How Bad Training Can Affect Your Business.

Of all the things that can sabotage your company, one of the most destructive forces is bad training.

Unchecked, it will disengage your employees, keep them from reaching their potential, push the best people out the door, reduce the quality of your product or service, and ultimately cost you some of your best customers.

It is ironic that human resources departments are often given almost unlimited resources to recruit and hire the best possible job candidates, but find their training budgets slashed and the time allotted for training reduced. Old and poorly produced training materials are still being used years after more effective training programs and techniques are available.

Bright and ambitious candidates join your firm because they want to learn and progress. If you don’t train them and allow them opportunities to gain management skills and round out their portfolio of knowledge, it won’t take too long for them to look for the exit.

If you offer basic functional training only, the dos and don’ts checklist of basic tasks and procedures, your employees will never reach their full potential. If they did not enter at the management level, they need ongoing management training.

If they entered at the management level, they need opportunities to improve their soft skills. Offer excellent training in topics like negotiating, building cultures of innovation, and bringing out the best in employees.

The excuse for bad training is more often that there is no time instead of no money. Top managers allow middle managers to focus on the most pressing task of the day instead of creating a workable schedule for training. As a result, what begins as a precise procedure outlined in a formal session where questions can be asked and employees can be followed-up to ensure they grasp key concepts, a harried manager gives a new employee a summary of key points and throws them into the job.

That employee gets some but not all of the key procedures. Because they don’t totally understand what they are supposed to do, they compromise. Within a short time, quality is compromised and long-time customers, who expect a consistent level of quality, become upset when suddenly the product doesn’t measure up.

The next time you think it takes too much time to ensure each employee has the best possible training available for the job they’ve been hired to do, ask yourself how much it will cost your company if they don’t get it right and the customer is the one who discovers it before you.

What can you do to eradicate bad training habits from your company?

You can secure the best possible training materials and then, with the help of department managers, tailor them to your company’s unique circumstances, products and services. If the managers are to deliver the training, insist that each new employee be given formal training (this can be classroom style or online) within the first week of hiring and updates on some aspect of the business at least every four to six months. Have both managers and employees sign that the training has been completed and the candidate fully understands what has been taught.

There will be some kick from managers who claim they are too busy. In that case, they may need to be sent on time management courses that include an element of explanation of just how bad training of their staff can undermine all the things they do well.

For more information on employee training, contact Skyprep today!