Is Your Retail Task Management Training Ready?

Training seasonal retail employees can be more difficult than it sounds. You’ve got to get them hired, onboarded, and up to speed fast. And you’re often hiring a lot more than one seasonal employee. Add to that the complexities of retail task management and the challenges of hiring and training overall, and we can bet that you’re not looking forward to seasonal hiring this year. 

For this mountain of reasons, many retailers are looking to a digital operational training strategy that allows them to handle everything from onboarding, to task execution, to continual training and development—for training new employees in the pre-holiday season and beyond.

Run Tight Operations

If you haven’t already, it’s time to consider digitizing your retail operations process. This means converting paper SOP’s to searchable, digital documents or making SOP’s trapped in hard-to-access content management systems instantly available and searchable on tablets in the stores.  This also means digitizing your retail training and development related to these processes and task lists, which will streamline your whole operations process. 

Ensuring that your seasonal employees have retail digital tools that give them quick answers to products, policies,  operational processes, and checklists, means they’ll spend more time helping customers and less time looking for answers.

Tools like daily task lists that can be checked off on a mobile device enable all employees and managers to see what’s been done and what needs to be done.  Embedding  digital knowledge and training content into those task lists ensures that all employees are on the same page, filling any knowledge gaps that might otherwise exist while they are doing their jobs and completing tasks. And when employees are empowered with the information they need, managers can focus on higher-level responsibilities with greater focus and intent.

Keep Teams on the Floor

Retail training programs that pull frontline employees off the floor to complete training at a desktop is not where you want your employees. You want them to help customers and make sales, especially during the holidays. New employees should start contributing within a matter of hours not days or weeks.  This not only engages employees more quickly, but it also saves money on labor costs.

Providing quick, efficient onboarding coupled with instant mobile access to the training, SOP’s and operational tasks needed to do the job is how you do that. New hires can hit the ground running and existing employees all have your company’s operational standards and processes in the palm of their hands.

Deliver a Stellar Customer Experience

You know as well as anyone that lines are blurring between in-store and online experiences. Your customers expect the same experience whether it’s online, in-store, or during the holidays. Making sure your retail operations process is included in seasonal employee training means every store can focus on delivering the same customer experience. 

You’ll see fewer inconsistencies and more understanding about what needs to be done to drive success. You’ll see less turnover and more motivated, inspired employees. And, perhaps most importantly, you’ll see more loyal, happy customers. 

To learn more about how you can digitize your retail task management training, click here.