How to Develop an Effective Training Program

How to Develop an Effective Training Program A GUIDE TO TRAINING FOR THE INDUSTRY, BY THE INDUSTRY

A publication by ASA Education Foundation | © 2022

How to Build an Effective Training Program A GUIDE TO TRAINING FOR THE INDUSTRY,

BY THE INDUSTRY

from the AMERICAN SUPPLY ASSOCIATION, EDUCATION FOUNDATION

American Supply Association

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Copyright ©2022 by the ASA Education Foundation.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the ASA Education Foundation. 1st Edition, March 2022.

Headquarters ASA Education Foundation 1200 N. Arlington Heights Road, Suite 150 Itasca, IL 60143 Phone: 630-467-0000 Email: education@asa.net

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FORWARD ASA members are busy people; busy running operations, busy making sure product is shipped and received on time, busy working with their customers, and ultimately, busy improving their bottom line. One of the driving forces behind successful execution of day-to-day business starts with the training and development of the employees engaged with your customers and business each day.

Developing a training program can be a daunting prospect at times; who should be trained? How should they be trained? When should they be trained? Especially for businesses that don’t have a formalized training department, this task can seem monumental in scope.

ASA University is here to help.

ASA’s “How to Develop an Effective Training Program” handbook answers these questions and more. Written by industry experts just like you, this resource will guide you through the major components of building your own training program - all framed within the realities of our industry and its unique challenges.

Read how to motivate employee engagement with training, how to develop and map job descriptions, or how to set benchmarking indicators for your training program. Read about challenges your industry peers have faced and how they overcame these challenges as they built their training programs from the ground up.

Each chapter focuses on a specific part of the training process and includes best practices, storytelling, and results-based solutions to help you address the challenges of training at your business. This comprehensive handbook will give you the edge you need to bring your training goals to reality.

And don’t forget, ASA University’s diverse team of training experts are always here to assist you in meeting your goals. Whether you need help with specific components of your training plan, or need help knowing where to jump in first, let ASA University be your pocket consultant when it comes to training and development.

Best wishes on your training journey!

Taylor Kenney Vice-President of Education ASA University

American Supply Association

ASA is here to help take your training program to the next level. Call us at 630-467-0000 or email at education@asa.net to get started.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1

The ROI of Training - Why Training is Essential for Long-Term Success John McKenzie, Winsupply Inc.

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Laying Groundwork for Effective Program Management Chris Walther, Rubenstein Supply Co.

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Types of Training Programs and Engagement Through Creativity Joe Jacob, Pipe-Valves, Inc.

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Conducting Needs Assessments Ruth Martin, F.W. Webb Company

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Buy-In and Problem Solving Todd Restel, First Supply LLC

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Developing Learning Objectives Melissa Lunak, Paul Kennedy, Grace Sella & Gail See, Dakota Supply Group

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Types of Learners and Training Strategy Shifts Deb Gorra, Weinstein Supply, div. of Hajoca

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Career Pathing Andrew Peck, Porter Pipe & Supply Co.

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Benchmarking, Evaluation and Post-Training Reinforcement ASA Education Foundation Team, American Supply Association

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Timing, Relevancy and Launch Cycling Wayne Upchurch, Consolidated Supply Co.

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Marketing & Communications Tracie Sponenberg, The Granite Group

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Celebrate Your Success Isabela Montoya & Don Polletta, Torrco

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Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

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The ROI of Training - Why Training is Essential for Long-Term Success John McKenzie, President at Winsupply Inc.

There’s no greater asset than your people. I’ll continue to make business decisions based on this fact.

Most businesses buy and sell something. All successful businesses make a profit. The key question is, how do you sustain and/or grow that profit?

At Winsupply we’re focusing on building entrepreneurs.

Your people are the backbone of your business. It’s what separates you from your competitors. They are the ones who will go above and beyond for your customer.

To survive and grow in the supply house industry is not to just provide product and availability. Instead, we must also bring solutions to our contractors and customers.

Let’s talk about training objectives for your organization. This should be the centerpiece from which you can build your training program.

The mindset of our industry is about employee knowledge and product expertise. We need to teach employees to become solutions providers. That knowledge should translate to your company having the materials your customers need, when they need it, and getting those materials to them quickly. Your training programs should always keep this objective at the forefront.

“Your people are the backbone of your business. It’s what separates you from your competitors. They are the ones who will go above and beyond for your customer.”

At Winsupply, the operational needs of our local companies and our values are the driving force for our training objectives. Our training group’s mission is to support our employees in every way possible.

We offer training focused on what our local company employees need to be successful. Through our training, we teach the importance of ownership. This includes training in sales, leadership, business processes, and in soft skills through diverse delivery formats. All these classes have one very important factor in common: they exist to make our companies the best wholesalers they can be.

When I think about the importance of training and the profound impact it can have on a company and its employees, one particular person comes to mind.

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I first met Bobby Kellar in 2015 while in graduate school at Wright State University. Bobby was a classmate.

He stood out. I remember Bobby asking the professor a lot of questions. He was curious. Also, who can forget when we were getting ready to take professional photos one Friday afternoon. Bobby showed up in his Army uniform, he was serving in the reserves, while the rest of us were sporting our business attire. Just from class, I could tell Bobby was motivated and hard working. I said to myself, “I’m going to hire this guy.”

In January 2016, I hired Bobby at Winsupply as a manager trainee. He went on to train and work in customer service, followed by a department we call shared purchasing solutions. Soon after, he became the operations manager of Winsupply’s regional distribution center in Jacksonville, Florida. Today he has been assigned the general manager position of our newest regional distribution center in Oklahoma City, set to open in 2022.

From classmate to upper-level management. Bobby Kellar is a perfect example of what people development and training can lead to, and why Winsupply puts so much time and effort into training our people. We aspire to see our people grow and succeed, just like Bobby has.

“Know your organization’s short-term and long-term goals BEFORE developing training programs to improve your employee’s skill set. Knowing these goals will help identify which skills are crucial to support your business growth.”

Developing Training Goals Here are some questions you should ask yourself to get started: Where do we want to see our organization in the next three to five years?

Do we expect any changes in our market over the next few years?

If we expect some changes in the market, what can we do to be one step ahead of the competition?

What are our “pain points?”

What jobs should we fill to stay ahead of the competition?

What skills will our employees need in the future to match market demands?

What digital skills do younger employees bring to your company?

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To begin your training journey, you must identify weak points. This allows you to target your training.

Every industry and business values certain skills over others. The first step in identifying employee knowledge and a possible skills gap, is determining the business need. Know your organization’s short-term and long-term goals before developing training programs to improve your employee’s skill set. Knowing these goals will help identify which skills are crucial to support your business growth.

Knowing your company’s goals can set the foundation for improvement. For example, growing digital commerce will change the way customers engage with your business. This, in turn, changes the way your products are marketed and sold. Ensuring your employees have the training to deal with technology is therefore important.

American Supply Association

Companies can reap the rewards of providing training for their employees because well-trained people help increase productivity and profits.

Investing in employee training will improve worker retention rates, customer satisfaction and creativity for new ideas. Effective training saves labor by reducing time spent on problem-solving and saves money in the long run by producing a better workforce.

Winsupply has developed “A Day’s Work in a Day” (ADWIAD) based on the Japanese philosophy, Kaizen.

The term in Japanese means “change for the better.” The philosophy sees improvement in productivity as a gradual and methodical process.

The concept of Kaizen encompasses a wide range of ideas and involves making the work environment more efficient by creating a team atmosphere, improving everyday procedures, ensuring employee satisfaction and making a job more fulfilling, less tiring and safer.

The art of constant improvement involves the idea of taking something that works well and then determining how to make it better.

Guiding Principles of ADWIAD and Kaizen

PLAN

Making gradual, unending improvements Doing little things better Setting and achieving ever-higher standards

Benefits - Staying on Top Proactive instead of reactive Know what’s happening before it becomes a crisis ollow best practices to be efficient and increase F Return on Investment (ROI)

ACT

DO CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT CHECK

If you break our business down into job functions, it makes ADWIAD much more doable.

The functions are: Leader Inventory Management Sales Workforce Warehouse Operations Administration Processes and Best Practices Data and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)

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Assigning tasks to the appropriate person within your organization frees you and helps your employees develop.

“Effective training is essential to the growth, development and retention of our most indispensable asset: our people It’s important to expect employee turnover. Most organizations expect and plan for a certain level of employee turnover. We all know the operational and financial impacts are significant, especially for our industry where it can be hard to attract new talent. This is why effective training is essential to the growth, development and retention of our most indispensable asset, our people.

Organizations should offer training that focuses on developing key positions within the company. You want your people to be able to branch out and grow. This will also help you retain their talent. Their development will help your organization grow.

Winsupply offers training through our Learning Management System.

This system promotes development at all levels of the organization.

Each specific job role such as operations, purchasing, sales, warehouse, fabrication and office management has its own career-development course.

In addition, through our Management Development Training Program, existing and potential presidents of Winsupply will gain the knowledge they need to master the fundamentals of wholesaling, sales, leadership, our company history, philosophy and business model.

The truth is, it’s not always easy. Building exceptional training programs is time-consuming. This is why many organizations use the same training year after year. But as our industry changes, reevaluating your training will help you stay on top.

Here are a few basic tips on how to stay involved after implementation: Measure Results: Measuring the effectiveness of your training programs will help you recognize necessary changes.

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Gather Feedback: Input from those who have gone through your training programs can be valuable.

You should ask your participants what they liked or disliked, what they found effective and what they would change if they could.

Engage Company Leadership: The goal of any employee training program is to improve the company’s performance. This is why it’s important to know what skills are crucial for business success.

Observe Industry Trends: Just as businesses change, so should training. Keep an eye out for major industry trends that might require new training. For example, many post-COVID workplaces are now a blend of virtual and in-person learning.

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The value of an effective training program can greatly outweigh the costs. Effective training leads to more engaged employees, increased retention and lower turnover.

Here are a few things to keep in mind: Commit to Consistency: As an organization, your employees need consistent content, so make it a priority. reate Learning Paths: Your employee training and development program should be built around the job C that you want to train your employee for. Courses can also be combined in a way that allows employees of different learning levels to progress to higher roles. eward and Recognize Training Achievements: While motivations can take various forms, the biggest R motivator is recognizing and rewarding training efforts. This could include a simple certificate, recognition from management, or a promotion. These steps will help encourage future learning and training.

It’s also important for your training team to get “into the field.” They should be familiar with your industry and your company. With this knowledge, they can build training that fits their audience.

Remember, more is not always better.

QUALITY INNOVATION Training should involve your audience. Activities like group discussions, table activities, and onthe-job lessons will create memorable learning.

Your training is the product your team delivers. It should be produced with the same level of quality that your company shows to its customers. Think of your internal employees as your customers.

TECHNOLOGY Choose a Learning Management System that fits your organization.

With your content in one place, training can be simple and quick.

At the end of the day, your business requires an unattainable amount of time and decision making. This means what is and isn’t completed is based on priorities. If you allow training your workforce to fall by the wayside, you will quickly reap the consequences. However, if you invest in your workforce, you will quickly reap the benefits.

I hope this chapter provides motivation for all of you to train, and train smart.

John McKenzie, President, Winsupply Inc.

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Laying Groundwork for Effective Program Management Chris Walther, Vice President of Operations at Rubenstein Supply Co.

Training programs seem to fall victim to the same old traps as do many ideas. We identify a need; a plan is put to place to address that need; and, without anyone taking ownership, it falls by the wayside. It becomes another exercise that a company goes through and fails out of habit. Time and time again we see training drop off and take a back seat to something else that needs doing. Even when offered tools and access, integrating training into your business still hits roadblocks and initiatives can slowly peter out. In other businesses you see training programs that thrive. What’s different? These businesses have rooted training into part of their culture, are consistent in messaging and delivery, and there is accountability in scheduling, enforcing, and taking training. So, how do you gain the same buy-in and lay groundwork for a culture of training? Having a Training Champion on your side.

In short, a Training Champion will drive and reinforce the training needs as high-priority to the business and to the expanding culture of the organization. The Champion will connect the dots on the importance of why we train for upper-level stakeholders and leadership, as well as drive the longevity and impact of your training plan or program.

A Training Champion helps create a culture of learning, which can be the cornerstone for a successful organization that is always striving for continuous improvement.

We have all been through a cycle when someone in management goes to a conference, learns something valuable, and realizes that “we need to teach our team how to do this!”. They come back to work excited, and ready to support and promote the creation of that training initiative.

“A Training Champion helps create a culture of learning, which can be the cornerstone for a successful organization that is always striving for continuous improvement.”

The work gets done, the program is launched, and the individual steps aside thinking, “that’ll do it, this training will be a hit and benefit us for a long time!”. But time and time again, after a few months, the initial movement and excitement dwindles, and stakeholders and learners alike lose sight of why this training was so essential in the first place. Work gets busy, projects pop up – without someone manning the helm, your training efforts will be the first thing to go. Enter your Training Champion - who understands training isn’t a “set it and forget it” task.

Your champion must understand the needs of your employees and your company, first and foremost. To find the gaps where training is needed, they need to be involved in the business on a variety of levels. They need to have clear directives, roles, goals, and responsibilities related to training to realize the vision of leadership. They should be empowered to help and guide where required, and their input heeded and valued. Give them access to observe relevant internal business meetings to help them understand the direction your company is going and the endgoals in mind. They need the buy-in, support and cooperation from your leadership. They also need the tools and, most importantly, time to be your champion.

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What traits should you look for in a Training Champion?

A big part of their personality will be knowing how to get buy-in from managers, employees, higher ups, essentially everyone at the business will become involved in training at a certain point. A Training Champion should be able to demonstrate to everyone the “WIFFM” (What’s in it for me?) for the training initiatives they propose and execute. Whether that ROI is professional advancement or a career path, better culture, bonuses, or reduced workplace stress, they need to speak to the many different people in their audience from a variety of perspectives.

They will engage the business by continuously delivering your training message, sending reminders and keeping training top-of-mind, telling success stories, and making it an essential part of your company culture. They gain trust, buyin, and develop consistency by listening and paying attention.

By listening to leaders and employees alike, they will understand the training needs departmentally, company-wide and for individual roles and responsibilities at your business. This insight will help the Training Champion craft meaningful training that is respectful of time, addresses knowledge gaps, and enhances job performance, which gets people on board. This, essentially, is the foundation of training program development.

Without this careful approach, you risk failing before you even start to allow training to take root in your business. If your counter sales employees are inundated with customers at all hours of the day, they’re going to resent irrelevant training that doesn’t help them do their jobs better. They need relevant, timely training that makes their jobs easier, more efficient, and delivered in a way that is respectful of their limited time. By not paying attention to what’s being trained and how it’s approached, you risk resistance by the learner – they don’t understand “what’s in it for them”.

By determining the department’s precise needs and time constraints and acknowledging your respect for those realities, you’ll achieve buy-in. Say your counter sales employees have low customer satisfaction, low sales, and have a reputation for not knowing how to up-sell to prevent the customer from having to make multiple trips to complete a project. Your Training Champion may determine they need customer service training, effective listening training, training on sales abilities and persuasiveness, and robust product training. And it all needs to be done in limited snippets of time between customers and during breaks.

Your Training Champion may create a rotating schedule of online training, vendor lunch trainings, job shadowing, pop quizzes and put a tablet at the counter for “just-in-time” microlearning training for the few minutes between customers. The manager can lend support by pitching in when someone is in training, mentoring, enforcing the training schedule, being positive and encouraging to employees, as well as rewarding the department with fun activities like a pizza party or a ½ comp PTO day for training completion and improved performance. Bragging rights also go a long way – consider featuring your training successes in your internal newsletters, intranet, or even on your social media channels for the big wins.

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In our Counter Sales example, a successful training program should be measurable and enable you to track improvement in customer satisfaction, upselling, product knowledge demonstration as well as employee satisfaction and reduced stress. All of this can be gained by the very traits discussed above - being a good listener, a rational decision maker, and by having the ability to get people’s buy-in and demonstrate “what’s in it for them”. This is how your Training Champion can turn non-believers into not only participants, but promoters of your training program.

By using effective listening and communication skills, empathy and using their gained knowledge to create training that fit the department, employees can see first-hand the beneficial results of training. Convincing the staff of training benefits allows your Training Champion to keep up momentum, as well as give and receive support. Employees will be more likely to trust the process and embrace training after seeing improvements on the ground. And managers will see improved performance, and increased morale.

How do you choose your Training Champion?

There are a lot of factors to consider. Do you have the ability to hire someone who is dedicated to your training program development? Have you identified an internal candidate with a passion for learning and teaching? Or should you add the duties to one person’s responsibilities?

You may need to consider appointing a Training Champion within Implement each department and have one leader trickle the goals down to each department. This task is not as simple as choosing your most knowledgeable employee. Your champion should a passion for training, as well as an understand its importance. This person will help your organization understand why you train, why it’s good for the individual, and good for the company.

Discover

THE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT CYCLE

Determine

Develop

They ensure every team member is working with the same purpose, focusing on the same company goals (as well as personal goals), and ensure everyone is on the same page, and with the same energy. Your training champion is the shepherd for getting buy-in, establishing consistency, and promoting growth. Your Training Champion will thrive on helping others learn new skills and be their best.

What sort of tools will your champion need?

Aside from leadership buy-in and support, access to training catalogs, technology (like an LMS, tablets, computer training stations, etc.), time, and empowerment, they will also need to understand the duties and responsibilities of each role in the business. Just like they need to understand their responsibilities, they need to understand the responsibilities of others in order to recommend meaningful and impactful training for a given job role.

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It’s important that each position your company has a Job Description. For employees, having a clear Job Description allows them to understand the responsibilities and duties that are required and expected of them.

This is the base of any employee training process. You need to be able to let them know what’s expected and what requirements are needed for that position and how it will be quantified. Using a Job Description helps your Training Champion to better understand the most important aspects of the role. In a Job Description the key skills and competencies have been identified, which are then used to evaluate performance through Assessments.

How else can you support your Training Champion? artner with owners, managers, and supervisors P to reinforce the training objectives and priorities.

Make them accountable as well. ake time for learning and provide resources.

M Provide time during work hours for employees to learn and practice new skills without interruption. efine a formal training policy and roll it out D to all employees. evelop a way to measure the success of the D training and how it will benefit everyone.

Monitoring individual progress and performance.

Promote success stories throughout the company. e consistent in supporting training programs across B the organization, in your messaging, your support, branding and the opportunities you provide. ake the Roll-Out an event! Do you really want M to just send an email to announce an exciting new training plan? Celebrate the accomplishment and have fun! elp your whole organization understand “THE H WHY”. Not because a manager said so, but because we are passionate in the message, we’re passionate about growth, and we’re passionate about giving our employees and our customers the best.

Assessments will also help your Training Champion better understand where everyone is succeeding or where they need to improve. Assessments are usually completed at mid-year and the end of the year, but are usually confidential between employee, manager, and HR. If you allow your Training Champion to see employee assessments, they will need to understand the information is confidential, and is only to be used to help enhance job performance.

ASA University provides Job Descriptions and Assessments for many roles. We’ll continue with our Counter Sales example above. It’s one of the many Job Descriptions, Assessments and training tracks ASA-U offers. One of the Job Description competencies for the role is “Sales Ability and Persuasiveness”. And one of the duties under that competency is “Advises and actively upsells customers on complimentary products beyond the original order”.

Your Training Champion will need the Job Description to understand that Counter Sales reps need to know products well enough to upsell for the convenience and satisfaction of the customer, as well as for the health of the business. If your employee assessment is thorough, it will be easier to know where an employee falls short in terms of knowledge, skills, or qualifications and where he/ she might require additional training. Using the assessment tool as a guide, your Training Champion can put together a customized training plan that will help the employee grow.

If you want to prohibit your Training Champion from seeing personal Assessments, consider having managers share a high-level overview of where employees scored, without revealing any names. They will need a map to be able to identify and remove roadblocks, but you will need to help them by giving them the proper tools to navigate and problem solve.

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How can your Training Champion help you create an identity for your organization?

Every company or organization knows WHAT they do. These are the products we sell or the services we provide. Some organizations know HOW they do it. These are the things that make them special or set them apart from their competition.

Very few organizations know WHY they do what they do. WHY is not about making money. That’s a result.

The WHY is a purpose, cause, or belief, and it’s the very reason we exist. The “why” is all about your culture and who you are. Your why, and your culture may be about customer satisfaction, or the continuous improvement your business and staff. It may be about the tradition of your family business serving your community, or it may be about your passion for being essential to the health, comfort, and safety of society.

Your training “why” will not thrive on its own. It needs a storyteller and advocate to tether it to the fabric of your values. To survive, your training “why” must be understood and reinforced. It must be bound to a culture of learning that continuously promotes your vision and purpose to your organization.

Your Training Champion knows your “why” and embeds it into a culture of learning. They foster the connection, carry the banner high for all to see, and lead your business to ongoing positive outcomes. Your Training Champion is not just a promoter of learning and development, they are YOUR champion.

Chris Walther Vice President of Operations, Rubenstein Supply Co.

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Types of Training Programs and Engagement Through Creativity Joe Jacob, President at Pipe-Valves, Inc.

QUESTION: Which training method should I use?

ANSWER: All of the above!

Our industry is not immune to the retirement wave generated by the baby boomer generation. About 7 years ago at Pipe-Valves, Inc, we identified 10 key associates that were going to retire within a decade. At that time, it represented 24% of our workforce that we were going to have to replace.

We also wanted to grow, and we did. We have 32% more associates today. So not only did we hire and train replacements for the 10 retiring team members, but we also hired and trained 13 more to keep up with growth.

We knew we weren’t going to find that many people from within our industry, so we needed to develop our own internal training programs. We started trying different types of training with mixed results. After some trial and error, we found that blending multiple types of training led to better results. Hence the “All of the above” answer.

Someone that was just an average student may be better off with job shadowing and a mentor than a book or vendor catalog. Others may thrive on reading technical details, so it really depends on the role and the individual as to the type of training method you will want to utilize.

We have found that a new hire in our warehouse may learn processes well while job shadowing and learn product better when they have a mentor they can go to with questions.

Our counter sales role tends to require online training for use of our Order Entry module and studying lists of our stock material, sorted by product group, to get familiar with item numbers and descriptions.

Typing or keyboarding lessons may be required. An inside sales role could require online classes to cover industry and product knowledge as well as customer service and profitable sales techniques. Other valuable topics are conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, and leadership.

Let’s face it, more complex roles will require more topics and types of training. Whichever type of training we utilize, we also need to make sure the student remains engaged.

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COMMON TRAINING TYPES Below are many types of training that are available depending on the subject or role: Online Classroom Established programs Books Job shadowing Reverse shadowing Mentorships Vendor training

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Engagement With each of these training types, we need to seek a high level of engagement. That’s where the creativity of the trainer, manager, coach or mentor comes into play.

VISUAL

AUDITORY

READING/ WRITING

KINESTHETIC

“Why do they keep asking me how to do it? I told them once.” If only training were that simple. The reality is that if you have four individuals to train, then you will likely be tasked with four different types of engagement to get your message across.

One will grasp verbal instruction, the second will need it in writing, the third will need to see a demonstration, drawing or video, the fourth may need a couple of the previous methods, and they will all need the message repeated to help their memory retention.

Yes, even if you asked, “Are there any questions?” and not one of them had one, they need it repeated.

To test their engagement, you could try quiz questions at certain intervals of a lesson. Include a small prize for a correct answer. You may find engagement improves among others at the next interval.

When job shadowing, reverse the role and have the trainer shadow the trainee to see if they are following all the steps in a procedure.

Learning Styles: Each unique learner will have their own preferred style of learning.

Distractions We live in a chaotic work environment. Smartphones do not just ring. They ding, beep, and buzz throughout the day as well. Laptop and desktop computers do it too. It is hard to maintain a train of thought and stay on task with all the constant distractions. Now go out to the warehouse and add guys talking loudly to each other over the sound of loose sticks of steel pipe rolling onto a cantilever rack.

Challenges continue into the training room. Out of four trainees, one did not sleep well because they have a newborn at home. The second struggles to read from dyslexia. The third has some hearing damage. The fourth needs a new pair of glasses but has not had time to get them yet. What are the odds that one method of training, provided one time is going to get through to all four of these individuals? Slim to none.

As an organization that cares about outcomes, it is incumbent upon business leaders to find and provide better responses to the situations we are faced with, that improve our outcomes.

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“The reality is that if you have four individuals to train, then you will likely be tasked with four different types of engagement to get your message across.”

Our Experience We had a manager that was a good verbal communicator. So, his inclination was to hold meetings conducted 100% verbally. When asked later why an associate had not done something they had been asked to do in the meeting, they would often say, “I don’t remember you saying that.” Only a few would remember the verbal instruction.

I started asking the manager to give me his agenda items in advance of the meeting and I prepared PowerPoint slides to go along with the topics. Now we were giving them the verbal message along with written statements, pictures, video, etc. We saw some improvement with their engagement and retention, but we still were not getting 100%.

We then began to follow up the meeting with an email that repeated important facts or assignments. It can be as simple as making PDF files of the slides and emailing them after the meeting or copying the agenda from the meeting into an email and adding a few reminder notes of action items. We will likely never get to 100% understanding and recall, but using multiple methods of engagement and repetition has improved our outcome dramatically.

Having been involved in the training of many of our associates as well as running many of our business meetings, I have seen firsthand our failures to engage various individuals, as well as our success in doing so. I have seen the aversion to eye contact, the lack of note taking, the distraction from a text message, the side conversations.

“Using multiple methods of engagement and repetition has improved our outcome dramatically.”

When these things occurred, I had a choice. I could either blame the individuals or I could change my response. I tried blaming the individuals, but it did not improve the outcome. When I began to change my response, by providing multiple methods of learning we began to see breakthroughs. Today we utilize an all-the-above approach with the hope of reaching each individual the way they needed to be reached.

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When it comes to training, there is no one type that has worked for our organization. We have utilized written procedures, mentoring, job shadowing, vendor training for specific product groups, ERP online courses, American Supply Association University (ASA-U) online courses for industry, role, and product training.

We have created a computer lab to provide specific software training such as common Excel tasks, PDF editing for submittals, file organization using File Explorer, and more. With each of these we have had to make sure that we are repeating the information verbally, providing written instruction, and using visual demonstration.

Storytelling can even be effective. We often use stories to convey our culture and values. The more times we tell a story, the better it gets. We know we have gotten good at it when we hear a story being re-told by the trainees! We call that the ripple effect. Our culture and values being spread outward throughout our organization like a ripple in a pond of water.

All the Above Incorporating blended training methods can increase engagement, reduce confusion, increase confidence, and improve job performance among the trainees. Your associates are diverse. Associates come from varying generations, have different home lives, come from different educational backgrounds, and thus have different needs when it comes to learning. Your training needs to be as diverse as they are and help bring out their best in the roles you are preparing them for.

The supply industry is competing with a lot of other industries for quality associates to fuel our growth. Stealing experienced people from a competitor can be expensive and disappointing when you find out…the competitor didn’t train them either! So much for that experience you paid for!

Being an organization that provides quality training and promotes from within will allow your company to grow and retain associates with shared values and culture. Being an organization that promotes the idea that “associates retire from here” can mean a lot to someone looking to start a career.

“We have seen former trainees become leaders in their departments … over the past 5 years, our GM$/Employee has risen 46% cumulatively”

Since we began using the ideas above, we have seen former trainees become leaders in their departments. One performance indicator you might be familiar with is gross margin dollars per employee. Over the past 5 years, our GM$/Employee has risen 46% cumulatively, while the average age dropped from 52.6 to 47.3, due to those retirements of experienced baby boomers.

We attribute much of this performance improvement to the quality team we have assembled and trained.

Nowadays, with our internal training programs in place, we don’t hire based on experience, we look for the right attitude. We are confident that if we find a candidate with integrity, intelligence, and initiative, we can teach them product, procedure, and profitability.

Joe Jacob, President, Pipe-Valves, Inc.

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Conducting Needs Assessments Ruth Martin, VP of Human Resources at F.W. Webb Company

Conducting a needs assessment isn’t always the formalized process of an employee evaluation at the end of the year. In fact, it’s probably more instinctual than you realize. Have you ever noticed an employee struggle with a task? Or read a report on a department or branch’s sales and see they weren’t up to par with another department or branch? Have you seen one employee perform above and beyond the rest of the department and wonder how you can capture their lightning in a bottle? Well, if you have, then you just conducted a needs assessment on the fly!

Learning how to evaluate your employee’s needs through your or your management team’s observation is an invaluable skill. By constantly keeping an eye open for training opportunities, you will make year end evaluations more pleasant, and your company more efficient and desirable place to work. You will improve your processes, and through evaluation and training, you will create an investment that benefits your employees and your organization.

Knowledge, Skill, and Ability (KSA) Evaluations So, what are Knowledge, Skills and Abilities in the training sense? They are a tool to measure proficiencies that employees possess and help you determine their training and development needs.

KSA’s should not only be part of your review process, but also a part of your everyday observations of your staff for their professional improvement. nowledge is an organized body of information, usually factual or procedural in nature. It’s the K theoretical understanding of a subject acquired through learning. Knowledge increases with experience. kills are the proficient manual, verbal or mental manipulation of data or things. They are the practiced S or learned behaviors and proficiencies you develop through training and experience. Skills can be developed with hands-on practice bility is the power or capacity to perform an activity or task, which can be either natural or inbuilt A talent. Abilities can be improved to a certain extent with training and practice.

Knowledge

Skill

Ability

The theoretical or practical understanding of a subject

Proficiencies learned through training or experience

The quality of being able to do something

Acquired through learning experiences

Practiced or learned behavior

Natural or inbuilt

Example: knowing how to bake a cake (the “theory”)

Example: repetition in practicing baking a cake (the “practice”)

Example: attention to detail in measuring ingredients for the cake (the “talent”)

Increases with experience and learning

Hands-on practice and experimentation

Training and practice to enhance natural abilities

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Simply put, knowledge is being familiar with the general idea of how to bake a cake. Skills are the ability to follow a recipe and bake the cake. Ability is the talent to create your own recipes and decorate it in fine detail.

Let’s look at a few specific examples, applied to real life:

Example: Leo Morin is a heating specialist who is a favorite among contractors for developing heat loss designs.

Example: Elyse Patrick is a highly sought-after Showroom Sales Consultant.

Knowledge

Elyse began her career as a sales associate at a high-end department store selling furniture.

Through this experience she learned selling techniques and developed superb customer service skills. She then left that position for a sales position in a custom cabinetry boutique and later lands a position at a plumbing and lighting showroom.

Leo understands heating systems that he first learned in a vocational program when he was in school. After completing school, he worked as an apprentice for a contractor and was able to put what he learned put into action.

Skills As an apprentice Leo continued to learn about different heating systems and specific requirements of each. He was able to put what he had learned both in school and through observation into practice as he began to install heating systems.

Abilities After seven years in the field Leo decided to leave the field and began working at a distributor as a heating specialist. His experience in the field proved he had heat loss design skills and the ability to create heating systems with high efficiency. Contractors consider him an expert and now call upon him to create heat loss designs.

Knowledge

Skills In her most recent position at the plumbing and lighting showroom Elyse already has a strong foundation of sales and customer service skills that she brought to the position.

She also possesses home design skills from her position at the cabinetry boutique which are easily transferrable to the plumbing and lighting industry. These skills will be supplemented with industry specific training.

Abilities Elyse possesses the personality and demeanor for sales, with an aptitude to drive sales as well as always wanting to please the customer.

As a result, she has become a highly soughtafter Showroom Sales Consultant.

Identifying KSA’s helps you recognize when your team needs training to help them enhance their knowledge into skills, and their skills to ability. You will then be able to identify when an employee has achieved mastery with their abilities and is ready for some stretch assignments or goals to help broaden their horizons.

By paying attention to training needs, your employee confidence and retention will increase, as will the nimbleness of your organization. You will build a natural succession plan as well as a culture of accountability and lifelong learning.

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Stretch Assignments Remember when we asked if you ever saw a proficient employee and wondered how you catch their lighting in a bottle? I’ll bet you instantly thought of someone. So how do you train someone who has maxed out their KSA’s? How do you keep them learning, engaged and working for your organization? Stretch assignments.

Stretch assignments proactively provide and effectively manage the career growth of high-potential employees. They are unique and challenging experiences that optimize on-the-job development. These types of assignments provide the opportunity for individuals to be tested for creativity, innovation, judgement, and drive.

Stretch assignments can be best utilized for high-performing employees who have maxed out their KSA’s and need a new challenge. They are an excellent tool to test an individual’s abilities and motivation. Common reasons to use stretch assignments include: etting whether or not an individual has the potential for what the V company sees in them.

Preparing individuals to step up into leadership roles should the opportunity present itself.

Building internal strength and ability to quickly test new ideas.

The benefits of stretch assignments are intentional; they are used to develop specific competencies that fit into a thoughtfully created career development plan for the individual. Stretch goals and assignments are intended to encourage creative thinking, and therefore, help companies uncover new ways to improve processes, services, and more. The best stretch assignments build business acumen, technical skills and leadership ability.

Examples of stretch assignments include: Leading or serving on a task force created to solve a difficult problem.

Relaunching an internal initiative that previously failed.

Performing data analysis to find business efficiencies.

Job shadowing to learn new responsibilities.

Training other employees on a new process to help with efficiency.

“The benefits of stretch assignments are intentional; they are used to develop specific competencies that fit into a thoughtfully created career development plan for the individual.”

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We had a high-potential leader in our warehouse who was sort of an “unspoken leader” among the ranks. He had been there a long time, worked in several positions and knew a great deal about the ins and outs of warehouse responsibilities.

To keep his institutional knowledge and test his management prowess, we gave him a stretch goal to create a cross-training program to help with coverage in different areas of the warehouse. Not only could this project help us improve coverage, but it could help us improve processes, retain employees by providing career flexibility, and it could also help us increase knowledge and efficiency.

Ultimately this project could increase customer satisfaction and employee morale. Plus, we might gain a leader with valuable competencies such as strategic decision making, coaching and developing others, building trust and gaining commitment, planning and organizing, and delegating responsibility and follow-up.

With a little bit of mentorship, strategic guidance, and his knowledge of the department, we helped our employee craft a plan for his cross-training project. He had a lot of instinct for who would be great trainers, best times of the day to train, how to get buy-in from our most reluctant employees and how to test and reinforce their training.

We got some unexpected results too. Employees showed confidence when they got the hang of their new skills, and employee relationships got better too because they gained a bit of understanding and empathy for what other positions had to do to fulfil their responsibilities. The stretch assignment gave us more positive outcomes than we had expected, and we welcomed a new leader into our ranks as a result.

By continuously conducting a needs assessment, we not only find and address areas of improvement, but also ways to motivate and ensure growth for employees at every level of experience within the company. Our employees do not see assessments as something to dread at the end of the year.

Through communication and care, we have created a culture of learning and self-improvement. The benefits far outweigh the financial or time expenses, and ultimately, create not just a better place to work, but a company where you can have a career.

Ruth Martin, VP of Human Resources, F.W. Webb Company

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Buy-In and Problem Solving Todd Restel, Chief Financial Officer at First Supply LLC

This chapter covers different strategies on how to get buy-in from leadership and staff, as well as how to negate the challenges and barriers in launching your training program.

While the overall focus of this handbook is to aid our industry’s efforts to establish and to implement training programs within your organization, please note that the concepts in this chapter relating to solving problems, to obtaining buy-in and to overcoming barriers are applicable to virtually all problems associated with new implementations.

Personally, I find very few aspects of my job to be more rewarding than problem solving. Each of us inherently knows that nothing is perfect, including our businesses, which means that we engage in problem solving daily to address the changing environment. This constant change creates continuous opportunities to solve problems.

Therefore, the skills required to solve problems are critical in our work towards the long-term success of our companies. Problem solving almost always requires buy-in from others. Hence, this chapter will focus on “Buy-In” and “Problem Solving” with an eye towards how these issues relate to the launch and implementation of a training program.

My approach to problem solving and life in general is very easy to explain. I have found that dealing with problems at work, at home, within my community or any other group/organization can be addressed using three simple principles:

1

Keep things simple.

2

Explain “Why?”

3

Show everyone respect!

Keep Things Simple.

I frequently use the language “identify the root cause” as a common business terminology when explaining the concept of simplicity. At our facilities, we have more people working for us whose highest diploma is from high school than we have people with postgraduate university degrees. Therefore, breaking down issues, problems, and concepts into their basic elements are critical for widespread communication and understanding.

I believe that if a concept takes more than thirty seconds (and at most one minute) to explain, then you have not yet identified the root cause of the issue. In other words, continue to simplify the problem that is being addressed. This concept is similar to the concept of an elevator speech, which is a common tool that you would use to clearly and briefly communicate who you are to another person while riding in an elevator.

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Within our industry, we likely all have engineers and/or safety teams that utilize the “root cause” concept. For instance, your engineering staff have been trained to take complicated situations and break them down to a series of solvable and manageable (e.g. “simple”) problems in order to resolve the greater task at hand.

If you don’t have engineers on staff, identifying the root cause should be a well-established concept within your safety programs. In other words, the safety personnel are searching for the primary source of the problem or issue at hand that created the safety issue.

Explain “Why?” Once the problem is understood by all, it is critical to explain why the proposed actions are necessary for resolution of the problem. Simply telling people what to do is not good enough and will frequently backfire.

My personal story that I have told virtually everyone who works for me is as follows: several years ago, I had a headlight go out on my car. When I went down to the auto repair store, the person behind the counter brought me the correct replacement part.

While paying for the item, he told me not to touch the glass part of the bulb during the installation process.

For me, being told not to do something triggers my inner child which internally manifests itself as a strong urge to do the exact thing that I was just warned against doing.

Naturally, I did touch the glass and noted nothing unusual. What I did not understand at the time was that the oil from my hand rubbed off on the glass bulb. After the headlights were turned on, the oils left behind from my fingers caused the glass to superheat, which ultimately resulted in a minor explosion.

Had the worker explained to me WHY I should not touch the bulb instead of only telling me not to touch the bulb, I never would have touched the glass and could have avoided a second trip to the automotive parts store.

Based on the lesson that I learned from the automotive parts experience, I became keenly aware of the advantages of learning from other people’s mistakes and tough life lessons without having to make the same mistake myself. This simple life lesson is the reason why I agreed to write this chapter.

Everyone knows training is one of many key tools that will help a company succeed in the future. Therefore, you owe it to yourself and the company to make your training program happen without suffering the issues of those companies who failed to adequately train their employee base.

Experience has led me to believe that engaged employees are always open to training opportunities and learning. Therefore, it is always appropriate to explain the “Why” as we proceed down the path towards the launch of a training program which ultimately help lead to “Buy-In”. [Note: I realize that in some life-or-death situations regarding safety while in a truck or on a forklift, you may not have the luxury to explain “Why” in the heat of the moment. However, you can always explain the “Why” at a later point in time. Fortunately, life or death situations in our businesses should be rare because we have properly trained our employees.]

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“It is always appropriate to explain the ‘Why’ as we proceed down the path towards the launch of a training program, which ultimately helps lead to ‘Buy-In’.”

Show Everyone Respect One of the many reasons why I have remained in our industry over the past few decades is that our industry attracts great people. I used to joke that I have never met a pretentious plumber, but over the years I have met one or two of them.

While most people in our industry are down to earth and caring people, this does not mean that everyone is in constant alignment and sees the world through the same lens. Our industry has individuals with beliefs that span a large spectrum. Be respectful to them all, even to those with whom you disagree.

As of this point in time, the basic concepts that I apply to problems have been clearly identified. However, as I contemplated the next steps, I started thinking through dozens of problems that I have faced in my past.

“Our industry has individuals with beliefs that span a large spectrum. Be respectful to them all, even to those with whom you disagree.”

I was shocked at how many problems I could think of from just this past year. It occurred to me that someone way smarter than me has studied this problem and created a systematic approach to create ‘Buy-In’. After a Google search, I found literally hundreds of books, consulting companies, articles, blogs, etc. on this topic. Early on in my research, I chose to focus in on an internationally known Harvard Business School Emeritus Professor named John Kotter. Professor Kotter co-wrote a book titled Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Downi (“Buy-In”). This book portrayed real life problems and solutions that directly correlate to problem solving through obtaining buy-in. In other words, Buy-In uses a reproducible methodology to build support for an idea.

In my experience, training is critical and leads to improved outcomes and better employees. However, training also seems to be one of the easiest areas to reduce or to outright eliminate during times of financial difficulty.

Buy-In uses a reproducible methodology to build support for an idea.

Without going into the key metrics around Human Capital (of which there are many) and the financial impacts such as “Return on Investment” related to training, we should all be able to agree that our employees are an incredibly important factor to the success of any company. Therefore, the question should not be whether or not you should proceed with a training program, but rather how should you proceed with your training program despite the difficulties that you may encounter as you push through yet another change in your company.

If you are still reading this chapter, you already know that a good idea does not always end up resulting in a fruitful outcome. You can likely name dozens of good ideas that did not succeed.

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Roadblocks could include an influential individual with their own pet project which is a ‘priority’ or any of the other hundreds of reasons that we have all seen used to stop a project in its tracks. Stated differently, you will encounter hurdles. The good news is that the remainder of this chapter offers a way to overcome those hurdles.

Buy-In condenses dozens of commonly deployed attacks that are utilized to sabotage a good idea from moving forward into four basic attack strategies. Being able to identify these strategies is this first step towards resolving the problem at hand. The four basic attacks per Buy-Ini are as follows:

Fear Mongering

This kind of attack is aimed at raising anxieties so that a thoughtful examination of a proposal is very difficult if not impossible. People begin to worry that implementing a genuinely good plan, pursuing a great idea, or making a needed vision a reality might be filled with frightening risks – even though that is not really the case. (p. 74)i

Ridicule

(or character assassination)

Some verbal bullets don’t shoot directly at the idea but at the person behind the idea. (p. 81)i

Delay

There are questions and concerns that can kill a good proposal simply by creating a deadly delay. (p. 77)i

Confusion

Some idea-killing questions and concerns muddle the conversation with irrelevant facts, convoluted logic, or so many alternatives that it is impossible to have the clear and intelligent dialog that builds buy-in. (p. 79)i

Now that the elements which may derail the creation of your training program have been identified, preparation to address the critics would be the next steps in the process as you work towards rolling out your training program.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that the opposition may be genuine and not personal. This opposition often comes from fear (of change, cost, time limits, biases, etc.). Even if opposition is presented aggressively, maintain treating them with respect and they will likely view this perceived threat as less dangerous to them.

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Buy-In’si methodology to overcome opposition is simple and straightforward.

1. Gain people’s attention by allowing the attackers in and letting them attack.

2. Then win the minds of the relevant, attentive audience with simple, clear, and commonsense responses.

3. Win their hearts by, most of all, showing respect.

4. Constantly monitor the people whose hearts and minds you need: the broad audience, not the few attackers.

5. Prepare for these steps in advance, …. (p. 102-3)i To add some color commentary to the five steps above, it is critical that everyone is involved in the conversation regarding the rollout of a training solution. In other words, do not keep out the dissenters and nay-sayers.

When people are opposed to an idea, the “elevated” conversation of the dissenter(s) will literally grab people’s attention. In today’s era of information overload in virtually all aspects of our lives, this elevated conversation will help to keep a spotlight on your mission to implement a training program.

Once you have the appropriate attention, provide simple, clear answers in a respectful manner. At the same time, understand that you may very likely face continued attack strategies. Be prepared for this opposition by spending time early in the process brainstorming possible attacks and developing straight-forward responses to those obstacles.

Additionally, we all know that solutions to problems generally will not generate 100% agreement. Therefore, focus on the majority of the individuals involved instead of the minority dissenters. Keep in mind speed bumps will inevitably arise during the roll out of the training program. These issues can lead to dissatisfaction which is why you need to monitor and to communicate with a special emphasis towards your majority supporters. To make this happen, stay focused and be well prepared.

“..it is critical that everyone is involved in the conversation… in other words, do not keep out the dissenters and nay-sayers.”

In order to tie the importance of training back to the success of a company, when our Board of Directors and management team hold meetings together, our Board wants to be sure that management is focused in on the key factors involved in running a thriving business.

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Not surprisingly, our Board defines one of those key focus areas as ‘Human Capital’. Having a robust training program is one of several critical pillars of our Human Capital strategy. By making a meaningful investment in training, you are sending signals to your employees, vendors and competitors that you plan to be competitive in your market for years to come. This messaging with an eye towards the future will help you to retain your employees, which should be another pillar of your Human Capital strategy.

Obtaining Buy-in, problem solving and overcoming barriers are going to be skills that you will most likely need for the rest of your life. If you use the techniques detailed throughout this chapter, your end result should be the evolution of a new training program.

Finally, if the extensive references to the book Buy-In haven’t made it obvious, I would recommend that you read the book from cover to cover. Keep in mind that these techniques will work equally as well in your personal life as they do in the business world.

Todd Restel, Chief Financial Officer, First Supply LLC

References:

Kotter, J. P., & Whitehead, L. A. (2010).

Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down (1st ed.).

Harvard Business Review Press. i

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Developing Learning Objectives Melissa Lunak, Chief Human Resources Officer Paul Kennedy, President & CEO Grace Sella, HR Project Manager Gail See, Learning & Development Specialist at Dakota Supply Group

A first-year salesperson in your organization has a fast-paced job that demands mastery of not only your products and solutions but also safety, communication, ethics, and computer skills. Developing your trainings atop the foundation of solid learning objectives means you are providing them content that tells them what they need to do, how it needs to be done, and the supporting information necessary to execute the task.

A good learning objective is actionable, measurable, and adjustable so you and your learners know if they can truly understand and act upon the content. Objectives are only powerful when paired with a clearly defined goal statement.

Working together, the goal and objectives are the backbone of an effective and efficient learning resource, both on a course and curriculum level that allows you to raise the comfort of employees in their role and get them productive quickly.

Actionable

Adjustable Measurable

There is nothing wrong with learning curriculum heavily weighted in the first years, as long as it is intentionally well-paced and embraced by the entire organization. This commitment to learning shows trust in a growth mindset; laying the groundwork for employees to find value in their daily work. It also puts the responsibility on us as mentors, coaches, facilitators, and managers to make sure the time spent learning is efficient and effective.

“Working together, the goal and objectives are the backbone of an effective and efficient learning resource…that allows you to raise the comfort of employees in their role and get them productive quickly.”

Developing efficient learning resources for the industrial supply industry isn’t easy. It takes time to evaluate a training request and get to the core of an issue. Building or sourcing effective learning is equally challenging.

Defining measurable outcomes and creating activities or tasks based on real-life experiences takes research and support from many segments in an organization. Despite all the challenges, efficient and effective learning is attainable when you establish clear learning objectives focused on building the skills you need to solve business challenges. At Dakota Supply Group (DSG), we know it is important to establish strong

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objectives before developing or sourcing training. So, how do we differentiate the strong from the weak? Let’s say you are part of a strategic effort to reduce the amount of mistakes warehouse employees make by the end of the next quarter. Improving the skills of these employees with additional training is identified as part of the solution. The learning goal you establish is, “warehouse assistants will increase their picking accuracy by the end of next quarter to prevent the transfer or delivery of the wrong product from warehouse to branch.” Below are a few objectives to meet this goal and one of them is stronger than the others.

Are you able to identify the strongest learning objective?

Warehouse assistants will: 1. Correctly scan four products from each segment of the warehouse using their scanner.

2. Understand the layout of the warehouse to increase their familiarity with the layout.

3. Describe the difference between three different product codes to increase recognition.

4. List the four steps to correctly load product onto a pallet to avoid mistakes.

If you picked #1, then you understand what we look for in a learning objective at DSG. We don’t need a team of warehouse employees who are good at understanding, describing, and listing. We want employees to spend training time practicing skills to increase their comfort and familiarity with their responsibilities.

Focusing on increasing skills allows us to spend energy and resources on realistic training resources tailored to our business, products, and existing technology.

The difference between a strong learning objective and a weak one is not only about subtle wordsmithing.

Below are five tips to keep effective and efficient learning objectives relevant to your business needs.

We don’t need a team of warehouse employees who are good at understanding, describing, and listing. We want employees to spend training time practicing skills to increase their comfort and familiarity with their responsibilities

Tactic #1: Focus on what employees need to do.

Establishing learning objectives is notoriously difficult because we focus on what we think employees need to understand, instead of isolating what they need to do. You will find this sentiment repeated in training literature because it occurs in every organization. Requests for training often stem from a compliance or safety regulation, making it too easy to push content instead of practicing skills. A focus on relaying information results in ineffective text-heavy learning completely inappropriate for the technically minded salesperson sitting in your warehouse or branch. The good news is you can avoid the pitfalls of an information overload by establishing skills-based learning objectives before you develop, or search for learning resources.

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Tactic #2: Invite your stakeholder and subject matter experts to collaborate.

Keep the people who know and understand the training content close, particularly when drafting goals and objectives. These individuals have a vested interest in the development of the right training and will guide you with each step. They provide perspective and insights based on actual experiences and can walk you through processes and examples to narrow down exactly the skills needed to fulfill the goal.

Allowing them the space and time to provide resources and guidance helps you focus on the essential objectives, restricting the scope of development to the most critical information.

Stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) provide valuable feedback during the internal auditing of your curriculum. Reviewing objectives is important to prune outdated and non-essential content and re-focus on the skills employees need to learn. If engagement is high, this collaboration yields productive conversations, resulting in continuous improvement of your resources.

Involvement of stakeholders and SMEs in your training process means you also have people promoting and championing your learning throughout the organization. L&D teams support all segments of a company, making it difficult to align training communication and suggestions when a need arises.

Stakeholders and SMEs are closer to the issues and challenges employees experience. They have direct access to email, telephone, and face-to-face visits with target populations and will communicate the value of training to the right employee at exactly the right time in their professional development.

Tactic #3: Treat your learning objectives like business metrics.

A critical part in establishing strong learning objectives based on a goal is in the data you collect after the learning is launched.

Look back at the warehouse example above. Think about the data you can collect because the measurable objective focused on a clear business goal. Did the employees improve their accuracy after the training? Does that accuracy continue to improve over the long-term? Skills-based goals and learning objectives make it easy to evaluate your curriculum and keep objectives with positive outcomes while adjusting or retiring those that no longer meet business goals. This keeps training paths focused on efficacy and streamlined for efficiency.

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Tactic #4: Plan for change.

Your organization could focus their energy on building relationships with new customers at the beginning of a year and then suddenly shift mid-year to maintaining close relationships with key accounts. Readjusting plans to respond to the shifting climate is a common occurrence in our industry. We know that change is constant, and your resources should be malleable enough to adjust to them. Segment eLearning, webinar, and classroom courses based on learning objectives that can be swapped, adjusted, or removed quickly, with minimal disruption to surrounding curricula.

Create a database of existing trainings and include keywords pulled from objectives to quickly isolate affected courses when changes are phased in.

Tactic #5: Share your learning objectives.

Make your learning objectives accessible to everyone in your organization. Learning objectives should be one of the very first pieces of information presented in a resource. Placing objectives in a primary position of an eLearning module, webinar syllabus, or front-and-center in the task description on your LMS platform helps learners filter through content quickly to find exactly what they need. In busy branches, noisy warehouse floors, or on training computers in lunchrooms, make it easy for learners to use keywords embedded in your objectives to get to training resources quickly. The easier it is to filter and find resources, the more training time employees have, and the greater the chances they will complete the training you curate for them.

At DSG, investing in people is at the core of our business model and we strive to develop or attain quality content to fit the training needs of our employees. This means sometimes the learning objectives cannot be met internally and we call upon external experts, like ASA, to help us source and administer resources.

Deciding when to develop internal training or reach out to external sources depends on the request, the results of the needs analysis, established goal, and the learning objectives.

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Below are a few questions we ask ourselves when deciding if we should build or source training resources: re the objectives highly A technical, or product specific? o we have internal subject D matter experts available to help us meet these objectives? o any of our proprietary D processes or technology need to be included to fulfill an objective?

I f scenarios are needed to fulfill learning objectives, will custom scenarios based on employee experiences increase retention rates and instill credibility in the resource?

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Internal development and outsourcing training both have their pros and cons. Determine the best course of action by answering questions like the ones above. Then, archive these answers. Decisions like these are not set in stone; returning to them during an internal audit will help you evaluate if your choice to build or source training changes with time.

The segmented nature of our business means employees are juggling their primary responsibilities with the added expectations we, and other business units, throw at them. It is easy to forget that training is just another task competing for their finite and valuable time.

Embrace empathy for the employees you are supporting and remember the best way to show your respect is by creating concise courses based on actionable, measurable, and adjustable learning objectives. Doing so results in efficient and effective skills-based training resources supported by the entire organization that seamlessly integrate into their busy day.

Melissa Lunak, Chief Human Resources Officer Paul Kennedy, President & CEO Grace Sella, HR Project Manager Gail See, Learning & Development Specialist Dakota Supply Group

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Types of Learners and Training Strategy Shifts Deb Gorra, Manager at Weinstein Supply, div. of Hajoca

Picture this: You have two job openings for counter sales positions. And, luckily, you have found two individuals to fill these roles. The first candidate has been with the company for nine years and is being promoted from a warehouse associate. The other comes from outside the industry, has no experience in wholesale distribution, but has worked in sales before. Time to onboard! Just roll out the same old training routine to get these two associates up to speed, right?!

Wrong! Both of these individuals bring a specific skill set with them to their new rolls. Albeit, they are completely different.

In this chapter, you should come away with the awareness that there are different types of learners. In more than one way! Teammates come on board with varying degrees of business experience. Some have a college education, while others have more direct career experience.

There are people who prefer taking notes and having handbooks to learn from, while others need to learn by doing. Understanding this realization should lead to creating a balanced and functional training program.

Customization is a bonus.

This is why I would always recommend creating a training program with different “modules” to tailor to the individual. In wholesale distribution, these modules could look something like:

General business knowledge

Computer skills and business software literacy

Revenue, profitability, overhead expenses, Inventory management customer service, etc. and sales order entry system, email etiquette, etc.

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Narrower job specific responsibilities Receiving material, sales order entry, procurement, etc.

Company culture Organizational structure, core values

People/soft skills Time management, emotional intelligence, etc.

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In this case, the candidate promoted from within could most likely fast forward through company culture and some specific business software literacy as they are already familiar with the system and company. Always first consider if you are dealing with a new, intermediate, or seasoned employee.

The second thing to envision is, what is the goal for training this particular employee? While identifying developmental needs, focus on one or two competencies at a time. How does this look in real life? Let’s consider our two employees being hired as counter salesperson.

The “greener” candidate from outside the industry will probably need to focus on some of the more foundational modules first. They need to become familiar with wholesale distribution and the value proposition the company offers to customers. Some behaviors to focus on initially are following company policies and guidelines. Do they mesh with the company culture? Or could they “get with the program” over time, as they say? These are certainly behaviors that should be monitored during the employee’s initial training.

The seasoned teammate promoted from within should focus on selling skills. Chances are they are familiar with the material after working in the warehouse for nine years. Now they need to be able to talk with customers, identify their needs, help solve their problems, and make money doing it!

Once the employee has a good handle on the sales entry system and pricing structures, they should shadow a successful salesperson in the organization. There is no greater asset in our industry than knowledgeable salespeople. They should train and also “sell” to customers on their own. The objective is to ingrain and practice favorable behaviors consistent with the company values. These behaviors can then be coached and developed over time.

Always first consider if you are dealing with a new, intermediate, or seasoned employee.

For the more challenged learner, you may have to look more toward shadowing and mentoring. In my experience, it is important to check in with that employee and make sure they are engaged. Be ready to pivot strategies as you go.

What makes your employees tick? Or as one of my mentors once said, “Know your peeps and what makes ‘em chirp!” – Ed Boone, Weinstein Supply Philadelphia div. of Hajoca Is it recognition? Money? Autonomy? A team atmosphere?

Not only will thinking of this question guide in placing people in the correct roles, but it will also help them in their training.

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Something to consider is the different types of learners.

You are probably familiar with these basic categories:

What makes your employees tick? As one of my mentors once said, “Know your peeps and what makes ‘em chirp!”

Visual – “Learn by seeing” Auditory – “Learn by hearing”

– Ed Boon, Weinstein Supply Philadelphia div. of Hajoca

Reading & text based – “Learn by taking notes” Hands-on/Kinesthetic – “Learn by doing”

LEARNING TYPE Visual

Auditory

Reading & Text Based

Hands on/ Kinesthetic

INDUSTRY SPECIFIC EXAMPLES Presentations heavy on images and graphs like company sales goals and YTD comparisons.

Experiential learning from anecdotes of seasoned counter personnel.

Recorded training session from an in-house company field expert.

Group discussion with peers on best practices like how to draw in new counter business and get customers to apply for credit accounts.

Training topic with worksheet to be filled out such as target customers after identifying needs.

Pick up the phone and try taking an order.

Shadow a seasoned counter salesperson for a day or more.

Now, I am not proposing you create training for each type of learner. My suggestion is to create a blend to appeal to everyone. The goal is to keep engagement! In other words, keep training interesting, interactive, brief, and easy to access.

With sensitivity to people working multiple roles and being busy as the default, training should be offered “on demand” in a way that can be taken in chunks. Hence brief and easy to access. After all, 58% of workers prefer to learn at their own pace. The interesting and interactive is the harder part, but ASA has some ideas and content with a proven track record, which is a great place to start.

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Now, let’s shift gears and consider continuous training in the workplace. The key here is keeping people engaged. And just like with new employee training, (yup you guessed it!), you will need to cater your strategy to the different personality and learner types.

I think of it in terms of basic line chart. On one axis is performance and the other is potential. Teammates can fall into some basic categories. Consider these examples and the characteristics and solutions that go along with that:

“The Workhorse” A tried and true team member, but potentially resistant to training in general.

Could be combative or a know-it-all because “that is the way we’ve always done it”. That’s the worst line you can ever hear when striving for continuous improvement! olutions: Explain how much people look up to them, and how you can help make them a better leader S with some leadership and soft skills training. A solution for engagement is for the workhorse to be the go-to person who shows the new employee the ropes. As they are being shadowed, they can flex their mentoring muscles. In time, if they are the right fit, you can let them know you want to train them for an official leadership title.

“The Superstar” These are high performance, high potential individuals. These individuals can be confident (maybe too confident?!) OR more uncertain. The confident ones usually can roll with the punches. They may need to be reined in. But in the spirit of training, let’s focus on the unsure superstar. They may likely ask questions they already know the answers to. This type of person should be open to training but does not want to be openly recognized in front of others. With their introverted nature, they do not want to be put on the spot. olutions: The introverted superstar may be the perfect candidate for a knowledge and skills assessment.

S You can share with them how well their evaluation went (because they are a superstar after all).

Empowering this person through delegation and coaching will build their confidence. Training can go a long way to making this person a right-hand man! We all could use more of them…

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“The Diamond in the Rough” This is an interesting and somewhat complicated profile.

This teammate may be confident, but not nearly as skilled as they perceive themselves to be as a worker. That person that never seems to catch on that they are making mistakes and often getting corrected because they think they are more knowledgeable than they truly are. The diamond in the rough may not take feedback gracefully. You are likely able to trace back profit losses due to their errors and repeated mistakes. Perhaps this can be connected to weak/unclear/outdated company policies and regulations. As an example, take safety. This is the most dangerous person, because they are confidently operating on what they think they know, but are wrong. olutions: This teammate could just be in the wrong role and need to be reassigned. Or they may just S need guidance and mentorship. Either way, a knowledge and skills assessment could be useful in this case. Soft skills training such as emotional intelligence, listening skills, and receiving skills are a step in the right direction. This teammate needs coaching and accountability. If the training is not received and put into practice, there needs to be consequences. A useful technique I have used is cutting overtime. Though my employees are used to built-in overtime…it is a privilege, not a right! If an employee is not following policies, having attendance issues, etc., it’s a great tool to have in the back pocket.

Now at this point you are probably thinking about that simple line graph I mentioned which would roughly give us quadrants based on performance and potential. So where is the fourth and final quadrant?! Well, this leads us to a fourth possible teammate – “The Bad Hire”.

It’s inevitable. It is probably not worth the time and resources to train this individual. As you are probably gathering, this training thing takes enormous thought, trial & error, and not to mention FOLLOW UP and accountability. You don’t want to waste your precious resources on someone with no potential. Just something to keep in mind.

In conclusion, this chapter should provide you with the framework of tailoring a training program to different types of learners. This applies to new hires and onboarding as well as continuous training. Just remember to be open-minded and flexible. This will go a long way in having a successful training program for all types of employees.

Deb Gorra, Manager, Weinstein Supply, div. of Hajoca

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08

Career Pathing Andrew Peck, Learning and Development Manager at Porter Pipe & Supply Co.

Introduction In this chapter we will discuss the importance of career pathing within your organization. Career pathing is an essential strategy to help decrease team member turnover, increase team member engagement, better prepare your company for future needs, and even to attract new team members!

So, what exactly is Career Pathing? Career pathing is when team leaders (Managers, Training Coordinators, Executives, etc.) work with team members to develop a plan for short and long-term career development.

Career pathing focuses on an employee’s career goals within the organization. It can be a plotted organizational path or unique to the individual.

Benefits to Career Pathing Increased engagement

Motivate high performance Decrease turnover Inspire loyalty eepen investment in D company and individual goals

From a newly onboarded team member to a veteran, ongoing development and an official career plan will increase engagement, keep performance high, and decrease turnover. When a team member sees your company making long-term investments in their careers, they are much more likely to successfully reach their individual and company goals.

In this chapter, I will share some of the strategies and tools we utilize for career pathing so that you may implement a solid career pathing plan for your company. There are several aspects we will discuss, starting with understanding potential career paths within your organization, the career pathing of new and veteran team members, and utilizing tools like a chain-of-command to plan for future growth.

Understanding Potential Career Paths The first step to begin Career Pathing is to understand potential career paths within your organization, from entry level to management level positions.

Knowing the skills that will be required for each position and the building blocks team members will need to be successful is crucial to a successful plan. These building blocks could include product knowledge, software use, distribution pathways, customer service skills, and many more. For this section, we will look at the career path we’ve outlined for team members interested in a career as an Inside Sales Representative within our organization.

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“From a newly onboarded team member to a veteran, ongoing development and an official career plan will increase engagement, keep performance high, and decrease turnover.”

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To do this we first start by looking at the skills and knowledge an Inside Sales Rep needs for potential success. These include a solid understanding of the supply chain network, customer service experience, knowledge of our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Warehouse Management System (WMS), shipping processes and procedures, and knowledge of our customer and vendor networks.

Next, we outline a path through various departments to build a strong foundational knowledge in our business. Each of these steps or positions in the path allow the team member to gain experience in the many areas that help build a knowledgeable and successful Inside Sales Rep. The path that we utilize is the same, regardless of experience prior to joining our company, it is the time spent within each department that varies.

By focusing on the knowledge and experience within the path vs. the time spent in the path, we can advance team members at various speeds based on each individual’s skills and dedication. This also ensures everyone receives the same opportunities and tools for the Inside Sales Rep position as they advance through the path.

Our career pathing for an Inside Sales Rep is as follows:

New Hire (orientation)

Receiving Team

Will Call Fulfillment Team

Shipping Team

Returns Team

Counter Sales

Stocking Team

Inventory Team

Inside Sales

Let’s look a little closer at each position and the skills/experience the team member will learn in each department. hipping Team: Understanding of our order fulfillment process, including the picking, packing, and S loading of customer orders. Foundational knowledge of our WMS and the processing of a sales order.

Product knowledge training. tocking Team: Building upon the foundational knowledge of our WMS and better understanding the flow S of material through our warehouse. Product knowledge training continues.

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Receiving Team: Introduction to our ERP system and increased experience with our WMS. Introduction to our vendor network and understanding our sourcing procedures. Product knowledge training continues.

Returns Team: More experience with our ERP system with a focus on the order entry process. More experience with our vendor network and an introduction to our customer network. Product knowledge training continues with a focus on identifying returned product that is not labeled.

Inventory Team: Much more in-depth experience with our ERP and WMS systems, order entry, comprehensive understanding of our inventory and warehousing processes. Experience working with all departments in the operation.

Will Call Fulfillment Team: Strong focus on our customer network. Customer service training and faceto-face customer interaction.

Counter Sales: ERP order entry processing. Customer service experience. Improved understanding of our customer network and relationship building. Sourcing non-stock material from our vendor network.

Inside Sales: Final position for the team member. Now focused on becoming an expert in the knowledge areas related to the position.

“It is important for your team leaders to understand their department’s role in the career pathing process and to help encourage their respective team members of the growth opportunities available.”

As you can see, each position in the career path is focused on building upon the skills learned in the previous role. It is important for your team leaders to understand their department’s role in the career pathing process and to help encourage their respective team members of the growth opportunities available. Take the time to educate your team leaders on this process and steps needed for success of their team members.

Career Pathing for New Team Members Career pathing for new team members should begin from the first day they join your organization. The onboarding process is an excellent opportunity to identify a team members potential strengths and weaknesses, interests, and short and long-term career goals.

Every new team member in our organization is presented with a Professional Development Plan (PDP) on their first day. The PDP is developed by our Learning & Development Manager and the hiring manager. Every PDP includes the following: earning and L Development Need

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Type of Development

Who is Responsible?

Timeline

Comments

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Here is an example of a PDP created for a new team member with a career goal of being in a Sales position:

As you can see from the example, the team member’s time in each operational area is clearly defined (and subject to change based on their training progress).

In addition to the role-specific training, each team member is provided with supplemental training opportunities based on their respective strengths and weaknesses. This could include outside seminars focused on professional development or customer service skills, internal training on higher level software operation, or even skills like time management or relationship building.

The Professional Development Plan (PDP) has been a great resource for our company in officially documenting the career pathing process for our team members. This is a living document that is updated by the Learning & Development Manager as the team member

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progresses through the training.

Through regular follow-up meetings with the team member and their respective manager it also increases engagement. In our experience, team members appreciate the attention and investment the company makes for them in their short and long-term career growth. Career pathing doesn’t stop however when they reach their career goal.

Career Pathing for Veteran Team Members Like planning out a career path for a new team member, it is just as important to prepare for ongoing development of your veterans. These are team members that have the expertise and experience needed to take their career to new levels as opportunities arise within your organization.

For a career pathing program to be successful for your veteran team members and your organization it is vital that your team leaders understand the future needs of the company, as well as the strengths and potential of your veteran team members.

Not all positions can be filled by promoting from within. But through strong engagement, a solid career pathing program, and robust training, you can easily identify team members that could qualify.

Just like new team members our process begins with creating a Professional Development Plan (PDP). This plan is created by the Learning & Development Manager along with input from team leaders and the veteran team member. Strengths and weaknesses need to be identified, as well as the skills needed to be successful in their future potential positions.

For our company, career pathing for veteran team members is largely focused on leadership development training. This could be developing a team member to backfill an upcoming vacancy as a department manager, branch manager for a new location opening, or to increase their responsibility and impact within their current department. This increased engagement with your veteran team members can help improve their productivity and success within your organization. And the institutional knowledge you keep within the company is invaluable.

Tools to Help Career Pathing There are three main tools that our company utilizes to help career pathing be successful and valuable for the team members and the organization. These include our Professional Development Plan (PDP), Chain-of-Command (CoC), and job descriptions. rofessional Development Plans (PDP): This living document has been vital to the success of our shortP and long-term team member development and career pathing. Developed by the Learning & Development Manager and Manager of the team member, it clearly outlines the learning and development needs, timelines, time of training, responsibilities, and comments on the career path progress.

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hain-of-Command (CoC): Having an up-to-date CoC is extremely valuable for career pathing, especially C with veteran team members. Our CoC is updated weekly and shared with the entire organization. Any changes (transfers, promotions, terminations, etc.) are color coded so the entire team is aware of the status of each department. We also highlight all open and forecasted positions based on the future needs of the company. This encourages team members to reach out if they are interested in a growth opportunity and supports the career pathing process.

J ob Descriptions: Job descriptions are a great resource in understanding the skills and knowledge needed for each position in the career path for your team members. Understanding what training or experience is needed for each position will better enable you to outline various career paths within your organization.

They also help aid in hiring, employee evaluation and skills benchmarking to identify areas of improvement or strengths that may lead to employee advancement.

Conclusion Implementing a Career Pathing process within your organization is one of the best ways to help increase team member engagement, reduce turnover, and better prepare your company for growth and future needs.

Take time to understand the different career paths within your organization. Work backwards from ultimate career goals to outline a path for team members to build upon the knowledge and experience of each previous position.

Using tools like your job descriptions, a Professional Development Plan (PDP) or similar outline, and your Chain-of-Command will help provide clarity and visualization of the different paths available and the steps needed to make those career paths successful.

Andrew Peck, Learning and Development Manager, Porter Pipe & Supply

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09

Benchmarking, Evaluation and Post-Training Reinforcement ASA Education Foundation Team at the American Supply Association

One thing no one is impervious to is change; our industry is certainly no different. Our staff changes.

Regulations change. Expectations change (employees and customers alike!). Pricing, standards, supply, demand, you name it – all change. The only constant in the changing landscape of life is our ability to remain flexible to survive – even in business. Training programs are no different. They require measurement, maintenance, evaluation and updates to remain relevant and effective. One way to make sure your training program is still doing what it’s designed to achieve is through benchmarking.

Benchmarking your training means comparing your current training process outcomes to your idealized end-state (what you are trying to achieve with your training program/at your business). The purpose of any benchmarking activity is to measure your performance against this idealized state, with the goal of improving your current program where gaps are identified. Simply put, you can think of benchmarking as a compare and contrast evaluation between “reality” vs. “best practice” to make sure your training program is still doing what it’s supposed to do.

BENCHMARKING

You can define your benchmarks with your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Good KPIs are measurable goals that align with your company’s strategic, financial, and operational goals. The word “measurable” here is important! When you set benchmarking goals, be sure that you can measure the outcome objectively. For example, a KPI of having “ensuring every employee participates in safety measures” poses some issues.

What does “participate” mean? What observable behaviors qualify? What is a “safety measure”? A better metric would be “employees ensure that obstructions in warehouse aisles are kept clear at all times”. This benchmark offers measurable behaviors – you can physically observe whether there are obstructions being left in the warehouse aisles. We know that keeping aisle free and clear of obstacles helps us meet our key performance indicator of better safety for the business.

This could also mean, for example, comparing measurable outcomes with job performance improvement, learner satisfaction, improved organizational performance, sales numbers, or a combination of any or all of these (or other) measurements. KPIs themselves will vary from company to company; the most important part is defining what it is that constitutes “successful performance” at your business.

Let’s dive deeper by breaking down a specific example. Take our KPI of “Maintain safety incidents below the ‘Work-Related Injuries and Illness’ standards set by the US DOL.” Keeping safety incidents below this threshold is your measure of success. To achieve this success, you will first need to internally benchmark your current performance (using previous years’ data and incident rates, for example), examine your

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Here are a few examples of measurable KPIs that your business could use to benchmark or measure success: eet or exceed a 95% customer M satisfaction rate as measured by direct feedback customer surveys within a 12 month period. it a target of 98% accuracy for picked H products within a 12 month period. xceed revenue goal of $250,000 at E XYZ branch. aintain safety incidents below the M “Work-Related Injuries and Illness” standards set by the US DOL.

current training initiatives that target this behavior (does it even exist?), and so on. The culmination of these factors will give you a benchmark, or a baseline metric to be improved upon – a starting place.

You can also do external benchmarking against the industry by reviewing the average incident rates for our industry and using those statistics to see how you measure up against competitors and peers. If, for example, you find that your Work-Related Injuries and Illness numbers were not in alignment with the national DOL goal, your benchmarking efforts has revealed an area where remediation is warranted – usually addressed via training avenues, but also through other methods like organizational alignment, culture shifts, or better communication. Once you’ve uncovered this gap, evaluate and enhance your training to help improve or exceed this KPI goal next year, and measure again after some time has passed.

It can be hard facing what isn’t working; it can feel daunting when it feels like we did something wrong or forgot a crucial element of performance. Other times, there are simply factors outside of our control. But you can’t manage what you don’t measure; without knowing what exactly is falling short of our targets, we can’t hope to improve. In addition, several ancillary benefits will organically happen along the way - making improvements in our training can increase employee and customer satisfaction and help us retain those relationships and employees. It can help the bottom line, or give us an edge in innovation, culture, efficiency, and safety. It can also simply help reinforce a culture of accountability and signal to employees that these measures are important and impactful to the business.

Benchmarking and evaluating KPIs is an ongoing and iterative process; best practice for benchmarking is to improve as you find flaws, as well as putting KPI evaluation on your calendar as an annual and recurring business function. Make the setting, re-setting, and evaluation of KPIs part of the routine business functions at your organization. Regularly review your training programs against your goals, KPIs and employee metrics to uncover hidden needs or areas of improvement. Employee feedback can also be used as benchmark data; not only should your employees have individual goals that feed the success of their particular job or role, but every member of the company should have goals that are in alignment with the overarching company strategic goals.

Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly evaluating your employees. You are mentally benchmarking their current behavior to past behavior or the behaviors of their peers. From simple observation, you might be able to tell immediately where they need improvement or where they are excelling. Using your front-line managers to observe and document these pop-up opportunities for on-the-job evaluation will allow you to make small corrections along the way and reveal opportunities for skills gap trainings before any scheduled training evaluations occur. This helps in immediately improving performance before it becomes a larger issue and can help identify training to add or build upon in the larger training

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program (for example, if sales reps continually fail to upsell, resulting in a missed KPI, this is a clear indicator of the need for remedial training).

“Setting and forgetting” training and adjusting on gut instinct and without proper research can risk larger mistakes down the line. If proper training is not being made available to employees, these issues may grow into bad habits or begin to ingrain themselves into the mindset of your employees organically. Over time, it will become acceptable to participate in these behaviors in the eyes of your employees and will run rampant among your staff.

Take a soft-skill related example; the “workplace gossip”. We’ve all interacted with someone in the workplace that seems more focused on the drama of the workplace than the work getting done. This individual can be distracting, time-consuming, and display lack of professionalism to customers and other employees alike.

Without clear performance indicators related to professionalism that are ingrained (and defined!) in each employee’s role, this behavior could run unchecked and begin to poison the mindset of others around them.

If your KPI for professionalism is to “reduce instances of interpersonal conflict that involve HR resolution”, you can methodically benchmark this behavior against the desired end state and determine what kind of remedial action is needed to bring your business into alignment with this performance indicator. On the macro level, you might also evaluate how you can better communicate the desired behaviors related to professionalism to the entire organization to nip other potential gossips in the bud. On the micro level, you can begin to address unwanted behavior directly with the team member in question.

By not addressing the behavior immediately, you risk letting the situation begin to control you – and others. If left unchecked, it wouldn’t be just this one person gossiping anymore; people begin to listen and repeat those toxic behaviors, too.

In our example, you might opt to tackle the problem culturally; have a staff meeting and discuss how gossip is not part of your culture, and that hurtful behavior simply will not be tolerated. Share stories about a time that gossip hurt you, the team, or the business. You might put up some vintage style “loose lips might sink ships” posters in common areas, and ask management to break up gossip sessions and reinforce the policy. Use every opportunity to reinforce the lesson and maximize memory retention after realizing that your current method of communicating this message is not hitting the mark. You might also consider updating onboarding training and talking more about your culture of respect on every employee’s first day, and continuously reinforce it through reminders, storytelling, and performance reviews.

On the micro level, you could consider 1:1 coaching with your gossiper, mention it during annual or semi-annual reviews and make it a matter of measurable performance for their specific job role, or think of other creative ways to address the root cause of the behavior.

Once some time has passed and your mitigating actions have had time to take root, measure again. Do you see a change in behavior (benchmark)? How does this compare to your previous benchmark? Have HRinvolved instances of conflict increased, decreased, stayed the same? The answer to this question leads you again back to the iterative process of benchmarking, evaluation, modification, and re-benchmarking.

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Remember: you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Setting benchmarks for performance – be it safety, sales, culture, or anything else – is essential to understanding how your training programs can improve to create the best employees possible.

While every training problem won’t be one centered on culture, the same method for improvement can be used for any individual or company goal, no matter how complex the subject matter. Make sure to get leadership involved at all levels – everyone needs to be marching to the same drumbeat. Leverage your team leads, who can be very much in touch with individual, departmental and company goals on a day-to-day functional basis in their employees. Their keen insight usually means they can identify training improvements or KPI/benchmarking risks immediately, and are a great resource in measuring, enforcing and reinforcing the training program and knowledge employees should retain. By using in-the-moment observation, mid-year and annual reviews, monthly and annual reports, KPIs and getting managers to play a role in training, you are able to constantly evaluate your training program.

Remember: you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Setting benchmarks for performance – be it safety, sales, culture, or anything else – is essential to understanding how your training programs can improve to create the best employees possible. Whether it’s a small as-needed tweak, or our annual benchmarking review, it’s your responsibility to improve training to help employees improve, to build culture, to improve on the business success, and to increase customer satisfaction and keep business rolling in. Take care of your training, and your training will take care of you.

ASA Education Foundation Team, American Supply Association

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Timing, Relevancy and Launch Cycling Wayne Upchurch, Human Resources Training Coordinator at Consolidated Supply Co.

It is hard to argue against the importance of training employees. In the wholesale distribution industry, it is no different. We sell our service and knowledge. They are our differentiators. But there’s more to training than just throwing as much information as you can at the learner and hoping it all sticks. Being selective on what training you provide as well as being strategic on when you provide that training can make all the difference. The goal of any organization should be to “Deliver the Right Training to the Right Team Members at the Right Time”.

The Right Training When it comes to determining what the right training is, it is important to clearly define what the goals of your training are. Here are a couple of examples.

For all new employees, we have a goal to get them acclimated and comfortable with our organization.

All of the training that we provide during the onboarding process has that goal in mind. In addition to the typical facility tours and introduction to team members, we put a focus on our culture and what makes us…us. We take this opportunity to introduce several cultural elements of Consolidated Supply Co. Here are some specific things we focus on:

The Consolidated Way Mission: We take pride in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

CUSTOMER FOCUS

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

PROFITABILITY

OUTSTANDING PEOPLE

• Think as an owner

• Improve yourself

• Recruit the best

• Sell our service

• Innovate

• Embrace CSCO values

• Be extraordinary (with customers, employees & vendors)

•S et financial expectations

• Teach and lead

• Expect support for doing the right things

•M ake a good first impression

• Strive to achieve

se visual •U management

• Control costs

• Raise your hand

• Follow CSCO SOPs

• Be accountable

• Embrace change

• Reduce rework

• Share best practices

•G ive back to your community

• Grow the business

• Communicate

• Communicate

•D eliver on the promise

• Be passionate • Communicate

• Expect to perform

• Communicate

ACTIONS AND VALUES It Starts with Me

Safety First

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CUSTOMER Focused

Make a Difference

Supplier of Choice

Celebrate Successes

Seek First to Understand

Be Honest and Ethical

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T he Consolidated Way - A visual representation of our mission, actions and values that define our strategy and culture.

D eliver on the Promise (DELPRO) – This program is our promise to our customers that includes five Customer Service Guarantees. This initial training emphasizes our cultural commitment to providing extraordinary service to our customers.

A nticipate and Create Together (ACT) – Our consultative selling go to market strategy that again emphasizes to our new hires that we’re not just selling “stuff” here. Instead, we are working with our customers to establish relationships and provide solutions.

E mployee Engagement Team – We value the ideas of all of our employees. This team exists to share ideas, promote a happy and healthy lifestyle, recognize and reward and ultimately create a better workplace.

Job specific training has an entirely different goal. While culture is always an overriding theme, the goal for job specific training is ensuring that our employees have the necessary knowledge and skills to be successful in their role. No matter what role an employee has, training is specifically tailored and defined with their success in mind. For instance, training a Counter Sales employee would include: P roduct & Vendor Training – Talking to vendor representatives and viewing product catalogs in order to increase product knowledge.

C omputer Systems Training – This includes job queues, messaging, ordering, short codes and order management.

S ales Training – greeting customers, reading orders back to customers, studying top accounts and top selling items at their specific location.

N avigating within the organization – Getting familiar with other departments that they’ll need to interact with (purchasing, accounting, credit, warehouse/shipping).

Coming up with a list of topics to support your training goals is critical, but it is not the only aspect of delivering “the right” training. You must also consider the right way to deliver the training.

There’s no doubt that hands on/in-person training is the most effective. Engaging with employees and being able to ask/answer questions as they come up is important. When possible, we have our trainers work side by side with their trainees so they not only teach, but offer support when questions arise. Inperson training has also been a large part of product training.

An important component of in-person training is choosing the right trainer. The most knowledgeable or experienced employee isn’t always the best trainer. When determining who best to use as trainers, in addition to their knowledge and experience, we consider several other factors such as personality, demeanor/attitude, workload and communication effectiveness. But what we’re really looking for, in addition to all of those things, is a willingness and a want to be a trainer. Training is much more effective when it is a choice rather than an assignment. We offer an internal “Train the Trainer” course to those who wish to become peer trainers. This course covers learning styles, personality styles and provides general tips to be a more effective trainer.

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Another example of in-person training is with our vendor partners. Vendors can come in for lunch ‘n learn style training sessions in which we can train groups of employees all at once on the latest and greatest products. Over the past couple years, we’ve all had to pivot with social distancing guidelines and some of these trainings have moved to Zoom-style meetings. Although, not in the same room, most of the benefits are still there, including being able to ask questions of a live person.

Of course, in-person, hands-on training is preferred by most. Any training plan that you create should have its fair share of this type of training. Generally, it’s just not possible nor realistic to rely solely on inperson training. There are other effective ways to deliver training as well.

Written SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) are essential for standardizing processes and making sure that things are done uniformly throughout the organization. However, that doesn’t mean that SOP’s alone should be your training documents. We’ve all heard the famous adage “A picture is worth a thousand words”. This is very true in training. Beyond pictures, video training can take things to another level.

Whenever possible, use pictures and videos during your training and reserve written instructions and SOP’s as reference materials, but do not rely on them as the actual training documents.

Interactive courses go a step beyond video training.

Instead of passively watching/listening to a video, interactive courses involve and engage learners much more. When a learner is actively engaged, they are much more likely to retain the information, similarly to in-person training.

We provide all our online training content through our Learning Management System (LMS). We continue to import courses and videos from different content providers (ASA and OpenSesame) and vendors (product training) and add them to our course catalog. We’ve created kind of a “one-stop shopping” for all training. Our employees know that there is one place to go for all their online training which makes things simple. We certainly utilize a mix of all types of training but track all completions in one system.

Not all online content is created equally.

Our course catalog contains hundreds of courses and videos. As you can imagine, some are better than others. When it comes to the actual content that we receive, either video files or full courses, we unfortunately don’t have much say in the content and how it is presented. This particularly pertains to product training we receive from vendors and manufacturers. We take what we can get from all of our vendor partners, but there are some things that we like to see, so here’s our wish list.

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5 BENEFITS

0f Microlearning for Employees and Organizations

Remember, all training should have a goal in mind to make it relevant; product training is no different. Ultimately, product training should help our employees sell these products to our customers. With this in mind, we believe product training should cover: B enefits and features C omparisons to like product O ther incentives that would make someone want to purchase

LEARNER CENTRIC Can be designed for all learner types at any professional level.

INCREASE KNOWLEDGE Microlearning presents information in a non-intimidating format that is fun, easy and efficient. It increases memory retention and is great for busy employees and employers.

LESS TIME CONSUMING Microlearning happens in quick snippets that range from a few minutes to 15 minutes. It’s respectful of time, and gets you back to work in a jiff!

LEARNING ON THE GO Microlearning can be mobile, a quick talk, a short video, a mini-course or any other form of convenient delivery.

IMPROVES MOTIVATION Microlearning rewards you with a quick increase of knowledge that you can immediately use and improves performance.

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O nly include vendor company information if it enhances the product’s desirability One key component of online training that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the length of the videos or courses. Employees, and people in general, want lots of information in a short amount of time. The trend towards “microlearning” is here to stay. Employees don’t have time nor the attention span for hour-long training videos. Our employees increasingly prefer training in the 3-5 minute range and certainly no longer than 10 minutes. These micro trainings are easy to fit in between other tasks throughout the day and contain just enough information to be useful, and not so much information that it is impossible to remember it all.

We also have more general industry and product training that we use from ASA. These courses have been a staple of our training for many years. They provide a lot of information that is very useful, especially for those entering our industry for the first time. These courses are full of great and comprehensive information.

Some of these courses are 2-3 hours long. They are broken into smaller segments, and we ask employees to take them a segment at a time.

This way we have created a shorter timeframe for training and increased the chances of memory retention. Too much training can be overwhelming, so we break it into smaller pieces

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when we can. These courses are available even after an employee completes them. So they can always go back and go over anything they need to review again.

In addition to training from ASA and our vendors, we offer another option for online courses more geared toward personal development. We get these courses through another third-party content provider (OpenSesame). Again, we don’t have a say in the development of the courses that are offered, however, it is an open marketplace of training courses, so we are able to pick and choose the courses that are relevant to our employees and that meet our needs for desired course lengths.

There are a lot of options out there. Remembering to clearly define your own goals is the key to providing the “right training”.

The Right Team Members We use third party content providers for:

We started with the overall goal to “Deliver the Right Training to the Right Team Members at the Right Time”. Now that we’ve discussed Leadership how to determine the right training, the next step is to figure out Development who the “right team members” are. This one is really not so complicated. The “right team members” are those who the training is relevant for. Let’s take a look at an example that illustrates this: Compliance Courses

Employee Wellness

I mentioned earlier “ACT”, which is our consultative selling go to market strategy. This is something that we train all of our employees on during the onboarding process.

We do this because it is part of our culture and even though not all of our employees are in sales, it is still important for everyone to understand the kind of service that we provide to our customers.

What wasn’t mentioned earlier is that we actually have two additional ACT training courses in our catalog. These courses cover the details of how we specifically use ACT while interacting with customers. ACT Module 2 is all about conducting CNAs (Customer Needs Analysis). ACT Module 3 is about Value Added Selling. Both of these courses contain tons of great information, so why don’t we assign them to all employees? The answer is simple… It is only relevant to our sales teams that are actually performing those functions. We know that our employees’ time is valuable, so we try to ensure that all the training that we provide is relevant and contributes to their success.

The Right Time The timing of training can be just as important as the materials and the information being presented.

The trick is to try to train employees just before they need it. Train too early, and much of the information may be forgotten. Too late, and your employees will be frustrated, or simply unable to perform up to expectations. There is a sweet spot that you must find and there are many factors that can influence when to best provide training.

Recall the list of training that we provide to acclimate and get new employees comfortable with our organization and our culture. We feel this is so important to do right away that we complete these

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trainings as part of our “First 5 Days” training program. This sets the tone and is the foundation from which we build. We do not want our employees jumping into their position training before we lay that foundation. Ensuring that we train on our culture first allows our incoming employees to see the rest of their training through that lens. As with selecting the right training, when you’re figuring out the timing, you need to keep in mind your goals. Select the timing that best supports your desired outcome.

This example will further illustrate this point. We have a rather large library of product training. It consists of mostly videos and/or courses shared with us by our vendor partners. Our course catalog is wide open and our employees can enroll themselves in any course at any time in order to fulfill their need for more information. The goal here is to simply provide training to any employee when they determine they need it. So in this case, the timing is controlled by the employees themselves. However, we also choose courses every month and assign specific training to our sales teams. The goal of these assigned trainings is to inform our sales team so that they can better support the sales of specific products as determined by our marketing calendar. These trainings are strategically assigned the month prior to the “featured” month, so that our employees have the information fresh in their minds and can help support the sales of those particular items. This consistent cadence of training helps keep the team engaged and focused on providing excellent customer service through increasing their product knowledge. Even though both of these examples involve product training, the timing itself is influenced by the ultimate goals that we are focused on.

Another scenario where timing comes into play is when we plan for the retirement of a team member.

Ensuring that we train on our culture first, The last thing we want is for an employee with allows our incoming employees to see the decades of experience walking out the door for the rest of their training through that lens. last time and taking all their knowledge with them.

When the opportunities arise and we know that an employee will be retiring in the next year, six months or even three months, we immediately put a plan in place to keep as much of that knowledge in house that we can. This plan utilizes everything we’ve discussed so far. The “Right Training”. We come up with a list of all the critical things we can think of that we want to ensure we don’t lose. The “Right Team Members”. We identify that person or people that need to get up to speed with that information. The “Right Time”. Depending on how much time we have before retirement, we come up with a schedule to ensure that there is enough time allotted to complete this training. Of course, no training plan will completely make up for losing someone with so much experience and tribal knowledge, but being able to share as much knowledge as possible can help mitigate some of the impact.

Training Cycle Not all training is available to be purchased or imported from outside the organization. There are plenty of times that you need to develop your own training in house. Following this process or something similar will help keep you on the right track. stablish your goal – What problem are you trying to solve? Everything that you design later should E relate back to this goal. sk Questions – Learn as much as you can about the topic, process or whatever you’re designing A this training for. Utilize Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) and any other resources you have available.

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rainstorm – What are all of B your options of how this training can be delivered? Will you create videos, online courses, live presentations? Put all your options on the table before deciding which direction to go. Also decide how you will measure the effectiveness of your training. reate initial draft or prototype C of your training – Based off your brainstorming evaluation, choose the best option for you and organize your thoughts and information and in the format it will be delivered.

Establish Training Goal Evaluate

Launch

Ask Questions

Training Cycle

Brainstorm

Create Initial Draft

Edit/Finalize

Test Training

est the training with a small T group. Roll the training out to your SMEs or other knowledgeable employees. Make sure your training hits the mark. dit/Finalize training – Take the feedback from your initial test group and make any edits E and improvements Launch –Time to launch the training to your target audience. valuate – After the training has been launched, keep the feedback channels open. Training E is forever evolving. Feedback is a gift. Take it as such and use it to improve your training. It is also time to see if your training is effective. This is not always easy to do, in fact, this is a loop that most organizations struggle to close. However, if you took the time earlier in the process to determine how you will measure effectiveness, then this step becomes easier.

Throughout this training cycle process, a clear communication plan must also be considered. Cascading communication to ensure that the right people are in the loop at the right times is also a critical component. By being strategic and selective about your communication of upcoming training initiatives, you will help create a smooth rollout and reduce confusion along the way.

Wrapping it up Knowledge is the differentiating factor for us to provide excellent customer service. It is important to keep in mind that not all training is created equal. We do our best to ensure that the training we provide has a purpose and is relevant to those completing it. To be successful in your training efforts, you must continue to provide the Right Training to the Right Team Members at the Right Time.

Wayne Upchurch, Human Resources Training Coordinator, Consolidated Supply

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Marketing and Communications Tracie Sponenberg, Chief People Officer at The Granite Group

You’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing a training program, and now it’s time to launch it. But where do you start? Perhaps not as you may have in the past – by emailing everyone and calling it a day. By developing an engaging internal marketing campaign, you can help ensure the success of the program. Without a robust internal marketing campaign, you risk letting a great training program fail. And that failure may be mistaken for a problem with training, instead of a problem with your communication, launch and reminders.

Take a step back for a second. Why are you creating a training program? Chances are you have many reasons for doing so, but one of the biggest reasons is probably to help retain and promote your team members. To retain and promote your team members, you need to keep them engaged.

Gallup polls show that 65% of employees are NOT engaged at work. This is where your training program comes in. An incredible 93% of employees feel that well-planned training programs increase their engagement, according to Axonify. In order to have a well-planned training program with high participation levels, you must have a well-planned internal marketing campaign. Consider making part of your messaging WHY you are doing this.

An incredible 93% of employees feel that well-planned training programs increase their engagement, according to a study by Axonify.

If this is to benefit their performance, their career, job security, customer satisfaction, safety at the workplace, and creating a better work culture, share that with your employees. Getting them invested in company goals as their goals is an important move, but communicating that message to them is essential.

This chapter will review how to promote your company’s training program through internal marketing to your associates with the goal of driving interest, excitement and, ultimately, participation!

What is Internal Marketing?

The Oxford dictionary defines internal marketing as “The advanced uses of communications to inform, persuade, motivate, and often change staff behavior within a company.” Put simply, it’s how you communicate information to your

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“At The Granite Group, we have “the truck driver test.”

It’s how our CEO can best determine if a message is received. If he talks to a truck driver, and that driver got the message, our internal communications worked.”

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employees. You are “selling” this program to your employees. Think about marketing to your employees the way you do to your customers.

But How? There are many places to go to look at building an internal communications and marketing strategy. And it’s important to remember that not one size fits all, and not all of your external marketing approaches will work for internally communicating your new training plan.

In this case, our best approach is to look to People Operations (or Human Resources) to build a case for your employees. In their article “Internal Communications: 9 Best Practices for HR”, the Academy to Innovate HR gives a great framework to aid you when building your internal communications program very similar to the steps you should take in any project or program launch.

Build Your Strategy

Onboarding

Less is more

Ambassadors

Management buy-in

Trial and Error

Collaboration

Work local, think global

Feedback

We will look at each of these items as they relate to our industry but recommend adding one very important marketing feature: individualization. Consider developing “personas” for your various groups of employees. For example, maybe your employees work in the office, counter sales, inside or outside sales, in a warehouse, driving on the road, and in other customer-facing capacities. You need to determine how each of these groups best receives information.

At The Granite Group, we have “the truck driver test.” It’s how our CEO can best determine if a message is received. If he talks to a truck driver, and that driver got the message, our internal communications worked. Our drivers are on the road all day, spend very little time in our locations, and are the hardest

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people to get a message to due to these isolating factors. Since they are the most likely to miss communications, they are the best benchmark for internal communication’s success or an indication to review the strategy and keep trying.

Let’s review building your internal marketing plan:

STRATEGY Any good program must have a strategy behind it. While this could be a chapter in and of itself, it’s important to spend some time creating your strategy before even thinking of developing your program. One crucial piece to your strategy: your employees. Design the strategy with them in mind – not you.

Get some of your employees involved in designing the program with you. Additionally, it helps to keep the framework of “design thinking” in mind as you create your program: remember to empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test throughout your process. Individualization and creating marketing “personas” will be part of your strategy as you build your internal marketing plan.

MANAGEMENT Your internal marketing campaign WILL fail if you do not have support for the training program from the C-suite. (And this goes for just about any campaign!) Does your CEO support the training program? Your CFO? In order to have the entire organization take your training program seriously, the message of its importance has to come from the top.

Once you have the support, go further and get management involved. One thing we’ve found incredibly helpful is to have our CEO make a video announcement whenever we have a major new initiative. Our team will watch videos and read emails from our CEO, and so that has become an integral part of our internal communications strategy for major initiatives. Your CEO may be more comfortable writing than recording videos, but whatever works for them could have a huge impact on internal communications!

COLLABORATION Many of you may not have an internal communications team. And many of you may not even work in HR. But if you have a marketing team and if you have an HR team, get them involved and working together in creating your program. Separately, these two departments have a wealth of knowledge in people (HR) and customers (marketing). But when you combine the two, that’s when the magic happens!

Work Local, Think Global While you may or may not have a team that works in different countries, you likely have team members that come from different countries and cultures. When designing your internal marketing campaign, have a global mindset in mind! Think about the timing of your communications, how you deliver the message, and the language you use to craft the message.

Just like you have to figure out how to motivate individuals, marketing to your staff will be very much the same. Some cultures love being recognized as a stand-out, others will be embarrassed if you want to feature their success. Some will love a competition, and others will not be interested in a contest. Try different approaches to appeal to the most people possible. All are important in keeping a global mindset in mind!

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Ambassadors Again, it’s important to not go at it alone. As we mentioned earlier, getting employees involved in not only helping you craft the program, but the messaging of the program is crucial. And we’ll take it a step further here: have designated ambassadors to help you deliver the messaging.

At The Granite Group, we have six different regions, with a regional director in each, responsible for the people in each region. We often work with our RDs when we need to have a message delivered.

Additionally, our TGG Cares committee has members in each region who have the responsibility of creating interest in and support of our charitable events and causes. TGG Cares is incredibly successful because of the ambassadors!

Onboarding In other words, don’t forget about your new hires! Your program will eventually launch, but you aren’t done. Make sure your new hires are fully aware of your training program, and you are developing communications specifically for them.

Less Is More Keep it simple. There should be significant thought put into your program, and your internal communications. But the messaging should be straightforward, relatively simple, and not overwhelming.

Be very conscious of over-communication, as things like daily emails can get easily tuned out. You are working to strike a balance, and ultimately, creating ambassadors and word of mouth internal advertising among your ranks.

Trial & Error Your initial strategy may work out great! Or, it may not. In any case it’s important to try your strategy, fail if you need to, reevaluate, and then try again. It’s natural to frequently tweak your approach.

Feedback Lastly, ask for feedback early and often. And go back to the step above! Feedback is critical to continuous improvement. Get feedback from all levels and in different formats. Some employees may be happy to speak freely, and others may prefer anonymous methods. Feedback is an opportunity for everyone to be engaged and part of building a solution.

Remember to put your feedback efforts into gaining intel on what works or doesn’t work in both the training itself, as well as the internal communication and marketing efforts. Be clear on what you need feedback on (program or messaging), and use that data to make improvements in the training and how you communicate to your ranks.

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You would never launch a new service and neglect to tell your customers about it. It wouldn’t be the service that failed if your customers didn’t know it existed, it would be the marketing that failed. Creating a marketing strategy to sell your training program is an essential part of ensuring your training program succeeds. Use your internal marketing and communication to gain buy-in, show employees WIIFM (what’s in it for me?), to get gain ambassadors, and to continuously improve both your training and how you communicate.

Your training program is the skeletal structure of a strong body of knowledge in your organization, and your internal marketing plan is the muscles that get it moving. Remember that they work together to support each other and move forward together.

Tracie Sponenberg, Chief People Officer, The Granite Group

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Celebrate Your Success Don Polletta, VP of Sales and Marketing Isabela Montoya, Human Resources Manager at Torrco

“A Great Place to Work and a Great Place to Buy” — this is the vision that Torrco keeps at the forefront of any decision-making process. We believe every company, no matter what size or industry, needs to recognize employees for their efforts and accomplishments. Recognition can be a low-cost endeavor, it needs to be genuine, timely and individualized to how each employee wants to be recognized — it can be as small as a personal note or a thank-you card.

The foundation of any good development recognition program as mentioned above starts with a clear and compelling company vision. The success of your recognition program for employee development will only be as good as the foundation you build prior to implementing your tactics.

In this chapter we will uncover how we make that happen at Torrco.

Section 1: The Foundation As a young sales professional I was lucky enough to have a great mentor. He was a master motivator and always moved me to action by keeping my future aspirations in view. In every conversation there was always something he would do to keep my future goals in mind whether it was advancing my career, personal growth or financial goals. As we work to hire and develop our employees, we keep in mind that a recognition program itself will not drive someone to take action. Inspire your employee to take action by creating a compelling future plan for them. Once a plan is in place, the desired activities for employees to develop will follow. The recognition program itself is only an acknowledgement for completing a short-term goal on their path to a larger future goal.

The success of your recognition program for employee development will only be as good as the foundation you build prior to implementing your tactics.

Summary: The concept of taking action today motivated by what and where you could be professionally, (future goals) is powerful. There are plenty of books on the topic, but we will take a few gems from this foundational concept to set up our recognition program. reate a compelling future for every individual that would like to advance in your company and C record and track it. If they can see where they’re going, then taking action to get there is easy. lay with people willing to create a future, and willing to be challenged to reach it. Keep in mind that P this is not for everyone, and that’s okay.

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he manager’s job is to keep that future top of mind for the employee. Regular conversations and T check-ins are a must for driving a sound employee development program.

Section 2: Story telling — Get your employees to see themselves in the company vision The answer to building your foundation for a successful employee development recognition program starts with your existing employees. Those who have achieved success in your organization are key to building the program. Their stories are important for new or existing employees looking to advance, so they can see that success is possible. I’m sure there are many success stories of individuals in your organization who have come through the ranks and find themselves in a position today where others aspire to reach. These stories are a powerful way for employees to see the path for themselves. Story telling is an impactful, inexpensive and the number one way to build momentum with your rewards recognition program.

Why Storytelling? Individuals: Want and deserve to be recognized for doing great work.

Are looking for reward and advancement.

Are looking for relatability and confirmation of growth by comparing themselves to others.

Want to be reassured of their own capabilities and support from you.

Gallup surveyed employees on the importance of a powerful employee story telling program, and found that: 2% say praise and 8 recognition are leading factors in helping them improve their job performance.

0% would leave a company 5 if they weren’t regularly thanked or recognized for their efforts.

4% feel their boss could do 5 more to appreciate them.

Summary: The foundational step for creating a successful Development Recognition Program for employees is one that allows them to connect to the company vision. Storytelling allows employees to see themselves as part of your vision by hearing other employee’s stories of growth within the company. The resources to build the program are the individuals in your company. The stories of those successful individuals are the fuel that drives the company vision and creates a lens for individuals see themselves as a part of it.

C apture the stories of successful individuals in your organization.

• Where were they before joining the company?

• What did their journey look like as they advanced within the company?

•W here are they today and where do they see themselves in the future?

B roadcast those stories in every possible channel of your organization. They are powerful and provide the runway for others to see advancement and success is possible in your company.

Section 3: Recognition and Incentives — (different strokes for different folks) The way a company celebrates and recognizes their employees’ accomplishments is true attestation to their culture. Recognition is a particularly important strategy to attract and retain in today’s war for talent.

Companies are now, more than ever, looking for new perks to offer in hopes to win and keep the best candidates. Organizations often overlook the most easily implemented strategy for retention: recognition.

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Storytelling allows employees to see themselves as part of your vision by hearing other employee’s stories of growth within the company.

In this next section, we will discuss how Torrco celebrates employee success. At Torrco, we begin the development journey by thinking of employees as walking through a leadership roadmap to success.

Recognition is not a one-size-fits all initiative, especially in such a diverse industry like ours where we have so many different departments coming together to help meet company objectives.

THE LEADERSHIP Let’s begin by talking about our Emerging Leaders Program. Through this program, we identify a small group of young professionals in the organization who demonstrate potential to develop into higher key leadership roles within their departments or other departments in the company. We invest time and resources in this group over the course of one year, in which we help these individuals dive in and craft a career path and skills development plan. Throughout the program, they have exposure to upper management and company leaders whom they can reach out to for guidance and mentorship.

Employees in this program have the opportunity to advance professionally through educational and networking opportunities. At the end of this program, we celebrate our Emerging Leaders group by holding a “graduation”. Each employee does a small presentation on what they learned on their development journey and what they would like to see themselves do in the future. On many occasions, these presentations lead to a promotion or continued support for the employee to develop into a leadership role.

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THE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Leadersh COURSES

GO! BUILDING PERSONAL PROFICIENCY TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS

Investing in your Career

Leadership is Everyone’s Business

Presenting Your Personal Best

COURSES F

ACHIEVING RESULTS THROUGH OTHERS

Leadership Essentials

Career Coaching

Coaching for Performance

COURSES THE SUCCESS OF OTHERS

The Leadership Challenge

Leading Teams

Sharpening Your Point for Better Discussions

COURSES BUSINESS/

DRIVING AND ALIGNING GROUPS TO ACHIEVE STRATEGIC AGENDA

V

Emerging Leaders Program:

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Executive Presentations

Executive Onboarding & Transition

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Sales Top Guns: For our sales team, regardless of length of employment, we celebrate success through an incentive program called Top Gun Fridays. Each Friday, our VP of Sales and Marketing sends out a message to all employees in the company showing the top 5 employees with the highest gross profit dollar amount for the previous week. These employees are given gift cards and Torrco gear with the “Torrco Top Gun” name branded on it.

Warehouse Picking Incentives: Additional pay functions are an attractive incentive for many employees. For our production workers, we implemented an incentive plan by setting picking goals that translate to points. If these goals are hit, the employee is recognized and celebrated by earning extra money added to their paycheck.

Cheer your Peer Posts: Not all employee celebration is financial reward. We have a company “Cheer your Peer” feed that allows employees to post appreciation messages about each other. They can share a message from a customer, or simply thank or recognize their peer for something they did.

Giving and receiving kudos through these posts lifts morale and creates a culture of gratitude.

Company “Town Hall” Meetings: Torrco’s President holds monthly “Town Hall” meetings via Zoom as a way to stay connected to employees. We use these meetings not only to have communication from top company leaders about what is going on in our organization, but also to open a line of communication between groups who might not normally speak to each other. The President also takes this opportunity to welcome new hires, give shout outs to employees, and highlight any recent accomplishments they might have achieved.

Town Hall meetings are a great way to show employee recognition, sending the message that your employees are important enough to be “let in” on the organization’s secret to success.

Annual Meeting: In our annual meeting, we take the time to celebrate our employee’s success in different categories of accomplishment. The categories consist of branch of the year, rookie of the year, salesperson of the year, design center salesperson of the year, and we highlight any milestone anniversaries etc. This type of recognition by the top executives helps inspire employees to take advantage of developmental opportunities in the company, and to help advance their careers.

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Summary: The formula for success to have employees develop and advance their careers at Torrco includes the following: 1. Employee Future Plans: Develop written future plans for new and existing employees to see themselves as part of the company vision. The manager is responsible to keep the path illuminated for the employee along the journey. Employees who can see a future for themselves within the company are motivated to take action.

2. Story Telling: The resource for new employees seeking to develop within the company is its existing employees. Those stories of success are the fuel to have others see success is possible.

3. Recognition and Incentives: The programs you use, whether incentivized or just simple acknowledgments, are key to employee engagement and important for motivating employees to take action.

From thank-you cards, peer recognition, announcements, storytelling, shout-outs, awards, mentorship, financial incentives, educational investment to professional advancement, there are multitudes of ways to celebrate the achievements and successes of your employees. People, by nature, thrive on opportunity and appreciation. It helps us shape and retain a great staff, who is always ready to face and defeat a challenge.

At Torrco, we believe the best resource to have individuals build and grow their careers are the success stories within the organization, and taking the time to show gratitude for their contribution to our company.

Don Polletta, VP of Sales and Marketing Isabela Montoya, Human Resources Manager Torrco

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Notes:

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ASA is here to help take your training program to the next level. Call us at 630-467-0000 or email at education@asa.net to get started.

Headquarters ASA Education Foundation 1200 N. Arlington Heights Road, Suite 150 Itasca, IL 60143 Phone: 630-467-0000 Email: education@asa.net

INDUSTRY STANDARD for Education & Training From onboarding to leadership training, ASA University educates all employees within the PHCP/PVF industry.

Training available online, 24/7

Role based training tracks

Free job descriptions and assessments

Customizable training for your employees

UNIVERSITY ASA Education Foundation 1200 N. Arlington Heights Road, Suite 150 Itasca, IL 60143 Email: education@asa.net | Phone: 630-467-0000

ASA-U Advisors on call

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