Training Programs: Thoughts on Getting Better Results
I want to spend a couple blogging entries on the subject of training employees, really because it’s a consistently “under worked” area of our businesses, particularly the smaller enterprises. But I’ll tell you, as much as you hardly ever look at training your employees as an obvious issue in your business, you should remember that your customers see the quality of your training programs every time they do business with your company. The way every employee handles their needs tells the client how well your training processes work. So that brings out the first suggestion I have for evaluating how well you are training your people: don’t survey your people, survey your customers. They’ll tell you the real story.
We frequently spend time away from the normal work of our employees surveying them, testing them, or whatever we may devise to find out how well they feel they can do their jobs. But think about it. With their jobs on the line, are they really going to tell you anything truly negative about their performance if they can help it? Not hardly. But if customers can be interviewed, and asked for feedback in such a way that they know the employee’s job is not threatened, they’ll dish for you. You'll get the good, the bad, and the aggravating about doing business with your company. It may take a little time to devise some methods to do this, and it may produce some uncomfortable moments for you with a client. But let me ask you, wouldn’t you rather have them giving you the challenging feedback while you can do something about it than have them dishing all their negatives to your competition after they’ve changed vendors?
As always, if you have any stories or questions to share, I’d love to hear them!
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