Ahead of the Game

Solution: DICK’S partnered with MasterClass at Work to introduce on-the-go, video-based microlearning nuggets to upskill busy frontline workers.

Business impact highlight: Eighty-three percent of participating team members learned a skill useful to their role.

Delivering engaging learning to frontline workers to help them develop skills relevant to their roles and support their growth has been challenging for many retail companies.

Challenges include:

• Hourly workers on a store floor can’t engage in learning content like a corporate employee because they often do not have easy access to a computer.

• Training workshops that happen “off the floor” are resource- and time-intensive. Frontline workers have finite time designated for training due to the financial investment involved across such a vast workforce.

• Workshops aren’t continuous or reinforcing, making it a challenge to sustain learning momentum.

Solving those challenges can affect the bottom line. Frontline workers have direct interactions with customers, and when interactions are positive, customers are more likely to buy more products and return to the store. When frontline employees believe that the company is investing in their growth, they are more likely to stay with the company and are more prepared to move into leadership roles.

Transforming the experience

In recent years, DICK’S Sporting Goods, a retailer with more than 50,000 employees at more than 800 locations in the US, made a strategic shift. The company began referring to its customers as “athletes” and its employees as “teammates.”

Now more than ever, shoppers at brick-and-mortar retailers expect a unique experience that is differentiated from making an online purchase. To provide this next-level athlete experience, DICK’S introduced House of Sport, an experiential store concept designed to deepen community engagement by allowing athletes to test and learn more about how to use their equipment. The push to elevate the athlete experience beyond just transactional purchases increases the need to upskill the front line on service and selling skills.

Delivering mobile-first microlearning

MasterClass at Work and DICK’s created a strategic partnership to develop a targeted microlearning solution designed to upskill frontline staff with holistic and durable skills. The program solves the challenges of delivering continuous learning to the front line by adhering to four key principles.

Every minute matters. The training department delivers bite-size videos (less than three minutes each) through a mobile-first, browser-based application that users can access on their personal devices.

Team members can scan QR codes on breakroom posters and lanyard cards, providing immediate access to dive into the learning content. The content features a short video that introduces three behaviors to practice during the shift and a reflection question for teammates and managers to discuss during team huddles.

Engaging and targeted learning content. Content is engaging and focused on skills relevant to frontline teammates and managers.

The videos repurposed content from MasterClass’s existing catalog, featuring well-known instructors such as actor and comedian Kevin Hart teaching resilience and selling; psychotherapist and relational expert Esther Perel teaching about building trust and active listening; and musicians Alicia Keys and Pharrell Williams teaching about empathy. MasterClass customized the videos for DICK’S employees by cutting each piece into microcontent of three minutes or less in length that align with skills relevant to frontline retail roles. Action prompts (known as “Actions of the Day”) and reflection questions accompany the videos to support teammates in practicing and applying the skills in their interactions with athletes and each other.

The frontline manager plays a key role in the success of a program. Frontline managers have access to launch webinars via the Leader Experience track (a specific view in the course software), talking points, and resources to build awareness and support program rollout. Separate from the training videos, webinars focus on supporting the leaders who adopt the program at their stores.

Learning should reinforce and reflect company language and culture. The videos align with the necessary skills to thrive in the roles of the store teammate and manager, and the Action of the Day and other vocabulary used throughout the curriculum are consistent with DICK’S internal business vernacular.

Launching and scaling a pilot

Phase 1 of the program launched across one district that included 14 stores over eight weeks. The DICK’S L&D team gathered user feedback via store visits, and the findings informed phase 2.

One key improvement in the second phase was developing a separate frontline manager experience to help leaders administer the program and learn essential leadership behaviors. Based on additional phase 1 insights, the company established a robust communications and marketing strategy to grow awareness and adoption at a larger scale for phase 2.

The second phase launched in 249 stores over 12 weeks. It kicked off with weekly program communications, launch webinars, store posters, and QR-coded collateral.

Evaluating program impact and success metrics

During the program’s second phase, 95 percent of pilot stores participated, which included more than 4,000 frontline teammates and managers. According to in-training survey results, 83 percent of store teammates reported learning a skill that was useful to their role, such as how to be an active listener, ask the right questions, and be more empathetic to consumers and teammates. Seventy-five percent of participants said they looked forward to watching new training each week.

Employee participation varied from store to store, with some stores taking several weeks to implement the program. As anticipated, results show a significant correlation between manager engagement with the frontline leader experience and their respective store teammate engagement.

Participation also fluctuated greatly between full-time and part-time teammates. Full-time workers experienced greater participation primarily due to consistency in their day-to-day responsibilities versus part-time employees.

Feedback from participant interviews highlighted four strengths of the program:

• Caliber of instructors drove interest

• Content hit on key topics

• Bite-size format made the content easy to consume

• Application platform was easy for participants to access and use

Program participants were consistently surprised by the quality of the content, exemplified in one teammate’s comment: “When we heard it was training, we weren’t excited. Once we saw it, we realized it was like no other training we'd done before. It was great!”

Managers also lauded the quality and relevance of the content, with 80 percent of store managers reporting they had observed an improvement in skills and behaviors among their teams. One district manager noted, “This feels so real and has such good potential … it’s quick, concise, on the floor, and it hits the right skills.”

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