Last updated on October 28th, 2024 at 04:22 pm

Why You Need Staff Training in Your Small Business

As a business owner of any size you are probably aware of the need to train your staff.  Almost every business that the author has worked in has carried out some sort of training, even if it’s something as “simple” as how to enter items on a computer, what departments to use on a till for the different types of products, how to fill out the day to day forms that many businesses rely on and even fire training so that staff know how to use a fire extinguisher and what to do in the event of a fire.

Much of the “normal” day to day training is usually carried out by having an experienced member of staff sitting down next to the trainee and showing them what to do.  The problem with this is that more often than not the person doing the training doesn’t understand how to train, they know how to do the job as they “have been doing it for years” and just follow the process without explaining – I’m sure you have seen or experienced this yourselves, it often goes something along the lines of :

“Hi, My name is Fred and I’m going to show you how to fill in a customer order form.  What you do when the customer rings an order through is fill in this box with their name, then each of the boxes on this line for the first item, then each of the boxes on the next line for the next item and so on.  Oh, and you must always tick this box and put a cross in that one”

There is no reasoning given for why there has to be a tick in one box and a cross in the other, nor is there anything said about what happens if the customer changes their mind on an item – for example they might order 10 widgets and then decide that they want 15 (does the person filling in the form add a second line for the extra five widgets or do they change the 10 to a 15?).  What happens if the customer decides that they don’t want the item after all (they may have said blue widgets when they wanted red ones for example)?

This is where having a proper training plan helps, by sitting down before the training starts you can put together a plan that covers all the things that may happen over the course of a week / month / quarter and incorporate that into the training and the training notes or staff manual.

Of course, some industries and types of training are best left to the professionals rather than trying to do them in house.  These can include :-

• Continual professional development (CPD) for Accountants,  Solicitors and IFAs
• Specialist training such as COSH, Health and Safety or Asbestos (for example how to comply with the law and manage asbestos risks)
• Specialist training for industries such as Housing Associations
• Training for particular groups of people such as Paralegals and staff in law firms.
• Driver training for vehicles such as minibuses or even fleets of company cars

There are many sources and providers of training, for example if you run a small business you may even find that your Accountant will be willing to train staff in how to keep the books.  This would have several benefits to you as a business such as :-

• Your staff know how to keep your books correctly and understand why things are assigned the financial code that they are, on your accounts system
• If the books are accurate it should reduce the time that your accountant spends on your quarterly/annual reports and therefore save you money
• The member of staff will feel more valued.

The last of these points is important, especially in the current economic climate.  By making staff feel valued  they are more likely to feel happy in their job which in turn will reduce the risk of them looking for another job which will, once again, save your business money as you don’t have to recruit more staff and have the hassle of producing a staff hand-over document.

There are many local firms that can help you with the less specialised training including (dare I say it as an IT professional) how to use computer software effectively.  To find these ask your local business adviser or even take a look at your local further education or adult education college.

Hopefully, reading the above will have given you food for thought and some guidance as to why every business needs to carry out some level of staff training and also why training isn’t just a “do it once and forget about it” process.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject, just fill in the comment box below to leave a message (please note that all messages have to be approved so don’t even think about leaving “spam” messages, they will only be deleted).