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On many of my projects working with managers and how they manage performance or non-performance, many of them (Mangers), give me the excuse, "I trained them, I don't know why they aren't doing it."

What I eventually find out from my discussions with the managers is that the employees don't know what to do or how to do it. It is not that they don't know the procedure or steps to execute. It is more that they do not know the behaviors to execute.

In the past we have "trained" staff on a particular product or service; which meant that each member sat down in a classroom environment and was told what the product/service was, provided some benefits and how to complete the corresponding forms. Management's expectation of the employees leaving the class was that they should now be able to service and sell the new product/service because they have the information. But this did not actually produce significant results, so we "train" again, and again. Ultimately, we end up ditching the new product/service or we use the excuse "why bother, no one is doing it anyway" and we take the emphasis away and the product/service sits idle.

In this whole mess, somewhere we lost the reason why we put this product or service out there in the first place. At some point, we believed this product was the best thing for our customers, it would generate revenue, it ties to other product offerings, etc. We expect our employees to understand these items from the lecture training class we gave them. While they may understand the product benefits and significance to the organization, in many cases they don't know how to execute them in the performance of their jobs.

These days "training" doesn't cut it. It must be more about developing our staff and development must have a stronger meaning than sitting in a classroom to listen to someone talk, pass out handouts and ask for questions.

Today's employees are experiential learners; they need to have:

 · A deeper explanation of why, what, how the product, initiative, and/or service works; what it means, why does make a difference, and the significance to the organization(expectations, goals, performance)

· Practical demonstrations of how they need do something as it relates to their individual jobs

· Be allowed to practice and allowed to fail

· Managers must provide immediate feedback about the success and/or failure

· An opportunity to be allowed to interpret the product/service in their own terms, then given feedback on those terms

· An opportunity to execute in a real situation with observation and immediate feedback

 Then, when the employee begins to get the hang of what they are supposed to be doing proficiently, it is time to review performance with the employee, beginning at the top of this list. Then we begin to move from proficient to competent performance. When we have competency we can (and will) move our organizations more efficiently and effectively.

At this point, we have more than trained our employees, we have developed them to execute and perform to our organization's expected results. For our organizations to gain success we must have our managers define the expected performance behaviors, allow employees to practice and provide immediate feedback to our employees, daily.

We have conducted manager development and coaching programs that have produced significant results to employee engagement, business goal achievement and customer satisfaction.

Contributed by:
Jon K. Drogheo, PHR, MEd.
Principal
ph 303.808.8240
jdrogheo@hrpartnerconsulting.com
www.hrpartnerconsulting.com