Making training and development live
Training and development – getting the most from your investment
Forward thinking organisations recognise that investing in training for their teams makes sound sense, but are sometimes disappointed when they do not see immediate change upon return to the workplace.
Actions that can be carried out internally to make the difference
The following are some hints and tips to help make sure that all people involved start and finish the training process feeling positive and that the work put in has been worthwhile.
1. Be clear of what you want the outcome to be before trying to sell the development to your staff member. (Painting the picture).
You will need to be able to explain why the training has been put in place (especially with a programme that is going across the whole organisation) and what the organisation is hoping to achieve by rolling it out.
People will understandably be looking at the costs involved and also the effects on their work levels and customers whilst they are out of the workplace.
Other people genuinely get nervous about going on training courses – especially if they think that role play or presentation work is involved!
2. Help people to see how this development fits into the overall organisational picture and business plan, goals and objectives.
It is very important that any training and development dovetails the organisational bigger picture and also personal development plans and objectives.
3. Recognise that when soft skill training is being provided (especially in a compulsory situation) that people often feel that this is an attack on their personality and can be defensive.
We often come across situations where delegates are unsure of why they are on a course and also feel insulted when they genuinely feel that they offer excellent customer service and this hasn’t been recognised by their managers.
We try to counter this by:
(i) Understanding the background and rationale for the training ourselves and being able to explain it to delegates
(ii) Helping people to see that it isn’t personal and that this is to support them in delivery of their service
– customer expectations are rising all the time and it is not an easy job!
(iii) An opportunity to share best practice
(iv) Encouraging delegates to reflect on the customer service that they provide
– breaking down the whole process and putting it back together again (in a similar way to sports coaching).
4. A bit of time spent individually with a delegate before and after they attend a course goes a long way.
This helps them to understand what you expect of them as an individual and helps them to reflect on what they would like to get out of attending the programme.
By carrying out the same process after the training has happened, people feel supported and also that there is a reason to change/carry out promised actions.
A pre and post course pro-forma is provided on this website to give you an idea of what other organisations use.
5. Try not to isolate people
If only one or two people from a team go on a programme that is rolled out across an organisation they are bound to ask why they have been singled out. A rolling programme across the whole team, department or division where everyone attends at some point will help the cause and also enable teams to continue working together on some of the ideas once the training course has taken place.
6. Ideas to keep topic areas alive after the event
(i) Team session to pull together ideas and agree objectives as a group (as well as on an individual level).
(ii) Agreeing how you will know when you have achieved these objectives – what will be different?
(iii) Having a regular session at team meetings
(iv) Obtaining best practice and continuing to learn from other similar services in other organisations
(v) Building into 1-1s
(vi) Growing a coaching culture or incorporating into existing coaching strategy
(vii) Setting up project groups to work on various trends
Embedding training and development divisionally – taking it to the next level
It is important to be realistic about what a one-day programme can actually achieve with any individual. Anything involving culture change needs constant evolution over a medium-long term period – habits take a long time to ingrain.
Further training and development over and above this very broad workshop will obviously depend on ambition, resource and budget.
The following are ways that some of the organisations that we have worked with have taken a broad customer care course down to a more relevant and workable level with teams.
1. Training need analysis (customer service skills)
Most teams have a real mix of maturity and experience and individuals do get frustrated with programmes that are aimed at broad groups of services as they can struggle to see the relevance to their own work area. By carrying out a TNA with each individual (paper based), and then designing training for the team from this, more buy in is generally achieved.
2. Running specific and specialist training courses (often following the above work)
This varies from organisation to organisation but some of the programmes we have run in the past include:
Dealing with difficult and demanding customer situations
Managing and coaching customer service excellence within a team
Handling complaints
Pure coaching
Communication skills
Process improvement
Assertiveness
Personal effectiveness
And of course all the programmes detailed on the Inspiring People website in-house and through our Academy.
3. Team work – follow up session
Once all members of a team have attended the broad programme, we have worked with the team and facilitated ½ or full day workshops to help them to move actions forward. During a full day we have used a gap analysis tool that we developed to establish the “as is” situation and encourage group discussion.
4. Team work – ongoing work
Working with the team over a 6-12 month period to build an action plan of improvement and to work through those actions.
5. Customer consultation
Including mystery shopping; focus groups; customer satisfaction measurement etc.
6. Working towards externally recognised awards/quality measures
Including Charter mark; IIP; Institute of Customer Service awards; annual service awards sponsored by different organisations.
However, you choose to move your customer service culture forward – good luck!