Who's responsible for training anyway!?

Hi! Welcome back.  Today I’d like to review and critique an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on October 24, 2011 by Peter Cappelli entitled “Why companies aren’t getting the employees they need.”  The author included several statistics about the current state of the economy and what employer’s perceptions of the job market are.  “Even with unemployment hovering around 9%, companies are grousing that they can’t find skilled workers, and filling a job can take months of hunting.” Cappelli states.  He goes on to state that “the real culprits are the employers themselves”, which I agree with but have a different set of possible solutions to the problem.

Cappelli further states that “With an abundance of workers to choose from, employers are demanding more of job candidates that ever before.  (Possibly because it’s a buyer’s market my words not his).  They (employers) want prospective workers to be able to fill a role right away, without any training or ramp-up time.”  “Employers need to drop the idea of finding perfect candidates and look for people who could do the job with a bit of training and practice.”  “Unfortunately, American companies don’t seem to do training anymore.”   “Data is hard to come by, but apprenticeship programs have largely disappeared, along with management-training programs.”  “The amount of training that the average new hire gets in the first year or so could be measured in hours and counted on the fingers of one hand.”    As a workplace professional I couldn’t agree more with Peter Cappelli’s assessment of the current job market and employers attitudes towards it.  However Cappelli ‘s list of solutions to this problem is in my opinion incomplete and I’ll offer my own thoughts on the subject later first Cappelli’s.

Cappelli offers three solutions in which employers can get the skills they need without having to invest a lot of upfront training.

1.       Work with education providers-if the job candidates don’t have the skills you need, make them go to school before you hire them.  Sounds logical but don’t we have an abundance of college educated employees sitting on the sidelines waiting to get in the game now?

2.       Bring back apprenticeships- pay employees less while they master their craft or lengthen the probationary period-with lower pay- until employees get up to speed on job requirements.  A good idea and to some extent we see that now with the use of temporary workers who begin as a temporary employee and don’t get an offer of full-time employment until they show that they can do what the employer requires.  However apprenticeships are not easy to establish and maintain it takes someone to administer the program, train the mentors and communicate with the protégé’s etc.  This is very difficult to accomplish in our current cost conscious, short term corporate culture.

3.       Promote from within- employees have useful knowledge that no outsider could have and should make great candidates for filling jobs higher up, I agree!  These days many companies simply don’t believe their own workers have the necessary skills to take on new roles.  That’s a little like telling me the Green Bay Packers can’t run the football.  The Packers have the personnel to run the ball both in the backfield and offensive line but for some reason they choose not to.  If you want a running game in football you have to hand the ball to somebody and allow them to run.  If you want an educated workforce in your company, what do you think you have to do?  That’s right you have to educate them!

Employers for too long have bemoaned the current state of our educational system as a major reason why they can’t get and keep good employees.  Whose responsibility is it to make sure employees are up to speed with the latest skills and expertise needed on-the-job?  Whose gets the benefits of an employee’s labor as they work individually and collectively for a company?  The education system? No! The employer reaps the benefits and it is the employer who must take some responsibility in training and re-training their employees. 

To relinquish responsibility in the development of employees is like the Green Bay Packers asking the University of California-Berkeley to train Aaron Rodgers in the complexities of the Packer’s offense even before he joined the team and then bemoan the fact that they (the Packers) aren’t finding good professional quarterback material while he was learning the quarterback position in Green Bay because the colleges aren’t producing anybody.  That is insanity!  Nobody who follows team sports in general or football in particular would accept or even state this position but that’s what I hear every week while listening or watching business programs on the current state of the economy and job market.

Every company has talented people on staff that they can employ to impart useful knowledge to new and inexperienced employees but most don’t because either they don’t take the time to value the skill of training people or they don’t know how to train their new employees using their existing staff.  In 1975, Bowling Green State University in Ohio conducted a landmark study entitled the “Industrial Training Research Project”.  They studied the effects of structured vs. unstructured On-the-Job Training (OJT).  The first group used traditional unstructured OJT or the “Buddy” system.  The first worker was trained by the supervisor, and then each person trained the next person to do the job.  The second group was trained by the supervisor using a structured OJT program.  The results were astounding!

 The second group (The Structured OJT Program) reached a predetermined level of skill and productivity 75% faster than workers using the unstructured “buddy” system.  In addition, those trained using the structured OJT approach produced 76% fewer rejects, and their troubleshooting ability was increased by 130%.

In addition, morale, productivity, and professionalism normally are higher in organizations that employ a sound On-the- Job Training program. Did you know that according to Carnevale and Gainer (1989) The Learning Enterprise, ASTD that:

• 80-90 percent of an employee’s job knowledge and skills will probably be learned through OJT.

• Organizations will spend 3 times (3X) more per employee for OJT than for off-the-job training, even if there is no designated budget item for OJT.

• Up to 1/3 of an employee’s first-year salary is devoted to OJT costs.

 How does your company impart knowledge within the firm from experienced workers to less experienced workers?  Do you know the difference between a structured and unstructured On-the-Job Training program?  Want to know more about the benefits of a structured On-the-Job Training (OJT) program?  Well that will be subject of my next post, until then thanks for reading and all my best!  Jer.

Time Management: Are You Kidding Me?

Okay, so many of you are either dealing with traffic, waiting in line at the store purchasing your last minute Christmas gifts, or just generally stressed out over the holidays and our current economic malaise.  Perhaps now isn't the right time to discuss time management but let's face it is there ever a good time to broach the subject?  I don't live under a rock (although my friends who follow the Chicago Bears might dispute that) so I know that the last thing your thinking about now as you scurry around to get things done this week is time management; but hear me out, highlight this information, when things do finally settle down for you there just might be some tips here that you can use down the road.

There is never enough time to do all the things we want and need to do.  We must choose between competing demands on our time.  The choices we make reflect the fact that we are ultimately responsible for how we spend our time.  Some small tasks do not need to be completed to perfection, and others do not need to be completed at all.  Learn to recognize tasks you are spending too much time on.  You maybe spending too much time for too few results.

The most common problem with managing time is having too much to do, duh!.  Before you can begin to manage time more efficiently, you must recognize “time-wasters”.  Once these time-wasters have been identified, you must either minimize or eliminate them.  Listed below are some common time-wasters.

            Confused goals and objectives                            Procrastination

            Failure to listen                                                   Visitors without “official” business

            Inability to say “NO!”                                         Not well organized

            Meetings without goals                                        Misplaced items

            Attempting to do too much                                  Interruptions

            Unnecessary correspondence                              Waiting for referrals

            Using the telephone for social reasons                  Messy desk

Here are some tips on managing time more efficiently:

            1. Set priorities for tomorrow’s work.  At some time each day, take a few minutes to make a

                list of important tasks for the next day and prioritize them.

            2. Start with your most important task for the day and work your way down to the small ones. 

                Don’t start with the small ones and work your way up.  You may never get there.

            3. Divide tasks that are “impossible” to accomplish into smaller subtasks and finish them one

                at a time.

            4. Learn to delegate when appropriate.  Most of us believe “If you want something done right,

                you have to do it yourself”.  This approach does nothing for staff development however. 

                Explain fully what you want done and have someone else, when appropriate, do it.  This will

                not only save you time, but build confidence in the other person, if done properly.  If what

                you delegate was not done correctly, explain what went wrong and have the person try

                again.

            5. Read correspondence and memos when they come in and take appropriate action.  Strive

                to handle a piece of paper only once. 

            6. Try to eliminate unnecessary reports by keeping your supervisor abreast of what you are

                 doing.

            7. Establish a format for recurring reports.  Memos for travel reports, inspection reports, staff

                Meetings and so forth, all lend themselves to a standard format.

            8. Use the telephone when it can be reasonably substituted for written correspondence or a

                personal visit.

            9. Smaller, less important tasks can be saved for when you have a few minutes of slack time,

                before a meeting or appointment, or enroute to another location.

            10. “But, we’ve always done it this way” syndrome.  Some tasks may be accomplished just as

                  efficiently in less time by taking a new or different approach.  Analyze recurring tasks to

                  determine if this applies.

            11. Keep note cards in your pocket of important items.  This is not high school; you can have

                  notes to supplement your memory.

            12. Pass the torch!  How many tasks are you now working on that really should have been

                  done by someone else?

            13. Develop “Prime Time” for tasks.  Identify your most productive time of day-early morning,

                  late afternoon, or whenever-and attempt to use those times for your most demanding

                  tasks.

I hope you find something in here that you can use.  Do you have another tip on time management that works for you?  If so, please share it and thanks for reading my blog.  Until next time all my best, Jer.

Customer Service is Dead!!!, Redux 2011

Several years ago when I was going to Toastmaster International meetings to improve my public speaking one of the speeches I did was on the topic of Customer Service.  I entitled that speech “Customer Service is Dead” after a particularly bad experience I had shopping for furniture in Madison, WI; I would like to revisit the topic today.

Back in the late 1980’s while I was living in Madison, WI I went shopping for some new living room furniture to showcase my new apartment.   There was a furniture store south of the Capitol square that featured many different styles of furniture including many contemporary urban styles that caught my eye.  At the time I was a young business professional looking to set the “right” tone for my apartment one that befit an up and coming young supervisor.

Like anything that costs over several hundred dollars I set out to do my research and found just the right living room furniture for my place.  I was ready to make the purchase and drove downtown in anticipation of purchasing my new furniture but found much to my chagrin that I was doing all the salesperson’s work!  I drove the sale, setup the delivery time and was about to write the check when the clerk said that there would be an additional cost involved in completing the sale.  I was shocked and upset because at no time did anybody at the store mention these additional costs or do anything to justify them.  In anger I left the store and never returned to purchase my “prime” living room furniture.

This situation or some variation of it has happened to me many times since that Saturday so long along.  Recently, as part of my efforts to start my business Yurway Coaching Consultants I made the decision to upgrade my Internet service to fiber optic cable and my nightmare with what passes for customer service in the US today was revisited here’s what happened.

I had consulted with a friend who is a computer network specialist and he recommended a local TV and Internet service provider, since I already had my DSL service and phone with them and thought it would make sense to upgrade my service and receive the computing horsepower to start my own business at home.  I went online and ordered my new upgrade which they said could be done by myself with no service technician present.  The installation date was set and the company was to send my new gateway, a piece of computer equipment necessary to access the Internet from my home before the installation date.  Two days before the scheduled installation date I received an automated phone call from the Internet service provider reminding me of the installation date and just before their recorded message ended they said that if there was a problem with the installation to press this number.  So I press the number and was connected to a service representative who asked several basic questions that they should have known and had in their database.  After getting off the couch and walking downstairs to my basement office to get my account information the rep said that they would have to send a service tech to my location to do the installation because I was a new customer, I said fine and we schedule a time for the tech to stop by and do the installation.

When the installation date came the tech arrived and got my new Internet and phone service established and I was thrilled to have a faster Internet service connection and excited thinking about the possibilities I could do with the new, faster Internet connection; my story should have ended there but it didn’t.  Several days later after a night of thunderstorms I woke up and got onto my computer and used the Internet.  I attended a business meeting later that morning and sat down at my computer to do some work establishing my new business.  I then noticed that I couldn’t get to the Internet, thinking that it was strange that I had gotten to the net earlier in the day; I rebooted the computer and started the process again—again no Internet access so I reach for the phone to call the service provider and that is when the nightmare really began.

I quickly realized that not only could I not access the Internet but my phone service was down and unavailable as well, so I picked up my latest bill from the service provider and tried to find the telephone number for customer service there was none.  Undeterred I looked through the papers I received when I signed up for the service and call the 800 number, ah yes! A connection to a representative, but wait I had to be placed on hold and transferred to someone else.  No problem I thought they’ll get to the bottom of this, well five minutes turned into ten minutes which turned into fifteen minutes which turned into twenty minutes, I was furious!  Finally a representative came online and I explained the problem, no problem they said they’ll send a service technician to my home to check the installation and uncover the problem.  Great! I say now we are getting somewhere they’ll discover the problem right!? Wrong!!!

The next day the service tech arrives as scheduled and says that it will take him about two hours to have me back online.  Great! I say and go back to what I was doing, six hours later he tells me that there is nothing wrong with my equipment or the lines coming into my house but that the problem is with their transmission line and he will place a work order and that there will be another crew on the scene in two hours.  Skeptical at this point I think to myself that they won’t be coming this evening but I should see someone from the company in the morning.  The next morning comes and by 11 am there is no sign of a service crew at my house so I call the 800 number.   I place the call and I’m immediately put on hold five minutes goes by, ten minutes you know the drill.  Finally I’m talking with a representative who knows nothing about my service problem and assigns me a case number, then says that another service tech will be at my location the next day between the convenient hours of 8 am – 8 pm., no problem I have a cell phone I’ll be here when they arrive.

The next day comes and alas no service technician I wait one day and call to inquire about the status of my service outage.  I call the 800 number get placed on hold and the whole 1,2, 20 minute wait time begins all over again.  Well after taking the weekend to evaluate the situation I decide that I’ve got to switch ISP providers because this company while very apologetic can’t seem to make it happen.  I call the first provider cancel the service and place an order with a second provider.  All is going well I’m actually talking to a human being in the first few seconds of my call and they are getting basic information for my installation.  After receiving my basic info she says that she will be transferring me to the installation department and that my confirmation number is such and such.  I’m place on hold and after a few short minutes the installation department comes on and I tell them what I’m requesting and that I have a confirmation number, they tell me that it means nothing to them and we are about to finish the transaction when the phone connection drops, ugh!!!  I call back the call drops again; I decide to call back the next day, and two more drop calls.  I finally get to another representative and explain what I want and what has happened to me, he says that he will put me on “silent” hold and then it hits me—all those drop calls I had experienced weren’t dropped calls at all I was but on “silent” hold except nobody bothered to tell me the customer what was happening and since I has on a cell phone I naturally assumed that the calls had been dropped. 

Well you’ve probably figured out that I received my Internet upgrade but the experience proved once again that customer service in this country is dead!  Nobody at the first ISP provider knew what was happening with my service outage and their tracking systems couldn’t tell the representatives that I had a problem much less that one of their own technicians put in a work order for my location.  With the second ISP provider one department was issuing confirmation numbers that the other department didn’t accept, what was the confirmation number for?  Who knows?

Now you might be saying to yourself Jer this was just a case of you doing business with a large technology company and it’s not representative of customer service at other businesses or industries well I beg to differ.  My house mate Lynn was at a large retailer last week and she had to go to the customer service counter; she found a long line of customers and began to wait.  Well five minutes turned into ten minutes, turned into fifteen minutes you get the picture so being an assertive soul Lynn walks over to the checkout lines where the cashiers are standing around talking to one another.  “Don’t you see this long line of customers at the service desk” she inquires “can’t one of you come over here and help this poor lady with all these customer requests?”  At that moment a supervisor finally shows up and things really start to pick up at the service desk.  Why did my friend Lynn have to request help for the overworked representative at the service desk?  Didn’t store management plan for a larger volume of customers at the service desk during this busiest shopping time of the year?  Why didn’t one of the cashier’s after a few minutes make a call to the supervisor on duty and request help at the service desk?  The answer my friend is blowing in the wind the answer is that American business has forgotten what they are in business to accomplish and that is to satisfy their customers wants and desires.

Peter Drucker in his book The Essential Drucker states that “With respect to the definition of business purpose and business mission, there is only one such focus, one starting point.  It is the customer.  The customer defines the business.  A business is not defined by the company’s name, statutes, or articles of incorporation.  It is defined by the want the customer satisfies when he or she buys a product or a service.  To satisfy the customer is the mission and purpose of every business.  The question, What is our business?  Can, therefore, be answered only by looking at the business from the outside, from the point of view of customer and market.  All the customer is interested in are his or her own values, wants and reality.  For this reason alone any serious attempt to state “what our business is” must start with the customers’ realities, his situation, his behavior, his expectations, and his values.”

What are your thoughts about customer service?  Do you agree with me that it has died here in America and what do you think should be done about it?  Let me know, all the best, Jer

I blog therefore I am?

Okay!  I must admit I have no experience with blogging.  I’ve been an adult educator for over 25 years serving in various training roles in business and education.  Let me state here why I’m blogging now and what you can expect from following this blog.  I’m blogging to engage in a dialogue about training matters that effect small business.   My hope is that if you agree with my point of view and you need assistance with some facet of training in your business that you’ll contact me and give me an opportunity to serve you.   Many of the topics I’d bring up have application to all types of businesses but it’s the small business owner(s) that I’m hoping might follow me and join in the conversation.    I must warn you that I can be quite passionate in my beliefs, just ask anybody who watches the Green Bay Packers with me.  I believe in telling things from my perspective, how else can we communicate, but I am also opened minded and flexible and can admit when I’m wrong.

Before I begin my blog posts I think you should know what my experience is and what my biases are.  I have a varied professional background: Accounting, Management, Systems Analysis, Trainer, Project Manager, Procurement, and Customer Service.  I was raised in Wisconsin and educated to be a disciple of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, by Dr. Marilyn Hart, Professor of Operations Management at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh who herself worked with Dr. Deming.  Dr. Deming for those of you who don’t know was the American statistician who American business snubbed in the 1950’s and went onto Japan after World War II to teach them how to improve their product quality and productivity.  The Japanese learned their lessons so well that they caught and passed America in the production of such things as automobiles, televisions and electronics just to name a few industries.  Dr. Deming was famous for his “14 Points of Management”, are you familiar with them?

I believe American business is falling behind our global competitors because too many business executives, managers and owners either don’t educate themselves on basic business principles such as management, customer service, systems improvement etc. or they don’t put what they have studied into practice. Most I would guessimate 95% of business leaders care more about their job, salary and benefit package than they care about the business entity they are running and the people that work for them.   As a business professional I have been responsible for major system upgrades, training initiatives and employee mentoring.  I believe in most situations not all, that the best management approach is a “participatory management” approach and not a “my way or the highway”, command and control approach.  It is from this perspective that I’ll be writing in this blog and I hope to write as one colleague might write to another about topics that interest both parties.  I hope you enjoy the postings and find the topics meaningful and offer your comments when you feel the need.  Thanks for reading I’ll begin my topical discussion next time.  All the best! Jerry