Ground-Zero Training

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Keep it hands on, active, and lively. Most of the entry-level employees at Cooperative Home Care have an eighth-grade reading level or less, according to president Rick Surpin. "Most of them hated school," he says. "The worst kind of training for the folks we work with is to sit them in classrooms and make them listen to lectures, but that's what people do." So Cooperative Home Care tries to cover most topics in its preemployment training through hands-on demonstrations accompanied by an explanation. Employees will often be asked to discuss a real-life situation, such as how to deal with a difficult patient. They then break into small groups to come up with solutions. By law, home-health-care courses must be supervised by nurses, but Cooperative Home Care adds assistants who have themselves been home health aides. That way, new employees can better relate to the trainers.

Make general ideas practical by using examples from your company. Larry Moore has been teaching continuous-improvement techniques to all workers at the Plumley Cos. That could be a general subject -- but not in Moore's class. Because the company wants its employees to learn team problem solving, they spend much of the class working in groups. And to emphasize how the theory of continuous improvement relates to the Plumley Cos., Moore shows a brief videotape he has made of some process in the plant. After watching the video, employees form groups. Then each group must come up with four suggestions for improving that particular process. (In general, Moore is a big fan of using homemade videos to make his points. "If you're in education and training and you don't have a camcorder, you're missing the boat," he says. Moore, like his counterparts at the Print & Copy Factory, has begun videotaping training sessions. He sends the tapes to out-of-state Plumley branches.)

Give on-the-job assignments and tests. At the Delstar Group, a Scottsdale, Ariz., retailer, training director Carol Gleason will spend a session in her classes for new supervisors discussing a series of management techniques for a particular situation, such as dealing with a subordinate who has some type of performance problem. As "homework," the supervisors try out the techniques in their stores and then start the next class with a discussion of the results. That way, Gleason says, the supervisors can begin learning not just from her but from one another.

Similarly, at the Tattered Cover Book Store, new employees complete work sheets to ensure that they are learning -- but the work sheets involve exercises like locating specific titles and subjects in the store. At the Print & Copy Factory, the tests employees must take for promotions are as practical as they get: in one test, machine operators have to demonstrate their ability to clear a jammed copy machine.

3. How do I make sure employees take the training seriously?
Do it yourself. Nothing conveys the importance a company places on training more than the CEO's participation does. That's why Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover Book Store, conducts the first day of all training sessions for new employees. She's also the best person to cover that first day, which deals with the company's history and philosophy. These days companies talk a lot about the importance of their mission statements and values; there's no better way to communicate those to new employees than to have the founder do it.

Celebrate accomplishments. At Tabra Inc., a $3.7-million Inc. 500 company that makes jewelry in Novato, Calif., employees who completed the company's English-as-a-second-language training received a certificate, a rose, and lots of applause at a staff meeting. Cooperative Home Care holds catered graduation ceremonies at the end of its preemployment training. And when managers at the Plumley Cos. asked their employees who were taking high-school-equivalency classes what they wanted besides a ceremony to celebrate passing the test, it turned out to be the little graduation-cap tassels that many of their high-school-graduate friends had hanging from their rearview mirrors. While not every course warrants a cap-and-gown graduation, everyone wants some form of recognition for hard work. Ray Tom gives copy-machine operators pins for their uniforms that list their grade level, so employees are visibly recognized for their achievements and skills.

Treat training as an integral part of the job. You can make training essential in any number of ways. At the Delstar Group, employees in the company's stores know that as soon as they're promoted to supervisory positions, they must take a class to learn about their new jobs. At Unitech, which relies on more experienced employees to provide some on-the-job training, the company has a gain-sharing program that shares profits with employees as a group after productivity, quality, and safety goals are met. Thus, its workers have a strong incentive to train their new colleagues well -- so their own bonuses won't be hurt. And at Cooperative Home Care, the company views its preemployment training as a preview of its new hires' work ethics and a good chance to weed out employees who don't measure up. Reasons Surpin: if people are late to training, miss class, or have a hard time working with others, they're going to have the same problems in the workplace.

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