As a leader in your business, you have experienced the value of an employee who has figured out how to be great at their job. What that means for you is, they take the tools they have been given and produce better outcomes than you could have expected. It is often faster and more efficient. They bring you new ideas, new solutions, and the thought of moving forward without employees like this is not a place you want to let your brain go.
Employees like these are wonderful. The problem is that in order to get one of them….they have to figure out how to be great at their job. They are not trained. They simply learn by trial and error and the unrelenting will to succeed. You know these employees are diamonds in the rough and you cannot expect to find people like this with every hire. You are not the only one looking for these diamonds. A Gallup report showed that only 32% of employees in the US are engaged in training by their employer. That means hundreds of thousands of business owners are not training their people for the future.
The best companies know that as well, and that is why they have developed trainings to help all their employees become great at their jobs. An ATD study showed that companies with well-trained employees have an average of 218% higher income per employee. They also average a 24% higher profit margin than companies who do not train. They have removed the guess work from their employees’ day and have given them a plan to execute. They have clarity on what they are trained on, and then they are equipped to deliver. Your people may not even understand WHAT they need to be doing, much less HOW to do it in the best possible way. The business owner without a training program will show people how to do things once very patiently, and then each time after that is with increasing impatience and frustration.
If poorly trained employees continue to be the norm at your business, you will never feel like you have stepped forward and begun to replace yourself. Every job will have to go through you for completion or review, since you are the only one who knows WHAT or HOW to do the job completely. Protecting and growing your business will only extend as far as your ability to be present.
What if your employees knew how to do their jobs so well, they began to innovate for your company? What if they had the time to brainstorm other ways to help you grow your business? What if you could trust your people to complete responsibilities without you having to be the final review? You do not have to be a huge company to have an effective training program.
Having well-trained employees starts with you. It is easy to create complex steps for every task. Effective training is simple, which takes time and effort to achieve. There is no better time to plan your next training than right now. Take the next 15-20 minutes and brainstorm on these questions so that you can schedule your next employee training. Here are 4 simple steps to making it happen:
1. Assign Ownership to the Training Session
Who will be leading it? One person goes on this project as the leader and they are held accountable to making it happen.
2. Establish One Purpose for the Session
If you could train your employees on one thing, what would it be? Multiple topics only confuse, so make a brainstorm list and pick the ONE most impactful thing.
3. Have an awesome 20-30 minute training
Your session needs to be interactive and direct. State ONE purpose, explain why it is important, present your content, ask questions, end it in 30 minutes or less.
4. Define the Next Step
Leave the members of the meeting with a clear action to take, include a handout with that action item printed on it. Do not leave it up to them to decide what they should do next. Give them measurables, step by step actions, and a follow-up date.
The FIRST step for you is simple and you can do it right now; take 10 minutes to brainstorm a list of items that your employees need to be trained on. Do not put limits, it can be a need for this week or next year. Then begin to use these 4 things to build your next employee training session. You will need to train and retrain on each topic. Your people will not get it after just one session. Your meetings will consistently improve each time, helping your employees get better. In time, you will feel the confidence that comes from growth in your people. No longer will you be limited by how many job sites you can be present at each day. Instead, you can empower your people to complete responsibilities. Invest your time now in preparing for training sessions. Your future self will thank you for all the time you saved to protect and grow your company.
