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Training Room: Spring training starts now
1 Dec, 2006 By: Bill Hoopes Landscape ManagementPlease, please, please don't miss the golden training opportunity you have in December. Build overall team knowledge and skills now! If you want the best results from your human resources don't waste this time. People who continually gain knowledge and skill become more successful and terminate at a lower rate, train now.
In December many of us stop working, shaving and having intelligent thoughts. In doing so, we fail to use a key training period. We tell ourselves it's time to kick back, and there is plenty of time for learning in January. But is that really true?
Hey, what happened here?
Let me tell you about a company my former employer acquired a few years ago. They had a great reputation for quality and happy customers. It was all there — the smart veteran staff, low cancels, etc. It was the direct result of a carefully crafted culture of training and development. The company invested in its people, which was returned many times over.
There was so much training going on in the winter the place looked like a library. Team members attended seminars and were all certified above and beyond any legal requirements. And they were proud of what they had built.
Soon, I saw that emphasis in winter training deteriorate into a "do it if you have time" scenario. Not that we said, "Don't train;" we just didn't make it happen as before. And I saw the results: higher cancels, higher employee turnover and lots of walking bad attitudes.
Couldn't be helped, you say? After all, you've got to tighten up on expenses and max out the bottom line. But it doesn't work. If a company spends the vast majority of its HR money on pay and benefits alone, it loses in the long run. The way to grow profitably and professionally is by developing people.
People take jobs because they look good (pay and benefit-wise) from the outside. But people only keep jobs if they feel good once on-board. Maintaining positive feelings takes worker pride in self and accomplishment. That, in turn, requires training.
December training checklist
- Identify basic needs, topics and resources. PLANET can help its members in that regard. Extension services are a good source for information, too.
- Set aside a controlled, comfortable space for training.
- Appoint a knowledgeable person to lead training.
- Assign topics to key veterans who want to help.
- Have the trainer prepare a one-page topic outline of key points to be taught. Your outline contains only what you want people to know and understand now.
- Rehearse the presentation.
- Maximize visuals and minimize word documents.
- Mix training with work — two-hour sessions, maximum.
- Use a review quiz to confirm understanding.
— The author is founder of Grass Roots Training in Delaware, OH. Contact him at
hoopes@columbus.rr.com or visit
www.grassroots-training.com.
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