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United StatesEngaged learners, tastier pizzas: How Domino's delivered gamified L&D for 110,000 global workers
Learning engagement from Domino's workers across 12 global markets and 3,800+ stores has spiked following the roll-out of an adaptive, gamified training platform...
Domino's Pizza Enterprises Limited (DPE) is the world's largest international master franchisee of the US Domino's Pizza brand, with more than 3,800 stores across the globe. But with a vast international network comes the task of delivering unwavering quality, compromised by the inconsistency of training from store to store.
To meet this challenge, DPE has invested in creating an adaptive, gamified training platform that offers an engaging yet unified learning experience for its workers. Since implementing the program, Domino's locations across 12 global markets, comprising 3,800+ stores and a workforce of 110K+ employees, have consistently outperformed other branches.
So grab a slice, put your feet up, and hear from DPE’s Global Head of People Development, Matt Kershaw on the remarkable transformation journey.
Matt Kershaw
Global Head of People Development
Rapid rise: The challenge of consistent training throughout global expansion
It’s not just the delivery times that are quick. The rise of Domino’s Pizza Enterprises has been rapid, having growth at pace predominantly through acquisitions into the Australian-based master franchise. Expansion into New Zealand, Japan, Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia all happened in a short time. But it was able to replicate the success in new geographies and cultures, it also meant acquiring a swathe of distinct training and learning programs and platforms.
Kershaw, brought in as the global head of DPE’s Talent & Capability programs, was tasked with consolidating the unique approaches, defining uncodified training practices, and untangling duplicated efforts.
“We didn't have a clear way that we wanted to structure and deliver our training and learning, secondly how we delivered that,” he explains. “Because were growing so substantially, there was even inconsistency within markets on how training was being delivered.”
Engagement was another core challenge for DPE. Much of its workforce is young, mobile-centric employees who were calling out for bite-size learning rather than traditional learning packages, prompting the pizza company to consider how it could design a more compelling experience for the typical worker’s learning journey.
Inconsistent or incomplete training resulted in inconsistent customer experience. And if you’ve ever been disappointed by a pizza delivery that didn’t live up to expectations, you know first-hand how frustrating this could be – and how easily you could swear off ordering from that restaurant again.
What if we built “the candy crush of learning?”
With a lack of consistent frameworks and strategies, Kershaw quickly defined how the company could structure learning and training around core skills to establish some consistency across the twelve markets in which it operates.
The process began with a thorough assessment of all the training programs taking place – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
While some programmes were little more than a poorly-defined library of content, others were outstanding examples. One scheme in Japan, for example, offered learners a 140-step journey from team member to store manager, with stores showing a correlation between the number of steps taken and the level of operational outcomes such as sales growth or efficiency.
“That became the light bulb moment for us to say, what if we could create a global solution that broke down the journey for any team member?” says Kershaw. “We looked at the different role personas in our business. If you're starting as a pizza maker or a delivery driver, what does that [journey] look like to become a manager?”
Kershaw and his team found the answer by focusing on the cultural practices that had historically resonated with Domino’s workers. “We looked at stores that were developing talent very successfully and asked ourselves, what are they doing?” Kershaw explains.
Because were growing so substantially, there was even inconsistency within markets on how training was being delivered
“Competition and gamification are entrenched in Domino’s DNA” he continues. “We have ‘Store Wars’ where stores compete against each other about who was selling the most pizzas. The question became, how do we grab that and bring that into our learning?”.
A further example is the badges that team members at Domino’s wear on their hats – another fundamental part of the company fabric that lends itself to the concept of gamification.
Kershaw brought together a wide range of stakeholders to agree upon the central framework and methodologies around which he planned to base DPE’s global learning programs by creating a ‘Global Learning Summit’ event.
Executives including CEOs and COOs from each country came together with learning specialists, franchise consultants, and team members to map out the desired learning strategy. Our Group CEO suggested the idea of creating the “candy crush of learning,” and countless other employees shared feedback on features.
With consensus support in place for a programme built around mobile-based, gamified, step-defined learning paths, attention could then turn – like any good pizza company does – to delivery.
Pizza L&D platform delivery!
“And then just started working on it,” Kershaw states simply.
The reality, of course, was more sophisticated than that. Domino’s identified several pilot stores with engaged franchise partners and managers to work through the beta phase to make sure all parties were happy with what was being designed. “There some pretty quick and dirty evolutions at the start,” he admits. “And then we evolved it to something far greater based on the feedback that we got from that.”
Similarly, for the data-led reporting on how employees progressed with their learning journey, DPE began with very simple, low-tech reporting options, before taking on feedback and eventually creating fully integrated Power BI dashboards.
The result of this iterative process, supported by e-learning software company CoSo Cloud, was the creation of a global, mobile-based application, available on iOS and Android across all twelve DPE markets in nine languages.
There some pretty quick and dirty evolutions at the start. And then we evolved it to something far greater based on the feedback that we got from that
The platform includes intuitive visual learning paths illustrating how employees can advance their careers within DPE, transforming traditional training into an engaging journey for workers. The platform is built to adapt to diverse learning styles and cultural nuances, giving all employees, regardless of their location, a unified and engaging training experience.
A typical employee who logs in for the first time will create their avatar before a map unfolds in front of them representing their career. The map corresponds to the role they have been provisioned and is personalized for that worker’s possible career journey. As they begin their orientation the first dots appear on the map.
The training is multimedia-rich, and initially guides workers through early badges such as completing a shift unsupervised. Each badge a worker collects can be pinned to their avatar’s cap. “The idea is short, sharp hits of dopamine reward,” explains Kershaw. “You've completed training, well done, here's a badge.”
The features behind the pizzas
In Japan, a pilot program has also successfully integrated the payroll system into the learning path, automatically assigning workers a pay rise when they achieve certain certifications. This has been a huge driver of engagement for workers to improve their skills, safe in the knowledge it will be rewarded with an increase in hourly pay. Stores involved in the scheme have reported efficiency gains.
Beyond mapping out a training plan that visualises the worker’s career development path, the platform also helps DPE’s workforce to adjust to real-time training requirements by pushing notifications to all workers to complete a new program.
“That’s how we’re getting high levels of adoption and engagement,” Kershaw says. “Because the reality is, not everyone wants to be working on their career progression all the time. But when there's new training that needs to be done, everyone wants to be able to access it at the click of a finger.”
This new platform marks a major shift from past training where employees would fight over access to the store computer to complete their training. The new platform prompted DPE to consider how it could revamp the content itself, with past training programs taking a long time to complete and being far from mobile-friendly. Taking inspiration from TikTok, the training programs are now portrait-style, short, sharp videos full of content, humour, music, and energy.
Other components of the new platform include gamification such as leaderboards; the trial of a smart rostering tool that allocates workers based on the skill level needed, rather than the number of people, to meet requirements for volumes of sales; and the trial of a feature that locks delivery team members out of the system if they have not completed their delivery safety training.
Improved engagement, higher training completion, better product quality
Given the learning environment at DPE was a wild west before the transformation, it’s tricky to precisely quantify all the improvements the new platform has delivered. However, there is no doubting how beneficial the new, gamified L&D programme has been for employee engagement. In Japan, 92% of learners have been active in the system within the last 30 days. In Australia, the number is over 80%, where previously the average was closer to 40%.
“When we look at it from a 30-60-90-day average, we're seeing very clear evidence that participating stores see high levels of learning engagement, high completion of key training, and better than average product quality results and net promoter scores,” says Kershaw.
DPE has also enjoyed a sharp increase in the number of participants in its ‘Franchise Academy,’ level seven in the learning paths, over the past six months. This means more workers have completed the training needed to own a Domino's store. “That's a huge part of the business's growth plan because we seldom import franchise partners from outside the business,” Kershaw adds.
We're seeing very clear evidence that participating stores see high levels of learning engagement, high completion of key training, and better than average product quality results and net promoter scores
Reflecting on the overwhelming success of the transformation, Kershaw highlights the need to embed the learning mission within the mission of the business. “I’ve tried to understand as an executive in the learning space, what’s important to the business,” he explains. “We know that store growth is important. We know that exceptional customer experience is important. The way that I communicate our strategy is about how we're driving performance and business improvement. I'm not talking about learning data. I'm talking about business performance data and I'm using learning as an input tool into that.”
Kershaw also advocates that any learning transformation or learning experience design must be learner-led. Stakeholder engagement played a vital part in the success of DPE’s learning transformation, from the Global Learning Summit to the collaborative pilot schemes. This iterative, adaptive, and agile approach allowed Kershaw and his team to get the design right before resources were funnelled into the projects.
Finally, for global learning programs, he highlights the need for balancing centralised frameworks with local adaptions. “We’ve got principles and methodologies that are globally aligned… but the content is developed by local instructional and learning designers for the local people,” he concludes.
Thanks to this approach from Kershaw, his team, and third-party partners, Domino’s all-new platform has been a slice of success for all involved and is a testament to how beneficial gamification can be for L&D professionals.
