“Extreme training” is an investment in a company’s future competitive advantage in the markets in which you choose to build your brand. The U.S. Marines believe in it; and it has certainly built their brand, don’t you think?
Perhaps now is a good time to take another look at how you invest in keeping your team “mission ready.” As we do a fair bit of training and organizational development, I thought I would share some frequently asked questions.
How much should I invest in training?
From a dollar perspective, you should consider 3-to-4 percent of a person’s annual compensation. Your people deliver the results, based on their skill level, that fuel your profits. A company culture of continual improvement moves up expectations of peer performance and customer satisfaction.
Selling the client business value and justification of higher pricing is easier when your highly trained team raises the bar for your competitors.
Who and what positions should we focus our training investment on?
The short answer is, everyone. The long answer is, everyone. Training develops skills at performing critical work process tasks and roles. Technicians must work effectively and efficiently to complete projects on time, on budget and without
excuses. Your customers quickly analyze the competency of those frontline troops.
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Customer confidence equates to faster cash flow and referrals. This is where business owners often think the job is done; it is not. Your sales, operations, administration and frontline managers all deserve and need skill training to build a mission-ready team that can get the job done.
What type, format or methodology of training should I invest my hard earned cash into?
I recommend scenario-based skills development. The closer to the real-world challenges of a job, the better. With technology, this is somewhat straightforward, but with “soft” business skills not so much. The faster your team can apply new skills to everyday work, the better they will internalize skill sets.
How can I maximize my training investment across the entire organization?
Consider a phased and blended approach. Skill-based training is very different than developing critical problem solving. Problem solving and innovation require using communication, process improvement and adapting to changing customer and competition challenges. This is where scenario-based training kicks into gear and leverages both individual and team solutions. It also takes a longer runway to land this plane.
What returns can I expect?
First, talent retention is a big one. Replacing talent is expensive, time consuming and impacts productivity in a big way. A well-trained team retains, attracts and helps recruit talent. Who isn’t attracted to play for a winning team? Continual skill development should not be viewed as “training the competition” but rather the culture of the company.
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This means reexamining your company culture and vision. Extreme training, as defined by the U.S. Marines, is elevating training beyond your M.O.S. (military occupational specialty). Marines have a fundamental role of being competent riflemen because when the stuff hits the fan, you must be counted on to protect and defend your fellow Marines.
In the integration industry, this translates to excellent customer service. Simply stated, cross training with authority to act in real-time to deliver beyond customer’s expectations … consistently well.
How do you develop an extreme training culture?
Here are five steps that work time and again:
- Build individual awareness through assessments
- Create a culture of communication at all levels
- Develop a process to communicate, evaluate and eliminate problems
- Invite customer feedback beyond simple surveys
- Have everyone walk a mile in their teammate’s shoes
Build your training process to constantly improve on “scenario-based” collaboration. Engage your product suppliers in the process beyond conventional “show and tell” training sessions. You’ll improve your team’s competitive advantage, and your brand.
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Author Paul Boucherle, principal of Canfield, Ohio-based Matterhorn Consulting, is a contributor to CI sister publication Security Sales & Integration.
