Training the field is not the same as training head office
Why classroom-first learning loses the frontline, and what to build instead.
Most learning plans are designed at head office, for a learner who has a desk, a laptop and an hour to spare.
Frontline staff are a different audience. In my own work that meant thousands of field staff, patchy connectivity and fifteen languages. A plan that assumes a classroom and a stable screen does not reach them. Over twenty years in BFSI learning and development I have come to treat this as a design problem, not a motivation problem.
What the evidence says, and what it does not
I would not build a case on one study, so I will say exactly what this one covers. A preprint on arXiv, by researchers at IIT Bombay and Tampere University, tested refresher training for 270 community health workers in India, split into three groups of 90: standard classroom, a physical card game and a smartphone game. The topic was immunisation. The authors report that knowledge improved in all three groups, and that the game formats held up better than the classroom method when tested again after six months.
These are health workers, not bankers, and the preprint shows one topic in one setting. I read it as a good reason to test short, repeated formats, not as proof that classrooms fail. Read the preprint. I could not confirm it has been peer reviewed.
Three changes worth testing
1. Put help close to the moment of use. In my own programme, new joiners got dedicated trainers on daily calls and on-the-job support for their first 90 days, rather than one induction week and then silence.
2. Keep it short enough for a phone. One idea and one practice question.
3. Repeat it. One exposure does not hold, which is the point the preprint above is built on.
Measure it in a number the business already watches
For new joiners that number is early attrition. In a microfinance company, we counted exits within 90 days as infant attrition, and it fell from 118% to 53% over the last three quarters of FY2025-26. Trainer support was one of three changes behind that fall, alongside early conversations between joiners and their business heads, and regional HR support for benefits and policy. I will not claim training alone did it.
Try this next week
Pick one skill your field team needs every week. Cut the training for it to five minutes. Send it to their phones the day before they need it. Then ask the branch manager one question: did they use it?
If you build learning for people who spend the day away from a desk, I would like to hear what has worked for you.
Have a view or an example from your own field team? Send me a comment. I read every one and may publish selected comments here, with your permission. You can also comment on the LinkedIn post that links to this article.
“What I value here is the honesty about the evidence. You say what the preprint covers, what it does not, and that training alone did not bring the attrition down. The ‘try this next week’ step is practical too: one skill, five minutes, and one question to the branch manager. That makes training something a business head can check within a week, not at year end.”
– Garima Chatterjee