At Walt Disney World Resort, new employees aren’t only given a nametag to wear, but also an extra piece of flair: the “earning my ears” ribbon. It’s a unique signal that communicates to guests that the person is learning how to do their job. Like a magical forcefield, it protects new hires from demanding customers, enabling them to focus solely on their training.
Today, many front-line businesses are trying to grow their workforce as quickly as possible. Businesses in the leisure and hospitality industries, such as hotels, airlines and restaurants, are preparing for a busy summer. Others, including retailers, grocers and distribution centers, are still trying to overcome labor shortages that have hampered their operations for the past several years. Companies find themselves relying on less experienced and knowledgeable employees to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
They’re also trying to do more with less in the face of looming economic challenges. This means they can’t wait for employees to complete weeks — or even days — of training yet alone pull them from the operation for additional learning activity. Otherwise, you’ll be waiting in longer lines to get your coffee, buy your jeans and ride your favorite roller coaster.
We must evolve our front-line learning strategies to meet the needs of the business while making sure employees feel set up for success from day one. In this article, we’ll review five must-do best practices for building capable and confident front-line teams in today’s business world.
Write It Down! (Curation)
The average person solves complex problems every day thanks to tools like Google, YouTube and ChatGPT. This superpower fades away as soon as they walk through the door at work because they can’t find even the most basic information in the flow of work. There’s an infinite amount of knowledge within your business. No one can remember everything — especially people who are new to their roles. If they don’t know where to go for help, front-line employees are left to ask the person working beside them (who may not know the answer, either).
Curation is the first key to elevating front-line training. Provide employees with a simple, reliable place to find information when and where it’s needed on the job. This resource will be a crucial crutch as they navigate their first few weeks. It will continue to play an essential performance support role as they’re faced with ongoing change. Curation eliminates “I don’t know” from your company vocabulary.
Get Focused! (Microlearning)
No one thinks it’s a good idea to stick a new employee in a back room for two days of non-stop click-next-to-continue training. But we do it anyway because it’s our only option. Management needs the person filling their role as soon as possible, so learning and development (L&D) is provided with minimal training time. Once they hit the floor, they’re almost impossible to get back into a classroom (physically or online).
Rather than bemoan the fact that we can’t get more time with employees, L&D must make better use of the time they do have available. If workers only have a few minutes available during their shifts, most learning and support activities must only take minutes to complete. This is why microlearning is a perfect fit for the front-line — it narrows the focus of training to one specific, measurable objective at a time. Instead of cramming everything a person may possibly need to know about your products and processes into lengthy online courses, deliver the information in a way they can easily remember: five minutes per shift, every shift. After all, even the busiest front-line operation can spare five minutes.
Practice! (Reinforcement)
Front-line work is high stakes. People use dangerous equipment, execute complicated processes and work directly with the public. A single bad decision can lead to a variety of negative outcomes — from an upset customer and lost business to an injured co-worker and expensive lawsuits. This makes one-and-done training a massive problem. Days, weeks or months may pass between training and the first time an employee is required to apply what they learned (or what they manage to remember at all).
Practice is the best way to combat forgetting and make sure front-line employees are ready to make the best decision when it matters. Practice can include a variety of formats: from complex, immersive simulations to simple, scenario-based questions. A few minutes of practice each week reinforces critical job knowledge by allowing employees to learn from their mistakes in low-to-no risk environments.
Expand Access! (CYOD)
How many steps does it take for a front-line employee to reach their learning management system (LMS)? It’s not a riddle. It’s an unfortunate reality of front-line work. Employees are required to leave work locations for lengthy periods to access online resources via computers in back rooms or hidden manager’s offices. Meanwhile, the most powerful computers in the workplace are sitting dormant in their pockets (until they get bored and check TikTok mid-training).
To fit training into the busy front-line workday, L&D must transform every workflow device into a learning device. A choose your own device (CYOD) strategy allows front-line workers to decide when and where to access training. A cashier may complete practice activities on their point of sale terminal. A warehouse worker may access job aids on their work handheld device. CYOD also gives employees the option to use their own smartphones (aka their favorite devices). To comply with regional regulations, companies can gate access to learning systems, limiting training to scheduled shift times to make sure employees are properly compensated for their work.
Foster Equity! (AI)
Scale is the biggest challenge in front-line training. Companies like Target, Starbucks and Disney have hundreds of thousands of front-line workers. Each person comes to the job with a different background, language preference, knowledge base and skill set. Plus, each one progresses at a different pace, requires different levels of support and hopes to achieve specific goals. How do you provide a personal, meaningful learning and support experience at this scale? Unfortunately, most companies don’t. Instead, employees are provided with one-size-fits-none training, and ultimately, are forced to rely on their managers for support.
Enter artificial intelligence (AI). AI enables L&D to foster an equitable experience, regardless of an organization’s size, location or complexity. AI-powered tech automatically translates training into a person’s preferred language. It adapts to focus on a person’s individual knowledge and skill gaps. It proactively nudges a manager to coach an employee before a knowledge gap becomes a performance problem. L&D must lean into the rapid evolution of AI-powered technology with the goal of providing every employee with the right learning and support experience – not the same experience.
At Disney, cast member may remove the “earning my ears” after just a few days, but that doesn’t mean they’re done learning. Skills progress. Processes change. People forget things. L&D professionals must adapt their approach and apply modern practices to fit the front-line’s unique needs. They don’t have the time, energy or autonomy to come to us. We must go to them.
