This may not be the first time that your CEO has sliced your training budget and I am sure it will not be the last. If you already run a lean and mean training function, then congratulations on your efforts. You may find, though, that your previous good management will not slow the CEO from asking you to shed some more expenses. Whether you have already optimized your training function in the past or you realize that you have a long way to go, here are ten practical steps that you can take to weather any financial storm.

1. Provide more self-help workbooks and on-the-job aids.
Replace some of the high cost training sessions with materials and aids placed where people do the work. Laminated procedures, checklists, tips’n’tricks, lists of shortcut keys, ready reckoners, and so on, may be effective replacements for full-blown training sessions. If somebody is having difficulty handling angry customers or using Microsoft Excel, check out your local training publishers for self-paced workbooks.

2. Conscript local experts or coaches to take the place of some training sessions.
If people have some knowledge and skills about the subject, identify one or two local experts in each area to act as a central point for all questions. Make sure that the experts and coaches you nominate have the required communication and interpersonal skills.

3. Cut training sessions that do not add value to the organization.
Does your organization really need that assertiveness skills training course? What tangible benefit did your organization achieve from it? Drop courses that do not show a demonstrable advantage to your organization. I’m not saying that these kinds of courses are never worthwhile. During difficult periods is the time to review whether they are of real benefit to your organization now.

4.

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Buy Business, Profit Now - Get MBA, Profit Later?
Recent college graduates and those contemplating the completion of their studies in the near future - specifically those majoring in business - are often torn between two disparate choices.  The question asked most often is, “Should I stay in school and earn my MBA (Master’s of Business Administration), or head out into the world and buy a business?”  There are four factors that come into play when buying a business or continuing in school - the money one needs, the amount time to be expended, the potential return on that investment, and the state of the market.  Most people who go on to do a MBA do so under rather stressful circumstances.  They work part-time at low wages, making just enough to get by while taking classes full-time.  They use up personal savings, borrow from relatives, and go into debt via student loans.  At the end of the two- or three-year process, they have a substantial educational advantage over their peers who did not take the MBA path, but they’re also that much behind the curve in the professional world.

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No matter where you are in your career, you can always benefit from keeping up with the latest literature related to career and professional development. Whether you would benefit from learning how to land the job of your dreams, how to get a promotion, or just how to function more effectively in your current career, there are excellent career development books that can be of great benefit to you.  

As a professional it’s important to continue learning and growing throughout your career, and keeping up with the latest professional development literature is a great way to stay ahead of the curve. The time you spend reading career development books is an investment in your long-term career success.  

Reading career development books enables you to learn from leading experts in the field from the comfort of your own home. No matter what professional or personal challenges you face related to your career, you’ll be able to find books that can provide valuable insights and tips regarding your employment-related concerns.  

Suggested Topics Include:

The following list includes a selection of current career development literature. These books are great tools for individuals seeking to grow as professionals. They are a great starting point, but just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the many publications that can provide guidance for building the career of your dreams.  

Career Advancement: Whether you are just starting out in your career, seeking a promotion, or are thinking about taking your career in a new direction, you will benefit from the practical tips and suggestions in Stepping Up: 12 Ways to Rev Up, Revitalize, or Renew Your Career by S. Gary Snodgrass. 

Take Charge of Your Career: Have you ever been faced with a difficult career situation that literally seemed to come out of nowhere?

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As a small business owner, it’s important to take proactive steps toward making sure that your employees are ready and able to handle the technological and environmental changes that are likely to impact your business. It’s important to remember that employee training doesn’t stop with your new hire orientation procedures. Organizational training needs are ongoing, particularly in the rapidly changing 21st century workforce.

Needs Assessment for Strategic Planning
The best way to make sure that you are providing employees with the training needed to position your business for long term success is to engage in an ongoing needs assessment process at both the organizational and individual levels. The process of needs assessment involves developing an understanding of where your organization is now, in terms of employee skills, and where it needs to be in the future.

Individual needs assessment involves looking at your employees’ current skill levels and identifying any gaps that exist between their current abilities and what they need to be able to do, now and in the future. At the organizational level, strategic needs assessment involves identifying gaps between the skills that exist across the organization and the skills that need to be in place to accomplish the company’s long term strategic plans.

Targeted Training
Once you have conducted a thorough assessment of your organization’s training needs, you can identify which gaps are actually training issues. You can begin implementing an employee development plan designed to make sure that your workforce is positioned to take your organization forward toward accomplishment of its long term strategic planning goals.
Depending on your organization’s goals, and the market it which it operates, your workforce may need both technology and soft skills training.

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Do you want to learn more about project management? Are you interested in preparing to sit for the PMP certification exam? Many people whose jobs involve project management want to further their skills and knowledge, a well as earn the PMP credentials that will help them stand out from others who work in the profession. However, finding the time to get the training necessary to advance in the field isn’t something that’s always easy for busy professionals to do. Fortunately, there are learning solutions that make it possible for even the busiest project management professionals to get the training they need.

Project Management Training Solution
Have you found that the available training programs are offered at inconvenient times or would require you to travel or spend several days out of town? Does your busy schedule prevent you from being able to participate in the only available options for PMP certification prep training? These are common problems faced by many individuals who want to pursue advanced project management study and professional development to improve their skills and advance in their careers.

If you’re like most people who want to improve their skills and knowledge in the field of project management, you already have a hectic schedule that involves juggling multiple professional and personal responsibilities. That’s why hybrid mentored learning project management training is such an excellent option for individuals interesting in improving their skills or preparing for the PMP certification exam. This type of training is the ideal solution for busy professionals who need flexible training solutions that go beyond the basic type of online learning programs.

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Employee development training is critical to the long term success of any organization. Making plans to help employees keep up with and fully utilize technology is part of any sound strategic plan. It’s also necessary for business leaders to identify employees who have the potential to grow with the organization and develop them to fill critical roles that are likely to become available in the future.

Practicalities of Employee Training

However, it’s one thing to know that employee training is important and quite another to find the time to incorporate a comprehensive training program into already busy scheduled. The day-to-day challenges of running a successful business often take precedence over implementation of cross training, succession planning, and other things necessary to fulfill long term strategic goals. 

Finding a way to balance the need for employee development and current work demands is a real challenge for many businesses. It’s becoming more and more common for companies to look toward non-traditional options for providing training to employees. Providing blended learning opportunities for employees is one way that companies are rising to the challenge of finding time to fit needed training into the busy work day. 

What is Blended Learning?

As companies are finding it more difficult to schedule groups of employees to attend training sessions during the day, many are turning to solutions that provide a more flexible means of delivery. Blended learning is often described as hybrid learning. This increasingly popular approach to employee training combines online learning and face-to-face instructor led training.

Utilizing a blended approach to employee training involves making both traditional employee training classes and opportunities for online learning available to employees.

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The first step in advancing the productivity of your staff in using the phones is a better understanding in the importance that the telephone can play and how it affects your business. Often a lack of the right attitude is displayed in the treatment towards the receptionist position. The receptionist is usually hired without any guidelines that would be used to hire for an important position. In your dealership do you have personality profiles, set interview questions and guidelines to hire an exceptional receptionist? Do you have a formalized training process and performance based pay? Often the receptionist is the lowest paid person in the dealership but is often the person who influences the customer first. Why not pay the receptionist a bonus based upon various criteria such as average time to answer a call, average hold time for a customer etc.

The sales people also need training on the understanding of the importance of both inbound and outbound sales calls and how this can affect their incomes. A sales person can sit around all day waiting for someone to come in, but they can take incoming sales calls and treat them like they are not important. The average dealership will spend a fortune on advertising to get people to call and come in but not pay attention to what is happening when the customers call or come in. Call a competitor or call your own dealership and mystery shop a few times and ask yourself if you are impressed with the results.

Let’s talk about a few things to improve the importance of sales performance in utilizing the phone. First of all, the dealership needs a formal call tracking process. Many dealerships know their floor traffic but not their phone traffic. Why? This sends the wrong message. You must quantify to qualify, meaning you must know where you are at to understand where you would like to go. Have the receptionist use a call tracking sheet that they are trained to use.

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In the bestseller, Good to Great, Jim Collins discovered that, “the good-to-great companies continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality.”

And, in his recent autobiography, Jack Welch reports that he spent about half of his time on people: recruiting new talent, picking the right people for particular positions, grooming young stars, developing managers, dealing with under performers, and reviewing the entire talent pool.  Says Welch, “Having the most talented people in each of our businesses is the most important thing.  If we don’t, we lose.”

Why is it that many of us put off giving feedback to our employees even though we intuitively know that giving and getting honest feedback is essential to grow and develop and to build successful organizations? Maybe it is because there are so many ways to screw it up. 

Here are ten common feedback mistakes:

1.  Speaking out only when things are wrong.  “Praise to a human being represents what sunlight, water and soil are to a plant - the climate in which one grows best.” - Earl Nightingale 

2.  “Drive-by” praise without specifics or an honest underpinning. - “Great job!”

3.  Waiting until performance or behavior is substantially below expectations before acting on it.

4.  Giving positive or negative feedback long after the event has occurred.

5.  Not taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and reactions.  “This comes straight from the boss.”

6.  Giving feedback through e-mail messages, notes, or over the telephone.

7.  Giving negative feedback in public.

8.  Criticizing performance without giving suggestions for improvement.

9.  No follow up afterwards.

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