Table of contents
Overview
The global retail sector faces a persistent challenge: a high-volume workforce with a low retention rate. Despite decades of government interventions and new training routes, employee engagement surveys reveal a significant gap in skills and knowledge. As retail environments become increasingly tech-heavy incorporating everything from RFID tags to interactive kiosks the burden on managers to train a revolving door of staff has become unsustainable. This article explores how transitioning to an automated Training Management System (TMS) can alleviate these pressures and ensure consistent service quality.
The Skills Gap in Global Retail
For many years, experts have expressed concerns about the challenges in retail organizations and the relevant skills businesses require to compete effectively in global markets. This is especially true for e-Learning in retail organizations. The industry has taken steps to improve training systems, including creating new training routes for young people. Despite the introduction of a plethora of government interventions over the last 20 years, stakeholders continue to make the same arguments. Employee engagement surveys still show that the industry has not satisfactorily trained everyone.
The Problem of High Workforce Attrition
Globally, over half (54 percent) of the retail workforce is based in sales and customer service related occupations. This includes sales and retail assistants, retail cashiers and check-out operators. Also, sales and customer service occupations of retail organisations are the largest group in retain sector. But sadly these days this group experience a poor retention rate due to several challenges.
Consider for eg. UK where 384,200 new sales and customer service staff will be required to replace those leaving the sector. People do come to fill the vacancy. But mostly are having inadequate knowledge about the work they are going to perform. This means that frequent changes in the sales workforce occur in retail , which causes pain for the managers to train every new batch as effectively.
The Impact of Technological Advancement
Retail sector has seen a major advancement in technology, huge over the past few years in India. The development of various kinds of in-store technology in recent decades has led to new in-store services. These technological innovations include:
- Widespread use of bar codes.
- Point-of-service price scanning.
- Interactive kiosks.
- Emerging applications based on radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.
The Need for Specialized Training
With these technologies, retailers can manage stock in a more efficient and effective manner and, at the same time, allow customers to conduct transactions or obtain product information and service with minimal assistance from store employees.
But, this comes with an alarming note of a well-trained in-store staff. Then they need to be trained with the proper usage of these security systems. Realizing that how important these security systems are, we can understand the importance of in-depth training in retail. As a matter of concern, the frequent substitutions of employees make this process a lot more hectic for the managers to handle.
The Solution: Automated Training Management Systems (TMS)
Thus, we now require an automated system in retailing. This facilitates the retailer managers & employees to deal with such a situation. Industries like these now demand a separate chain for dealing with employee training. Such an external chain would not only look after the basic training of employees but also would keep the trainees updated with the technological advancements in the industry.
This whole process could be made much simpler and automated if system could be made online. Have you ever heard about “TMS”. I am pretty sure that most of you have not. TMS as in “Training Management System” is all about the online training of employees.
Key Components of a TMS:
- Scalability: Scale up the learning efforts for the in-store staff and managers using e-learning.
- Localization: Allows the staff to get trained in their local languages.
- On-the-Job Assessments: Managers can use observation check lists on mobile devices for on-job assessments.
- Independence: Obviously reduces the dependence on trainer availability.
- Rapid Deployment: Inform the workforce about new products or services rapidly.
In one line, it a system of training where provision of learning resources and trainee assessments are made online, without the requirement of presence of trainers. About 18% of the total retail organizations in India have now become aware about this new system and are thus able to observe the results out of it.
FAQ
Q:How does a TMS help with the “revolving door” of retail employees?
A:Because a TMS is automated and online, a new hire can begin their training immediately upon joining without waiting for a manager to become available. This ensures that even with high turnover, every “new batch” receives the same high-quality, standardized instruction.
Q:Can a TMS really replace a human trainer for technical in-store systems?
A:While hands-on experience is important, a TMS handles the “knowledge heavy” portion of the training such as learning bar code systems, RFID usage, and security protocols. By using interactive modules, employees learn the theory and logic behind the tech, allowing managers to spend less time teaching and more time supervising.
Q:Is training in local languages really that important for retail?
A:Absolutely. In many retail hubs, the workforce is diverse and may not be comfortable with English-only instructions. Providing training in local languages ensures higher comprehension, reduces errors at the checkout or with stock management, and improves employee confidence.
Final Thoughts
The retail landscape is evolving at a breakneck pace, but the human element remains its biggest hurdle and its greatest opportunity. Continuing to rely on traditional, manual training methods in an era of RFID and interactive kiosks is a recipe for operational exhaustion. By adopting an automated Training Management System (TMS), retailers can finally decouple growth from the stress of staff turnover. When training is localized, scalable, and digital, the “pain” of the manager becomes a streamlined process of the past, allowing the business to focus on what truly matters: the customer experience.
