Train the Team
The majority of small companies will not invest enough time and financial resources into training employees. Business just gets in the way. Larger companies like Xerox and IBM often will spend six months educating a new employee before they even get near a customer. That is one of the reasons why Xerox and IBM employees have been so highly regarded in the past.
At Wyse Leasing, we had a team of 75 and five offices, and most importantly, a very good training schedule. There was a period of time when we even employed a full time training manager. I remember once taking a new team of four and putting them through four weeks of intensive training. At the end of it one of them resigned. It was just too much for him. On the last day, if you asked him what does one plus one equal he would had said anything other than two.
Was this a bad thing? I believe not. Training not only builds the teams skills and gives them confidence, but also flushes out people that feel they are not capable of the job. If my memory serves me correct, I also believe another one of the four left fairly soon afterwards sighting the reason that leasing was not the correct career for them. I would rather lose 50% of the team early on knowing we have not put them into a customer account and gone through the big cost of salaries.
The ratio of preparation to training must be at least three to one. i.e. You invest three hours of preparation for one hour of delivery. The total investment in time and resources for any company will be big. I for one know that over the past few years, running a much smaller company than I am now, the investment made has been significantly less than what was required.
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