Kmart Group is one of Australia’s largest retail organisations, comprising Kmart, Target and Anko, and supporting a large, diverse workforce across Australia and globally.
Kmart Australia enhanced its LMS user experience to improve the visibility of mandatory training and support a more proactive, work-ready workforce. The focus was on making learning requirements clear, timely and easy to action – helping team members feel more confident, informed and empowered in their roles every day.
The Challenge
Kmart Group was operating an older version of Totara (v16) that, while functional, no longer met the organisation’s expectations for user experience, visual design or alignment with modern digital platforms used elsewhere across the business.
Supporting a large frontline workforce across retail and operational roles, ease of use, intuitive navigation and a contemporary look and feel were essential to driving engagement. However, the existing platform experience felt dated and risked limiting adoption, particularly among managers and senior leaders who expected a professional, enterprise-grade learning environment.
The platform also supported multiple brands and lines of business, each with distinct needs. Any improvement needed to preserve this complexity while delivering a clear and visible uplift for learners.
Kmart Group wanted more than a technical upgrade; it sought a transformation that would modernise the platform, enhance usability, and reposition the LMS as a trusted and valued learning experience across the organisation.
The Solution
In partnership with Mindtools Kineo, Kmart Group undertook a significant Totara platform upgrade from version 16 to version 19, using the project as an opportunity to completely revitalise the learner experience through a comprehensive UX and UI refresh.
The upgrade was approached strategically, with a clear focus on how employees, managers and leaders would experience the platform from day one. The user interface was modernised to deliver a clean, fresh and intuitive look and feel, aligned to Kmart Group’s digital and brand standards.
The redesigned LMS features:
- A full UX/UI refresh that delivered an immediately noticeable improvement in visual design.
- Enhanced navigation and layout to support faster, more intuitive access to learning content.
- A dedicated refresher training block surfacing due and upcoming training.
- Simplified dashboards prioritising required learning.
- Clear visual cues to guide learner action.
- A more consistent and engaging experience across learner types, including frontline, manager and corporate users.
- Improved platform performance, stability and future readiness delivered through the v19 upgrade.
The transformation focused on user experience design, with no changes to content, notifications, or policy.
The learning ecosystem is delivered through four distinct Totara tenancies, each aligned to specific lines of business within Kmart Group. This architecture enables tailored experiences for different brands and audiences while maintaining strong governance and consistency across the group.
Upon go-live, the platform felt entirely new – not just upgraded, but transformed – reinforcing Totara’s role as a central, enterprise learning platform for Kmart Group.
The Results
The impact of the v19 upgrade and UX/UI refresh was immediate and highly visible across the organisation.
The upgrade delivered measurable improvements in engagement and timeliness:
- Refresher training on-time completion increased from 54% to 78% (+24 percentage points).
- Refresher training completion speed improved dramatically:
- Mean: 145 → 38 days (-74%)
- Median: 55 → 32 days (-42%)
- Consistency improved, with a significant reduction in extended completion times, and the majority of learners completing well within the required timeframe.
Business outcomes included:
- Stronger on-time compliance.
- Faster return to a fully certified, work-ready workforce.
- Reduced variability in completion behaviour.
- Improved visibility and prioritisation of critical training.
- A significantly improved learner experience that feels modern, intuitive and engaging.
- Strong positive feedback from managers and senior leaders, including direct praise for the new LMS design.
- Increased confidence in the platform as a credible, enterprise-grade learning solution.
- A future-ready LMS capable of supporting ongoing growth, innovation and evolving learning needs.
By focusing on clarity and usability, Kmart has created a more intuitive learning experience that supports timely action and consistent workforce readiness, demonstrating the impact of UX design on learning outcomes at scale.
“The LMS upgrade has significantly elevated both the user experience and the perceived value of our learning platform. It feels like a completely new system – more intuitive, more engaging, and far better aligned to how our teams work. The response across the business has been overwhelmingly positive, including strong endorsement from our senior People & Capability and Safety leaders.”
Manager, Systems and Governance (Learning) | People & Capability
Customer
Connected Partner
Customer
Region
Australia
Sectors
Retail
Industry Sizes
Large
Solutions
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