The 10 best practices for frontline training in 2024

Frontline employees represent your company. They interact with customers every day, creating impressions and experiences attached to your name. But to make sure they’re prepared to succeed in their role, you must support them through frontline training. 

With the best frontline training practices, your team becomes responsive and dedicated to customer needs. Beyond that, you maintain your talented members’ engagement and commitment to your company.

What is frontline training?

Frontline training equips your team with the skills and knowledge to serve customers. It develops the competencies, attitudes, and compliances they need to confidently navigate their roles. All in all, it prepares them to respond to the changing circumstances and the arising needs of the business.

What are the benefits of frontline training?

The impact of frontline staff training spans from increased production to an improved working environment. Let’s briefly discuss the importance of this program.

• Enhanced customer loyalty - Frontline employees who are given the time to develop their skill sets are suited to deliver excellent customer service. This continuous satisfaction they give to patrons creates lasting loyalty.
• Efficient operations - A team well-versed in the ins and outs of your operation performs to the highest degree. Workplace training improves their ability to run procedures better. 
• Adaptability to conditions - Markets are never stagnant. A well-trained force is prepared to succeed despite the changes in trends, technologies, and behaviors.
• Higher morale - Investing in frontline employee training shows your team your commitment to their development and well-being. They’ll feel valued in the workplace, motivating them to engage and perform positively.
• Increased employee retention - The Pew Research Center found that 63% of workers see the lack of opportunities for advancement as one reason for quitting their jobs. Employees seek growth in their jobs. Frontline training can help them with that, which helps retain your talented members.
• Cost-efficient - Experts estimate that replacing employees cost up to 2x the annual income of individuals. Upskilling and retaining your team with frontline training brings higher value than continuously looking for replacements.

These benefits show that training your frontline staff is crucial to a successful organization. Let’s go through the practices and solutions to achieve this measure.

Best practice for frontline training #1 – Use a learning management system

Ease the job of delivering frontline training by using a learning management system (LMS). LMSs let you create engaging courses, access valuable content, and distribute content that will improve your team’s abilities.

These programs offer many sources and methods of training that are easy to access. They make training accommodating to your crew’s hectic work schedules through self-paced and on-demand upskilling courses.

An LMS like SC Training (formerly EdApp) makes training facilitation effortless. Create the best material for your team in no time with their creator tool. Pick and customize ready-made lessons from their course library, which includes frontline lessons like Building a Customer-Focused Culture.

You get full control over your team’s experience when you use these platforms. With SC Training’s course management, you direct every step of training with minimal effort, from publishing to completion - you can just focus on developing your members. 

Start using the best frontline training platform! Join SC Training today!

Best practice for frontline training #2 – Align your training goals with your company objectives

The goals of your frontline development should be specific, tangible, and measurable. Most importantly, it should address the needs and desires of your organization.

If your company wants to streamline procedures, your frontline staff training must focus on upskilling operational abilities. Conversely, content should lean on effective communication skills when the business aims for a transparent customer relationship.

Training becomes more impactful when it follows where your organization is headed. Employees should grow together with the business.

Best practice for frontline training #3 – Plan your onboarding well

Your team can best serve customers from the start through successful onboarding. Get your new members to create a positive impact early by minimizing knowledge gaps and learning curves.

With a successful onboarding program, your team can best serve customers from the start. Get your new members to create a positive impact right away when you minimize their initial knowledge gaps and learning curves early on. 

Great onboarding procedures give your frontliners a high floor for product knowledge, customer service, and tool maximization, which they’ll only get better at. They’ll come in confident to perform their roles with excellence right away.

A well-planned onboarding process also prevents costly mistakes by new hires. Have them prepared for any situation, conflict, or issues the moment they step in.

Best practice for frontline training #4 – Tailor your training initiatives to individual needs

Each employee has gaps in skills and knowledge unique to them and their roles. You make sure that everyone reaches their best by tailoring the learning experience to what each member needs. Individually and collectively your team improves. 

Adjusting your team’s training addresses the varying challenges individual members encounter. Identifying each and every one's strengths and weaknesses needs more work, but the extra effort maximizes the gains of your crew from the program. 

SC Training’s sites and groups let you deliver the right course to the right people. With just a click, you can deliver the tailored training your team needs. Shape your courses to where every member can grow - no one is left behind.

Best practice for frontline training #5 – Adopt a microlearning approach

Microlearning is a strategy that delivers learning content in short and focused pieces. It’s a flexible aid that quickly offers critical knowledge and skills to your team.

Your crew battles a busy schedule, but through microlearning, your teams still develop every day. They’re introduced to new business practices, trends, and skills without disturbing their responsibilities. Growth becomes a part of their daily work as a benefit.

Use SC Training’s microlearning feature to develop and reskill your team in as fast as five minutes. Keep them sharp and equipped while they continue to work and make training a part of their everyday routine.

Best practice for frontline training #6 – Make training interactive

You don’t want frontline training to bore your team and be tuned out. Interactive strategies give your team an active role in their programs. Through quizzes, multimedia integrations, and short games, your members engage and learn more. 

SC Training turns courses into a game with its gamification feature. Your team will tap, swipe, and drag through their fundamental frontline training. All the fun while they get better at their roles.

Interactivity immerses your members in their courses. They retain skills and knowledge better, bringing higher abilities to their work.

Best practice for frontline training #7 – Incorporate simulations

The best way to learn the job is to do the job. This is especially true with frontline work. Learning simulations makes your team practice procedures, processes, and policies rather than just discussing them.

Simulations translate readings, discussions, and forums into day-to-day work. Your frontline team learns to face the unpredictable scenarios they could encounter, sharpening their problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities.

A blended learning tool like SC Training lets your team learn virtually and simulate their new skills and knowledge in person. Digital and physical learning become one to make sure that your frontline training is effective. 

Best practice for frontline training #8 – Include goal-oriented coaching

Training is a long path that needs guidance and direction, and goal-oriented coaching is exactly that, A coach gives members someone to ask questions and get advice from. Meanwhile, the measurable goals create a map and a sense of progress.

Mentoring guided by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) allows for comprehensive evaluation of members, where decisions are made based on strengths and areas for improvement. Managers and learners work together to track skillsets and performance.

This is especially valuable for those who don’t know the practice of the trade yet. You give them someone who can guide them through the best practices and the mistakes to avoid. Along with that, there’s a common understanding of where their quality of work stands.

Best practice for frontline training #9 – Create a culture of learning

When training courses, coaching, and feedback are regularized in the workplace, it creates a culture of learning that pursues continuous improvement. Consistent learning reinforces knowledge, sustains the impact, and minimizes regression.

A culture of development creates a collaborative environment where everyone feels valued and heard. Members are comfortable mastering their skills, asking questions, and hearing constructive feedback. They’re empowered to stay at their best.

SC Training’s in-lesson discussions feature lets you do exactly that. Your team can easily connect to ask questions, clarify information, and solve problems – implementing knowledge every day.

Best practice for frontline training #10 – Let learning trickle from the top

An organization can only maximize frontline training if managers and leaders are committed to learning. Good leadership drives development, accountability, and standards at work.

When you start with the right frontline leadership training, you can equip them with the proper knowledge and skills to lead a frontline team. That way, they’re capable of making decisions that drive customer success.

As the leaders themselves continue to grow and develop, it trickles down to the rest of your team. This creates a culture and drive for improvement.

SC Training offers top-notch leadership courses, like Leadership and Coaching/Management Styles and Stepping Into Team Leadership. The platform houses many more materials and tools that will strengthen your entire frontline crew.

Deliver complete frontline training from top to bottom with SC Training. Sign up today!