It's a good question.
* * *
When big companies offer training programs, they may lavish millions on everything from interactive computer education to specially equipped training facilities. But when small-company CEOs train, they know how to leverage their resources -- they have to. What follows are some common questions on how to set up training in a small company, and the answers smart CEOs have discovered.
* * *
1. My business doesn't have the time or money for a conventional in-house training program. how else can I train?
Formalize the "buddy system." Everybody knows the way training gets done in most small companies: an experienced hand shows a more recent hire new skills. The only trouble is, in a busy small business, it's always tempting to put off that kind of informal training until a less harried time -- which all too often never comes. The Print & Copy Factory avoids that problem by providing employees with checklists detailing specific skills they need to be promoted, and managers must check off the skills as they are learned. Since many of the skills -- such as running a wide variety of copy machines -- can be learned only from others, the system helps ensure that informal training occurs regularly.
Use books. They're the poor man's consultants. As a CEO, you have unique leverage -- if you recommend and give a book to your employees, chances are good that many will at least try to read it. There's probably no less expensive way to get started on an employee-education program -- particularly on a broad theme like quality improvement. For example, at Pro Fasteners, founder Steve Braccini launched the company's quality program in 1989 by giving a paperback copy of Philip Crosby's Quality Without Tears to everyone in his work force, which at that time numbered 30-odd people. The company, a distributor of industrial hardware based in San Jose, Calif., then followed up with two months of weekly discussion groups to review the book. After all that, Braccini guesses, as many as a quarter of his employees never read Quality Without Tears. But he doesn't mind. Through the discussion groups, even people who didn't do the reading became familiar with Crosby's basic concepts about quality. That gave ev-eryone in the company some common language and ideas. "The reason we were able to galvanize around that book is because it was simple," Braccini says. "Everybody could understand it."
The Print & Copy Factory also uses books and tapes to provide some of its training on an ongoing basis. The company keeps a lending library of books, tapes, and videos that cover topics ranging from selling to self-improvement. To ensure that employees really use the material they check out, the Print & Copy Factory has developed a simple form that asks employees to describe very briefly what they learned.
Try outside seminars and classes. Let's face it: not ev-eryone's a reader. At the Plumley Cos., CEO Mike Plumley spent a frustrating two years just trying to convey to his managers all the new ideas about continuous improvement of company operations that he was reading about. "I talked till I was blue in the face," he recalls. "I really wasn't getting anywhere." Plumley got much better results when he sent Larry Moore, his director of education, to a two-day seminar on continuous improvement; Moore then designed and taught a short class on the subject to all Plumley employees.
Outside seminars like the one Moore attended can be a terrific way for a small company to train employees; they can also be a complete waste of time and money. The trick is accountability. All too often managers' involvement with the seminar or class process begins and ends with paying the bill. But if you want to maximize the return on your training investment, it pays to have some way of spreading the information learned -- whether through an informal presentation to other staff members or through something more structured. Back in 1989 Ken Plough, CEO of Plough Electric Supply, knew his company, a San Francisco distributor, needed to understand total quality management because customers were demanding it. He also knew Texas A&M University had an industrial distribution program that offered a 40-hour course on quality for distribution executives. So Plough and his managers attended -- a big investment for a company that at the time had 27 employees. To make the investment pay off, the managers used the material they had learned to design an informal in-house quality course for all employees. Since then, Plough says, the increase in his company's profits has far exceeded its training costs.
Have employees give presentations. Sometimes you don't even have to go outside your company for seminars -- particularly if you have a group of professionals on staff with similar skills and interests. That's what president Paul Silvis has found at Restek Corp., a regional Entrepreneur of the Year winner that manufactures gas-chromatography products in Bellefonte, Pa. Silvis has found that a good way to keep his scientists learning is to make staff presentations a part of many of their monthly staff meetings. The presentations cover technical topics, such as changes in the technology Restek uses. It's a cheap and effective way to spread knowledge in the company -- and it also helps Silvis spot chemists who have a knack for presentations. They often end up giving the company's customer-education seminars.
Join forces with other companies. There are times when the need for outside training for a whole group of employees is undeniable, but that doesn't always mean your company has to foot the bill alone. Consider the experience of Unitech Composites Inc., in Hayden Lake, Idaho, which manufactures composite parts, primarily for the aircraft industry. Like most fast-growing small companies, Unitech had lots of managers and supervisors who were new at their jobs and needed training in management skills. The company was interested in a management-training curriculum put out by Zenger-Miller, but the price was steep for a small company. At a Unitech board meeting, one board member, the CEO of another local company, said he, too, had some managers who needed training. Soon the two companies joined forces with the nearby community college and another local organization to split the cost of purchasing the training program four ways. Unitech's managers are so pleased with the savings that they are now talking to other neighboring small companies to see if they can arrange additional group training in areas that are not entirely industry specific, such as shipping and supervisory skills.
