“We realized our traditional LMS wasn’t meeting the needs of our associates.”
Austin Bradley, Director of Learning and Development, Floor & Decor
Floor & Decor trades its outdated LMS for an AI-powered solution that drives performance and productivity
How Axonify helped a leading specialty retailer go from back-office bottlenecks to confident, high-performing associates.
$40M
Est. increase in yearly sales
$7.5M
Est. onboarding cost savings
95%
Platform participation rate
The problem: Closing the frontline knowledge gap
Delivering great customer service requires store associates to have deep product and installation knowledge. But Floor & Decor’s traditional LMS wasn’t up to the task. Associates struggled to build the know- how they needed to thrive, leading to low confidence and high turnover within the first 30 days with the company.
“Most of our content in the LMS consisted of traditional 20-to-30 minute e-learning courses,” says Austin Bradley, Director of Learning and Development at Floor & Decor. “Our new associate experience was: ”Hi, welcome to Floor & Decor. You’re going to sit in the back office for three days and check off your safety and compliance and your basic knowledge.’”
The company was also using a separate platform for communications. This forced associates to access timely information, like news articles and company updates, outside of their learning environment.
“We realized our traditional LMS wasn’t meeting the needs of our associates,” says Bradley. “We needed something that was frontline-enabled and mobile-ready. We needed to get them out of the back office and onto the sales floor, learning in the flow of work where they can actually apply those skills to impact customers.”
The solution:
The Floor & Decor team chose Axonify to fuel their new-and-improved learning experience. Internally they call the Axonify-powered platform “GetAmped.”
“Axonify brings all the tools and resources together into one platform that makes it really easy to execute learning experiences for our associates in the aisles,” says Bradley. “It’s a one-stop shop as opposed to our previous LMS, which only offered a portion of what we needed.”
Taking training content from bloated to bite sized
Bradley’s team started by making content in the Axonify platform digestible so associates could easily complete training between customer interactions on the floor. They lightened the load significantly by leveraging existing content.
“We took the 200 e-learning courses from our previous LMS and broke them into five-minute learning modules that reinforced learning through questions,” says Bradley.
The team also shifted learning from drawn-out backroom sessions to quick hits of knowledge and ongoing reinforcement in the aisles. This allows them to approach onboarding more efficiently.
“In the past, even at the end of the two-week onboarding period, associates didn’t have the desired confidence levels,” says Bradley. “Bringing on Axonify and allowing associates to do that learning in the aisle has certainly helped. Axonify’s daily reinforcement mechanism drives that confidence even higher.”
Keeping associates connected and in the know
Since Floor & Decor is constantly releasing new products, SKUs and processes, having communications and learning in one platform is key. “Our associates are no longer forced into two different systems trying to find the content they need,” says Bradley.
The team appreciates having the option to post communications in a regular timeline or send broadcast messages to push high-priority information to all 14,000 associates at once. They are also using Axonify Channels to facilitate knowledge sharing and community building among specific employee cohorts.
“Our Design Studio Channel is full of daily recognition as well as employees sharing best practices for things like displays,” says Bradley. “The communications portal is very powerful with all the different components it offers. And we’ve used it in a couple of different ways to really drive communications.”
After launching Axonify through a four-week pilot across ten stores, the team only made a few small adjustments before rolling out the platform to the entire Floor & Decor organization. The response from managers and associates has been phenomenal.
Victor Calderone, Chief Executive Merchant, Floor & Decor, says Axonify has allowed him to take training and team communication to the next level. “Adding GetAmped to my daily routines keeps me on track. It’s empowered my team to have a voice, whether it is understanding that they want more training on a specific topic or just communicating with each other. Using one platform for everything keeps us on task and up to date.”
Axonify delivers strong ROI
“The ROI for Axonify is compounded because there are quite a few ways that a platform like this can impact an organization. So first of all, sales. A 1% increase in sales is $40 million. Can I attribute that to Axonify? All day every day. We’re going to consider that credit. But we can also point to things like lower turnover and the savings we get from lower hiring costs. It’s almost an immeasurable ROI that we’re getting from Axonify.”
Austin Bradley, Director of Learning and Development, Floor & DecorThe results:
Engagement can be tricky when you’re transitioning tens of thousands of employees from one learning platform to another. The team at Floor & Decor was delighted to achieve high user participation in Axonify from the start.
“To hit 95% participation right off the bat with Axonify was miraculous,” says Bradley. “The gamified elements and leaderboards in the platform really brought users back. And associates going in 15 or 16 times a month to get that learning and reinforcement when they’re on shift was an early key success driver.”
Taniya Scott, a Merchandise Specialist at Floor & Decor, agrees that the gamification in Axonify is a big draw to keep using the platform. “It helped me connect with my team because we like a little bit of friendly competition and checking a scoreboard each day,” she says. “I love using GetAmped every day. It’s a good way to keep everybody updated and refreshed with what we have going on throughout the store.”
Stronger onboarding, higher average tickets and lower turnover
Thanks to strong engagement with Axonify, associates are selling more confidently and that’s contributing to the bottom line in meaningful ways:
Higher average ticket sizes
Flooring doesn’t install itself. Every job needs additional materials, like prep products, setting materials and cleaners. With targeted training and reinforcement through Axonify, associates gain the product knowledge to confidently recommend these add-ons, which has increased average ticket sizes.
Smarter onboarding
Onboarding through Axonify helps associates feel confident enough to be out on the floor handling complex questions much faster than they used to. “As soon as new hires finish their training they already know a lot more about the store—even on their first day,” says Tanya.
Stronger associate retention
Axonify improved associate skills and confidence and surfaced clear development paths through leadership content and skill validation. The platform also increased engagement through consistent communications—reinforcing a strong, supportive culture across the organization. As a result, the company saw a 40% improvement in learner skill validation and an overall reduction in associate turnover.
“Our internal NPS scores are the highest they’ve ever been, which we can partially attribute to having communication, recognition and all the other features within the Axonify platform,” says Bradley.
Increased product knowledge
Daily reinforcement of product information has been key to success. “Axonify has helped increase the entire population’s baseline product knowledge and drives expert-level product knowledge within the key departments,” says Bradley. “All of those things certainly impact our sales revenues and drivers.”
Monique Hayes, Tile Sales Specialist from Floor & Decor describes the impact. “I might not work in stone a lot, but when someone asks about it I can say, ‘I just had that question in Axonify today!’ It gives me an opportunity to test my knowledge and apply it in the store.”
Better informed managers
Store managers save time by no longer piecing together new hire training from scattered resources. The platform’s robust dashboards surface skill gaps and training insights, making it easy to tailor associate coaching, guide huddles, and focus support where it’s needed most.