Last week I blogged about hiring practices, and hinted at another topic…Training.
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 largest, worldwide airline industries in history.
They learned to swim much faster and fluidly with the latter.
Even 40 years ago, this institution that was Pan Am, was using daily videos upon report to the assignment. They knew that once you put it on video, you only had to film it once, and it was useful forever…until the great airline went belly up, which had nothing to do with its training methods, by the way.
The emphasis is on “System”. Whatever system you can develop to make the training a repeatable process with as little effort as possible, 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.
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 calls
Sales
Etc, etc, the list can be endless
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.
