It’s a fact! Most businesses focus their staff training on the technical skills needed to do the job. And it makes sense doesn’t it? Arm your employees with the technical skills they need to perform their task and the training is done. Or is it? Are we developing our people to confidently represent our companies with professionalism, effective communication and the ability to deal with difficult situations? Are we getting the most out of our people?The short answer is NO. The industry has become so focused on technical skills and compliance that we have lost sight of one very important element of the industry – the people. The missing link is soft skills training.Soft skills enhance a person’s technical abilities. For example, teaching a person to communicate effectively with customers enables that person to do so with so much more confidence. The result is a greater level of satisfaction from the daily grind. It’s that simple! In turn people become motivated, enthusiastic and loyal to their employer. The employer sees an increase in productivity and quality of work and ultimately the business benefits enormously. In what ways can a business benefit from having better employees? Well, that’s a whole other article, but let’s say the business would spend a lot less time settling disputes and looking for new customers, and the business profits would see huge increases.The thing is training must be relevant, appropriate and meet the needs of the people being trained, or it is a waste of time. Providing a person with training that is not useful in their daily job, or that they cannot see will benefit them immediately is just not worthwhile. Whereas training that provides people with actual tools and techniques which they can take away from the training and implement into their day to day tasks is successful.Long lasting results are achieved when training is usable and practical.Participants of training should leave with an action plan. The action plan should include tools that can be implemented immediately to produce results. When people who are attending training can see that their days and their careers are being improved, they accept the skills much more readily and the learning sticks with them to create lasting change.
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