When you have a large amount of staff to train it can often seem an enormous and uphill struggle. Many retailers today have a dedicated ‘Training Program’ that staff go through in their first 13 weeks of Induction, to support and aid them in this task. So it would seem that this should easily deliver an effective and competent team with great selling skills?
Sadly, this doesn’t always seem to be the case and it made me start to think about why not?
Having worked for many retailers – all with highly comprehensive training programs - it seemed to me; that what you saw the team doing on the sales floor didn’t always match the level of training that the in store Management team felt (or told you) had been given.
As an Area Manager, it was often part of my role to go through stores ‘Induction & Training Workbooks’ and review what level the individual staff members had reached. I would often, initially, be pleased with the level of ‘training’ that seemed to have been presented. Crucially this would differ vastly from my experience whilst out on the sales floor.
The best way of really finding out the skills set of anyone in your team tends to be the old fashioned way – and by that – I mean to actually have a one-to-one conversation or to observe their behaviours whilst working.
I remember reviewing the effectiveness of a companywide training program that had been rolled out to the entire business. In order to ensure that every single member of staff within the whole business had received this training, there was a form at the back for the management team to get their teams to sign and date when their training had been received. Pleased that the Manager at one of my largest stores had implemented this very quickly, I eagerly went onto the shop floor to see the new ‘scheme’ in action. It was quickly apparent that either the quality of the training had been compromised or, even more worryingly, had not happened at all.
When I began to probe deeper and started to question the team around their view on this new initiative, I found that my initial suspicion had been correct. The majority of the team had been rushed through this, with no time to really understand the key messages. Worse still, I soon discovered that several of the staff from that store had not even attended the session, but had signed the piece of paper that their ‘Manager’ had popped in front of them.
This brings me back to the ‘Tick Box Trainer’. Many Managers view training programs as a ‘chore’ or something that needs to be done to keep the Training Department or company happy. I believe they are doing themselves, their teams and their stores a disservice!
With today’s ever discerning customer having much higher expectations of service in an increasingly competitive market, the levels of service that you and your teams can deliver can be the deciding factor in a purchase. Customers are talking (and walking) with their feet and are simply no longer prepared to purchase if they feel the service is not there.
Training your team – and by that I mean, really giving them skills, confidence and knowledge – is the only way you can really deliver a serious service proposition and have any chance of also retaining your staff.
Rushing through Workbooks and deciding that your staff members have ‘passed’ a level of competence, when they obviously haven’t, is compromising your business at every level.
Slashed staffing budgets and ever increasing tasks make training and development more and more challenging. Experienced Managers will use a combination of utilising other team members and prioritising training, mixed with sales floor training to ensure that their team fulfil their potential and are able to ‘serve’ their customers in every way.
But remember - If you become a ‘Tick Box Trainer’ – no one is a winner!
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