Guide
A Guide to Effectively Training Frontline Employees
Why office-style training fails deskless workers, and five strategies that make it stick.
Key findings
- 94% of consumers would purchase more from a company if they interacted with a knowledgeable store associate.
- Dollar General’s ramped-up 2018 training program was followed by sales increasing 6.8% and customer satisfaction rising 790 points.
- Deskless employees make up 80% of the global workforce—2.7 billion people, of which 619 million work in retail, restaurants and hospitality.
Summary
Deskless employees make up 80% of the global workforce, yet training is still designed for office workers. That mismatch leaves frontline teams disengaged and undertrained, even as their knowledge and behavior directly shape customer experience, sales, retention and safety across retail, restaurant and hospitality.
This guide defines what effective frontline training looks like, why it needs to be tailored, and the challenges that make it hard. It draws on third-party research from TimeTrade, LinkedIn, CNBC and Training Magazine, and sets out five practical strategies: microlearning, mobile, gamification, social learning and context.
What you’ll learn
- How training impacts customer experience, revenue, turnover, engagement and safety.
- Why training frontline employees is fundamentally different from training office workers.
- Five strategies to improve training: microlearning, mobile, gamification, social learning and context.
