Employee training is often a vital part of any workplace. In addition to introductory training, many organisations also rely on regularly updating employees to ensure they can perform their jobs to industry standards.
In the case of Business Improvement, the training is designed to give your employees the skills to improve their place of work in three ways; to make it more efficient, more effective and more enjoyable. However, when this training is poorly understood, badly designed or just plain incorrect is can have terrifying ripple effects that extend well beyond the classroom or computer screen.
Take a look at our top five side-effects of bad Business Improvement training.
Low morale
If you’ve never experienced the rising horror and frustration from sitting through training that is poorly explained or completely irrelevant to your role, you may be in the minority.
Bad training make employees feel as though their time is being wasted and that those in charge have not bothered to invest time in finding something appropriate. Throw in the added pressure of being expected to deliver results based on training they thought was poor, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for disgruntled staff and low morale.
Employees want to do a good job both because of professional pride and the desire to advance; bad training can make this feel impossible. And, as most managers will know, low satisfaction results in low productivity – the opposite of what you were trying to achieve.
Increased expenses
When Business Improvement training is done well, expenses can be expected to fall – even once you include the cost of training – due to the efficiency gains most businesses identify. However, if Business Improvement training is ineffective or incorrect, organisations can find themselves wasting time and resources pursuing projects that come to nothing.
Organisations then face a choice of forking out for better Business Improvement training (a tough sell to employees who have already had to deal with the fall out) or abandoning the idea altogether. Both options are unattractive and unnecessary if the training had been effective to start with.
Worse processes
As we’ve covered before, incorrect or half-remembered Business Improvement advice can do more harm than good.
Business Improvement methods such as Lean Six Sigma and TPM work because they follow a set format and provide you with all the tools you need to identify a problem correctly, and take the necessary steps to address it and then – crucially – take measures to ensure the problem does not return.
When training misses out vital steps or tools, or explains them incorrectly problems and root causes may be misidentified, resulted in ‘improvements’ that do not solve the issue and may actually make it worse.
Unhappy customers
It’s not hard to see that dissatisfied staff and increased costs will lead to more customer complaints. Numerous studies have found that happy staff are more productive and provide better customer service than their less engaged counterparts. Increased operating costs are also often passed on to customers, further damaging relationships.
If customers become too dissatisfied with the service they receive they may move to competitors who offer another service.
Unfortunately with training, it can be hard to determine quality prior to attending the classroom or logging onto your online course. To avoid falling foul of bad Business Improvement training, make sure you do your research in advance. The best providers will ensure you have all of the support you need to ensure the training is properly understood and executed correctly. If you’d like further reassurance about outcomes, take a look at testimonials and case studies, or ask to speak to previous clients.