Is Your Operations System Dialed In?

Jason Bacaj | 3 min read

With how fast everything’s changing this year, it’s more important than ever to have your operations system dialed in. Information about our fluid situation has to get to frontline workers. Initiatives and rollouts need to come together quickly and effectively. And you need to facilitate the free flow of ideas — creative solutions can come from anywhere in the company hierarchy.

Realizing these operational efficiencies isn’t as hard as it might seem at the outset. All you need is the right tool. In this case, it’s a Learning Management System.

Here are a few of the ways our clients have achieved operational efficiencies through their LMSs:

Prior to partnering with Wisetail, the fitness leader barre3 used a mishmash of Facebook messages and mass emails to communicate with their more than 700 instructors. It was less a system and more an exercise in hoping for the best.

With the communication features in their LMS, The Hub, barre3 could fulfill their mantra of “always challenge and never bore” by sending out new innovations — be it new moves, postures, or music — to their trainers.

This smoother, more direct contact facilitated by The Hub frees up barre3’s leaders to focus on creative solutions to business challenges rather than double-checking to make sure messaging got through.

One client in the health food retail industry paired these direct communication features with Wisetail’s reporting functions to great effect: they dropped annualized turnover by 40%. The client accomplished this by tracking completion rates and following up with managers to make sure employees knew about training and development opportunities, which are known to improve talent retention.

Dos Toros found that their LMS, Dos Toros University, opened up a new channel through which ideas could flow. Specifically, a new idea for steaming tortillas that didn’t result in a “cheesy, goopy mess,” says Aleta Maxwell, Chief Human Resources Officer.

An employee on the line didn’t like the way a tortilla and cheese flew around in the steamer. So, the employee steamed the tortilla first to weigh it down before adding the cheese. The co-founders loved the approach and used Dos Toros University to establish the practice as a new standard.

“Those kinds of little improvements are what we’re always looking for,” Aleta says.

And, of course, product training makes your people more effective and efficient in sales. Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply saw this shortly after partnering with Wisetail. Murdoch’s put together a training course on one item of clothing, ran the course for a month, and saw a double-digit increase in sales for that item persisted for an entire year.

“I have literally worked in retail all of my life, beginning as a kid in my parents’ store. I’ve never seen that kind of training ROI in my life.”

Steven Potratz, Training Manager at Murdoch’s

Getting your operations system squared away so your business can move and adjust to ever-changing situations isn’t easy. But with the right tools, it is simple.

Wisetail LMS content creator, Jason Bacaj.

By Jason Bacaj

Jason is a content creator with Wisetail. Through research and interviews, he works to help L&D pros grow the breadth of their knowledge. He’s a recovering journalist fascinated with learning.