How small and midsize businesses can build an employee learning and development program for hourly and frontline teams: assessing skill needs, the 70-20-10 model, development plans, on-the-job learning, mentoring, cross-training, budgets, tracking, measuring results and connecting development to career paths.
Training usually focuses on what someone needs to do their current job: how to use the POS, follow the safety procedure or complete the inspection. Development looks further ahead: building skills for more responsibility, a different role or leadership. Learning and development together cover both, from a new hire’s first week to a long-time employee preparing to become a supervisor.
To record clock-ins, breaks and overtime automatically, see EZTime time and attendance software.
For hourly and frontline teams, L&D is often informal and inconsistent: whoever is on shift shows the new person what to do. A planned program makes learning more consistent, faster and fairer, and it gives employees a reason to stay. See the employee training program guide.
Start with the business, not the course catalog. Ask what skills you need more of in the next year: more shift leads, more technicians certified on a new system, better customer service, fewer safety incidents, more bilingual staff. Then look at where today’s gaps are.
| Skill | Maria | James | Ana | Tom | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening procedures | ✓ | ✓ | Need 1 more opener | ||
| Closing and cash | ✓ | ✓ | OK | ||
| Grill station | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | OK | |
| Food safety certification | ✓ | Need 1 more certified | |||
| Scheduling and labor | ✓ | Need a backup |
A skills matrix like this shows who can do what, where you are vulnerable and who could learn next. See training needs assessment.
A widely used guideline, the 70-20-10 model, suggests that most learning comes from experience on the job, a smaller share from other people and the smallest share from formal training. The exact numbers are a rule of thumb, but the idea is useful: courses alone do not build skills.
| Source | Share (guideline) | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | About 70% | Stretch tasks, cross-training, covering a new station, leading a huddle |
| Other people | About 20% | Mentoring, coaching, shadowing, feedback, peer learning |
| Formal learning | About 10% | Courses, certifications, workshops, videos, manuals |
For frontline teams, this is good news. Much of development can happen during regular shifts at little cost, as long as it is planned.
Each employee who wants to grow should have a short development plan. Keep it to one page and one or two goals at a time.
Review plans in regular one-on-ones and performance conversations. See the employee performance review guide.
See the on-the-job training guide.
Mentors share experience and help people navigate the workplace. Coaches, often the direct manager, help people improve specific skills through regular feedback. Both are powerful and inexpensive. Pair new hires and aspiring leaders with experienced mentors, give mentors a little training and time, and recognize them for it. Train managers to coach: ask questions, observe, give specific feedback and follow up.
Use formal training for skills that need structured instruction or certification: food safety manager certification, forklift operation, first aid, trade licenses, software systems, leadership basics. Choose courses that fit how your employees learn, including mobile-friendly and multilingual options for frontline staff. See training methods for employees and soft skills training.
Many supervisors are promoted for being great at the job, then left to figure out leadership on their own. A simple leadership track helps:
See how to be a good manager and career paths for employees.
Learning does not have to be expensive. Much of it uses time you are already paying for. Budget mainly for formal courses and certifications, mentor time and the paid hours employees spend learning.
| Low cost | Higher cost |
|---|---|
| Cross-training on shift | External certification courses |
| Mentoring and shadowing | Leadership programs |
| Internal lunch and learns | Conferences and trade shows |
| Free online resources and manufacturer training | Tuition assistance |
| Job aids and video walkthroughs recorded in-house | Paid learning platforms |
See employee development on a budget, ROI of employee training and the training cost calculator.
| Measure | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Skills matrix coverage | How many people can do each critical task |
| Development plans active | How many employees are actively growing |
| Internal promotion rate | Share of leadership roles filled from inside |
| Time to proficiency | How fast new hires reach full performance |
| Performance changes | Errors, speed, quality, customer feedback after training |
| Retention of developed employees | Whether development keeps people |
Keep training records for compliance and planning with the training record template. See how to measure training effectiveness.
Employees invest in learning when it pays off. Connect new skills to something tangible: a pay step for a certification, eligibility for a lead role, more hours, preferred shifts or recognition. Be honest about what is available. If there are no promotions coming, focus on skills that make the current job easier and more rewarding, and say so.
A 45-employee grocery store had trouble filling shift lead roles and usually hired from outside. The store manager built a skills matrix, asked who was interested in leading and created development plans for six employees. Each spent two hours a week shadowing a lead, completed a short course on scheduling and labor basics and ran Saturday huddles. Within a year, three were promoted to shift lead and the store stopped relying on outside hires for those roles.
EZTime supports the day-to-day side of development. Cross-training shifts and mentoring sessions go on the schedule, learning tasks and sign-offs can be assigned with task management and photo proof, certifications and expiry dates are kept in the digital employee file, training hours can be tracked by job code so they are paid correctly and announcements share learning opportunities with the team. See training managers.
The planned effort to build employees’ skills and knowledge for their current job and future roles, through on-the-job experience, coaching and mentoring and formal training.
A guideline suggesting that about 70% of learning comes from experience on the job, 20% from other people and 10% from formal training.
Agree on one or two goals, list specific actions such as shadowing, stretch tasks and courses, name the support provided, set check-ins and define how success will be measured.
Use cross-training, mentoring, shadowing, stretch tasks, internal lunch and learns and free manufacturer or online resources.
Track skills matrix coverage, internal promotions, time to proficiency, performance changes and retention of employees who completed development.
EZTime schedules cross-training, assigns sign-off tasks and tracks certifications with expiry reminders. Pricing starts at $2 per employee each month, with a $20 monthly minimum.