This blog shares about the four major training needs of the retail industry and how e-learning can meet them.
Retail is one of the largest industries; According to reports by MarketLine, the global retail market is expected to record a yearly growth of close to 5% through 2015 to exceed $13.2 trillion. Retailers, in order to keep their organization ahead of their competitors have to train their staff well. But what are the different training needs of the retail industry staff and how can employees be trained effectively is the question.
In this blog, I will discuss the four major training needs of the retail industry and how e-learning can meet them.
New hire training:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employee turnover, on an average is around 60%. This means that if your store has 500 employees, you will need to train 1500 employees in the next 5 years. This makes retailers train their new hires. Each time a new hire comes in, training through classroom training is not feasible. Even a 1% reduction in training costs can become a huge savings for your business. To make this happen, e-learning is the most viable and cost-effective option. You can have standardized training modules that any new hire can take.
Operational training:
It is very important for a store manager to look after various issues in the store such as whether the items in the store are arranged in a proper, acceptable manner, ensure that the front end does not have long queues of customers, and support customers when required, also on the return policy of goods.
So, the manager on duty should be trained on such aspects so that the operations are carried out smoothly. Depending on instructors to train the manager not only proves costly but also takes the manager away from his job resulting in low productivity. E-learning helps you train managers any time effectively and at the same time they can carry out the operations at the store.
Product training:
In the retail industry, the familiarity of the staff with products is important as they deal with the customers directly. The employees should have full knowledge on new products so that they can satisfy the customer needs. Unlike classroom training, e-learning offers consistent and standard training on products, features, and benefits, leaving no room for the misrepresentation of facts and inconsistencies in communication.
Software training:
Retail staff use software for billing, inventory management, etc. It is an open fact that retail staff is always busy on the floor and training them on software through traditional classroom training generally takes days or even weeks. Such training takes your employees off-site and affects productivity at your store. With simulation based e-learning, employees can be trained at the time of work itself. The employees can access the modules any time they need, providing them hands on training.
Thus, providing training to retail staff through e-learning proves to be effective and also saves a lot of time of the staff which is profitable to the organizations too.
