Chapter I: Introduction

In the landscape of vocational training and digitalization, a key player often remains in the shadows: field workers.

Essential players in the work chain, field workers cover a multitude of professions, from salespeople to workers to technicians, with one thing in common: they are not behind a desk!

Businesses, now aware of their crucial role in the continuity of operations, are reorienting their digital and training budgets towards these workers so that they are no longer the poor parents of vocational training.


On the agenda of this white paper:

- who are the land populations?

- What do they expect in terms of training

- how to offer them the training experience they deserve?

Chapter II: The need for lifelong learning

Today, between the start and the end of training, new jobs are created and the skills acquired can quickly become obsolete. 85% of the jobs of 2030 do not yet exist, a fact that should not constitute a threat, but a challenge to be met: it is becoming necessary to adopt a culture of lifelong learning. Learning to learn becomes a mantra, an essential skill that opens the door to professional adaptability and individual development.

In this era of rapid transformation, the vocational training paradigm is changing, placing learners at the center of their own skills development. The individualization of training is becoming the key, transforming learners into proactive actors in their skills development. This approach is based on the principle that each individual, with their unique strengths and weaknesses, should be able to personalize their training path to meet the specific requirements of their professional role. It is therefore necessary for each company, through its strategic choices, to build learning spaces and training courses.

The training dynamic is now part of a reality where the divide between office workers (desk) and workers in the field (deskless) requires particular attention.

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Chapter III: Who are the local populations?

The FrontLine Workers (FLW) or field collaborators In French include all employees not attached to an office work position, whose tasks constitute the core of the company's activities, in its productive or commercial phase. On average, they represent two thirds of the human resources of organizations, and cover a wide range of profiles, often specific to branches of activity, in the sectors of services, industry, Construction, from logistics to retail. Les ephemeral populations of these sectors are also collaborators in the field.

While numerous international studies draw global trends, it is very difficult today to find numerical studies in France on these populations in the field.

Field workers: the majority and indispensable

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the global dependence on frontline workers. The latter, whether they are transporters, warehouse workers, warehouse agents, warehouse agents, farmers, or nurses, are the backbone of the daily functioning of our societies. However, it is difficult to estimate their numbers accurately. Surveys indicate that they represent between 75% and 80% of global assets, or more than 2.5 billion people (1).

Field workers: the forgotten ones in vocational training

Despite their number, field workers often remain the forgotten ones in vocational training. Massive corporate investments have focused on digital solutions for managers, leaving field workers disconnected or under-equipped.
Access to training for these field workers is a complex challenge. They are formed 2 times less than the others. However, 64% of them would like more extensive development and learning opportunities (2).

Nearly half of them are not connected to their company's information system, and managers are struggling to meet their needs for information and autonomy. This is probably why only 16% of them feel connected to the head office (3).

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Focus on the restaurant sector
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Faced with a shortage of 200,000 seasonal workers in the French hotel and restaurant industry in the summer of 2023, the turnover rate in the restaurant sector represents around 30% of the global scale. Employees tend to leave their jobs only a few months after being hired.

The reasons for this shortage? They are numerous, but overall workers are deterred by relatively low wages, a lack of benefits, precarious job security, and stressful schedules that are difficult to reconcile with a stable personal life.

Examples of sector-specific training courses:

• Customer service training: Develop training programs focused on customer service for servers and room staff: simulations of service scenarios, Effective communication techniques are crucial, customer complaint management and sales promotion.
  
• Inventory and supply management training: Offer training on effective inventory management, including product rotation, minimizing food waste, and controlling raw material costs. Ensure staff understand the importance of product traceability and ingredient quality.
• Food hygiene and safety training: Ensure that all staff are trained and certified in food hygiene and workplace safety. Set up regular reminders about good hygiene practices to maintain high standards of cleanliness and safety in the kitchen and service areas.
  
  Restaurant training goes well beyond learning technical skills. It should incorporate aspects of stress management, interpersonal communication, and understanding customer expectations.

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Chapter IV: Specific training expectations and needs for field workers

Field collaborators, such as salespeople, technicians, and workers, often have more specific training expectations than those of employees at headquarters due to several distinctive factors. So how to meet their training expectations ?

• Accessibility to training: Employees in the field may have difficulty participating in traditional face-to-face training due to time and mobility constraints. Unlike employees at headquarters, who may have easier access to training sessions organized on company premises, employees in the field need more flexible and accessible solutions.

• Nature of work: The tasks carried out by collaborators in the field often involve a high level of interaction with customers, the use of specific equipment, or complex operational processes. For example, a salesperson needs to master communication and persuasion skills to interact effectively with customers, while a technician needs to have deep technical expertise to solve problems in the field. Their training should therefore focus on the development of practical and applicable skills. But soft skills are also important: for example the ability to communicate effectively with customers or colleagues, problem solving in the field or even stress management in sometimes demanding environments, there are many examples!
  
  
• Work environment: Field employees often work in dynamic and hybrid environments, where conditions can be changeable and unpredictable. How to optimize hybrid work for employees in the field ? Unlike employees at headquarters, they may face issues related to their work environment, such as time constraints, variable weather conditions, or difficult customer interactions.

The most suitable training content for field populations will then respect these 3 important criteria.

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Focus on the retail sector:
The fashion sector employs 220,000 people, remaining the largest employer in specialized retail.
Between 2022 and 2023, store visits fell by 2.8%, and by 18.8% over four years, despite an increase of 3% in the average basket.
Training teams in the field is therefore essential to meet these challenges and remain competitive in a constantly changing market. But How to train your field teams in the ready-to-wear retail sector ?

Examples of sector-specific training courses:

• Product and Merchandising Training: Trainings should focus on textile knowledge, customer advice for clothing care, and merchandising principles. Good merchandising attracts more customers and increases sales.
• Sales analysis and mastery of digital tools: Training teams and managers in quantitative sales analysis and the use of digital tools is essential to improve performance.
• Sales techniques and customer advice: Training should include sales techniques and image consulting, such as recognizing customer morphologies and preferences, including the specificities associated with disabilities.
  
  Ready-to-wear oscillates between rush periods (Christmas, Sales, private sales) requiring seasonal ones and quieter periods. Integrating, training, and engaging these seasonal populations is crucial. But How to make your training engaging for your field teams ? That is why appropriate onboarding is essential to integrate new and seasonal employees, by instilling in them a sense of belonging to the brand from the start.

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Chapter V: How are employees in the field trained today?

Field populations often encounter difficulties in accessing relevant training adapted to their specific needs. Indeed, many of these workers do not have good information about available training opportunities or the resources needed to train effectively and unleash their full potential.

Moreover, even when training programs are available, they are not always designed to meet the specific challenges and requirements encountered in the field. Facilitate training for field teams is also a bigger challenge than for the teams at headquarters.

Workers often find themselves taking training courses that are not directly applicable to their daily professional lives, which considerably limits their ability to acquire new skills or to advance in their career.

Often harmed by traditional training, they also have few ways to express themselves. Very often, they have a feeling of disconnection between their real needs and the initiatives deployed by their managers and management.

Consequences: disengagement, frustration and an increased risk of resigning. So how maximize the commitment of your teams in the field ?

This gap between the real needs of the people in the field and the training offer available is a major obstacle to their professional development and their success in the workplace.

But then, How to train teams in the field today in 2025?


To summarize: field workers need a platform and training content:

Accessible:
For employees in the field, vocational training should be easily accessible even when they are on the go and do not have access to a computer. Applications or training platforms optimized for smartphones are essential. These tools allow them to access training content wherever they are, whether during their trips between customers or during downtime.

Reliable and relevant:
It is essential that the information shared is not only reliable, but also relevant to their business. So they need knowledge and practical advice directly applicable to their daily professional life, to be sure that their learning time is well invested. For example: update on products, sales techniques, or even the strategic guidelines put in place by the company.

Simple:
The simplicity of the training tools is another crucial aspect for employees in a situation of mobility. Les intuitive interfaces and digestible content formats, such as videos or infographics, are essential for them to learn quickly and effectively.

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Chapter VI: Solutions for properly training field teams

The right content
It is essential to provide quality and relevant content for collaborators in the field. Content should be designed in such a way as to be concise, practical and easily applicable in their daily professional life. What types of content should you integrate? Testimonies and case studies from other collaborators to promote the sharing of experiences!

Offering training modules focused on the development of transversal skills, in addition to job-specific skills, allows employees to truly enrich their career path.

Beyond the personalizing and interaction, immersive learning, or immersive learning, is transforming the way field workers assimilate new skills. Immersed in virtual environments that faithfully reproduce their professional daily lives, these learners can train in conditions that are close to reality. A technology therefore particularly adapted to this type of learner.

Everywhere
Training should be accessible wherever they are. Online training platforms optimized for mobile devices offer maximum flexibility, allowing employees to train while on the go, between two customer visits, or during downtime.

All the time
Continued availability of training is another critical component for optimize the management of field teams. Recognizing busy and unpredictable schedules of these professionals, it is imperative to provide training resources that are available at all times and on their own schedule.

In a decentralized and collaborative way
In addition to providing quality content, it is also important to promote sharing between peers And of promote a training culture for your field teams. Employees can benefit from the experience and advice of their colleagues. Discussion groups or video tips can be set up to encourage the exchange of information, advice and best practices between employees. Using decentralized and collaborative tools makes it possible to create team cohesion through training !

To personalize learning, creating virtual communities plays a crucial role. Learners can exchange business tips, “tips”, in various formats, organize challenges, participate in games...
For workers who are often isolated, it is also a way of feeling integrated into a team or community, thus reinforcing the feeling of belonging. In this environment, gamification is emerging as an additional driver of interaction between learners.

The perfect solution is a platform that allows both an increase in skills adapted to the field and to its feedback, and which can serve as a preferred communication channel between employees and managers, and between teams and management.

Chapter VII: Beedeez, the training platform designed by and for the field

More than an LMS, Beedeez supports field employees and their managers in their skills development.

An interface for learners in the field, adapted to their constraints
- Accessible on any device, anytime and even offline for greater flexibility
- Very concrete knowledge and short, gamified formats that fit easily into any schedule
- Features to learn with and thanks to colleagues while centralizing knowledge

A collaborative back office with authoring tool
- Easy content creation, alone or in collaborative mode thanks to an integrated authoring tool
- The preferred channel between field teams and their managers to relaunch learners or inform them of news
- Performance monitoring thanks to customizable dashboards in real time


Zoom on the capsule : Available in a variety of engaging formats (video, quiz, scratch card...), the capsules are accessible on all devices, anytime and even offline.

Focus on tips : Thanks to tips, our second format that can be created by the learners themselves, your employees can ask each other questions, interact and transmit horizontal knowledge to each other in less than 2 minutes.

Thanks to these formats, learners benefit from both theoretical training and direct knowledge related to everyday professional actions.

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Chapter VIII: How to facilitate the training of in-store sales teams with Beedeez?

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The example of Amorino - retail catering sector - franchise system‍

‍Amorino had a challenge: to unify and harmonize the reception and training of the employees of the 250 franchised stores. Thanks to Beedeez and its hybrid training platform, it was able to create effective onboarding paths to engage employees from day one. This strategy is based both on taking into account the flow of arrivals linked to the seasonality of sales, on soft skills training in a sector where customer reception and support are absolutely essential, and on the transmission of precise techniques of professional gestures and know-how.

- Use Beedeez as a top management/employee communication channel
- Onboards new hires by points of sale
- Tip system to inform about the opening of new stores or new limited-edition fragrances

The results:
- a deployment in 57% of stores in France
- +1,600 connected accounts
- +57,000 finished capsules


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The example of Bleu Libellule - cosmetics retail sector

Bleu Libellule has an essential priority: customer satisfaction. It involves the continuous training of its employees so that they become experts in their jobs.

A demanding objective that requires meeting four challenges:
- the quick handling of the position for new employees
- the technical and in-depth knowledge of the products in the catalog
- the autonomy of employees in the management of their training
- and reduce the feeling of loneliness that can exist in stores

Bleu Libellule asked Beedeez to set up an innovative, social and comprehensive training platform to meet the 4 objectives thanks to:
- the decentralization of knowledge
- gamification to create certifying courses

With Beedeez, employees are now continuously trained and obtain certifications awarded in the field (dragonfly pins) to materialize their expertise in the service of customer satisfaction.

The results:
- 91% success rate
- +300,000 capsules completed
- +540 tips published

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Chapter IX: Making field workers a priority

Investing in the training of field workers is a winning strategy for companies, especially for retain employees in the field, which is a big challenge today!

These workers are often the first brand ambassadors, being in direct contact with end customers. They are also the main driver of commercial performance, especially in the retail and catering sectors. Their operational efficiency has a direct impact on the company's reputation and financial results.

Beyond the development of skills, forming these teams means give them increased visibility, highlighting their essential role at the heart of daily operations.

It means recognizing that their expertise is a cornerstone of the company's overall success.

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