Training – An Investment in the Future
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Call Center Cafe brings you this article by Tony Jacowski on providing training to employees.
Investing in training for your employees and yourself can seem like a risky proposal. Training is expensive and there is often no immediate measurable benefit to the company. There are also many spurious training programs out there which have no certifications and can provide no clear objectives for their training.
Any time your employees spend in training is time away from their normal duties. In the end, only you will be able to determine what makes training worth pulling your staff from their duties.
First of all, if you want the training initiatives that you undertake as a company to have maximum impact on the business then you will need to do a little research before choosing a training course. The most important thing is to have a clear idea of what your goals and objectives are.
Think of these from both the business and the employee perspective. Knowing what the business needs and the employees desire in order to better do their jobs can help you to decide on the proper course that will marry the two objectives. Once you have decided on the type of training, you can research training methods and training companies according to your needs.
No training can be successful if it consists of an all day course in a nice hotel somewhere with no written course materials and no follow-up learning. You might as well just pay for your employees to have a free vacation day. In the meantime, nothing gets done back at the office and they have been fed well.
Intensive one day courses may be interesting to attend and participate in, but without follow up training and proper documentation, there is little chance the lessons learned will be remembered in the long run. Look instead for courses that offer incremental learning, great documentation, and adequate follow up.
What you want is for your employees to be able to immediately implement some of the techniques learned and then to gradually implement more and more techniques as their proficiency with the new methods are improved.
Choosing the training is only part of the battle, the biggest challenge by far is the implementing of the new techniques. Due to this, if you are hoping to make changes company-wide it is often wise to get the management fully trained and comfortable with the new system first.
By finding a certified training system, carefully rolling it out through your managers first, and empowering your employees to incrementally implement what they have learned your business will greatly benefit. The true benefit of training should last for years and inspire your employees to achieve more for your business.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions – Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.
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