According to a recent Arlington Research survey on the state of the frontline work experience in 2021, 45% of frontline employees are already planning to quit their jobs. The survey aims to shed light on the factors that contribute to high turnover rates in industries, retail, and more. The survey results highlight the importance of investigating frontline employees’ day-to-day experiences, including their training and development opportunities. The high number of employees leaving their jobs, as well as the factors motivating them to do so, necessitate immediate action from frontline organizations to address these issues and retain their employees.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the value of effective frontline training programmes and offer some tips and best practices to assist organizations in attracting and retaining top talent in today’s competitive talent market.
The term “Frontline training” describes the methods and programmes created to prepare employees who will be on the front lines of industrial activities. These personnel frequently do routine activities, such as operating machinery, keeping an eye on manufacturing lines, and performing quality control inspections, that keep industrial operations running efficiently.
Industrial frontline training is to give employees the information, abilities, and competences required to do their duties in a safe and efficient manner. Topics including workplace safety, equipment operation and maintenance, quality control, and product handling are frequently included in this kind of training.
Frontline employees are important in providing a positive customer experience. The way they engage with customers can have a huge impact on their satisfaction and, as a result, retention. This gives a light to the importance of investing in frontline training to ensure that employees have the skills, which will be needed to accomplish their routine work easily, resolve issues and provide proper customer service.
The greatest threat to frontline businesses during the great resignation is unqualified staff interacting with customers. Their lack of competence results in a variety of unfavorable outcomes, including lower revenue, a poor brand image, and, in the worst-case scenario, lawsuits. Thus, appropriate training is required to provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to do their jobs effectively. Not just technical skillset, but customer service, sales, communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution can all be covered in frontline training. The goal of frontline training is to ensure the frontline employees are productive, skilled and can handle customer interactions to provide quality service that supports the goals and objectives of an organization.
Training programmes with effective design and practices can boost employee engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction. To succeed at their job positions and take on new responsibilities, your frontline employees training requires real-time approach. According to the findings, here are some employee training best practices and tips for preparing your frontline workers for the long term:
Using Augmented Reality technology allows workers to access personalized training content through smart glasses or other wearable devices. By logging in with a QR code, employees can access a training library tailored to their individual proficiency levels. Real-time data collection and analysis through AR can track progress, identify areas for improvement, and adjust training programmes accordingly. Incorporating AR into frontline training can create personalized learning programmes and improve employee proficiency levels.
To improve the skills of frontline workers, a blend of classroom and self-paced learning is necessary. Videos, blogs, podcasts, and assessments can be used to create a diverse set of learning materials. However, with limited bandwidth, many workers struggle to access content online. Augmented reality (AR) technology can help overcome this challenge by providing offline access to personalized training content through smart glasses or other wearable devices.
In addition to improving access to training content, AR can also ensure that employees follow proper safety protocols. For example, AR can prevent workers from proceeding to the next task until they have completed all necessary steps, such as wearing protective equipment. By incorporating AR technology into frontline training, companies can create personalized learning programmes, improve proficiency levels, and enhance safety protocols.
Several businesses have become interested in gamification. Gamification is a fun training method for employees in frontline training. You can bring your dispersed workforce together on a single platform for interactive sessions. You can test their knowledge of a product or see who is aware of current industry trends by using a roulette wheel or a quiz. You can instill healthy competition among your frontline employees and motivate them to work harder by using a leaderboard.
To ensure that the frontline workers complete their routine tasks correctly and avoid jeopardizing the company’s reputation, companies must use advanced tools for frontline training. One such tool is mobile learning, which can provide a diverse course catalogue for workers to access on-the-go, disrupting the cycle of learning and forgetting. With remote learning, Augmented Reality technology can also be utilized to provide instructions, tips, and best practices to frontline workers. AR glasses can transmit this information via text, voice recording, or video. This allows workers to easily access training content while on the job and apply what they’ve learned in real-time.
To make frontline training and upskilling programmes more accessible to employees who may not understand the language, it’s important to choose a learning solution that allows for multilingual content. With the help of AR, workers can access microlearning content in their native language using smart glasses or other wearable devices. These short, engaging learning nuggets can be consumed at any time of day or night, making it easy for workers to keep up with industry trends and new business procedures while on the job.
When creating courses in different languages, it’s important to keep jargon and wordplay to a minimum and make the learning programmes as simple as possible so that frontline personnel can understand them. By incorporating AR technology and microlearning into frontline training, companies can create personalized, accessible training programmes that improve employee performance and keep workers up-to-date with the latest industry trends.
While some businesses consider burnout to be a personal issue, it is actually an organizational issue caused by unfair treatment, unmanageable workloads, poor communication, and other pressures. Repairing it will necessitate structural changes as well as ongoing assistance. Mental health support that is available to both full-time and part-time employees can distinguish your workplace. A well-designed training programme that includes input from outside experts assists employees in identifying and overcoming early warning signs of burnout, resulting in improved retention, reduced sick time, and increased productivity.
Well-structured onboarding is one of the best training methods for employees that is especially important for businesses with multiple locations. It is critical to provide the same onboarding experience to frontline hires across all branches. Modern learning solutions are known not only for their ability to upskill but also for their ability to create impactful onboarding. You can determine the time-to-productivity of the frontline and take real-time actions to reduce it using deep analytics such as productivity score and skill score. AR can be of super help here as it can minimize the spent in on job trainings while ensuring the purpose is fulfilled.
Sales, product, merchandising, and compliance are the four most popular frontline training areas. Let’s look at these in more detail:
None of it has a greater impact on front-line business profit than sales ability. Employees must know how to approach a customer, what language to use, and how to answer their questions in order to sell a product. They require practice in addition to basic theories such as sales techniques and human psychology.
Front-line employees require systematic, in-depth knowledge of your offerings, as well as appropriate product training. Customers require comprehensive support, so having a general idea is insufficient. If they don’t get it, they go elsewhere. Employees must be prepared to explain product components, differences between similar products, application scenarios, and so on. Creating an interactive product catalogue is a simple way to conduct product training. It is not only descriptive and informative, but it is also simple to use.
Many frontline workers require the ability to place products on the appropriate shelves. They must know where and how to store perishable goods in supermarkets. Shirts and trousers should be foldable in clothing stores. That could be difficult for some people.
Failure to comply could lead to substantial charges for your company. As a result, your employees must be aware of company policies and regulations, as well as how to safeguard confidential information. This necessitates workplace diversity and inclusion, as well as sexual harassment training.
At Plutomen, we offer innovative solutions for industrial frontline training. Our solutions are designed to help deskless frontline workers access and use the knowledge base easily from their mobile devices, no matter where they are. Even so, our solutions can also be integrated and accessed directly from AR/ VR wearables. Following are some ways in which our solutions can be used for frontline training:
In many industries, experienced workers have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and best practices through years of hands-on experience. However, this tribal knowledge is often not captured or shared with new or less experienced workers, leading to knowledge gaps and inconsistencies in the workforce. With our AR powered remote assistance solution, experts can connect with frontline workers over the call with Augmented Reality. This way, they can gain a real-time visibility of the field and also add/mark meaningful annotations to communicate the important issues. This leads to a real-time tribal knowledge transfer between them and their workers.
Digitized work instructions provide a structured and visual way of presenting information to workers. Instead of relying on paper-based manuals or verbal instructions, workers can access digitized work instructions from their mobile devices, AR/VR wearables, or other devices.
Our Digital Work Instruction solution enable companies to create digitized work instructions, checklists, and SOPs quickly and easily. The instructions can include pictures, videos, and images to help workers understand the task at hand.
Immersive training is the new age learning technique in Industry 4.0. Workers can wear AR/VR headsets and be immersed in virtual environments that simulate real-world situations. For example, a worker can practice performing maintenance on a machine without actually being in front of the machine, reducing the risk of accidents or mistakes.
Our Immersive Learning solution help frontline workers create interactive training materials in the form of guides, PDFs. This solution enables the creation and digitization of secure training manuals, which can be done by importing 3D machine models. Plutomen Assist offers 3D visualization technology, allowing for the visualizing and annotating of step-by-step training instructions, which can include audio, video, and images.
Businesses experience difficulties all the time, but only the most resilient ones find ways to overcome them. You can reduce risk and maintain quality performance while saving money and time with strong frontline training. Frontline workers training gives employees the skills and knowledge they need to do their jobs well. Investing in high-quality frontline training can reduce the risks of poor performance while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. Furthermore, by utilizing the cost-effective and adaptable nature of online training, you can provide training to the entire team without sacrificing valuable time and resources. With these AR based solutions for frontline workers, educators can empower their remote teaching, engage students, and improve learning outcomes.
With more than 12+ years of experience in the world of enterprises, technology, and metaverse, Keyur Bhalavat is leading Plutomen to gain meaningful partnerships & to have a strong clientele network. He is one of the board members of GESIA (Gujarat IT Association Ahmedabad).
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