Thirty-six percent of the workplace will be made up of millennials by the end of 2014. Retail organizations will be especially impacted by this trend. To help our many retail clients, Allen has created training that merges new technologies with proven, traditional approaches to help all learners, including millennials, succeed in increasingly fast-paced business environments.

Situating training within workplace simulations allows learners to activate new skills and get immediate feedback in a safe environment. These courses, often times, are designed to integrate with searchable reference sites, social tools, and immediate forums to help learners create peer groups and engage collectively in team-building and successful behavior-modeling.

Customer: International Restaurant Chain

Training Objective: Business Simulations for Regional Managers

Solution: Allen worked with its partner to move a paper-based business simulation program to an industry-first, team-based iPad learning app. This app allows teams of managers to compete and debate real business problems, with decisions scored in real time. The sim results then inform a customized action planning process that allows managers to take feedback from the experience and create personal, accountable plans for the weeks and months that follow (all accessible through their mobile devices).

While new technologies can be attractive, we can’t forget the fundamentals. For example, learn, practice, share techniques are well-known and effective, and when they are paired with customer-service and product training tools, they can become scalable and measurable. Additionally, the blurring lines between marketing and training can create opportunities to pair rich media with traditional, on-the-job practice formats that foster team engagement and ongoing reference.

Customer: Educational Organization

Training Objective: Create a Social Portal Capable of Inspiring and Engaging a Voluntary Audience

Solution: Allen developed dynamic courses featuring an integrated badging and scoring and skill development system, inspired by the most popular social media games and apps. Additionally, online video-based coaching and collaborative forums were integrated into the learning platform, allowing for the audience to engage and share in their experiences, all under the direction of established experts.

Relevancy is key to learner engagement. Workplace scenarios and learn, practice, share techniques work best when they are personalized to a learner’s role, departments, or paths in an organization. In addition to enhancing transferability through corporate culture, this tactic can also be used to create personal investment in the larger corporate vision. Creating this level of personalization usually requires not different learning technologies, but rather a deeper level of learner and content analysis during the design phase (check out our DesignJot application and ANSWER analysis for suggestions on more information on design models).

Customer: Fortune 100 Technology Company

Training Objective: Major Brand Initiative

Solution: Allen created a comprehensive curriculum that includes a build-your-own-brand course. This innovative learning tool invites learners to consider the corporate brand vision from multiple perspectives, and then calculate their own, personal brand footprint, which then serves to inform how they talk about brand with customers, contacts, and friends to help build a shared vision of the company.

Learn more about how we can help you create relevant retail training.

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