07/ 01/ 2005
by Steve Strauss
The California Chamber of Commerce recently conducted a survey of 100 of the most successful small businesses in that state. One of the questions was, what is the real key to business success? Answers included the following:
Hard work and perseverance
Fine products and service
Advertising
Knowing the fundamentals of business
Employees
What was the most popular answer? Employees.
If that is true, it begs the question: What makes good employees? Most often, it is training. The type and extent of your training varies, depending upon your goals. It may be as simple as explaining a new policy and showing employees how to implement it, or it might be a long process that takes several weeks where employees learn something from scratch. Either way, adequately training your staff is vital to the continued success of your small business.
To be most effective, training employees should begin the day they start work and cover everything they need to know. By creating a training process that covers all of the bases, you create informed employees, which, in turn, allow you to concentrate less on problems and more on areas of your business that you enjoy. Your initial training can cover many things, such as:
Philosophy: New employees should understand your way of doing business.
Brand: Teach your employees what your business is all about and what you want the company personality to be.
Policies:Overtime, vacation, sexual harassment, workplace safety and other policies need to be explained.
Operations: How do they operate the alarm, the lights, the point of sale system, their computer and so on? They also need to know how to restock the shelves, how to handle a complaint and other similar issues.
Expectations: To know what to do, new employees need to be taught what you expect of them.
But good training should go far beyond the first stages of employment. Ideally, it is an ongoing process. Continuous training has several benefits. It helps create a stronger, more business-savvy workforce. It engenders loyalty. It also creates a stronger “bench,” or a better pool of people to promote from within. Inc. Magazine puts it this way: “Make ‘train to retain’ your company mantra.”
Ongoing training can take many forms. The most popular types are additional computer skills, financial management, technical training for individual occupations and career-path training. And no, none of these should cost a fortune.
Properly training your staff and managers shouldn’t be boring either. People learn best when they are engaged. Accordingly, any small business that is looking to improve its training should consider more than lectures alone. For example, you might try:
•Shadowing: Sending people into action with already trained employees is a fast way to get someone up to speed.
•Videos: People recall what they see. Videotapes, therefore, can be an effective training method for employees and managers alike. They can teach people how to sell, how to open and close, how to spot and deal with potential theft, how to motivate and so on.
•Role-playing: Staff members can take turns pretending to be the thief, the reluctant customer or the irritated patron. You can then show them the proper way to handle these situations.
•The Internet: Online training is a booming business, and convenience and low cost are two reasons. Do a search and discover how many options there are.
•Review:Have staff contribute botched sales calls or success stories to the class to use as examples.
The bottom line is that your commitment to training and education can create good employees, retain old ones, help them provide better service, boost morale and yes, increase sales. All in all, it is a good idea.
