereby allowing users to log into one platform to access all the relevant content needed for skilling needs. We can even launch other LMS from within the platform and create packaged courses combining the best of both platforms.
Immersive learning: Immersive learning is a hugely effective way for Retail industry learners as it enables learning by doing and allows learners to experience the impact of their decisions. It provides artificial, digitally created content and environments that accurately replicates real life scenarios so that new skills and techniques can be learned and perfected in a safe environment. TCS iON GAMELab - enabled by iDL, provides game based immersive learning and assessment through 360-degree virtual environment, AR and VR.
Fig 5: 9 applications of AR / VR in training
Collaborative learning: In a sector dependent creating the best customer experience, peer to peer learning becomes very important. The robust Communities feature of iDL helps users interact amongst themselves, share knowledge, discuss best practices, schedule events, post questions, etc. This enables a seamless knowledge sharing which enhances the formal learning and leads to better practical understanding of the subjects/products.
Fig 6: Sample community page
Competency driven learning: In a sector facing rapid skill drain and huge turnover of employees, it is important to identify critical competencies and prioritise the acquisition of those competencies. The competency framework of iDL allows competency-based learning. It also helps learners identify aspirational roles and competencies associated with those roles. So, both from the organisation’s point of view as well as the learner’s, the competency framework helps in focused learning.
Fig 7: Sample competency mapping page
Fig 8: Sample skill gap analysis page
Learning paths: This is a sequential form of learning that ensures that the learning takes place in the correct order. The basics are learned first followed by more advanced forms of knowledge. Learning paths are programs with a pre-defined sequence in which different elements of the program will be consumed by the learner. This includes simple to complex transitions; it can also ensure that learning content designed at different levels of the Bloom’s Taxonomy – from knowledge to application – is made part of the program, leading to better learning outcomes. For the Retail industry, where learning needs to be structured as well as application-oriented, the learning path feature can be very useful to drive holistic learning.
Fig 9: Sample learning path
Assessments and assignments: Robust assessment solutions are required in an industry where compliance to policies and regulations is a must. We need to determine whether the learner has acquired the knowledge and skills to stay compliant. The different modes of assessment available on iDL helps to create different types of assessments, testing learners at different levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. The assignment feature enables learners to submit detailed assignments which evaluators can examine and assign marks. It includes comprehensive features like User Feedback, Plagiarism Check, Video Conferencing, Custom Grading and UI Hooks.
Gamification: Research shows that gamification provides a sense of belonging, makes employees feel more engaged and productive at work and improves job satisfaction. Employees who learn in gamified environments finish their tasks more quickly and feel happier at work. iON Digital Learning offers Gamification, which at its core, is built on engagement, can significantly help the learners to achieve their goals. Like collaboration, having fun competitions and challenges will help the learners stay motivated and engaged throughout the process of learning.
Fig 10: The impact of Gamification.
Case Study: Large Retail customer:
This Retail organisation hires contingent workers during Christmas in their Customer Service Sales Consultant (CSSC) business unit. The customer facing employees or advisers needed to have thorough knowledge of Retail products, processes and services while interacting with customers, both real time (voice, chat) and non-real time (emails, alerts, etc.).
Challenges:
• Training conducted only through face-to-face classroom
• Training material was mostly in physical formats (PDF, PPT, Word Doc.) and could not keep the learners engaged
• Unable to track course consumption
• No mechanism to assess learners after training
• Advisers had little or no time to take training
The above-mentioned challenges had a direct impact on the knowledge of employees on the Product, Processes and Services for this customer. Lack of adequate and complete information created number of issues such as:
• It increased query handling time leading to reduced customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS) that impacted the business
• It took more time and resources to train new Advisers, to achieve speed to competency and more time when they joined live work environment
• They needed to scale up fast and manage increased work volumes, critical situations and customer traffic during peak seasons
• The organisation did not have complete information of learning effectiveness of the different training formats and methodologies
Solutions provided through iDL:
Mobilise:
In the Mobilise phase the content was structured and made modular for easy consumption by learners.
• Structured content in various modules
• Added a SCORM based Gamified Assessment at the end
• Course Feedback to take feedback from Advisers
• Content created as Posts to make them easily searchable
Gamification through community:
In the Gamify phase, a unique learning intervention was introduced. The gamified learning helped in engaging and creating the learning pull.
• ‘Being Santa’ Game was made a part of the learning Community
• 3 Weekly Missions and Badges on completion of activities
• Leaderboard to track the Advisers based on mission completion.
• Quizzes and Knowledge Bytes to check on knowledge gained.
Fig 11: Sample Gamification challenge trough storytelling.
Fig 12: Sample badges and congratulatory messages.
Analytics & insights:
In Track, the last phase, a detailed analysis was done to get information on the consumption and completion of training by the learners. Feedback was also taken from the learners on their experience of the content and the gamified learning journey. The different parameters that were tracked are:
• Login Analytics
• Course Content Consumption Analytics
• Final Assessment & Course Feedback Analytics
• Leaderboard
• Recommendations
Fig 13.1: Course content consumption
Fig 13.2: Course level final assessment statistics
Fig 13.3: Course level feedback analysis
Fig 13.4: Overall login count and duration
Fig 13.5: Sample leaderboard
Fig 14: Sample report design framework
Impact on the organisation:
• Increased learner engagement and satisfaction. Average Satisfaction Percentage based on user feedback across all courses was 87.61%
• Reduced time in completing the courses.
• Increased course completion percentage.
• Analytics made available that could be utilised to drive focused learning to address learning gaps of specific audience, topics and to improve course content.
Help & support:
The platform comes with a Help Desk and Chatbot which enable Instant help for any query. This enables better experience of using the platform with 24*7 available assistant, especially relevant for the sector where learning may not happen in usual working hours.
Fig 15: Smart chatbot in iDL
Learning services to drive further engagement:
iDL comes with value added consulting and learning services from our Talent Development Centre (TDC) offering to drive learner engagement and better learning outcomes.
Challenges and solutions:
TCS iON iDL – a cloud-based solution , can help to achieve the objective of creating a skilled talent pool that is a dire need for this industry.
