The holiday shopping season is the one time of year when your retail store needs to get a lot of new hires trained up and ready to work, all at once. Retail behemoth Target this year said they are boosting their staff by 70,000 seasonal employees – That's more than the entire population of Santa Fe, New Mexico! So how do you get everyone trained quickly? Glad you asked.

Get On The Floor

We agree with the eLearning Industry blog that maximizing your trainees' time on the sales floor is the #1 priority. Some people are more receptive to visual training than reading text, but we all agree that you only gain experience by doing. You might hire someone with sales experience, but they don't have experience in *your* store. Have them on the floor shadowing your high-performing salespeople so they can mimic their success. If your new employees are unfamiliar with your products, have them learn during downtime in small amounts so they don't get overwhelmed.

Just The Facts

The retail guru Bob Phibbs points out that when you need to train people fast, there's not much time for nuance. He suggests training in a "yes or no" method, meaning that employees should know "Yes, do this" or "No, don't do that." Since you've hired smart people, you know they'll catch on, but don't waste time teaching exceptions or tiny details.

Policy Precision

Another way to avoid hiccups in the sales process is to train your new staff on company policies. Teach them about about your return policy (exchange only; full refund within 30 days with a receipt; anytime no questions asked; etc.), what kind of payments you accept (which credit cards, Apple Pay, check, cash, etc), what to do if someone wants to haggle on price, what the store hours are - all of this and more. The better and quicker they know how they should answer these basic questions, the sooner they will be a productive employee, generating sales instead of slowing down the process.

We know you're not hiring 70,000 people (unless you're reading this blog, Target!), but when your store staff grows by almost double, it's still quite the effort to get everyone trained. Hopefully the tips above help focus your employee training this year and in the years to come.