Business Management

Supervisors certainly have a lot of responsibilities these days, and 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 take on: training employees.
Promotions, marketing strategy implementation, and customer service to name a few, are all key job responsibilities that we expect supervisors to flawlessly execute. But just how prepared are they to do so? This is where training comes into play.
Management fully expects supervisors to properly train their employees to consistently perform at a high-level. But in many cases management fails to properly train their supervisors on how to successfully train their employees. So when employee job-performance is below expectations, whose really at fault?
Telling Is Not Training: When supervisors 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 on 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! Odds are good that little Johnny would end up striking out, lose all confidence, and may want to quite playing baseball as a result.
And yet isn’t that how many supervisors train their employees? Is it any wonder why employees lack the confidence and perform below their potential? Supervisors primarily receive operational-based training: hard skills, and very little if any human capital optimization based training: soft skills; which is commonly referred to as core skills, since if they don’t get the core skills down pat all the rest of the stuff really doesn’t matter now does it?
Training Methods:There are many training methods to employ and not a single one is the panacea for all your training challenges. Depending on your training objective, a blended approach is your best bet.
Typical Training Methods:Video/DVD/AudioWorkbooksInstructor-led classroomCBTMentoringWBTSkill Practice (role plays)
When determining what training method to employ, take into consideration the following:
How People Learn:3% through taste3% through smell6% through touch13% through hearing75% through sight
Retention: People Will Remember:10% of what they read only20% of what they hear only30% of what they see only50% of what they see and hear70% of what they say90% of what they say and do
Learning Loss:42% after ½-hour56% after 1-hour64% after 8-hours75% after 1-week
7-Step Adult Learning Model:Here’s a simple and straightforward 7-step training process that your supervisors can use when training their employees. I’m sure many of your supervisors are already utilizing this approach under the training banner of “On The Job Training" (OJT).
The keys to success are twofold: 1) patience and, 2) continuous follow-up.
Trainer tellsTrainer does and tellsStudent tellsTrainer corrects and tells again if necessaryStudent does and tellsTrainer corrects and does again if necessaryStudent does again.