How Lowe鈥檚 starts associates off right with frontline-first onboarding
We鈥檝e all experienced the information overload that comes with starting a new job. New faces, new rules, new acronyms and new products: It鈥檚 a lot to absorb all at once.
The challenge is even greater for frontline associates, who are quickly expected to perform in customer-facing roles. It鈥檚 no wonder that poor onboarding is associated with higher employee turnover, which can have serious implications for the business. According to Aberdeen Group, longer than three years if they experience well-structured onboarding.
The team at Lowe鈥檚 knew that onboarding was a critical part of the associate journey. At AxoniCom RETAIL, Jamie Furey, VP of Talent Management, Learning and Diversity at Lowe鈥檚 shared how they re-envisioned their onboarding to help new associates feel more confident in their roles, sooner鈥攕o they, in turn, can deliver better service to customers.
Watch the session on demand or keep reading for a quick recap.
1. Mapping out a frontline-first approach to onboarding
The Lowe鈥檚 team started off by placing themselves in associates鈥 shoes.
鈥淲e wanted to think about onboarding the way that a new associate might,鈥 Furey explained. 鈥淩ather than saying, this is going to take you 30 days, or this is going to take you X amount of hours, instead we broke it down into shifts. Because that鈥檚 how our associates think.鈥
This helps associates know what鈥檚 coming next (mitigating some of those new-job jitters) and gives them a sense of their progress.
鈥淲e鈥檝e broken it down so that in eight shifts or less you will go through your onboarding content, and we鈥檝e created a full shift plan that鈥檚 loaded right into Lowe鈥檚 University. It鈥檚 very easy to finish something and move onto the next thing鈥攊t guides you through it. Associates have a million things going on when they first start. Just being told very clearly in a succinct way how to get yourself onboarded is a big win in and of itself.鈥
2. Focusing on the five key behaviors associates need to succeed
Next up? Turn off the firehose of information and focus on only the most critical components associates need to get started.
The Lowe鈥檚 team asked themselves:
鈥淗ow could we take a step back to streamline and make it easy? We went on this quest to figure out the five things that are most important for associates to get done when they first start, for every department at Lowe鈥檚,鈥 Furey explained. 鈥淲e rooted our onboarding program around those five most important things, and how we could break them down in a really digestible way.鈥
This meant developing new content鈥800 micro videos, to be exact, as well as a host of quizzes, images and hands-on activities. The content was hyper-personalized to each department and served up in different modalities to accommodate different learning styles.
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3. Continuous learning keeps associate knowledge fresh
Cutting your onboarding content down to just five key behaviors may seem like a daunting (or even impossible) task. For the Lowe鈥檚 team, this approach was possible because of their company-wide commitment to continuous learning.
鈥淚t takes away that notion that associates have to learn everything all at once, that we train them once and set them loose. We鈥檝e really adapted a mentality at Lowe鈥檚 that training is continuous,鈥 says Furey. 鈥淲e believe that training has to be there at all the moments that matter. In retail, those moments are when you start, when you interact with a customer, when we change over our products and trends. There are so many moments that matter, so we just knew that we had to be there more often.鈥
4. Learning on the floor, in the flow of work
In addition to revisiting 鈥榳hat鈥 new associates learn, the Lowe鈥檚 team also considered 鈥榟ow鈥 and 鈥榳here鈥 they learn.
All too often, onboarding takes place in the backroom or a conference room, far from the places where the real work happens. Furey and her team wanted to change this dynamic, instead delivering training on the floor, in the context that it will be applied. Not only does this make training more accessible, it also helps make it stick.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really cool that you could learn about a product or learn about a process right out there on the floor, and maybe five minutes later, a customer might come over and ask you about that product or give you a chance to try out that process,鈥 said Furey.
The combination of personalized training content, accessible in the moment of need, is proving to be a game-changer.
鈥淥ne of the keys to learning is application, and I think that鈥檚 what our programs have been able to do this year,鈥 said Furey. 鈥淲e can have people quickly repeat training as needed, because we鈥檝e shortened those training and made them really compelling and bite-sized. And they鈥檙e able to apply that knowledge pretty quickly, because we aren鈥檛 giving them everything at once.鈥
5. Enabling effective mentorship with training data
Store managers have always been a critical part of a good onboarding experience. Making sure managers understood the new approach and saw the value was a high priority.
鈥淚n all of our leadership programs, we talk about the importance of development for associates. So we鈥檙e driving it home in that population. That鈥檚 one component. Secondly, we鈥檙e mirroring the approach we took to creating associate onboarding and personalizing it for store managers,鈥 said Furey. 鈥淪tore managers鈥 onboarding experience will be the same experience their associates are going through. So they鈥檒l truly have empathy and understand what it takes to make it through those five key behaviors.鈥
They鈥檝e also been able to equip managers with meaningful data to help them help new hires get up to speed effectively. Store managers can see their teams鈥 training stats, identify top performers and areas of weakness and adjust their coaching accordingly. Learning data is now one of the stats in stores鈥 general scorecards.
鈥淭hey get to see their learning metrics in line with all the other key metrics of the stores, so we鈥檝e really highlighted that learning is a key lever to drive great store performance.鈥澛
All of these ingredients have come together in an onboarding experience that creates engaged, confident associates ready to deliver the exceptional experience that brings customers back to Lowe鈥檚.