Training in any aspect of our lives is so important. From the moment we are born we are learning and it never stops, that is what makes life so exciting, challenging and ever changing. That’s why it always surprises me when I speak to friends, family and clients about the importance of training and development and before I have the chance to say a word they start to glaze over.
How does training increase productivity?
In every job role to be as productive as possible we need to know what is expected of us, how to carry out the tasks in our job role and who our key customers are. It’s not difficult when you break it down like that. I have, however, spent time with a range of clients over the last few months who are not grasping the importance of investing time with new employees when they join their business and then complaining about their lack of productivity or capability in that specific role. If a member of your team is not trained in the basics at the beginning you as an employer could be setting up your staff for failure. An easy way to establish a training process for new employees is to begin by getting feedback from your team:
- What did they find difficult to get to grips with when they first started?
- What would have helped them to get up to speed with processes and ways of working more quickly?
- Are there any basic training documents you could help create to make us more productive as a team?
By asking your staff and engaging them in the training process you are shortcutting the difficulties they faced when they joined the organisation and also engaging with them to make their opinions heard.
How does training improve employee engagement?
It is interesting to speak to a variety of staff across different companies about how involved they feel in where the company is going, I find asking one simple question can tell so much:
How involved in the future of the company do you feel?
This tells you not only what the member of staff knows about future plans, company aims and objectives but most importantly do they see a future within the organisation. It is a fact of life that you will always have staff who are more committed to driving the business forward than others, however, as employers it is your job to educate and train staff around the company’s mission, purpose, and their part in all of that.
Engaging your staff in meetings and training sessions can have a phenomenal impact on the overall engagement of your staff which is directly linked to staff retention. If someone knows what is expected of them, feels valued and engaged you are much more likely to get the best out of that individual. There are very few people who go to work in the morning and think I want to do a bad job, however, there are a lot of people who go to work with a complete lack of understanding of what their manager expects of them and where they fit in to the overall jigsaw puzzle.
How does training help deliver you results?
Training programmes are a key part of tangible results in any organisation. Firstly, knowing what your key measures are e.g. customer satisfaction results, profitability, project delivery on time/in budget enables you to see where you need to improve. If customer satisfaction is an area of concern we have worked with a number of clients to assess their customer journey to improve the experience at every step of the customer’s interaction with your business. Again asking some simple questions is a great starting point to enable us to work with you to create a bespoke programme:
- Who are your client facing staff?
- How do your processes and systems help/hinder providing excellent customer service?
- How easy is it for a customer for you to do business with you?
Ask yourself these simple questions in any aspect of your business and you will be staggered by how differently you start to look at customer service as a whole. It isn’t just a polite, friendly member of staff that makes for great customer service, every cog in the engine: processes, website, payment methods, communication and follow up plays an enormous part.
I can’t stress enough the importance of putting yourself in your employees’ shoes and thinking about all elements of training which will make them successful in their role.
“What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave the company? What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”
https://twitter.com/PlanBrighter
www.facebook.com/BrightsidePlanning
uk.linkedin.com/pub/karran-bonner/68/a19/115/