Reflection – Perception of the Neiman Marcus Learning Hub System

I recently left the Neiman Marcus Group (NMG) but wanted to share thoughts and experiences on the current education and training structure, the NMG Learning HUB. Over the years, the training structure has undergone several redesigns until recently, a significant digital transformation due to the new People Services added to the NMG organizational system. There was no NMG learning hub or training system when I came aboard about six years ago. Any training you wanted to take had to be approved by the project management office (PMO) director. The proposed training had to align with your job function to obtain approval. There were a few webinars on NMG PMO governance and development standards, security compliance regarding Payment Card Industry (PCI) information, and Personal Identifiable Information (PII). I believe that the first year, I was only approved for an Agile training event the entire PMO team attended. After the first year, the Chief Technology Officer rolled out the Information Technology(IT) and PMO transformation strategies, and the goal was to manage more project initiatives with Agile Excellence. It involved transitioning from waterfall methodology to agile principles. Employee training requires immediate attention to accomplish a company goal and plan. Several concerns hampered employees' professional development, such as excessive turnover, low morale, burnout, chaos, and uncertainty emerged as important issues.

The current NMG Learning Hub has some challenges and issues. One critical point is due to the many reorganizations of the NMG group before, during, and after the pandemic. Here is the current organizational structure at a high level. See Figure 1. The Chief People and Belonging Officer, Chief Communications Officer, and Chief Integrated Retail Officer are new roles replacing some old ones. Dual roles are the President of Bergdorf Goodman and Head of NMG Product and Technology, Chief Technology and Information Officer, Chief Legal Officer, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Compliance Officer. The dual roles are job functions but do not backfill the executive role. Still, they combined them with existing roles, which they call expanded roles and responsibilities under the new reorganization. The new Learning HUB is under the Chief People and Belonging Officer. See Figure 2. It consists of the Chief People and Belonging Officer, Director of Learning and Development, Senior Manager of Organizational Change, Training managers of Customer Care, Supply Change, Trainers, Training Coordinator, and External Training Vendors.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Another issue is the definitive job role names and descriptions right after the People Services group started forming. Everyone in the IT and PMO units had the title of "Project Lead," we know that everyone in the IT unit does not lead projects if the job description is clear. It could lead to chaos and confusion in establishing roles and responsibilities for project initiatives. Employees were given new job names and functions by People Services around a year and a half ago.

Other difficulties included excessive worker turnover both onshore and offshore. The COVID-19 epidemic affected retail operations in 2019, forcing the NMG to lay off over 13,000 employees, including sales associates. The teams had to devise creative ways to accept private bookings for VIPs and celebrities whom personal stylists would support. Hence, the IT team created the NMG Connect App and had training videos and webinars for the personal stylist and store associates. Additional mobile tasks involve employees not in regular job roles to assist and requiring immediate cloud and mobile app training. Because the training program had not been updated in several years, the corporation realized it was no longer feasible or efficient, so the People Services business unit was founded to address these difficulties during the pandemic.

On the positive side, excellent results from reporting metrics as the People Services obtained from LinkedIn, an NMG-branded LinkedIn learning portal. The reporting metrics at a high level are reviewed during the NMG town hall meeting for all employees. NMG employees can take advantage of any training anytime and download the certificate upon completion, if applicable. The Weekly10 integration app allows employees to report key accomplishments, set personal development goals, and upload the completed training certificate into the Weekly10. The Weekly10 is an integration app to track an employee's performance, goals, personal development, and reviews with their managers. The People Services also collects quarterly feedback with a survey with specific items to get reactions to the Learning Hub. It reminds me of Level 1 of the Kirkpatrick Model, where the evaluation on this level examines how the NMG Learning Hub program employees react to it (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006). It seems like People Services is heading in the right direction with a cloud-based integration solution to connect the training strategy's dots.

Economic and social factors can have various effects on a training system. Before the pandemic, each corporate employee was given a $2,500 maximum expense for training; we had over 13,000 at the time. We have about 10,000 employees, and the cost savings have been significant since implementing the cloud-based NMG Learning Hub, NMG-branded LinkedIn Learning, and the Weekly10 performance tracker app. The cost savings around training should be substantial. The level of employee engagement is high because they encourage the employees to get into the NMG Learning Hub, take advantage of the training, and upload certificates of completion to the Weekly10 to show the progress of the training goals. The training has remediated some high over of employees and constraints to apply for other job roles outside your business unit. The integration of the NMG Connect app has helped stylists and store associates increase store sales and commissions to almost 11% in the past year. The top 2% of customers drive approximately 40% of total sales with a 90% retention rate (Neiman Marcus Group, 2022). The average 2% of customers have a 1 million dollar net worth (Neiman Marcus Group, 2022). The Learning Hub also features tons of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training about diversity, inclusion, and sense of belonging. The company has a zero-tolerance level in this area.

References

Kirkpatrick, D. L., & Kirkpatrick, J. D. (2006). Evaluating training programs: The four levels. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Neiman Marcus Group. (2022, October 12). Neiman Marcus group delivers $5 billion of GMV in FY22, demonstrating strength of integrated luxury retail model. PR Newswire: press release distribution, targeting, monitoring and marketing. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/neiman-marcus-group-delivers-5-billion-of-gmv-in-fy22-demonstrating-strength-of-integrated-luxury-retail-model-301646944.html