How to Train Your Frontline Workers in Workday

Learn how to integrate training into your existing Workday ecosystem in a way that's optimized for your frontline - engaging, relevant and seamless.

Frontline training - where are we today?

The impact - long and short-term - of effective employee training cannot be understated. Training has far-reaching effects, from the improvement and shortening of critical processes like onboarding, to empowering employees to operate more productively day-to-day, to elevating customer experiences, satisfaction and inspiring repeat business. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Training, while a powerful solution, can fall flat if it doesn’t meet certain criteria. For one, how can we make sure the information shared is actually useful, and fulfills a learner’s knowledge gap? How do we execute this at scale, when dealing with tens, hundreds, thousands of employees?

When we think of delivering material fit for a frontline workforce - retail, hospitality, manufacturing, logistics and the like - the answers to these key questions become even less clear. As such, readers of this guide are likely grappling with a series of obstacles to more effective deskless worker training. 

Perhaps this obstacle is that there is no system in place. Your onboarding processes take days at best, and weeks at very worst. This impacts customer experiences year-round, and makes the upskilling of seasonal hires particularly painful.

Perhaps you do have a system in place, but you also use a series of other softwares, which your training sits apart from. You store employee data in your HCM, communicate with them in a second tool, and require that they access training in a third.

Systems are disconnected, limiting your ability to do things like automate training delivery, analyze data and measure ROI, and theirs to find the information they need with ease. If this strikes a chord, you wouldn’t be alone - 62% of employers who have frontline employees accessing a HCM daily have training sitting outside of this touchpoint. 

Then, there’s the question of devices and delivery. Maybe you have a designated computer in the break room that demands employees take a detour during working hours, to access and complete training. Maybe you’ve entertained mobile learning, but company policy dictates no personal devices on the clock. Or, there is no policy, but people simply can’t be seen on a mobile device by customers. The optics aren’t good. 

Suffice to say, when dealing with a mass of people distributed from HQ, how best to train them is a conundrum. 

With so many tools now available on the market, one of the biggest frustrations currently facing businesses is having to juggle numerous software systems and navigate fragmented data. This is why, 82% of B2B buyers are instead looking for all-in-one solutions that can tackle multiple business problems.

It’s no surprise, then, that Workday has become such an integral player in the HR market. Serving over 65 million users, Workday's vast suite of solutions provides employers with a center for all their HR operations - housing functions like payroll, workforce management, and even learning all in one place. 

Looking to Workday Learning

So, what about Workday Learning? Being Workday’s built-in training solution, it very much abides by the principle of “all-in-one”.

The ability to house training within their existing HR ecosystem is a big selling point for employers, and why Workday Learning has become such a go-to Learning Management System (LMS) across a wide range of industries.

But how does this all-in-one solution work for learners? Especially those on the frontline, with limited access to a desk? 

You may already be all too familiar with Workday Learning’s functionality and UX, as a user of the Workday cloud. But, for posterity, let’s take a quick look at the benefits and capabilities of Workday Learning for the frontline, as well as where it might not quite be meeting your frontline’s needs.

What are the advantages of Workday Learning? 

On the topic of the problem with disparate softwares, Workday Learning’s key strength is undeniable - that it’s housed in Workday’s HCM. 

The LMS does away with duplicated and separate registration and tracking systems, by being self-contained, and centralizing all information into the place you really need it to be (because it’s where everything else is) - Workday. 

Its embeddedness in Workday allows admins to easily manage L&D programs alongside other HR processes. This is also a benefit for learners who can access training in a tool they are already familiar with - the introduction of new software not only comes with the risk of low uptake as it puts the onus on your frontline. To download an app, to set an account up, to familiarize themselves with a new interface. This is a learning curve, and for a population who are time poor, simply adds to their motivation to discard it.

Another benefit of Workday Learning is its vast learning catalog. This content comes from an array of sources - uploadable by learner (great for peer-to-peer initiatives) or you the admin, as well as off-the-shelf through integrations with LinkedIn Learning, Udemy and others third party platforms.  

Learners can browse content and create their own custom learning paths (think of them as ‘playlists’ for learning), taking charge of their own development and customizing their learning experience to their own preferences. Or, you can do this for them, as well as set due dates or required modules. 

In this regard, Workday Learning is a great option for information workers who spend most of their working day at a desk and have the time to sit down and search for training content that’s relevant to them.

Workday Learning - the right frontline training solution?

However, there are some areas where Workday Learning might not hit the mark. The biggest hurdle many businesses face is access to the frontline.

Workday Learning’s “pull” approach operates on the assumption that the learner has time to go in search of content, build relevant pathways, browse course catalogs. This can work well for office-based employees, but doesn’t fly as easily with those on the frontline.

Constantly on the go and with limited time carved out for learning, your deskless workers need training to be brought to them - to be pushed training. For the thinking part in the pursuit of knowledge to be removed in place of learning that’s served up, and laser-focused.

For example, a 2 minute ‘key product information’ flashcard the Monday morning a new menu item is introduced. In terms of capturing peoples’ attention, frontline training is far more effective when it’s serving deskless workers with specific information, right at the point it’s needed.

Workday Learning is also limited when it comes to creating content natively. Primarily a content management tool, admins often must resort to using third party content creation and authoring tools to compile material, and then upload it to Workday Learning. This process can be complex and lengthy, causing problems for teams where change occurs daily, and who need to move quickly.

Finally, the majority of courses available in Workday Learning’s catalog are long-form and optimized for access via desktop. This isn’t a problem for information workers, but for the frontline gives rise to operational inefficiencies. 

Pulling staff away from the floor for 20+ minute training sessions isn’t just impractical from a business perspective, it’s also unengaging and ineffective at promoting long-term knowledge retention. If training is tied to a single computer in a specific physical location, your employees’ ease of access training is low, and their ability to re-access training to refresh knowledge even more so.

Introducing eduMe - frontline training in Workday

So, if Workday Learning alone isn’t enough to connect to the frontline, what is?

You guessed it, eduMe (that’s us).

Workday invested in our solution because they recognize the potential of how our software can complement theirs, plugging certain gaps to reinvent the way training is accessed and delivered for their customers. As such, we are the only frontline training platform that is a Workday Ventures Partnerand Workday Certified.

While there are other training providers that have a surface-level integration with Workday HCM, eduMe goes further on three key fronts. 

In addition to syncing worker data, we also enable you to deliver training content across multiple touch points - via SMS, email, QR code, handheld computers (e.g. Zebra devices), or, if it's what your frontline uses, within Workday-based 'locations' like the Workday app. 

The final piece of the puzzle is the data. Your user records housed in Workday don’t just flow into eduMe, all records and events flow back into Workday, so that performance is captured in both places, and centralized in Workday, giving you flexibility in where you track it.

This advanced integration means you can benefit from eduMe’s bitesize, social media-style training and seamless access within your existing HR ecosystem. 

There’s an immense need to support the fast-growing industries where employees may not have a traditional desk. We support eduMe because of its innovative training and learning platform that helps organizations navigate change and grow while serving an ever-expanding deskless workforce

- Mark Peek, Managing Director and Head at Workday Ventures

The benefits of integrating eduMe with Workday

Intrigued? Here’s a deeper look into how our integration works, and how you can benefit from using eduMe to extend the functionalities of Workday to your frontline workforce.

1. Improved access to training

Part of what makes eduMe’s integration with Workday so unique is the variety of access points it unlocks for the frontline. Using our seamless technology, you’ll be able to deliver passwordless access to eduMe training within Workday via multiple touch points - including app banners, Spotlight Cards, menu items and catalogs.

Better yet, you can reach your frontline workers wherever they are by leveraging additional external channels such as SMS, email, and QR codes. You could even embed content into your proprietary worker app, or connect eduMe to an existing tool such as Microsoft Teams, Speakap and many more.

By eliminating the need to log in and surfacing training seamlessly within the technology workers are already using, you can ensure learners always have access to information they need to excel. 

2. Higher training engagement

eduMe’s interactive, social media-style formats are designed to engage. By replicating the content your workforce already consume daily via their personal feeds, we create a learning experience that commands attention.

Leverage the familiar ‘Stories’ format with eduMe Guides, connecting frontline teams to the information they need quickly, clearly and in an engaging, visual way. 

Allow new starters to explore and familiarize themselves with their new workplace before they even set foot in the door with our interactive VR experiences, powered by third party integrations.

Immerse learners in real-world scenarios and simulate engaging role-play activities with Scenario Videos, equipping your employees to handle difficult customer interactions.

Our content formats are backed by learning science, helping to drive not only training engagement but also application of knowledge. By showing your workers what they need to do to be successful in a way that engages and excites, you can create a training program that results in real behavior change.

3. Everything in one

By connecting Workday HCM with eduMe, you can enjoy instant, up-to-date access to learner data within either software, at any time. This not only eliminates the manual effort required to create and delete users, but also automates the process of assigning and delivering content.

"Having eduMe in Workday gives us the ability to showcase featured training content and organize it in a way that best suits our employee training, and also means we can track viewing and completion of all our training content in our HCM.

"

- Pet Supermarket

For example, you can set up dynamic learning hubs and pathways based on user attributes that are already available within Workday, such as location and job role. This means that store associates in Dallas can be assigned different content to a call worker in NYC, all without an administrator having to manually log employee changes or assign content individually. It dynamically updates, with everyone receiving something relevant to them.

The result? Learners gain access to hyper relevant content that is more engaging and more applicable to their roles, while you reap the rewards of increased efficiency and better training performance.

And now for the final piece of the puzzle: reporting.

The eduMe x Workday integration lets you easily view and track completions within Workday Learning, meaning you can say goodbye to data silos and manual reporting processes.Insights are automatically synced from eduMe, eliminating the labor involved in exporting, reformatting, importing, reviewing and cleaning data sets up.

You can then slice and dice training-related data how you need to. Maybe you want to analyze performance by location, or view training data side-by-side with other business metrics. With a comprehensive view of workforce performance, you’ll be able to analyze and adjust your strategy as needed to ensure maximum training effectiveness and demonstrate clear ROI.

Case study: how Pet Supermarket trains its retail staff with eduMe and Workday

Here’s how retail chain Pet Supermarket are using the eduMe-Workday integration to improve training engagement and empower their employees to provide a best-in-class experience.

Objective

Pet Supermarket was looking for a training solution that would help them turn their retail associates into product experts, differentiating themselves in the market with best-in-class customer experiences across their 200 branches.

They needed a way to deliver information on products, offers and customer care in a way that was scalable, enjoyable for their workers to consume, and led to improved performance workforce-wide. It was also essential that training met employees where they were, without the need for them to sit down at a computer or download another app. 

Solution

Now, Pet Supermarket can deliver passwordless access to eduMe training within Workday Learning. In an app they already use in their day-to-day work, and with just a single tap, their employees can access a personalized library of training populated (which we call a 'Knowledge Hub') with relevant, bitesize Guides to help them do their best work. 

With eduMe, Pet Supermarket are also able to complement access via the Workday app with contextual QR codes placed in-store. For example, a QR code on 'how to clean the rabbit enclosure', by the enclosure for contextual upskilling. Key information is simply a scan away, with no need to leave the shop floor, download an app, or sign in.

Using our signature social media-inspired format, the pet retailer is now able to deliver training in a way that resonates with their younger workforce demographic and drives higher engagement. 

An increase in training completions has helped Pet Supermarket to achieve a higher return on their training investment, enabling them to cut cost, save valuable time, and standardize training across their locations.

Leading to results like:

• 52% decrease in employee turnover
• 79% average training completion rate
• 2 minute average completion time
• 98% workforce satisfaction score

eduMe is extremely well positioned to fill the needs for training in today’s world

- Theresa Micheli, Senior Manager Store Operations at Pet Supermarket

Ready to start training your frontline in Workday?

As a Workday Certified Partner, and the only frontline training platform backed by Workday, we’re uniquely positioned to help you get the most out of your training investment.

By integrating eduMe’s frontline-optimized training into your existing HR ecosystem, you can create training that employees actually want to complete and that drives real results for your business.

We’ve already helped companies like Marriott, Kering and Centrica to achieve results such as:

• 8% rise in productivity
• 66% increase in sales in just three months
• 200% increase in training completion
• 501% return on training investment

To find out how you can benefit from integrating eduMe into Workday, get in touch now.