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There’s this misplaced belief that training of employees cures all performance failings. I encounter the plaintive cry of, “We sent so and so for training because his or her performance was declining.” So, I like to ask about what additional prescriptions were administered in the attempt to improve the performance outcomes. Often, the response is dead air. In the world of fast fixes for under-par performance, many managers and supervisors enlist training as a miracle-working, go-to agent for staff performance.

It’s no different in the customer encounter skills universe, where many clients go into auto-response mode, whenever employees fail to navigate customer encounters successfully. The directive is usually, “Clearly, this employee lacks the skills to interact with customers, send him or her for remedial training.”

In some cases, during service improvement interventions, I have been privileged to work with clients that considered the full suite of prescriptions for improving employee-customer interactions. Many of these prescriptions had little to do with training. In last week’s column, I shared thoughts on the importance of optimizing the internal operations of a business, so that problems could be both prevented and solved, effortlessly. In this way, the customers interacting with the business, could be spared the pain of back and forth episodes and, more importantly, customer contact staff could be fortified with the wherewithal to respond effectively, on-spot, or within an acceptable timeframe. Fixing problems didn’t start, automatically with employee training, but with other options.

Another consideration for not having an over-reliance on training, is because of its impermanent nature. As a seasoned trainer, my estimate is that only fifty percent of programme attendees go back to their desks and deploy the learnings with minimum supervision. These are the star performers who are driven by their own sense of pride and self-motivation to do a good job.

As a seasoned trainer, my estimate is that only fifty percent of programme attendees go back to their desks and deploy the learnings with minimum supervision. These are the star performers who are driven by their own sense of pride and self-motivation to do a good job.

The other fifty percent will need to be taken through a reinforcement process that will support the norming of the new behaviours, otherwise the effect of the training will wear off within one to three months. A good way to extend the shelf life of training and to improve the odds of behavioural change, is if managers and supervisors take the time to implement a system that reinforces the new behaviours and recognizes those employees who are stepping up and staying up at the new levels of excellence.

This fifty-fifty, hit and miss pattern is repeated when employees attend customer engagement training and are expected to go back to their stations and master every customer exchange immediately. Guess what? The grand expectation does not materialize, due to the very system failures that I mentioned earlier.

So, if training is not a cure all, then what are some of the other tools and devices that quality for consideration when one is thinking about improving employee performance?

Well, there’s coaching and mentoring, two hugely underutilized tools for supporting employee development and proven to be successful in curing some performance misadventures. I suspect that these two tools have not been “widely and wildly” utilized by the majority of local businesses, because they require managers and supervisors to be heavily involved in the process of nurturing employees.

Well, there’s coaching and mentoring, two hugely underutilized tools for supporting employee development and proven to be successful in curing some performance misadventures.

Employee training is treated as a hand-off process. It’s convenient to attribute an employee’s low performance to insufficient training and hand him or her off to the training department for remedial work. Coaching and mentoring, on the other hand, can only be effective if senior personnel invest the time, effort and patience that underpin the process.

Managers and supervisors are unwilling to commit to this investment. When I hear the plaintive cry of, “I don’t operate a kindergarten,” I am not optimistic that coaching and mentoring will be embraced as mainstream developmental tools. Investment will mean scheduling time to pour effort into direct reports and to participate fully in the process of employee coaching. Whenever I hear the kindergarten phrase, I take the time (more often, than not), to explain to the speaker that, “Yes, you are operating a kindergarten…….for adults” and you are required to participate in nurturing those under your charge. I don’t stop there. I continue with, “So, your mission is to ensure that everyone in the adult kindergarten, graduates as a high performer, with your help.”

Ultimately, what I support, strongly, is matching the remedy to the need and not prescribing the same remedy for every performance malfunction.

Now, let me say that I am a fan of effective training interventions, after all, I am a trainer. However, training has to be supported by behaviour reinforcement and recognition of employee effort, for maximum impact. Equally important, is the need to resist the urge to consider training to be a “cure all” for a wide swath of performance ailments.

Ultimately, what I support, strongly, is matching the remedy to the need and not prescribing the same remedy for every performance malfunction.