Proficiency Building and Improving Productivity: Why Investing in the Frontline Leads to Increased Profitability
Proficiency building and improving productivity are both fundamental to increasing a store’s overall profitability. Yet, today most frontline team members lack the tools needed to make strides in either area, leading them to become disengaged, apathetic and more likely to search for new opportunities. And while some might believe it’s better to let team members with that kind of attitude slip through the crack, it’s unlikely that they were like that on day one—so what changed?
While better pay and schedule flexibility are always going to be good at attracting talent, everyone from HQ to the seasonal employee craves to learn new things, be good at what they do, and know that they are actively helping their workplace be successful. These are the things that lead to high job satisfaction. It’s how people are wired. However, when they are deprived of these opportunities, burnout becomes a very real thing, causing those once bright-eyed team members to move onto seemingly greener pastures.
At Theatro, everything we do is designed to help the frontline tap into their full potential. We know that with the right tools, brands can build a culture that creates opportunities for team members to shine while also helping to create consistent and repeatable operational success. Below we will get into some of the ways Theatro can help grow proficiency, productivity, and profitability for your organization.
Proficiency Building and Improving Productivity
Consistently growing and improving your business is no easy task, especially with the staffing challenges most retailers continue to face. Bringing a constant flow of new hires up to speed on store procedures and processes can be costly and typically slows down the productivity of your other associates. For this reason, streamlining new hire onboarding and training processes can offer tremendous value to your business. This is why Theatro created the Training Buddy App.
The Training Buddy App allows qualified team members to check in as the day’s scheduled “Training Buddy” to provide support to other team members who are learning a new skill, need a little refresher or are ready to begin their first day on the job. These designated buddies offer other team members a convenient resource to answer questions, provide feedback or assist with any issues they encounter during a shift. With Training Buddy, stores can accelerate their onboarding process, free up other associates to be more productive and accelerate proficiency building across the store.
Increasing Productivity
Speaking of employee productivity, having an engaged and productive frontline may be the most crucial element for any retailer striving for success. Furthermore, perhaps the most crucial element to achieving an engaged and productive workforce is strong communication capabilities. The key to increasing productivity is reducing the amount of time it takes a person in a company to do some “thing.” By connecting your entire workforce, you reduce the time it takes to find a coworker to ask a question, to look up product information for a customer, and dozens of other tasks retail employees are responsible for daily. At the end of the day, disconnection kills productivity.
Provide your frontline with the tools they need to easily connect with each other and critical store information. Theatro’s Communicators and a host of custom-built apps were designed to make every retail employee’s job faster and easier to accomplish. Associate response time improved by an average of 77% across all Theatro customers, empowering them to accomplish more every single day.
Increasing Profitability
With a more proficient and productive workforce naturally comes an uptick in your stores’ profitability. Enabling your well-informed, well-connected frontline will certainly be able to accomplish more in less time than ever before. This drives improved customer service experiences which ultimately lead to increases in customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Therefore, not only have you created a more engaged and productive workforce, but you’ll have all built a larger and more dedicated customer base as well.
The answer to the many challenges facing retailers was never to sit back as too many slipped through the cracks, nor was it to dump endless resources into hiring loads of new team members. Investing in the team you already have and empowering them to accomplish more in less time is the real key to success. Nothing drives profits like an engaged, dedicated, well-informed and well-connected team.
Learn more about Theatro!
Interested in learning more about our Training Buddy App, improving team member productivity or how you can increase your stores’ profitability? Connect with our Sales team today—we’d love to show you how Theatro is helping organizations unlock their frontline’s full potential… all through the power of voice!