We’re only as good as the people behind us. Your staff – your office managers, site supervisors and laborers – is the driving force behind your business. With the right self-empowered and innovative people on your team, your business has all the building blocks for success.
But what is ‘great’ training? How do we assure our employees are getting the training they need to not only perform better but to leverage your company to do more?
Great training should not only show an employee how to follow systems or how to work more productively. Great training is about nurturing your employees to excellence, which is why training should be just as much about developing the mental as the physical. Great training will create engaged employees who feel personally and emotionally attached to your company. Engaged employees take pride in their company. They want to see their team succeed and will make the effort to ensure that happens. Therefore, if you want a team of innovators and contributors, you need training that encourages entrepreneurial spirit.
Creating a team of engaged employees requires the right training on a number of different fronts. First you need to lead by example. Your employees need to see that you, yourself, are continuously training and developing to improve your knowledge and skills. Seeing this will not only help them to see the value of training for themselves, but it will inspire them. They’ll be more apt to leverage training, embrace it and get the most out of it, which will in turn benefit the company as a whole. Keep up with your own training; take advantage of the resources available to you, such as taking online courses, participating in seminars and workshops and reading literature from other experts.
Secondly, your managers/site supervisors/foremen need to play an active role on the training front. On my blog, I've discussed before the importance of creating the right climate for superstars. Active managers play an important role in creating this climate. If managers focus on the positive with their workers, and are constantly showing and helping an employee become better – through training – they foster an engaging work climate.
Lasting VALUE and true CHANGE requires long-term commitment from both sides of the coin. But it starts from the top down. Showing your long-term commitment to an employee by fostering a truly engaging workplace is the first step to reciprocity from employees. Continuous employee training and development is a conscious effort toward commitment and maintaining an engaging workplace.
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At the Landscape Management Network we recognize the importance of employee engagement, which is why we composed our member library of online training courses – designed to help you build more efficient, more capable, more committed people – exactly what you need to improve your business.
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