Enabling Development Through L&D Practices in Retail Industry

Last year we saw the retail sector getting a step ahead in the market and also witnessed normalcy at a fast pace. But, what really requires our attention is how employee training during this time changed for all retail owners.

BW Businessworld in association with BW People organised a virtual roundtable with Harappa where eminent HR leaders from the retail sector shared space on one panel. The topic of discussion largely focussed on how organisations used pandemic-related disruption as an opportunity to step back and analyse the skill which organisations would expect in their employees.

The panel comprised of eminent guests including, Jeeva Balakrishnan, Senior Vice President & Chief Talent Officer, Reliance Retail; Sumit Kumar Singh, Head of Human Resource, Lava International; Ravi Sinha, Head HR, Decathlon; Sabharatnam Narayanan, Head-Retail Training, Titan Company Limited; Meetu Goel, L&D Head, Marico; Rewa Ravneet Singh, Head - L&D, Talent, OD & Performance, Mamaearth; and Sidharth Verma, Director Enterprise Partnerships, Harappa.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shifted the way we learn. Learning and development practitioners have been challenged to step outside of their comfort zone, be curious and embrace new ways of delivering learning with high impact for the digital age. “The past 2 years have shown us two important things; technology and how to get your basics right. The importance of prioritisation and resilience is what has suddenly become a key ingredient to be ingrained amongst all employees in any organisation,” believes Rewa Ravneet Singh, Head - L&D, Talent, OD & Performance, Mamaearth. Alongside she also claims that the importance of people manager capability has also become a key ingredient.

The world of digital learning and development has been accelerating rapidly over the past two decades. Some organisations and industries have been quick to embrace this change, developing their tools, processes and capabilities to support the growing need for learning. However, many others have been slower to adapt. Digital learning is often seen as a ‘poor relation’ in comparison to face-to-face learning. Yet, there is growing evidence that digital methods can effectively achieve learning outcomes in an efficient, flexible, and scalable way.

It is essential for organisations to enhance the productivity of their workforce during this vital digital age of learning. “It begins with planning, which has become an important skill for us and something we are deeply engaging our workforce in,” states Sabharatnam Narayanan, Head-Retail Training, Titan Company Limited.

Being organised plays a pivotal part as now the roles have reversed; instead of customers coming to you; you are going to them. “In this age of digital adoption, earlier the need was to inform on the floor and to have products at proximity to have increased awareness about the brand. But now, when the customer is fully informed and knows what he/she wants, this skill needs to be replaced with other important ones,” explains Sumit Kumar Singh, Head of Human Resource, Lava International.

The role of an L&D practitioner is a crucial success factor for online learning. However, until recently there has been a gap between research and practice. The onset of COVID-19, and the resulting shift of activity into the online world, presented a compelling context for further research into how to make digital learning successful. And in order to make digital learning a success, you need effective hiring which can match the expectation of today’s learners. Talking about hiring at this time, Ravi Sinha, Head HR, Decathlon is of the view that, “How hireable and adaptable the new employee is to the purpose of my company is an important question. The ‘why’ factor today carries more importance than the ‘hows and whats.’ At Decathlon we encourage employee autonomy and responsibility. Teams need to make their own decisions and perform them with the utmost responsibility and accountability.”

Skills For Future Leaders

Jeeva Balakrishnan, Senior Vice President & Chief Talent Officer, Reliance Retail believes that from a business leader’s perspective, hiring at the leadership level should possess empathy as a priority skill. He further believes that along with people understanding, scenario understanding is another key skill that leaders must possess. Despite the pandemic fever, over 65,000 people joined our brand last year.”

“As a business leader, it's equally important to have conversational intelligence and collaborative intelligence.”

Lastly, Meetu Goel, L&D Head, Marico summed up three major shifts in the learning scenario:

● The acceptance of hybrid working has been phenomenal as we have identified all possible routes for employers/employees who still wish to continue working from home. Hence, it is important to look for those people now who can implement our mappings.

● Our aim is to build functional expertise in a digital channel, so as to rule as retailers in the digital medium.

● Working on keeping the fabric of an organisation intact, as it becomes difficult to bind threads when people work from anywhere.