TERRY McKENNA is principal and co-founder of Employee Performance Strategies, Inc. (EPS), based in Kure Beach, NC. EPS helps clients increase their competitive advantage and profitability through people. Terry provides keynotes and leadership seminars for businesses and associations. Contact information: (888) 788-9090,
perform@eps-i.com,
www.eps-i.com.
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[ THE PERSONNEL TOUCH ]
Train your managers to train
Store managers certainly have a lot of responsibilities these days, and they are increasing now that technology has cleared their plate of the mundane. Yet, despite all their responsibilities, perhaps the most important is the one they are least prepared to perform: training store employees.
Store promotions, marketing strategy implementation, customer service and suggestive selling, to name a few, are all key job responsibilities that we expect frontline store employees to flawlessly execute. But just how prepared are they to do so?
Telling is not training
When store managers have not been properly trained on how to train their employees, they default into the only method of training they know: they tell their employees what to do. Simply stated, telling is not training.
How successful do you think your 10-year-old son or daughter would be at hitting a baseball if your method of training was to sit them down at the kitchen table and provide them with an in-depth discussion of the science of hitting? I guess you can safely surmise what the result would be during their first at-bat. Their little head would be spinning trying to remember all the things you told them at the kitchen table: eyes on the pitcher, bat held high, knees slightly bent, weight evenly distributed, step into the ball with your front leg, rotate your hips toward the pitcher, back leg steady, swing level and follow through. Good luck, Johnny.
Needless to say, little Johnny would end up striking out, lose all confidence and want to quite playing baseball as a result. And yet, isn’t that how many of our store managers train their employees? Is it any wonder store employees lack confidence and perform below their potential?
Training methods
There are many training methods to employ and not a single one is the panacea for all your job performance challenges. Depending on your training objective, a blended approach is your best bet.
Typical training methods include the use of video/DVD/audio, workbooks, instructor-led classroom work, CBT, mentoring, WBT and skill practice/role playing.
When determining what training method to employ, take into consideration the following:
- How People Learn
3 percent through taste
3 percent through smell
6 percent through touch
13 percent through hearing
75 percent through sight
- People Will Remember
10 percent of what they read only
20 percent of what they hear only
30 percent of what they see only
50 percent of what they see and hear
70 percent of what they say
90 percent of what they say and do
- Learning Loss
42 percent after half-hour
56 percent after 1 hour
64 percent after 8 hours
75 percent after 1week
Seven-step learning model
Here’s a seven-step training process that your store managers can use when training their employees. The keys to success are twofold: patience and continuous follow-up.
- Trainer tells
- Trainer does and tells
- Student tells
- Trainer corrects and tells again, if necessary
- Student does and tells
- Trainer corrects and does again, if necessary
- Student does again.
Store managers primarily receive operational-based training, or hard skills, and very little, if any, human element-based training, or soft skills, which I like to refer to as core skills. If they don’t get this piece of the equation right, all the rest of the stuff really doesn’t matter, now does it? |
