Employee training

There would definitely be situations when you get disturbed at unsatisfactory functioning of people at your workplace, particularly when you make continual efforts to guide them.  Feelings of dissatisfaction and annoyance are natural if despite your pains, assigned tasks are not completed. Do you would ponder over how numerous efforts on your part have not yielded positive results? If you do, then it is time to consider the reasons for their failure.

There are basically two major causative factors for employees not being able to come up to your expectations. It is quite likely that they lack the requisite skills to do a job. It is also quite possible that they deliberately do not want to perform. Both these reasons need to be delved into.

If people lack the required know-how, it is evident that their skills need to be brushed up. They may not be lacking in motivation and want to complete all assigned tasks. But they do not know how to go about doing them. Under such circumstances, your intervention is necessitated; you must lead by example. You have to demonstrate to them the correct procedures and processes; and also stress upon the need to be methodical and adhere to standard operating procedures. Your own knowledge and comprehension of matters comes into play. You should share it with them and simultaneously display involvement as a person in charge. You should show them the way, even if it amounts to completing an assignment single-handedly; obviously you will have to educate them as you go along.

But if people simply do not want to work, an alteration of their attitude has to be brought about. This could be an intricate task. Statistics indicate that nine out of ten employees acquit themselves well with modest urging. However, one person may have to be pressed really hard; and he is the category that drives you to annoyance. Your irritation and disappointment manifests in some form of antagonism and anger. Such a manifestation could well prove to be loss – of the person concerned as also the charge of completing the assigned work. It is human nature to respond aggressively to any intimidation, particularly when job security and salary raises are concerned.

Whatever be the causative factor, you should not shy away from exhorting people working under you. There is one singular solution – training, more training and additional training. All training capsules have inherent components of inspiration, motivation and stimulus; and hence you get to take on dual executive responsibilities. If your employees undergo training programmes successively, their insight increases, enthusiasm levels rise and they display a tendency to perform in accordance with your directions. It is also likely that they also surpass your hopes.

Now let us see what you ought to do when an assignment is completed. You need to acknowledge the good work done and make it a point to thank every member of your team. This should be done openly and visibly; and applies to doing so for an individual as well. Remember that such actions on your part should not be done perfunctorily. You have to be really truthful and earnest in commending and extolling your staff.

Every work and workplace has demands of time and stresses of implementation. And hence team leaders and division heads will find themselves running a race against time; training will be seen as a difficult proposition. But it needs to be realized that employee training reduces the time normally taken to finish assigned tasks because consumption of valuable time spent on analyses of contributory factors leading to delays or non-accomplishment is obviated.

Training, therefore, is necessary and should be done. It results in saving time that is frittered away on your intervention, issue of instructions, instituting corrective actions and monitoring of progress. An organization is what its employees are and their ability to learn and translate that learning into action eventually leads to competitive advantage. 

Remember what Piet Hein, a Danish inventor and poet said, “Err and err and err again but less and less and less.” Therefore, training should be seen as not just the filling of a bucket but an ignition of a spark that will illuminate the workplace with better productivity.