Management is Key in A Company That Trains

Jansen says their company management team is very closely involved in their training strategy. They always make sure that at least one member of the management team is involved.

‘We do this so we can not only keep up with what the team is learning but equally as important, we can make sure what they learn is properly implemented in our daily culture. We do this through rigorous and continuous in-house sessions to keep what they learned at the forefront of their minds. It’s our job to come up with the training plan, implement it, and keep it rolling forward,’ he adds.

Bobby Bevill says that the management team at Davis Services works hard to make training a key part of their culture. He says the results speak for themselves.

‘The key is for your culture to include continuous training. We just don’t train once and hope it sticks. Our investment is to train and retrain until the tech knows their stuff better than anyone else in our area.’

Ric Schorer says that Wighton’s training is ‘driven by our ability to measure the performance of the entire system, to be able to describe why the system doesn’t function to customer expectations, then provide options and choices so customers can buy what they need immediately, and schedule what they want down the road.’

Train for the Right Reasons

Going back to that Harvard Business Review article, author Carucci says, ‘Training can be a powerful medium when there is proof that the root cause of the learning need is an undeveloped skill or a knowledge deficit. For those situations, a well-designed program with customized content, relevant material, skill-building practice, and a final measurement of skill acquisition works great.’

He adds that ‘Learning is a consequence of thinking, not teaching. It happens when people reflect on and choose a new behavior.”

Bobby Bevill concludes that training must be part of a company’s culture. He says ‘Our guys know they will always be learning new things. And they expect that. They see the investment in training we make helps them to solve issues most of the competition can’t. They get lots of positive feedback from customers.

‘Which is why it’s our mission to send them into the field well trained.’