The warehouse industry sees an influx of new staff members coming in and out of the door everyday. This is mainly due to an ongoing issue of high employee turnover rates, which could come down to anything such as poor work conditions, the physically demanding labor, intense work schedules, and potential limited career paths. The fault can simply lie on warehouse supervisors and managers who don’t properly train their staff, but microlearning can be a simple, yet effective solution to this issue.
Microlearning is a great way to expand your staff’s knowledge on important warehouse compliances, safety tips, and even career growth opportunities when they are presented. Creating a solid team of staff that can abide by compliances and policies that are put in place is crucial for warehouses to make a more positive, aware, and safe environment for staff--and short training lessons can be the answer supervisors are looking for.
Let’s go over the ways to implement microlearning in the warehouse industry using digital signage and the benefits that come from it!
1. Safety Refreshers
Safety is one of the most important parts of running a successful warehouse, and important tips and tricks can be easy to learn!
One of the most important things about working in a warehouse is ensuring that staff are up-to-date on crucial safety compliances for not only handling the product, but for the equipment, how to lift heavy objects, and the proper dress code. Microlearning using digital signage is a great way to address safety concerns within the warehouse or to simply create refreshers to ensure staff understand the importance of being extra careful for themselves and their coworkers.
Microlearning is a great way to make refresher courses or new learning topics more fun, and it helps to keep staff more attentive with short-burst lessons that are straight to the point and informative without being overwhelming. This learning concept is perfect for safety refreshers as it can be a great way to get staff together and build team bonding with gamified lessons, short videos, or even quizzes to test your knowledge on the topics.
2. Just-In-Time Equipment Troubleshooting
Want your staff to quickly learn how to use a new piece of equipment or handle troubleshooting on their own? Microlearning can help!
Something that many warehouse workers learn how to use throughout the duration of their work career is how to handle heavy machinery. Material Handling Equipment (MHE) certifications are crucial in the industry in order to use common machinery in a warehouse, such as forklifts, reach trucks, order pickers, electric pallet jacks, and even walkie-riders.
Microlearning can be a great way to achieve these certifications as it can help to break down modules into short, daily lessons or just-in-time training that can help staff progress within their career. These lessons can go over anything from how to simply operate the equipment, how they are used to move or load large pallets, information from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and even visible QR codes on the machines e for troubleshooting.
3. New Product Updates
Getting a new client’s product in the warehouse? Use microlearning tactics to help staff get familiar with it on their own time!
Many warehouses work as third-parties and store products and merchandise for other businesses and ship to their location as needed. Upon gaining new clients, it’s not only important for the managers and overseers of the warehouse to get familiar with the client and products that they sell, but also for your staff as well.
Microlearning can be used in a number of ways, and it can even be used for teaching staff about the new products that are entering the warehouse. New product training can easily be done through microlearning on digital signage through QR codes or short company meetings to give staff an easy understanding of the product, how to handle it, and new protocols to avoid any future mistakes.
4. Quality Control Repetition
Depending on the product your staff is handling, it’s important they understand quality control for hazardous waste and material handling!
One of the most important parts about working in a warehouse is ensuring that all of your staff are familiar and up-to-date on proper quality control protocols. Quality control can be anything from receiving packages, storing products, and packing and shipping. All three of these come with a set of standards to look out for to avoid any mislabeling and defects so you can keep standards up and clients happy.
If you want to implement microlearning through digital signage for the warehouse industry, quality control repetition is a must. While you can have your staff do quizzes or watch short videos to understand how crucial quality control is, the same can be done through digital signage displays. Adding in the quality control reminders and displaying this content in high-traffic areas, such as aisles staff frequently walk down or even in the employee break room, can be a great way to stay repetitive and persistent on how important this concept is for the business.
5. Efficient Packing Flashcards
Learning how to properly pack orders through flashcards can make a fun and interactive way to learn in the warehouse industry!
Proper packing techniques in the warehouse industry are crucial for a number of reasons. Taking products off of the warehouse shelves, putting them in a box, and shipping them isn’t enough, instead, there is a level of care that should come from the employees to ensure nothing gets damaged or broken. Improper packaging means there isn’t enough training, which can result in added stresses on the warehouse.
Sending a shipment to the recipient should be treated with the utmost care by double-checking the order, wrapping fragile products in bubble wrap, and ensuring that the label is correct are the most important steps to follow in packaging, and microlearning can help keep these necessities at the forefront of your staff’s mind. Efficient packing flashcards are a great way to get your employees together, work on team-building skills, and also help retain these steps better than a static sign on the wall.
6. Micro-Huddles to Build Solid Team of Staff
Improving team bonding through microlearning can help improve the ability for your employees to work together!
One of the most important things to try to control in the warehouse industry is how your employees interact with each other. While there may be a ton of different personalities trying to coexist together while working in a large, busy, and stressful environment in the warehouse, it’s crucial to try and do team-bonding and building sessions.
Microlearning can not only benefit your staff members individually by giving them the solid way to learn the importance of training sessions for compliances, efficient packing, safety refreshers, and how to use equipment--but it can be a way to bring your employees together to work as one. Using microlearning, your staff can have a morning session or “micro-huddle” together to go over important concepts, refreshers, and even do quizzes, flashcards, or gamified learning sessions together.
Microlearning Through Shift: How This CMS Platform Can Help Transform Learning in the Warehouse Industry
Learning the necessities of packing shipments and handling products with care is what Shift can work towards improving within your team!
Digital signage paired with microlearning tactics is an engaging way to get staff more involved in their training by helping to improve attention span and to better retain the necessary information they learn. Content management systems (CMS) are paired with digital signage as a means to create content for staff to see safety reminders, for quick microlearning sessions, and even to update staff on news and real-time updates of KPIs.
Shift and How it Can Positively Impact the Warehouse Industry
The warehouse industry is surely demanding with some places having a three-shift rotation of staff to keep shipments packed, labelled, and shipped on time. Shift’s unique CMS platform is a great way to bring staff together, keep them informed, and most importantly, to help them feel appreciated and valued for the work that they do.
Warehouses often see an influx of new staff members coming in, but leaving quickly with a high turnover rate of almost 40 to 49% annually. Shift is a CMS platform whose main mission is to improve manager/staff relationships through staff acknowledgement , which could be anything from employee appreciation posts, employee-of-the-month, or even giving staff the opportunity to nominate and shoutout a team member through interactive QR codes.
Not only this, but Shift can help to improve internal communications, which is perfect in a warehouse where most staff don’t have a work email. Employees can get important information on updated compliances and company policies, everyday safety reminders, and even new hire onboarding and training as content can be updated in real-time using the Content Navigator that puts you in control of all of your screens.
Features to Use on Shift’s CMS Platform to Benefit Your Warehouse
Shift offers a ton of unique features that allow managers to quickly see the benefits of focusing on their team and building stronger and more meaningful relationships. Microlearning can be a great way to train staff, but Shift also offers the following features that can greatly benefit any warehouse:
- Boost employee engagement through recognition and appreciation
- Celebrate staff birthdays, work anniversaries, and other achievements
- Show training videos
- Employee spotlights
- Interactive polls for staff to anonymously complete
- Expands internal communications
- Allows staff to retrain and re-skill in key trainings
- Helps leaders learn more about staff
- Encourages employees to do work harder
- Increases productivity
- Create diverse content using pictures, videos, or documents
- Use as a wayfinding and navigation system
- Broadcast company announcements, updated policies, etc.
- Use to post emergency alerts
- Streamline workflow and post frequent updates about each day’s tasks
Improve Microlearning Within the Warehouse Through Digital Signage and Shift’s CMS Platform
Microlearning can help improve the state of many warehouses and keep staff members properly trained and working together to ensure that products are packed up properly, labels are correct, and that shipments are sent out on time. Microlearning can help to train staff in short bursts to prevent learning fatigue, keep their minds engaged, and retain the information that they learn better than a three-hour training session could ever do.
Consider using Shift and its unique content creation abilities to up your game when it comes to training your staff using microlearning in the warehouse industry!
