As young employees begin to enter the workforce for the first time, one thing has become apparent to many retail operations: we aren’t dealing with Millennials anymore.
Generation Z or Post-Millennials are today’s entry-level employees and they learn in ways that generations before them didn’t. Generation X was likely one of the last generations to have the training manual as a standard of any first day on the job and Millennials fall into that awkward transition period when businesses were trying to adapt their training to a more interactive, online experience. Generation Z teens and young adults are very likely never to have known a life without the world at their fingertips.
Developing training programs for this tech-savvy bunch can pose a problem for some companies, who must pivot from a more directive approach to training to an interactive experience.
How can your organization help new employees succeed through mobile learning?
Deskless
How much of a retail employee’s day is actually spent sitting behind a desk? Unless you count the table in the break room, almost none of their day is spent sitting in one location. Salespeople move around the floor, helping customers, completing transactions, and maintaining the appearance of the store.
Sitting a trainee in front of a computer in the backroom to train them simply doesn’t make sense when you have the ability to give them a tablet and let them learn as they actually go about performing the tasks expected of them.
Interactive
There’s a lot of debate about whether online training is as effective as hands-on training and many organizations believe it can be-as long as the online process is interactive. What better way to make online learning interactive than to have trainees access training documents or video while performing the tasks? Mobile learning allows employees to take the “classroom” with them wherever is most convenient and relevant.
Intuitive
Young employees today don’t need to be shown the basics of a tablet, how to open an app, or where to go for help. They’ve been raised in an increasingly visual, online world and they can typically interpret icons and navigation with ease as long as you keep it intuitive.
While your organization may be out to revolutionize training in the workplace, there are some things that you’ll want to keep similar to standard app formatting to avoid confusion when using the training software.
Holistic
It’s been a standard for as long as there’s been employee training to keep all the training materials in one location to keep things clear and organized. However, until now, that “one location” was a literal place in the store or break room. With mobile learning, the central location is cloud-based and accessible by anyone from any retail location.
The added bonus of using collaborative, mobile learning versus standard one-sided online learning means that the training can include the many aspects of training including, manuals, “how to” videos, and business communications.
Learn more about developing a mobile learning platform with our eBook, 13- Step Guide To Launching A Mobile Training Program.
