Small Business Success

by Bill Collier

“I’m always ready to learn, although I don’t always like being taught.” - Winston Churchill

Here are two things I know about employee training: Just about every business owner wants to do it, and few small businesses follow through and do it well.

Recently I was helping a client build their budget. They’d never had a “Training” expense line item, and they decided to add one and set aside some money for that purpose.

I did some quick math and asked the management team, “Would you be willing to budget one one-thousandth of annual sales for training?” Their annual sales for their 15-employee company is roughly $5 million, so that would make the training budget about $5,000.

The team unanimously gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to that proposal.

Then I suggested we determine how that might look.

On their white board, I drew up a rough plan for taking people away from their workstations and engaging in training for a half-hour a week. It looked like this:

15 people x $15/hour (average wage) x 0.5 hours/week x 48 weeks = $5,400

 “There’s your training budget. What do you think?”

The enthusiasm from five minutes earlier turned into silence as they pondered the prospect of getting everything done plus pulling their already-stretched-thin people off the job for training.

That exercise demonstrated that the training time can be more precious than the dollars involved. This company was ready to cheerfully approve $5,000 for training. Turning that into actual time conduct said training is another matter entirely.

As it turns out, the team made a commitment to launch a training program, although with a slightly less ambitious goal.

To use Stephen Covey’s words, training is important but not urgent. So, where is a good place to start?

Most businesses depend on “tribal knowledge” – information handed down and passed around. If that describes your company, consider starting by capturing some of that knowledge and building some simple education around it.

You’ll almost certainly find that many important tasks are done “Sally’s way,” “Ernie’s way” and so on. Of course, the goal is to create and standardize “the company way.” Evaluating your most critical tasks with this in mind is another great way to ease into a training program.
Before you start designing formal classes, consider the 70-20-10 learning and development model:
• 70% of learning happens on the job. You can and should add structure to OJT training rather than leave it to chance.
• 20% of learning is social, through other people like co-workers and supervisors. Again, add structure. Document the subject matter and who received (and gave) the training.  
• 10% of learning is formal, via structured training courses.

Want to increase productivity, retain your people and differentiate your company from your competitors? Start training today. n

Bill Collier is the St. Louis-area coach for The Great Game of Business. He helps businesses increase accountability and results with open-book management. He is the author of “How to Succeed as a Small Business Owner … and Still Have a Life” Bill can be reached at 314-221-8558 or billcollier@greatgame.com. His blog is http://ggobstl.wordpress.com.