My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

After the Training Event

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The training is finished.  All employees have gone through it.  Mission accomplished, right?

No, you’re actually just getting started.  People need to apply the training on the job in order for it to become ingrained, which means that what you do after the training to reinforce the learning can be more important than what happened during the training.

Imagine if you want to learn to ride a horse so you watch a video on it or observe someone do it and then don’t actually getting on the horse and ride it yourself.  It sounds ridiculous, but this is the same thing as having people attend the training and then having no follow-up or opportunity for practice afterward.

The training is a great place to introduce employees to the new behavior and have them practice it, but they need to perform the behavior in their jobs in order to master it.

These tips will give you ideas on how to ensure that your employees get enough practice after training in order to learn the new behavior.

  • Incorporate activities that require the person to practice the new behavior.  These activities should closely resemble what the person will be exposed to in their jobs.  The training environment should be a place where employees feel safe to try and fail without being judged.
  • Offer timely training.  If the company is implementing a new process, but the change isn’t going to happen for another year, hold off on the training.  You want people to be able to practice what they’ve learned as soon as possible so that it becomes ingrained.
  • Make sure that managers are holding their employees accountable for performing the new behavior.
  • Managers should also be giving employees recognition and feedback tied to the new behavior.
  • Deliver follow-up trainings or meetings in the next few months after the training in order to reinforce the learning.
  • Hold people accountable.  Include the behavior as part of the performance reviews, but there should be enough time for learning and practicing before you do this.
  • Send out consistent communication stressing the importance of performing the new behavior and thank employees for helping out with the initiative.

How to Give Effective Employee Feedback

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The most important part of employee coaching and performance management is giving and receiving employee feedback.  Constructive criticism is another word that organizations may use, but feedback is preferred because the word criticism conjures up negative thoughts.

When was the last time you gave an employee feedback?  If you’ve done it today, you’re on the right track.  However, most managers don’t enjoy giving feedback and don’t give it as often as they should.

Just as managing performance cannot be done only once a year during performance reviews, feedback cannot be given sparingly either.  It needs to be an ongoing process throughout the year so that there are no surprise performance reviews or terminations.

Managers assume that people do not like to hear what they’re doing wrong so they don’t confront employees.  The truth is that people would much rather hear what areas they need to improve in, rather than be terminated or receive a negative performance review without having been given developmental feedback.

Most managers want to do the right thing and just haven’t had enough practice in giving constructive, timely employee feedback.

Tips on Giving Effective Employee Feedback

1.  Employee feedback must be timely.  Talk to the employee as soon as possible after you observe the behavior.

2. Employee feedback should be based on job performance and not on personality traits. When feedback focuses on personality, a person’s first natural instinct is to get defensive. Instead of saying to someone, “You didn’t finish the project on time because you’re lazy,” offer them tips on time management.

3.  Feedback is a dialogue.  Make the employee feel comfortable asking questions and engaging in discussion around the feedback.  If you just give the feedback without involving the employee, it’s not as likely that the person will buy in and act upon the feedback.

4.  Employee feedback should be related to a specific incident or behavior.  The receiver of the feedback is not as likely to listen to you or make a change if you don’t give them specific examples to illustrate your point.

5.  Employee feedback should be given for good and poor performance.  Don’t give your employees feedback only when they do something wrong.  Sometimes you can get so caught up in worrying about what is not getting done correctly that you overlook what is being done correctly.  Make sure that you are recognizing and employees for positive behaviors as well.

6.  Employee feedback should be given in a confidential place if necessary.  If you feel as if the feedback is going to embarrass the employee or make them self-conscious around co-workers, it’s best to set up a time to speak with them where others cannot hear.

7.  Employee feedback should have a goal.  There must be a purpose for you to deliver the feedback rather than giving it just for the sake of giving it.  The purpose may be to help the employee improve in a certain area or it could be to encourage someone to continue a certain behavior.

8.  When giving feedback, tailor it to the specific individual.  You may need to deliver feedback differently for different employees, taking into account how they react to feedback and what type of communication style they prefer.

9.  If compensation is based on specific goals, give feedback to the employee pertaining to his or her achievement of those goals.

Is training the answer? Get the most out of your training dollars.

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It may seem laughably simple, but the first step to successful training is doing your research to figure out if training is even needed.  However, companies spend thousands or even millions of dollars for ineffective training, instead of spending much less money and a lot more time on figuring out the need and the best methods to reach that need.

Sometimes, the reason that training does not fix the problem is that training was not the best solution for the problem in the first place.  Don’t skip the fact-finding process.

One company I dealt with was receiving more customer dissatisfaction feedback in regards to customers dealing with the sales help desk. At first, management thought they needed better customer service training.  After research, it was determined that the sales help desk was sending phone calls directly to the sales people and not to the account managers, which was the appropriate next level of support.   They decided that instead of training, it would be more effective to re-iterate the correct process in the morning meetings as well as send out frequent reminders.

Another company had very many harassment and discrimination cases.  The company policy stated what constituted harassment and discrimination as well as consequences for not complying, but there was no training around it.  People were just expected to read the handbook.  The research determined that communication and policy were not enough and that training was needed to fix the problem.

You should be spending the time upfront to ask the right questions, which I’ve included below, and determine the best ways to solve the problem.  If you’re the person in charge of fixing the issue or creating the training, having the answers to these questions will strengthen your case when communicating with management and asking for money and resources.

If you’re the business owner or key decision maker, then these are questions that the proposer of the training should be able to answer.

Questions:

  • What is the problem?
  • What is the cause of the problem?
  • What are alternatives to training that can be used to solve the problem?
  • Is training the best solution?
  • What is the goal that you’re trying to reach?
  • What should the employee be able to do after completing the training and how it will affect the organization?
  • What measurement will be used to determine if the problem has been solved?
  • How will it save the company money? and/ or  How will it make the company money?

 

Manager Development

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Managers have a huge impact on the organization since they are managing teams of people who are interacting with your customers each and every day.  However, many times managers are thrown into the role without sufficient training to succeed.  M&L Solutions helps you give managers the tools and resources to be successful and turn into great leaders.

Top Ten Reasons Managers Fail

1.  A person was promoted for the wrong reasons.  An expert employee doesn’t necessarily make a great manager.

2.  They don’t understand how to develop people or give effective performance feedback.

3.  Insufficient training.

4.  Unclear role expectations.

5.  They took the role for the wrong reasons such as more money, sense of authority, didn’t want to say no, etc.

6.  They can’t or don’t know how to delegate.

7. They are managing their former co-workers and feel uncomfortable being in the new role.

8. They want to be involved in the work and projects in the same way they were as an individual contributor, which can lead to micro-managing their team. 

9.  Lack of communication with their team.

10. They don’t appropriately give recognition for employee accomplishments.