Target: reimagining learning and capability for 13,000+ team members

Target was moving from a traditional bricks-and-mortar, in-store training culture to something more digitally focused, and needed their learning and capability offering to strategically align with the brand rather than sit as a disconnected HR function. This wasn't a single deliverable, it spanned human-centred design, UX/UI, VR, brand and print, held together by direct stakeholder management with the L&D team and key leaders across the business.

The work started from mapping how team members actually moved through onboarding and ongoing learning: welcome journeys, internal programs, internal onboard flows, and where existing touchpoints created friction or dropped people out. Journey mapping and stakeholder workshops shaped a framework built around three ideas, "we inspire," "we inform," "we inspire and inform," used to organise what kind of content and experience each part of the learning journey needed, rather than treating every touchpoint the same way.

From there, the work moved into applied formats: a digital learning platform experience, VR modules for immersive training scenarios like personal safety, campaign-style content ("discover a new way to learn") designed to make learning feel like something team members wanted to engage with rather than a compliance obligation, and supporting print and in-store assets to keep the transformation consistent for a workforce that still operated largely in physical retail environments.

Retail learning content easily defaults to generic, purely functional design, procedural, forgettable, disconnected from the brand employees actually represent on the shop floor. Aligning the learning experience visually and tonally with Target's brand meant team members experienced training as an extension of the company they worked for, not a separate corporate system bolted on top. That mattered directly to the digital transformation goal: if the learning experience still felt like the old bricks-and-mortar way of doing things, the shift wouldn't land regardless of what platform it ran on.

The project touched over 13,000 Target team members directly, and its influence extended beyond Target into how other learning and development teams across Australia approached similar problems.

This was as much a change management and stakeholder alignment project as it was a design one. Translating a bricks-and-mortar retail culture into a digitally-focused learning experience meant every format decision, VR, print, digital platform, campaign content, had to work together toward the same cultural shift, not just look consistent.