There is much to be learned about how to re-tool or re-design your retail employee training programs as suggested from a recent survey¹ by Ipsos* commissioned by Axonify* to assess the effectiveness of employee training from the employee's viewpoint.

Survey findings were derived from responses by employees from Millennials to Baby Boomers across several industries including retail. With respect to training in retail, two important differences stand out from other industries:

1. Just 35% of workers believe that on-the-job training is effective compared to 57% across all sectors.

2. That result is echoed in the fact that 90% of all workers surveyed believe workplace training helps them do their jobs better, but only 77% of retail workers think that is true.

Reading between the lines, these discrepancies might arise because the state of training in retail is perceived as substandard.

For example, a remarkable 32% of retail employees say they receive no training, less than half receive training from online resources, and most find existing training boring, irrelevant, infrequent, and unrewarding.

Creating More Relevant and Engaging Training

The points regarding retail training ineffectiveness above clearly hint at how your training might be drastically improved. Survey results about how employees think training should be improved drive these points home:

• Over 90% of employees want easy-to-comprehend, fun, and engaging training materials. They want highly-personalized, highly-relevant presentations versus overwhelming, infrequent information dumps that are the core of many training plans.
• Being able to apply what they have learned plus the ability to access skills and product knowledge on-demand were cited by over 85% of retail workers. Only 45% of retail workers in this survey said they have access to online training materials.
• Over 70% of workers want to choose their training times and receive more frequent but shorter sessions to facilitate knowledge retention while receiving recognition or rewards for what they have already learned.

All of these training improvement suggestions are precisely in line with current state-of-the-art training platforms that supply engaging learning materials on- and off-line using modern educational techniques and tools. Some of these include:

• Microlearning courses
• Gamification of training
• 24/7 access across a variety of devices
• Incorporation of different learning mediums such as video

Tips to Improve Your Sales Associate Education and Training

Based on this survey's results and current best practices by top training organizations, there are several ways you can improve or fine tune your current training program especially for sales associates:

• Improve relevance: Review materials to ensure they cover all the things your sales team needs to know to do their job and no more. Increase engagement with real on-the-job scenarios that bolster the concepts being taught.
• Improve retention: Memory decays if not reinforced with regular review or use. Aim for continuous learning that includes short reviews of material already covered across multiple, shorter learning sessions.
• Help employees teach themselves: Provide anytime/anywhere learning on any device so associates refresh their knowledge or update current knowledge. This is particularly important since your sales team must stay up-to-date with fast-moving tech product developments.
• Bring training to the sales floor: Most learning is experiential, that is we learn by doing. Make time for associates to share how they are applying their training to their jobs. Helping new hires with on-the-floor mentoring brings training concepts alive.

Strengthen Your Number One Advantage

Time and again, surveys reveal that customers are motivated to shop in brick-and-mortar technology and computer retail stores because they want what online venues fail to offer: face-to-face conversations with highly-knowledgeable sales associates who can help them find solutions.

Naturally, you provide training to your sales team so they can confidently relay the features and benefits of the latest PCs or peripherals, media entertainment centers, smart home gadgets, and more to customers. But, is your program as effective as it could be?

Following through on the ideas like those suggested by the Ipsos* survey, plus incorporating employee feedback on your current training resources, it’s likely you can find room for improvements.

Encourage your sales associates to take advantage of the Intel® Retail Edge Program to access on-demand modules in multimedia formats that significantly increase information retention. Find out how participation in the Intel® Retail Edge Program’s robust online community and training platform helps your sales team stay on top of the latest information about Intel® products and technologies and helps them sell more devices.

References:

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

©Intel Corporation 2018. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Retail Edge Program, and Intel Retail Edge Live are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.

1 http://resources.axonify.com/modern-learning/state-of-workplace-training