I don’t know about you, but I remember you from my first job. I was 16 years old. I was hired by a department chain (name not to be released because they are out of business now, and I can’t fully recall it). Rather than placing me into the music section, a dream for any 16-year-old, I was placed in automotive. It was a bad match. Not only because I had no idea about any of these products, nor because the smell was probably toxic, but because placing a 16-year-old into automotive is like placing a 45-year-old into the music department (you could buy tapes and records then) and expecting them to know the latest punk rock and rock bands of that time. Like I said a bad match.
I got canned a month later. There was no major loss. After all, Howard Johnson’s (well-known hotel chain and restaurant – mentioned even in Blazing Saddles) was calling, and I was happy to oblige.
Hojo (its nickname) provided some training. I started as a dishwasher, then moved up to cleaning tables and hanging out with people when the place was dead – always late in the evening. It was a fun gig.
The other? Zero training.
What is the correlation between the two? Frontline worker. Retail and Hospitality. One offered training; one offered misery.
The Hojo experience showed the steps to do, how it worked, and other things. I was brought up to clean tables, the same thing. And the person who provided each one? The head of the kitchen will be responsible for the first part, and the manager for the second hands-on learning. No manuals. No guides. No inane banter that treated a 16-year-old as some aloof kid who wants to hang out, earn money, and do nothing.
The other one? Did I mention misery?
This was, of course, before e-learning was around, let alone CBT (Computer-Based Training, 640 MB on a CD – for those curious). Neither of those folks who trained me had any background in training, let alone learning. Nevertheless, they understood their audience, targeted the correct information to do an adequate job, and treated that person as a person, not a kid.
Perhaps you had a similar experience or experiences. A frontline worker – dealing with customers Face to Face (first gig) and second when I cleaned tables. Customers – just saying the term will make some folks cringe because people can be friendly, jerkish, rude, pleasant, and demanding. Did I mention jerkish and downright offensive?
We expect everyone to be friendly and pleasant, but being a frontline worker in any face-to-face role with the public, especially in retail and hospitality, will show you the worst in people.
When I look at e-learning courses/content today, I see a lot of good and, yes, a lot of wrong when providing effective online learning for frontline workers.
What do you need to have effective online learning for frontline workers?
First, the new term you may hear is “deskless workers.” Which includes frontline, blue-collar, and any other role where the person does not work in the office. I have often written about the awfulness and near indifference regarding blue-collar workers and learning systems, even learning technology. Toss in some C-level executives who treat their blue-collar employees as replaceable, and when someone running L&D or Training wants to do something, they can get resistance and even rejection.
Thus, for this post, I will refer to frontline workers. Retail and Hospitality I see as two different segments where people of all ages have to deal with people of all ages as customers. The good. The bad. The downright nastiness (especially today).
The Needs
- A learning system (LMS, LXP, Learning Platform, or combo) that targets the frontline worker (and yes, even gig worker, if applicable). The system has a mobile app with on/off synch.
- Mobile app – Comes with content that focuses on the frontline employee – from what they need to do for their job to various content that provides skills and fun – remember that with learning? The app has a look and feel that embodies something a frontline worker will use.
- Content – Some assigned – like regulations and skills for the roles – but with flex so that someone can go back in without a specific due date. Think a mix. The content should be around that specific audience – not all text, not with minimal graphics, not a page-turner – that bores people. Make it fun and engaging – I’ve done it for retail – and that target audience 16-23 loves it. Add content that brings real world. Thus, if you purchase the content, the people aren’t a bunch of 30-year-olds in a retail place talking about customer service. I can’t recall seeing a 3rd party course that presents people being nasty from a current perspective. 2005 is not the same as 2024.
- Add engaging activities – the key here is engaging, interactivity and fun. Again, focus on the target audience – this was a staple back in the day with instructional designers/developers who would do storyboards that you would review; it is a process. Nowadays, people use their rapid content authoring tool – to create a PPT or use Gen-AI for a text-based course. Boring with a guaranteed rate of ignore and move on.
An activity could be as simple as the employee recording a short up to three-minute video of someone or some employees doing certain tasks correctly – that others could benefit from seeing. The employee can add filters, tweak it up with stuff, and then upload it. Then everyone can view it. You are leveraging what they are using – Instagram, Tik Tok and similar. They are not using LinkedIn here. Or for the employee a 90 second fun video of their choosing around something they do at work, that they like. The key here is fun and effective learning. Simple, simple stuff – and who offers this option for their employees in retail and hospitality? My guess? Nobody.
If you really want to push it, find a Generative AI solution that can integrate into your LMS, that does a text to image or something that your audience can use to create their own content related to the skills they are learning or something along those lines.
With any generative ai solution, always use a human element – thus, you may need to do an approval mechanism, if the employee isn’t 100% sure it is a) appropriate and b) correct.
I love systems whereas the learner can create their own content, because the system enables that capability. Thus, it’s not just on the admin side, learners get access too.
- Know your audience – You should have done or make sure you do – the age bracket of your audience that this is for. I find many in L&D and, yes, training. Even HR who provide training, regardless of whether it is ILT or e-learning, think from their perspective, not the person and people receiving it.
Where I live, there are a lot of retirees at retail places, especially at fast food – like McDonald’s. And there are high school kids, and folks needing another job. The largest audience are retirees and the kids. Two different audiences, two different types of content are needed. Never a one-size fits all. The entire approach has to be different. BUT what I see is one across the board. Yuck.
I see the same thing when folks pick a learning system, regardless of the type. If the people are frontline workers, why are you picking a system that appears as though it hasn’t been updated in five or more years? Why are selecting a system without a mobile app with on/off synch? Why are you picking a system that does not give you options for tweaking the labels (changing the text), adding widgets, or removing them, giving off a different appearance for different audiences? Example a retiree will use the system – after teaching them how so – and may require multiple times; and the writing size may need to be different too vs. a 17-year-old or 23-year-old, who wants a hipper look and feel.
There are systems whereas you can do this not just by group, but for each individual – now that rocks. Go multi-tenant, and now you have multiple view options – one for a senior crowd or older adult, one for your younger audience and one for managers. Managers do not like to be shoved into the same system as everyone else – let alone in anything whereas they need to take content that other learners can see. So yeah, they can access the other tenets, using what we call roles and rules for what they see, even with their own manager view, and equally have a place just for them. District managers can be placed into the same tenant.
Automation and Restaurants
It’s coming, and I wonder whether the human workers that are there, will be trained on an on-going basis around it.
One big chain that rolled it out is McDonald’s. It’s an interesting idea, that has already seen a backlash on social media.
What happens when customers experience it on a daily basis, and something goes wrong? I use the mobile app to place my orders (and pay ahead of time), but there are people who do use the mobile app.
There are already restaurants that have rolled out gen ai and automation. But how does that help the frontline worker when it comes to online training, even if you do a combo with ILT (boo) and OJT (potential double boo).
Do it once with ILT and OJT = then what?
You are relying on the manager to continue the training afterwards, and/or the newbie is assigned a productive worker, who may do short cuts, to get the job done. You are hoping that the productive knows how to teach someone correctly, is patient, understanding, and can apply active learning, and not just step by step to use the register or fold clothes correctly or make a cheeseburger or enter in the right data after a person wants to check in the hotel.
As a customer I have witnessed great with OJT, and miserable. Do you think the new employee will tell the manager that so and so, was awful?
A combo of ILT – with on-going learning and not some manual which nobody still reads – and the online learning is tailored correctly not just focused on “how to” but the target audience, with interactive steps and approaches. I definitely would incorporate gamification here. With the content. With the activities. With the engagement. With the system itself. Go beyond the extra mile here.
Reasons why people fail to do this
Turnover. Yes, I am fully aware that retaining a frontline worker in retail and hospitality, and other sectors is high. Yes, I know that there are employees who are just not right for the job. I know there are managers who are great managers but are indifferent or do not allow their employees to take some time during the day (when it’s slow) to take content online. Heck, even use their smartphone, but then the manager walks away, and the person starts to use their smartphone.
Yes, I am aware of seasonal employees. Half-time, full-time, even full-time, but they reduce the hours – the manager does because they think the employee will bolt. Promise 40, cut to 30. Yes, there are employees who have to get second and third jobs, because of the reduction of hours, because the fear and yes it happens, the fear the manager has for the employee quitting is strong enough to do this.
Yes, the wages and/or tips plays a role. Yes, the amount of stress many people deal with these days with customers, plays a role. Yes, lack of benefits for a full-time employee plays a role. Yes, an ineffective employee or one who just decides that day to never show up, plays a role.
Nobody ever said that having employees or contractors (hey, Uber!), who are frontline, or gig workers is going to be smooth sailing. The issues places face today with frontline folks are the same as in the 90’s, 80’s, 70’s and probably before then. The increased nastiness and believe that people can say whatever they want and treat frontline workers and gig as less than a human being with feelings, is new. Nobody deserves that. Back in the day when I worked at another retail place in the summer prior to grad school, I remember the manager saying something along the lines that if a customer was rude or saying offensive things, to stop talking and get the manager.
I always appreciated that. The challenge? Finding the manager, while the customer is getting angrier. Nevertheless, the manager did show up.
Your online learning has to address the nastiness. You cannot ignore it. Nor can you ignore the common issues on why frontline workers quit. Ask yourself what incentive can I do with my online learning which will help them to stay? Sure, it may not work, but what can do you do or offer them, from a learning and training standpoint?
Access to take online courses/content for skills that are not job related? Access to online content around interests? (YES) Access to online courses/content that is wide scope beyond the usual standard fare? (YES). Access to content that offers life skills? (YES). Access to courses that allow them to learn another language or take courses/classes from online universities and community colleges? (YES, and it can be done, there are systems that have this). Access to the above, and you the company pays for it? (YES, it should be done).
I think back to that McDonald’s, whereas they note all these benefits – when they were trying to find folks. This one offered a lot, even I believe something around tuition or some similar ilk – I honestly can’t recall the wordage, but it was towards past high school, and onto college/community college. Think how many people want to take this content/courses, but do not have the funds to do so. You are now their destination.
What else would they like to learn? Have you asked them? Pick anything you say that is non job-related. Because you, as the client – the company can find it and offer it. And if you don’t know where to look, go beyond two pages of the web, reach out to various 3rd party vendors.
As for job related. Did you know there are courses specifically for the whiskey industry? Being a barista? Working at a cannabis shop, along with learning all the various types of cannabis? Working in the tennis industry. And the list goes on.
The Kiosk and Gen-AI
McDonald’s plans to roll out Gen AI with their restaurants, from food, to taking orders.
Good idea. Eliminate the need for some frontline workers (let’s be honest here) and have only people make the food and hand it off. Down the road, I am sure there will be technology whereas the food is just delivered out, and you grab and go.
Always remember that no LLM, and thus for right now the focus is generative ai (so when people say AI, this is what they are referring to, albeit machine learning is another form, but I digress) – is infallible.
They can produce bias.
They all have hallucinations, which data shows can range from 2% to 27%. Even 2% is bad, if you think about it. How many customers will be impacted when let’s go hypothetically and say 4%?
While I won’t go with the total number of customers per day – with all their locations. McDonald’s reports 69 million customers per day – globally with all their locations.
I’ll just pick one, the one I go to – estimate at best, the one I go to and say 1,000. 40 customers whose information presented to whomever is viewing it, is fake, due to the gen ai.
40 doesn’t seem like that much, right? I mean customer service isn’t a necessity today, right?
I sure hope your online training or ILT on-site will address that issue, and how to resolve it, because 40 is a lot especially in the days of social media. I mean who knows – on that day, someone with 1 million followers just got the whammy of gen ai hallucinations. At your restaurant.
Lastly, it should be noted as a side bar, that gen ai today lacks empathy.
I mean what could go wrong here?
This is why the human element must always be involved – always, before in this case, the order is approved and goes through.
Empathy
The empathy thing is a huge issue with gen ai. Humans usually have it (ok, serial killers, narcissists. and people you may know, lack it). There is a company out there whereas they are working on an LLM that has empathy.
Thus, what is the game plan for each restaurant, regardless of if it is McD’s here or any other place, retail, hospitality and so forth, when they use gen ai – and run into the lack of empathy (at least today), bias, and hallucinations? Even if you fine tune your LLM, you won’t eliminate hallucinations.
What is your online learning, OJT and ILT plan to handle this with your employees – more importantly, in this post.
The Kiosk Problem
If you think about it, you will clearly see it.
How many times have you seen people who can’t figure out an ATM (yes, plenty exist) or some other type of machine that requires them to push buttons and read the screen? How many times have you seen people who can’t figure out the kiosks at the airport to get their ticket?
At McDonald’s and again, I’ve seen other chains with the kiosk, there are sometimes an employee to help them (the person) and other times, not.
I’ve even seen employees who can’t figure out certain things on the screen, and they are supposed to be the knowledgeable one.
What are you – not just McD’s here, but any retail or hospitality place…
Are you offering ILT or OJT or ongoing online learning around the whole gen ai aspect for your employees and its issues? Did you offer or continually offering the latest around gen ai, what it has challenges with? Because new things are showing up all the time.
I wonder.
The LMS, LXP, Learning Platform and Content with Gen AI
Right now, overall, it is course/content creator and assessments. As noted before, I have yet to see any of these vendors, actually any that have gen ai in their system whereas a person on the admin side or learner side, has a context window, that if the info is wrong, they can identify that, and enter in the correct information.
A crucial step so that gen ai can continually learn. This is why you see it when you use ChatGPT, GPT-4, Claude, Perplexity.ai and many others – regardless of if it is text generative only (chatbot) or images, PDFs, audio and so on (multimodal).
Which as early noted, baffles me, on how nobody who added gen ai in their system forget about adding that, let alone text letting people know it may produce hallucinations (fake and false information) and may contain bias. I’ve seen two vendors who mention this, and one who mentions it on every screen whereas gen ai (it’s on the admin side) can see it, before using.
Do I see it with the skills produced by gen ai? Nope. Gen ai tied around skills and content? Nope. I won’t mention the vendor name, nor what they are rolling out (but it’s’ cool), but this cool offering lacks any context window and the text for that matter that is needed – even though they the company knows about the issue around hallucinations. Ditto for the company whereas skills is produced by gen ai – and other items they have with gen ai including course creator. Seriously, some amazing stuff they are working on, and solid that is live – no context windows. No text.
Mystified.
And here comes the client, unaware of the issues right now with gen ai.
It’s like boarding the Titanic and thinking to yourself, “They seem to have a small number of lifeboats,” oh well, “hey, look at that dinner menu.”
Bottom Line
Turnover. Unhappy people who berate frontline workers, because they can. Managers who are indifferent. Bias at the restaurant by employees, even managers. Training. Ongoing? OJT? What happens if the manage doesn’t have time nor allows their frontline staff to have access to online content on their mobile app?
What if that OJT employee has a bias towards minorities, that the manager is unaware of, but the new employee is assigned to said employee?
What type of content do you have for that?
Are you understanding that to reduce turnover you need new ways to combat it, thru online learning (e-learning) which is achievable.
Have you started or do you have it today?
Are you understanding your audience, truly. Your frontline employees who are worried about life, feeding their families, taking care of loved ones, or lack essential life skills. Your frontline or gig workers where productivity is expected, especially because gen ai will handle everything else.
Do you have the online content for that? Are you going to ignore it?
What is your learning game plan for employees who recognize that gen ai will replace them – or at least think they will? Because not just frontline, but Gen Z in general think so.
What’s your online learning and training plan and strategy for that?
We want you as an employee. We provide all these cool things, we want you to stay because our turnover is over 80%, but we are going to bring in automation and gen ai, to help you be more productive.
Do you honestly believe any frontline worker is going to see a plus here?
What is your online learning plan, or whatever you do from training or learning, to keep them there – and see the pluses for them, and not the big monster in the room of you are not needed?
As a 16-year-old it was clear to me, that at that retail place, I was replaceable.
I was not needed.
At Hojo’s a completely different story.
And one, I will fondly remember
And tell others about.
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