Three Simple Training Tips to Dramatically Boost Company Performance

Many companies view formalized training programs as a “nice to have”. They think it is important to create an attractive, engaging training program for new hires and that it might be good to have a focused course that teaches employees how to perform certain tasks or use certain pieces of company technology. Once those companies cover these bases by offering training in just a few areas, they begin to think that their training program is passable enough to turn new hires into competent employees. Then they turn the page and start to think about the other realities of doing business.

But what if those companies thought about employing training in a larger, more strategic way to improve performance in a wider range of business activities? For example, what if they stopped to consider that a $10,000 investment in a robust and comprehensive training program could net a 10% increase in the sales made by each salesperson, resulting in an additional $10 million in annual sales revenue? What if they stopped to consider  that a similar investment in training could result in a 10% increase in the accuracy of order filling, and would save $1 million a year?

In short, what if companies made the connection between training, performance and the bottom line?

What if your company did? In-depth training offers you the potential to dramatically increase profits and performance. Here are three tips to get that to happen for you.

Start with the End in Mind

Chances are you know where you would like to see improved performance or profits in your organization. But what would those improvements look like specifically? Would there be fewer defective products, better company reviews online, a 15% increase in the sales of one of your product lines?

Specific goals for improvement begin to emerge when you consider questions like these. They help you define the specific business challenges you need to address, set goals to overcome those challenges, and develop strategies and tactics to implement in order to achieve those goals. Once you have defined the issues and set goals to solve them, you can begin to determine if there is training you can provide to employees. Think about the key skills and competencies that they will need to contribute towards meeting these business goals.

Develop an Appropriate Curriculum

Once you’ve identified the key skills and competencies that you want your employees to develop or improve upon, you will need to develop a curriculum that outlines everything you want to teach to your employees. Your curriculum should be designed to teach people the skills they need to learn or improve in their specific role. However, developing an effective curriculum is a bit more complex than simply defining skills at random. The curriculum content should be relevant to the people in the roles who are performing the tasks and jobs that your training addresses. Also, training should be designed so that the skills learned by employees have a focused and specific impact on the business items where you are trying to “move the needle” and bring about change.

An appropriate curriculum is also about more than just a list of skills and behaviors. It should consider how those lessons will be delivered— by a live training presenter, on phones or tablets, enlivened with games and exercises, in short “chunks” or longer lessons, for example. Creating an effective curriculum means considering who your learners are, where they are, and how they would prefer to learn. When developing an effective training curriculum, it is always a good idea to consult with the people you are planning to train. This way, you can determine the best format and present the training curriculum so they feel like they had a hand in its creation and approach the training with higher levels of engagement when they begin.

Measure Results, then Tweak and Adjust Your Training Accordingly

At this point, you loop back to the decisions you made in the first step, when you started with the end in mind. The difference is that you are now going to develop ways to measure the change you have brought about through training.

You might decide to measure how much more each of your retail salespeople is selling on an average sale, whether fewer of your products are being returned, whether your rates of repeat business are improving, whether your online reviews are more positive, or other hard or soft metrics that tell you how effective your training has been. Determining these key performance indicators will allow you determine whether your training was effective at helping the organization meet its business goals, or if revisions to the program are needed to push the organization forward towards meeting its goals.

If you are measuring the impact of your training program, you can use quantified data to identify areas of the training program to tweak and modify to find ways to improve results. However, one thing is for certain - if you don’t treat your training program as an iterative process by measuring and adjusting your training program, then your training will never deliver the results it is capable of.

In Summary

When starting to develop a training program with the goal of improving the performance of the organization as a whole, it’s important to start with the end in mind by considering the impact you want this training to have on the organization. Then, develop an appropriate curriculum and measure results of the training to make adjustments as necessary. This is a simple, yet powerful, approach to improve company performance. The best part is you can use this approach to improve many company performance metrics that you may not have stopped to consider yet.

About the Author: 
Cordell Riley is a sought-after keynote speaker and the Owner and President of Tortal Training, a leading training development company he founded in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tortal uses strategic engagement methodologies and specializes in developing mobile training platforms for organizations with distributed workforces. A recognized training expert with extensive experience in the service, automotive and franchising sectors, Cordell has spent more than 20 years helping thousands of companies achieve outstanding success through training. For more information about Cordell Riley, please visit: www.Tortal.net

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