Retail and restaurant typically run their businesses using two key software systems – a point of sale (POS) system and some type of employee training system. A great deal of emphasis is placed on the POS because that’s what makes the cha-ching sound. The transaction of goods and services occurs, money changes hands, profits are realized and dreams are made. Sneaky little things like capturing customer data also happens, enabling the marketing cycle to begin anew. Training software systems tend to get a little overshadowed by the POS money tree, but they’re every bit as important, arguably more important. They even sound important. Learning Management System! But is it so much more important than hearing that cha-ching sound?
Without the customers, there’s no need for the POS. Consider these stats:
- According to McKinsey, 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. It’s not the actual product or service, and by the time they pay for something, it could be too late to make an impact on how the customer was treated.
- What about this – according to Lee Resources, 80% of companies say they deliver superior customer service but only 8% of the customers feel it’s superior. That’s not alignment.
- How about the Harris Interact/RightNow research that found that 9 of 10 people would be willing to pay more for superior services.
Positively impacting the customer experience is the most important thing for companies, particularly service companies. Touch Agency found that about 80% of the 1 million weekly Tweets regarding customer service are negative or critical in nature. So, no news really is good news?! No customers, no need for a POS.
Starting to maybe rethink the systems priorities? Many companies have and they’re placing a lot of emphasis on providing a tool so that employees can work, learn, collaborate and innovate right where they perform their jobs. Here’s the deal. Even though the concepts around learning have changed significantly in the last 5 years, the need for new performance support solutions to incorporate and render large amounts of video and content, in a mobile friendly way without impacting network bandwidth has prevented most companies from evolving. Your front line employees are one of the most effective ways to impact the user experience, but they are being underutilized or aren’t prepared.
Let’s say your company bought a Learning Management System 5-10 years ago. Might have even spent a lot of time evaluating the options, making a choice, deploying it, and creating training courses to pump into it so that everyone could learn. You probably built quizzes and tests to see how much everyone was learning. Plenty of high scores, I’ll bet. Guess what? Employee learning styles has evolved, so much so that the capabilities of traditional LMS haven’t kept up.
Has Learning Changed?
First, learning probably hasn’t really changed. But training sure has, and how people learn is evolving quickly.
Biggest reason - the Internet. Specifically, YouTube. Sure, cognitive science has provided new insights into the human brain and how people process information. But let’s be real – the “amateurization” of creating and posting videos created on smart devices coupled with the ease of searching and viewing them on any connected device, well that’s when the magic happened. YouTube’s an array of “How To” videos that shows you exactly what to do. No pages to read, no little black and white diagrams to decipher, you can get it on mobile devices (as in right where you need it), and there’s probably a video covering the exact kitchen faucet that you’re trying to repair.
Every minute, 400 more hours of videos get uploaded, and the average length of a video is 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Now try telling younger employees that grew up with instant gratification and learning videos that they’ll have to sit down and watch an hour long training video on using the POS system, it sure better be a good one. With attention spans in the seconds, capturing attention, getting interaction and maintaining engagement must happen early and often.
Learning Management Systems are yesterday’s news and they aren’t the way leading edge companies are training. More importantly, they aren’t the tools that employees even want to use to learn. That’s a big issue and I’ll get back to that later.
Ah the LMS…there it sits, on a desktop computer in the back office, just waiting for its next victim to sit down and start learning. Can’t you see the line of eager floor staff queued up outside of the manager’s office waiting to take the new course on work safety?
I harsh a bit on LMS. It’s not bad and those systems did serve a purpose. But, technology has changed and we’ve all discovered a lot about how people learn. If nothing else, the legacy of LMS will be that they gave us the data and practical examples of what worked, what didn’t and why, and in doing that they shot a planet killer size asteroid right into their own world. The LMS-asarus has wiped itself out and never even had a chance.
I Think, and Do, Therefore I Learn
What if we could train and support people right where they work? It’s called it Performance Support.
What if we could create a more individualized learning experience using modern multimedia and video to make learning more engaging and relevant? Interactive Personalized Learning, perhaps.
And, what if we could use new technologies to create relevant information on-demand and suggested information based on what people understand and want to understand? Adaptive Learning, (large kaah-boom sound).
That’s the beauty of evolution. The fit are surviving and new technologies and tools have emerged to extend the useful life of legacy LMS while ushering in the new learning training & learning solutions that capitalize on technology to provide a more personalized learning and even adaptive learning experience. (Read more on what to look for in our eBook: The Ultimate Guide To Modern Learning)
Performance Support is simply having both the means for learning and the ability to apply a skill with you at the point of need, precisely where you perform the work. Relevance and speed are key so that someone can quickly learn easily, conveniently and almost simultaneously while doing, in order to complete a task or activity quickly. Short helpful "How To" videos are a perfect example.
Everyone gets the concept of personalization. All your social media customizations, the apps on your phones, the music you listen to on Spotify.
However, Adaptive Learning is newer but not completely foreign, so let’s break that down a bit. Wikipedia says, “Adaptive Learning is an educational method which uses computers as interactive teaching devices, to orchestrate the allocation of human and mediated resources according to the unique needs of each learner. Computers adapt the presentation of educational material according to students' learning needs, as indicated by their responses to questions, tasks and experiences. The technology encompasses aspects derived from various fields of study including computer science, education, psychology, and brain science.” In other words, the training materials and delivery adapt to you.
There you have it, form intersecting function to create the ideal learning experience just for you based on your history of interactions with devices and content. Kinda deep, huh.
What to Do, What to Do
For now, the question becomes how you start to bridge the gap, with or without deploying an entirely new system? Solutions that have been built to marry learning with business operations are what you seek. They measure the real productivity gains achieved from learning. They foster a more collaborative and cultural work environment. They simplify onboarding, training and compliance. They help spawn innovation and significantly increase employee engagement. They can handle mobility elegantly, and they’re built to accommodate old LMS formats thus creating a simple way to give the people what they want – learning and training at the point of need. These tools are not just ready for the future, they’re creating it.
Someday adaptive learning solutions might become so smart, you might not ever need to think about what it is you need to learn ever again. For now, just in time smartness, right at your fingertips, is a real thing. It’s simple to deploy, workers love it, and it supports and existing content, even LMS content. Immediate learning! It’s like being in The Matrix, but without that great big plug thing going into the back of your skull. Cha-ching!
