Kmart enjoys huge cost savings with the adaptability and freedom of totara learn

Kmart Pty Ltd is one of the largest and most successful retailers across Australia and New Zealand. They pride themselves on delivering high-quality products that remain low cost for life and their commitment to ensuring all customers are able to live their best life through their product ranges.

The Challenge

Kmart has over 35,000 retail team members across Australia and New Zealand and more than 8,000 new team members join store teams annually. Bandwidth in stores is low and team members need to complete a number of training modules on how to do to do the job and follow safety and compliance requirements before they can be rostered to a shift.

Training needs to be assigned by role and location (e.g. New Zealand) and must be available immediately on commencement. Time off the shop floor for training impacts productivity and customer service levels.

In a store environment team members don’t have easy access to laptops or PCs, therefore we needed to provide the freedom for team members to choose how they would access learning through existing technology in store.

Following an upgrade from Totara Learn version 2 to version 12, new dashboard functionality provided the opportunity to develop learning that was more accessible, timely, engaging and responsive.

The Solution

In 2018, Kmart was on Totara Learn version 2, with learning accessed in stores via a single desktop in a manager’s office. A typical large store has over 200 employees. Training design was typically outsourced and designed to format specifically on very old tablets.

In 2019, a new digital learning strategy was developed with a focus on learning anywhere, anytime and any device. Totara was upgraded to V12 with new features added including customized notifications, dashboards that rendered to other devices including internal store devices, and highly visual views. Learning design also transitioned to 100% inhouse.

At this time, online learning for new team members involved a large number of individual modules. The Totara upgrade allowed Kmart to envision a simpler learner experience by creating learning pathways for induction – which all come together under a program called KmartWay.

There are now over 12 learning pathways in KmartWay. This new solution ensured that learning was easy to complete and accessible through the store-based portable data terminals (PDTs), allowing team members the freedom to access training on the shop floor. This approach enables new team members to understand exactly what learning has to be completed before their first shift, and advises existing team members of refresher or new learning.

Using the dashboard and grouping learning in pathways, team members can easily see their learning required for a role and check that their learning pathways are up to date. This saves significant time for the team members and the store managers.

KmartWay is built using Totara Learn, incorporating graphical design to deliver an innovative and flexible approach to learning for stores. Key aspects for redesigning KmartWay included:

• Human-centered design – ensuring that team members’ experience is central to the design and functionality
• Customized dashboards driven by audience rules and learning cohorts reflecting a website style design
•  The freedom to choose the required learning pathway using cohort-driven blocks and tiles on customized dashboards
•  The ability to host videos, SCORMs and PDFs in a central area
•  A clean look and feel that clearly shows the learner what they are required to do
•  An opportunity to utilize different aspects of the dashboard to showcase recommended, optional or topical learning activities
•  The ability to utilize the internal quiz function as well as embed external quizzes to capture learning feedback
•  Easy-to-measure progress and performance

The Results

As one of Australia’s and New Zealand’s most-loved retailers, Kmart’s team members are at the heart of their business. Their ability to access the learning they need to do their roles easily, while making the learning experience as engaging as possible, is key to Kmart’s success as a customer-focused retailer. Improved learning has shown to not only increase staff satisfaction and engagement, but has also ensured that team members can undertake their roles safely and meet performance and productivity standards.

A dedicated internal design team and the new flexibility in Totara Learn in V12 has delivered outstanding result for the business:

• The dashboard functionality and this design provided Kmart with the freedom to innovate with their learning in a style the business has not previously experienced. Over 8,000 team members completed this learning in the first 6 months post-launch and rate the learning at 4.6 out of 5 or higher.
• Learner pathways that are flexible and responsive allowing for rendering to multiple devices has substantially reduced a store manager’s time to induct a new team member while delivering a huge productivity savings by making the learning accessible on the store PDTs.
• Ongoing flexibility in adding learning to pathways, showcasing different learning through using tiles as well as slideshow galleries has provided Kmart team members with the freedom to choose other learning options that support their own development or interest areas.
• Team members no longer felt overwhelmed when first logging in to the learning journey as they can select the required learning pathway for the skills needed.
• Instructional Designer ability to quickly update modules.
• Faster completion timeframes.
• Scalable to meet different business growth with minimal manual intervention.
• Improved real-time reporting to support the business.

“We have been able to send out messages giving employees their modules in color coding (depending on jobs allocated) and have very fast response back with completion times, making us able to start them quicker. We have given them the opportunity to call or message us if needed but as of yet have only had problems with a few sign ins and nothing else (very positive feedback). This has given us more time making sure what is learned is implemented and understood. I have very much seen that training is being understood and enjoyed by our new and existing team members alike.”

– Assistant Store Manager, large Kmart store