Staff training. A Very Good Idea.

If you’ve been following the series of articles about employing your next shining star, and making sure you do all the up-front stuff properly, you’ll be equipped with a go getting, enthusiastic bundle of joy awaiting your instruction and watching your every move. This is what you do with them next – teach them to be as good as, and then better than you!

A new member of staff is an opportunity to be in more than one place at a time. This person might be there to take calls or make appointments, or to actually go out into the big wide world of technophobes and spread the happy word that all can be fixed. Either way, you need to make sure that they know what they are doing, and make you look good. My Dad (who had a computer shop) has a saying. It goes like this ‘If something goes well, then I had something to do with it. If it goes wrong, it was nothing to do with me!’ He’s a very big character, and gets away with this due to that. But you won’t. If something goes wrong, in your company, due to your employee, it’s your fault. However, if it goes right, it’s their achievement. Welcome to management!

1. Make it as easy as possible for them to do well by training them properly. If you see yourself as more of a teacher than a manager, and you make your job ‘giving them the tools to do their job’, you’re half way there.

2. Make sure you let your employee know why they are doing things in a certain way if it’s important. The world is full of people who don’t know why they are doing what they are doing, which makes it easier for them to stop doing it. After all, there aren’t many people who unquestioningly follow instructions for long (and I bet you didn’t put that on the list of interview questions because it would mean you were employing a drone!). So let them know.

3. Tell your employee what you are going to tell them. Then tell them it. Then tell them what you told them. Simple and straightforward rules of demonstrations or basic teaching. If they don’t understand, say it or show it in a different way.

4. Go over stuff again and again. Let them practise too. Practise makes perfect. It’s a fact.

5. Check they understand. Ask for a demonstration and give some feedback, or ask questions in a different way. Parrots are cute and sound good, but their problem solving skills are lacking. Bear that in mind.

6. Build up the training, over a period of time. Show them how it fits together, and demonstrate where training you are giving links to other training or skills they have.

7. Set targets for improvement. Make sure they are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) and if they aren’t met, do something about it.

8. Offer praise and feedback when they do well. This can help people to strive to do even better.

9. Practice what you preach. If you say ‘do this in a certain way’ or ‘be on time’ then you do it too.

10. Be consistent. You have a responsibility to apply standards consistently, fairly and to all the people you employ.