How HR technology supported learning and development at David Jones

Looking to provide on-the-go learning opportunities and task management support for employees, luxury department store David Jones recently partnered with an employee experience platform.

The app enabled streamlined communication, mobile learning and digitised task management. And since it was rolled out at David Jones, it has resulted in more than 4,000 learning hours consumed and more than 50,000 tasks done with an 88% completion rate.

“Since opening our doors in 1838, David Jones has remained at the forefront of retail innovation,” Kate Bergin, David Jones director – omnichannel said in a statement.

“By partnering with Yoobic, we’re building on that tradition by providing store teams the powerful mobile-first tools they need to collaborate effectively, work efficiently, and deliver seamless service and experiences for our customers.”  

Implementing a new service

Bergin told HRD Australia that David Jones has been evolving its ways of working to execute on its growth strategy, which the company calls Vision 2025+.

“We know that our team member experience is definitely linked to what our customers experience,” she said, adding that the company is focused on building a thriving culture.

“One of the key foundations to that is empowerment. And we knew that to enhance our team members’ experience and empower them with the information they need to deliver great customer service like no other, we needed a modern digital workplace solution. And that was YOOBIC.”

The platform was used by David Jones’ almost 9,000 employees across 42 stores, a distribution centre and a support centre. And Bergin explained that it was rolled out in phases.

“We had a pilot group to make sure we could test and learn first,” she said. “Then we launched with all our leaders across our stores. And then we expanded it to our full network of team members in stores. And then recently, we've also expanded that to our concession team members to ensure that they're also part of our store communities.”

Usability and mobility

One of the challenges David Jones faces, along with other retailers, is communicating in an engaging, consistent and timely way with their team members, Bergin said. And the new system has helped address this issue.

“That's a challenge we all have when you've got stores across the country,” she said. “So we've really been able to transform our communication with our teams. One of the key things is they're all getting relevant tasks to them; they don't get to see all the tasks across the store. So that's allowed them to be far more efficient.”

Bergin added that the app not only provides learning that employees can access, it also allows them to look up any policy or process as well.

“Our team members told us that we needed to improve our technology in our engagement survey,” she said. “And I've really enjoyed hearing from our frontline team and our leaders on how Yoobic’s improved their day-to-day operations and experiences.”

Bergin went on to describe how the app’s usability supported employees.

“The usability and mobility of Yoobic means that our people leaders are on the floor more,” she said. “And that means they're spending more time with customers and they're spending more time with their teams coaching. And I think that's where we've seen the biggest improvement for our team members.”

Benefits to HR app include audit compliance, better engagement

Other results the company has seen with Yoobic’s platform includes greater audit compliance from their digitised workflows and more engagement among team members, Bergin added.

“They're really highly engaged from a training perspective as well because it's not just a task management tool,” Bergin said. “It's also the way our teams collaborate and celebrate together.”

She mentioned a survey David Jones did on feedback of Yoobic and one positive response from an employee who said, “The communities and news feeds allows everyone to keep in touch, stay up to date with what's happening in the business and celebrate with team members”.

“In terms of the learning, it's allowed us to give bite-sized learning to all our team members, which has resulted in really high engagement in building their skills, whether it's a service training workshop or a product,” Bergin added. “And we've had over 4000 hours of learning consumed in Yoobic, since we launched.”

For its work with Yoobic, David Jones received Retail Technology Innovation Hub’s Digital Transformation Project of the Year Award for 2023.

And for HR teams looking to implement a new software in their organisation, Bergin shared this piece of advice: “I always think implementing technology that empowers your team members to help them achieve their goals helps you deliver improved operational efficiencies – the investment’s always going to be worthwhile.”