Reminiscing on the Impact of Learner Mobile Engagement for Father’s Day

Father’s Day.

It’s been around as long as we can remember. It’s the one day a year we acknowledge some amazing men in our lives. We gift them with barbeque tools, coffee mugs, cigars, funny cards, sports memorabilia, wallets, fishing gear, and more.

It’s only been two years since the onset of COVID-19, but certain aspects of it seem like a distant memory, showing how quickly the world moves and adapts. Father’s Day certainly looked different in 2020. At the height of the pandemic, many were separated from their loved ones by quarantines and travel bans, even with signs the world was going to open back up. Tourist attractions were closed and restaurants had limited seating options. Hospitals and nursing homes strictly forbade most visits with loved ones. Zoom and Facetime provided virtual face-to-face interaction, but it just wasn’t the same as being physically close to loved ones.

Thankfully, life this year was pretty much back to normal, and face time with Dad wasn’t through a screen, if you could help it. Suddenly, the best gift we could give was our time, which is really all our fathers want anyway.

Enter Dillard’s, a titan in the retail industry that knows how to celebrate fathers Father’s Day. Dillard’s and Learner Mobile worked together to create a Father’s Day 2022 learning initiative that expertly prepared in-store associates to take care of families shopping for dads.

Dillard’s not only asked its employees to brush up on their knowledge of the goings-on in the store, but also prompted them to share their dad jokes on the Learner Mobile app to drive associate engagement. The resulting interaction stimulated discussions among coworkers and allowed them to see the workplace as not just a job, but as a family coming together every day and sharing experiences. It caught like wildfire. Something as trivial as a joke can spark meaningful relationships and support the adoption of learning. As the Dillard’s thread went on, it evolved from funny dad jokes to something deeper: Associates started sharing heartwarming stories of their fathers and memories made with them.

“Why do seagulls fly over the ocean? Because if they flew over the bay, we would call them bagels. 😂”

“What did one casket say to the other casket? Is that you coffin? LOL”

“Dads are superheroes.”

We noticed the prompt completely changed the narrative from something that was considered a job task to something associates wanted to do because it was fun and meaningful.

Learner Mobile isn’t just a tool for learning; it’s a tool for engaging. Engagement increases attention, focus, and promotes learning skills. As a result, this initiative supported the development and engagement of store associates (more than 30,000 interactions) who were equipped to take great care of the customer for Father’s Day. Below are a few of the comments that associates shared from the initiative.

“Thanks 😁 Very interactive. Helped make my experience fun!”

“😅🤣😂 I love the jokes !!!”

“This is my favorite thing on Learner Mobile right now!!!!”