Many of you already participating on the new social media platform Clubhouse are discussing the importance of staff training.
Common questions are forming around staff training on this app through various threads:
- How often?
- What is the best way?
- Why is it not consistent?
Often companies choose between cost versus results, and results must be fast.
In every business, mine included, leaders analyze and wonder how an investment in education for their employees impacts the bottom line. They debate internally with top staff if the expected improvement to performance outweighs any up-front cost.
We have all heard the quote:
What if I spend money on training my team, but they leave?
But
What if I don’t and they stay?
The Comfortability Factor
If there is not a constant stream of new education or a consistent flow of training injected into a business for their employees, the comfortability factor begins to take hold. A lack of education or training does not allow current skills to remain sharp. Even the greatest athletes train continuously to keep skills sharp.
If we keep repeating the same training over and over, human nature allows us to convince ourselves that we are in control and can “skip this training” occasionally, or even for longer periods of time. The reality is that our confidence in current skill sets allow us to feel we can produce results when called upon.
Comfortability leads to lack of preparedness and performance drops.
At first, this will not be drastic, and can even be explained as “having a bad day” or week. We can blame outside forces, not ourselves for this underperformance., Overtime though, comfort makes everyone rusty, and it is not easy to bounce back when our skills are no longer sharp. Soon performance turns static, but at a lower performance level.
The Competition Factor
The second aspect often missed is the Competition Factor. Do you know what your competition is doing in terms of consistent training and education? If they are investing in skills training or education, one would expect their performance to improve. This now leads to a situation where your standard of performance is no longer acceptable in the marketplace.
You may not recognize the shift, or other excuses arise for your competition’s slight increase, which then supports your decision for inactivity. One must understand inaction can be just as costly as investing upfront for education.
Imagine that you have come to accept your company’s performance is now below your competition in the marketplace. Panic can begin to set in. Leadership rushes to implement training or education that more than likely will be even costlier, not including the time lost that you can’t get back.
Also, increased costs to get trainers on short notice, taking productivity down for longer periods to jam in education creates an overall feeling of stress due to new levels of performance demands.
Long term change does not work well under duress.
It’s important to remember there is no shortcut to bringing rusty, comfortable employees back to high, efficient performance. It is always easier to raise the performance of someone who practices and learns constantly.
Consistency Wins. Always.
There are so many opportunities for training, whether live or online, there is simply no excuse for not investing in the education of your team consistently. A good way to think about this type of investment is to look at the cost versus the budget this training will impact.
For example, if the cost of an education program for your sales or marketing team was less than 2% of your marketing budget, not including salaries, would you think spending 2% to increase the performance of the 98% was worth it?
I think so!
On the other hand, saving 2% by not investing in your team will negatively impact the 98% over time. Do you think this approach is acceptable for long-term success?
Many of us played sports growing up. We all had coaches who were out on the field with us, watching, giving feedback, training, and pushing for our best. If business leaders are not finding this parallel for their team, they will never achieve the desired results, or get their team to want to perform for them.
How training and technology can improve the performance of your team should be viewed as an investment, not a cost.
The days of yelling a team into success are over. As they should be. If you take into consideration these factors it will help you build a process to achieve consistent improvement.
It is time to get out from behind the desk and invest time every day to coach. The “cost”, invested wisely, will generate massive results.
If you found this helpful please share and don’t hesitate to reach out to me personally if you need help implementing these strategies.
Looking to learn more? Join us for a one-day learning event,
Modern Retailing, Simplified this March.
Glenn Pasch
