Article by Charles Black
When I was a young man, due to a relationship break up, I found myself without home and living in my car in the middle of an Alaskan winter. For 2 weeks, until I was able to get back on my feet, I stayed in a car. At times, I didn’t have heat because of lack of money for gas. While I was a hard worker, I realized at that time that I didn’t know enough about money and how to create wealth. I enrolled in University and took Accounting. I decided I needed to be around people who had businesses so I could learn from them. I got to know more business owners and successful professionals in different fields. This led me to the conclusion that these people had certain qualities. They worked hard, they cared about people, they were leaders and other people listened to them. I ended up taking many personal development classes, classes on finance and handling debt and becoming certified in ways to make money and get free of debt. I created my own business, and made tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of a few short months. I wanted to help others do the same, and so created my own company to help others learn the basic know-how needed to attain that same success. Here is one very important lesson I have learned that can save a company lost time and income which I would like to share with you.
Just as any individual has an index of health and wellness, so does any organization. If you are a business owner, CEO or senior executive in a corporation, you know the general well-being of the company is determined by the staff. If the Executives and staff are in harmony, if the staff know how to correctly do their jobs, the company will operate smoothly and be heathy. It’s a truism that you have to know to go. Thus, the importance of training staff. When a new staff member comes on-board, the most immediate problem that management attempts to solve is how to ensure they can retain their new staff member and get them performing and producing so as to contribute to the company’s success. Producing employees who know their jobs produce a healthy, growing company.
From experience, most companies don’t have a smooth transition of new employees into their new positions. Usually, it is all put on the Human Resources staff to on-board them. From there, they are either let loose and get ‘on-the-job ‘ training or placed with another staff member who is more experienced or a supervisor to take them under their wing. The result is sporadic successes. The well-being of the company can be decreased since all the time and effort to find, hire and begin training a new employee can be lost if the new hire decides to leave. If the new hire does stay, despite the bumps, their performance is determined by the knowledge their supervisor is imparting to them.
What is missing, which affects the overall health of any company, is getting in systems to train the staff. One major method that doesn’t require excessive funds is to write down all the points of how to do a certain position. Case in point, a receptionist position. If you have a great receptionist, consider yourself fortunate! And if you do, have the person write down how they do their job. From A to Z. This can be done by video as well. Start creating written or videoed hat training materials for all your staff.
So in the unfortunate case where you lose an employee, the next person hired can easily be familiarized with their new position using the existing training materials. With these, you won’t have to continuously train the same position every time you have a new hire. You’ll have a standard training system in place which will help your company operate smoothly.
By having staff more trained, it will help the administrative side of your company. Not all companies can allow a time of the day for staff training, due to workload equirements. However, when training is stressed, it always is an investment that yields returns to the company. Set aside a time for your staff to train. Either have them attend weekly staff training delivered by veteran staff on certain topics, or have them train individually, getting a more in-depth understanding of their job and how it fits in with the rest of the organization. The result will be more productive staff which means that the company’s well-being will become stable.
Most employees require 2 years of being on the job before they fully know it. What if that time could be lessened? I would dare to say that others knowing how to do their job well spills over to other areas of the company. The staff who know how to do their job well are often asked for direction by other staff. By all staff knowing their jobs well, it creates an environment of competency and stability that will help the company survive much longer.
Charles Black works with small to medium business to help them increase their scalability.He has been providing expertise in all facets and aspects of business for over 30 years, from financial planning to promotion and marketing, market research, competitor studies, surveys. His services include screening, hiring and evaluation of employees.
Charles Black, Founder and Senior Consultant