Valerie Glynn, March 4, 2014
I know people who have been hired, then thrown into the job much like being tossed into the pool to learn to swim. I also know of people who have had the opportunity to be hired and trained in one of the larger, more sophisticated industries, those that depended on proper safety training to insure their success. They learned to swim much faster and fluidly with the latter.
Even 40 years ago, those companies were using daily training videos upon report to work. They knew that once you put it on video, you only had to film it once, and it was useful forever…a great “System”!
The emphasis is on “System”. Whatever system you can develop to make the training a repeatable process, the more likely it will happen. With the tools we have today, this should be fun and effective! Use a smart phone to video a process. Use a “How To” book that is on a shared drive to help your employees refer to a process and get it right, or update it if necessary. How to start????
Start with making a list of training issues:
The company mission/vision
Culture statement
Company Handbook
Individual position descriptions
Customer Service
Scripts for outgoing phone calls/incoming phone call
Sales
The list can be endless…ask me about my sticky note trick to create systems!
You could develop a video for each of these and have a requirement be that the new employee (or why not all employees?) come in 10 minutes early and watch the video prior to work. Shouldn’t training be ongoing? Imagine a workforce that enjoyed learning and felt important enough that you continually educated them to become the best they can be!
So, what about an incentive based upon the number of videos completed (with a simple test to make sure they watched it, not slept through it)?
Whatever you decide to incorporate as a system, it can always be improved, the employees will engage more effectively, and it could be the difference between you and your competition. Call Lighthouse Strategic Partners at 508-946-2655 to help you develop a training system.
