On-demand training

If you’ve read Tom Peters’ latest book, Re-imagine !, you know that minor improvements are not going to differentiate your business in the future. In fact, if you don’t push yourself to the limit, you may not even survive. Forget being 1 percent better than the competition at 100 different things – be cool and unique to crush the competition.

Think of five or ten years ago. Who would have predicted that people would pay $ 4 for a cup of coffee? Quick casual? Full-service restaurants offering takeout? Salads and low carb meals like a big part of quick service restaurant menus? Do people pay $ 2 for “breath plasters”? Consider the latter. The company did not try to make its mouthwash 1 percent better than the competition, but instead created a new market for its product.

The key is the employees. You can’t treat them like mushrooms (in the dark and compost fed). Take a new approach – Use new methods and incentives to increase shelf life efficiency.

As I wrote last month, my high school allowed us to skip finals if we had a C average or better and one or no absences the second semester. In an effort to help people graduate faster (and try to keep tuition low), universities have come up with some interesting ideas to solve some of their problems:

• Take more than 12 hours in a semester and pay no additional cost for the additional hours. A working student could take 15 or 18 hours and pay the same tuition as those who take 12 hours (and graduate faster).
• Maintain a B average or better and receive a discount on your tuition. Colleges are rewarding things that should already be happening (but actually aren’t). Will these incentives change everyone’s behavior? No, but it will affect those who have the potential to do it faster and less expensively. These are innovative ideas to try to solve your problems.

What about the education of our workforce? Today’s kids, our employees, think of DVD: random access to any part of a movie, with lots of bonus material. VHS? Boring, static and not controlled by the user. Is your training program TOD (Training On Demand) – Access to what is needed right now? Here are some ideas to help you get on the brink … of success:

• Think like Pokémon. Today’s children use silly cards to learn how to play. Businesses from Carvel Ice Cream to McAlister’s Deli use colored cards with specifications, recipes, and presentation standards available to employees. Why? Quick reference while helping guests or preparing products, plus you can debrief employees during business breaks. Constant reinforcement generates clothes. Good habits breed success. Easy to create, inexpensive and effective target.
• Screen capture software to create narrated and full-motion help files for POS and back-office administrative functions. Most people will not read a manual to figure out how to use the software (and they forget the things they were taught a long time ago if they are not used daily). The role is 2-D and we live and learn in a 3-D world. Put these help files on the cash register or administrative computer. Does the cashier or manager not remember how to perform a particular function? Open the file, listen and see how it’s done. Problem solved by TOD
• Move your videos to DVD. The chains from Hard Rock Café to Chick-fil-A have taken the plunge. It is still essentially a video, but it allows you to divide a video into short two to three minute segments. Watch the short video clip and then practice the skill. Come back to see the next section, practice, and so on.
• Create incentive systems and contests to encourage continuous learning and development, as well as rewards for desired behaviors, such as suggestive selling or recipe tracking. It works for colleges and it will work for you.
• Learn from others. Companies like Disney, Hard Rock Café, and Zingerman’s Deli offer classes to learn how they create their culture and service programs. Can’t you go see them? Why not create a series of roundtables between your employees and / or other locations (for example, the ones that lead your company in sales, service levels, retention or profit)? The answers are there; they just wait to be discovered.

The mazes are solved quickly starting at the end and working backwards. Take the same approach to your training and service. How do you want it to look? Start from there and work towards where you are today. If you start where you are today, you will make a lot of mistakes, backtrack frequently, and take a long time to get where you want to be.