Training, productivity and performance: lessons from a chilean retailer

Abstract

Purpose

A project to improve productivity in one of the largest retail firms in Latin America demonstrates how a tailor-made training intervention can improve workers’ performance and how — and by how much — investing in soft-skills can lead to productivity gains.

Design/methodology/approach

Individual-level longitudinal information gathered from the firm.

Findings

The training intervention was shown to have a positive and significant effect on both store-level sales and transactions per worker. This result was confirmed by a cost/benefit analysis. This provides clear evidence that productivity can be boosted with a high quality, well-designed and optimally-delivered training programme targeted to increase socio-emotional skills. This assertion has been corroborated by an empirical analysis of the project carried out by specialists from the Inter-American Development Bank and the Department of Economics, University of Maryland.

Originality/value

The project is one of the first to be subject to a detailed analysis to provide evidence of the causal impact of training on direct productivity measures.

Citation

Rexworthy, J. (2020), "Training, productivity and performance: lessons from a chilean retailer", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 75-79. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-12-2019-0088