Can You Afford To Waste Time Training Staff?

Is formal training important? After all we can all learn fromother employees or from outside consultants we bring in can't we?

Well, in my previous life as a consultant IT project director Inoticed people would often be too busy doing their own job tolearn the skills of an outside consultant too.

That's despite massive efforts made to train people.

But unless skills are used regularly after training they fadeaway.

Learning from others in your own organisation can also befraught.

Learning by "sitting next to Nellie" as it's known can work. Butit means that any weak custom and practise procedures are copied.

These weak procedures may actually be the direct opposite of thecompany strategy.

Also if you're learning from someone because they're just aboutto leave the company . For whatever reason.

You don't get their total focus on teaching you their job.

So ways of doing things can become less and less effective astime goes on.

That means that service to your customers becomes worse. Simplybecause the people serving them don't know the best way ofworking.

Research shows that over 60% of customers leave a businessbecause of poor, ineffective or indifferent service.

Let's look at the story of two woodcutters

Once there were twin brothers. They were tall, strapping ladswho had both become lumberjacks at the same time. One year theytook part in a logging competition together. Each was strong andbeat everyone they came up against. Until they reached the finalwhere they met each other.

They seemed evenly matched. The crowd looked urged them on asthey both started cutting timber at a strong rate of knots.After an hour one of the brothers stopped for a few minutes.Let's call him the "idle chopper". He soon resumed work butevery hour he kept stopping.

Eventually the competition finished and it was immediatelyobvious that the idle chopper had cut down significantly morewood than his brother.

His brother shook his hand to congratulate him and asked, "howon earth did you cut twice as much wood as me despite stoppingso frequently?"

The idle chopper smiled and said "I wasn't really resting I wassharpening my axe so my cuts went deeper faster than yours withyour blunt axe."

The "idle chopper" was really the "smart chopper" because he'dtaken to heart what President Abraham Lincoln had said.

Abraham Lincoln said "Give me six hours to chop down a tree andI will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

People can look at training as a complete waste of a company'stime. Because it's preventing their staff from getting the jobdone.

But look at the woodcutters the one who kept stopping to sharpenhis axe won.

The same is true of any company that gives their staff training.It may stop the busy, busy time for a short while but it meansthat staff become more productive and therefore achieve more.

Getting yourself and your staff trained is essential if you wantto continue to grow and develop,

If you don't you'll be like 90% of businesses over a 10 yeartime frame and be out of business.

It's really that stark a choice.

There are a number of effective training strategies that I wouldrecommend you to use.

Two of the most powerful are as follows:

a) A Weekly Company Workshop b) Formal Courses - with a twist

Let me explain exactly how they work so that you can go andapply them in your business immediately.

Weekly Company Workshop

1) Set-up an hour per week where all employees gather together.

The first workshop is the Set-up and Introduction Workshop.

2) In this workshop you all brainstorm the issues and problemsthat you and your customers have with the company.

Someone is designated to takes action notes. That is notes thatsimply list the actions to be taken with the person responsibleand the date to be completed (always before the next meeting).

3) You then prioritise and agree the issues amongst everyonethere.

Hint: Give particular weight to customer issues as they arequite likely to resolve one or more internal issues too.

4) Provide a full list of prioritised issues to all attendees.The attendees should be everyone who works for the company,unless they're sick.

The Second and subsequent workshops are Issue Eaters

5) Take the first issue from the list that was issued the day ofthe last meeting - it's that important.

6) Brainstorm possible solutions to the issue.

For example the customers are returning a product to you inlarge numbers but you can't see why. The issue is "You don'tknow why the product is being returned".

Several possible solutions occur:

a) Ring customers and ask them why they're returning them. Alsoring customer's who've kept them and ask them why too.

b) Send every customer a questionnaire asking several questions,including one on returns and also specifically for the productin question.

c) Ask the sales force to go and see each customer and ask fortheir most honest feedback.

d) The managing director to ring the companies concerned to seewhat the problem is.

Collate the answers and provide the information and analysis tothe group the following week.

7) If the solution calls for a better procedure or companyprocess to be implemented designate someone to write it and forit to be issued before the next meeting for review and agreement.

8) Only address one issue per session - even if you finish it in10 minutes. But you must focus completely on that issue.

9) Review the solution and check that it is working. Then signit off and add to the list of completed issues.

Guess what you're building with the documentation?

It's a company file that allows new staff to get up to speed onhow your company has got to where it is now and what the currentprocedures and processes are.

Not just that. It means that at a stroke you've pooled thebrainpower of several people to produce new and better ways ofworking that help customers and your staff.

You tell me. Do you think your customers are going to becomeeven happier with an organisation that addresses and resolvedissues?

Now you may be thinking I'm only a one person or two personcompany?

This method applies equally well to you too.

The great thing about it is that as long as you document you'llhave processes in place when you get more staff.

Formal Courses - with a twist 1) Have a formal trainingstrategy for each person. It doesn't matter whether you're a oneperson or 3,000 person company. You need a strategy becauseotherwise you'll get asked for training that doesn't fit withyour company goals.

2) Plan what courses staff (and you) should attend during theyear.

3) Attend the course - there should be no excuse for non-attendance.

4) Now here's the twist before your staff go on the course tellthem that you're going to ask them to do a short presentation onthe course at the next weekly meeting to all the staff. Thepresentation is a short summary of the course content, and the 6to 10 things that the person has learnt and will apply in theirjob. Followed by 10 minutes of questions.

The reasons for this are:

a) Others benefit from hearing what the course was all about b)The attendee will pay much more attention to the course andlearn more from it c) You're training staff to feel comfortablegiving presentations in a relaxed environment. d) Other staffmay learn things they can apply in their job.

5) Make sure that they do the presentation. If not you get noneof the benefits outlined previously. Make sure everyone does thepresentation, even someone who is quaking in dread. Help themget over it by letting them stay seated, or just present over2-3 weeks. But make sure they do present - it must be acondition of attendance.

6) Been on a course yourself? Right. You do the same as yourstaff. They're learning about what you do.

Finally and most importantly there is a set of Golden TrainingRules I always use which is

a) Training must be applied when you return from the course b)You and your staff must support attempts to use the training. Itmay not work very well initially as people start to apply it. c)Re-train at intervals because skills can only be improved byrepetition. Look at karate, golf, football and other sports youhave to keep practising to get better. It's the same with worktraining.

For example people learn everything on a time management coursebut maybe only apply 10% of what they learnt and forget therest. When they go again they learn pretty much the same thingbut then apply another 10% of what they learn and forget therest.

So over time they apply more and more of what they're taughtuntil eventually they're using all the time managementtechniques and are experts. Get them to teach new staff!

d) Once you've got trained up experts use them to train your ownstaff.

Does training staff stop the company making money? Ultimatelythe answer is it makes you even more money than you did beforethey were trained.

Remember the two axmen?

You want to be the smarter chopper.