Sure, We Train Employees (wink, wink)

by Kelly Riggs

How well does your company train employees?

Be warned: Companies often say they train their people, but they really don’t. In fact, after just a little bit of digging, most will readily admit they don’t provide adequate training at all. Maybe just enough to be able to say they provide training, but eventually most will reconsider and admit they fail to provide systematic training and development. When this happens, companies should realize that they have made a mistake and push to rectify it. There are a lot of ways that they can sort out training for their employees, and most of them are pretty easy. For example, a company could hire a PEO company and they can deal with training the employees instead. There are loads of different PEO companies out there (just check out this list here on retire at 21 PEO companies). So really they have no excuse.

They mean to. They want to. But they don’t.

The excuses are as predictable as a Cleveland Browns loss:

• We don’t have time
• We don’t have the budget
• We can’t afford to take people away from their work
• We’re going to start training next year
• My favorite: Training doesn’t really work because employees don’t change (blame the employee – fantastic leadership)

What about your company? As a leader, you have absolutely no excuses; you either choose to train your employees or you don’t. But most don’t. In fact, the odds that your company is adequately training and developing people is somewhere near zero. Some employers are worried that if they invest in training their employees, they could take those skills and start their own competitor company. The best way to avoid this happening is to include a non-compete agreement in your contracts of employment, but there is some disagreement over whether or not these are legally binding. Find out whether or not a non-compete agreement can be enforced, because that way you can add endless value to your team without worrying that they will use it against you.

The problem is that a failure to train your employees – really train them, not just hand them a manual, or expect them to get up to speed on their own – lies on the border somewhere between insanity and blatant stupidity. After all, don’t trained employees do better work? Don’t trained managers lead more effectively? Isn’t training a critical part of employee engagement? (Spoiler Alert: YES.)

All of that being said, let me throw you a lifeline. I know you mean well. Many managers (and executives and business owners) readily admit they want to spend more time training, and most of them really mean it. They just can’t seem to get started.

The challenge they face is a myriad of daily distractions. And, to compound the problem, they don’t have a detailed training plan in place. The problem is they are just crushed, dealing with one crisis after another. Otherwise, they would have a solid program in place.

But this where the insanity comes in. How will things ever change if you don’t do something differently? After all, the penalty is pretty severe. Think about the predictable results of little or no training and development for your employees:

• Employees lack expertise and fail to develop advanced skills
• The company fails to capture critical knowledge and pass it down
• Employee performance is lackluster
• Leaders lose valuable time fixing avoidable problems or redoing things
• Employees get frustrated with the lack of development (a key motivator), and eventually grow resentful
• The company does not create any expectations for personal development (why would employees care to develop if the company doesn’t care?)

The downside is predictable and the upside – if it’s done right – is substantial. And yet, the vast majority of companies are flat out terrible when it comes to training employees. Even when they do train, it’s half-hearted, poorly thought out, and largely ineffective.

Sound familiar?

A Functionary Instead of a Functional Employee

Kelly Gallagher is visually impaired. To put a fine point on it, that’s a very positive spin on her condition. According to her, she “can see only a blur of whiteness when she stands at the top of a mountain, and depends on a guide to be her eyes.” Not quite blind, but not really seeing much of anything.

If you’re wondering why she would be at the top of a mountain seeing a “blur of whiteness,” it’s because she is an accomplished skier. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. She is actually a gold medal Olympian. She won gold at the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games in the visually impaired Women’s Super-G competition.

Since she cannot actually distinguish the course, she skis with a coach. Skiing together, at speeds that typically hit 60 mph, her coach communicates with her via a Bluetooth headset. [Note: This might be the time to quit complaining about that minor inconvenience and suck it up, Cupcake.] Can you even imagine plummeting downhill, whipping around flag poles left and right, and finishing with a time only a few seconds slower than an Olympic competitor with perfect vision – when you can’t see anything??

How is that even possible?

I’m sure you know. It entails hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of coaching and training. However, it’s not just any kind of coaching or training; it’s the kind of training that has Gallagher mirror her coach in every phase of skiing. It is the sports equivalent of “job shadowing” or “mentoring.” But, quite clearly, that training is not a one-time event; instead, it’s an ongoing process that is consistently measured and evaluated, whether it be by mentoring new managers or mentoring the whole company. The results are amazing.

Think for a moment about that type of training – mirroring the actions of someone else over and over, while constantly communicating – and compare it to your employee on-boarding process.

The objective of an effective on-boarding process is to prepare an employee to hit the ground running. Done well, it also creates the expectation that training is a cultural norm and employees are evaluated, in part, on personal growth and development.

The problem with most on-boarding attempts is that they are woefully inadequate, and despite any good intention, typically only hit the highlights: a review of the position’s job description, an introduction to corporate policy and procedure, a primer on paperwork and workflow, and (if you’re really lucky), a visit from I.T. to review software applications.

One time. All at once. Oh, there is often a hearty “Good Luck!” thrown in as you plunge into the unknown.

Unfortunately, this type of on-boarding serves only to create a functionary, not a functional employee.

“For most of us, being described as a functionary wouldn’t be a compliment. The word refers especially to a person of lower rank, with little or no authority, who must carry out someone else’s orders. Bureaucrat is often a synonym.”
[From the definition of “functionary” by Merriam-Webster Online.]

This type of training doesn’t focus on what’s really important. What about the company’s vision? How about corporate values or cultural norms? I’m betting big money you (the owner or executive or manager) can’t even say what your corporate values are without looking at the plaque on the wall (assuming you even have any). What good are they if you don’t use them?

In an effective on-boarding process, those values create boundaries that make leadership much easier. You should teach those values, and reinforce them consistently.

But, more importantly, what skills and processes must employees master? What is the time frame in which you expect them to be learned? What does the training schedule look like to create that mastery? How will you ensure they have mastered those critical skills and processes?

Let’s face it, the real reason that companies fail to train their people is they don’t have a plan for training. There is not a detailed on-boarding plan with a schedule and mandatory testing. There is not a short-term or long-term plan for skills development. There is not a coaching or mentoring plan in place.

The path to an effective on-boarding plan is simple:

1. Identify the critical skills necessary to excel in the position
2. Identify the critical outcomes the position must produce (with established metrics)
3. Identify the employee’s gaps in those skills
4. Schedule consistent training in all relevant skills, to be completed within the first 30 days
5. Test those skills at weekly intervals or, at minimum, at the end of the training
6. Provide feedback in the form of metrics and observation
7. Provide job shadowing or mentoring for the next 30 days to ensure acclimation to the job

Get people started right. The impact on both performance and culture will be amazing.

You might even decide to go to the next level and implement a full-blown training and development program.

(Wink, wink.)