Training Is The Final Solution To Your Employee Problems

I hear it all the time:

• He is such a great employee. If only I had a dozen more like him.
• Here today, gone tomorrow. My employee pool is constantly changing.
• No one has the skills I need.
• No one wants to work anymore.
• My key employee is absent, productivity’s taking a dive.
• I cannot find good employees.

Most every employer I speak with utters one or more of these “epitaphs for failure” from time to time. Such beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies as the employer is saying that he will not accept the responsibility for resolving this problem effectively and forever, and thus allows his business to remain at the mercy of uninterested, uninvolved, disloyal, unproductive, short-term employees.

One thing we can all agree upon is that without loyal, skilled, highly productive and long-term employees, your potential success is severely limited. It’s not enough to have a great product or to provide a great service, or have loyal customers, you must also be supported by a great management team and and an effective workforce, therefore having a high quality workforce is fundamental to long-term profits.

So how do we bring these two opposite ends of the spectrum together? How do we attract a high quality, long-term management and employee group in the light of the poor pickings most employers complain about?

Create a loyal, long-term, highly motivated skilled workforce through training. Teach them how to become what you want them to be. Hire people with good attitudes, people who want a career, people who want to get ahead and train them to do the job you want them to do.

I remember when my son and daughter became old enough to learn how to ski and play baseball, softball, etc. I carefully instructed and trained them how to do it as best I could. Most of the other kids were left to figure it out by themselves. I then supported them with outside training and provided them with lots of practice opportunities. They got better and also learned the appropriate attitudes, philosophies and standards that come along with hard work and success in a sports environment. It worked very well, as they became very good athletes and very good team players. Their friends became sloppy athletes with bad habits, including a poor work ethic and lousy attitudes towards practice, low standards for excellence, limited commitment. Sound a little like your employee group?

It may sound either too easy or too much of an annoyance, however, it is a dream come true if you commit to such a program. Since the skills you require seldom show up on their own, what alterntive do you have other than to train, train and train some more? It’s your choice, but I have such a program and have initiated it dozens of times and it works extremely well.  “Profit Through Training” is what I call it. Create a better workforce by training them.

Let’s broaden the focus. Your employees can be trained to do their jobs more skillfully, to manage their time more effectively, to more effectively deal with customers and vendors, to better deal with problems and successes, to help them learn teamwork, communication skills, etc. Management can also be trained–extensively–in many management and business areas. Yes, it all takes time and effort, an investment and a degree of skill, but once designed and implemented, it supports long-term growth, development and success.

If you create an established career path for your employees, providing them with a long-term personal and business opportunity, training and development programs, you will never have to utter the the above excuses, accepting failure and inadequate or marginal performance at the hands of an untrained workforce. Train them to do the job you want for your business, reward them for success and your business will achieve goals beyond expectation.