Employee training. How to create an easy annual plan.

TRAIN THEM TO SUCCEED

Even the best structured reward plan, the most inventive career path or the most enthusiastic motivation won’t give you the desired results unless your employees are well trained.  This goes far beyond onboarding. It’s about consistent, meaningful and measurable education.  Formal training is a touchstone of almost every other industry. Why not retail?

When staff is well trained, they perform better. When they perform better, they have greater job satisfaction which ultimately leads to increased tenure. It’s another win-win.

You’ve heard the expression, hire for personality, train for skill.  Training can create a significant improvement in staff attitude and performance but only if you believe in it as well. To half-heartedly deploy a program even the best training programs won’t if you don’t believe in them.  And by training, I don’t mean just how to use the POS or what the store policies are, I mean sales training, customer service training and product training as well.

Think it’s too much work?  I’m going to give you a 4-time per month sales training program outline right here that you can use as the basis of your annual plan.  You can probably outline your entire years’ worth of training in about an hour. Each session should be about 30 to 45 minutes.

Week one
Sales and customer service training
Choose one micro topic per week, i.e., greetings, upselling, asking for emails, active listening, etc. Introduce the topic and policies/procedures for how you’d like it handled. Some weeks, add a real-life scenario and have employees role play the different ways to handle that scenario and agree on the best solution for future use in the same situation. Other weeks, host brainstorming sessions and engage the entire staff in creating new ideas, solutions and more efficient procedures for your business.

Week Two
Product knowledge
Choose one line or one group of products and discuss their benefits to your target audience and their advantages over competitors.  Invite vendor sales reps to come in once a month to discuss their specific product lines and give additional insight into features and benefits.

Week Three
Retail discussion – led by one or more team members
Delegate one session each month to your employees.  Supply them with a list of books, online webinars, trade publications or business books. Ask them to present key points at staff meetings. The purpose of this type of training session is to expose your team to the various aspects of your business, including trends, existing and potential competitors, demographics, key metrics, marketing and promotion, etc. so they have a more complete picture of what it takes to run a small business. Make these assignments in a timely manner, giving the team member enough time to complete the project.

Week Four
Practical tasks
Devote one week of the month to the practical aspects of your business, properly and efficiently running the POS, new merchandising ideas, cleanliness, checking in inventory, etc.

Information on training and retail is widely available online, often for free. Your POS manufacturer likely has a blog filled with valuable information to help you plan your training sessions.

A couple of tips for running a great training session

Focus on a small tidbit each week, not broad topics
Offer small rewards occasionally for active and enthusiastic participation, especially
new ideas

Be consistent and make participation mandatory

Make it fun

Explain the “why” behind each lesson

Video tape each session for future use and reference

Take it a step farther
Organize a list of online courses for extracurricular learning. There are a near infinite number of free webinars on sales, marketing and business as well as courses on platforms like Udemy.com for as little as $15. Give team members a list of approved courses or webinars and create a reward system for completion.

When your employees understand your business, they become true assets.

Until next time remember,
You can do this.

Angel