What does it take to get your employees excited about their jobs? Money is a common benefit of working, but money isn’t everything. Most employees are happy to receive fair compensation for the job they perform, but they also want opportunities to learn and grow; recognition for a job well done; a positive work environment; and encouraging team members and management.
Keeping employees energized and well-trained on how to do their job can improve productivity, morale, teamwork, and reduces turnover. It also leads to increased revenue for you and compensation for them, assuming you offer incentive-based compensation.
Want to get more out of your team in 2016? Here’s three core steps you should make to jumpstart them…
1. Start Off Right
What does it take to get your employees excited about their jobs? Money is a common benefit of working, but money isn’t everything. Most employees are happy to receive fair compensation for the job they perform, but they also want opportunities to learn and grow; recognition for a job well done; a positive work environment; and encouraging team members and management.
Keeping employees energized and well-trained on how to do their job can improve productivity, morale, teamwork, and reduces turnover. It also leads to increased revenue for you and compensation for them, assuming you offer incentive-based compensation.
Want to get more out of your team in 2016? Here’s three core steps you should make to jumpstart them.
2. Train or Change
Most employees understand the need for job-specific training and can make the connection between investing in performance and technical-skill development. Look at your sales- and closing-percentage numbers. Is it time to jump start your employees to get them moving to the next level of success? Or do you have the wrong people on your team who just don’t get it? Weak links in your team’s chain set everyone up for failure! Could this be the reason why you are not achieving greater success today? You will need to train the weak links on how to become strong, or you will need to remove the weak links and replace them with a trainable, stronger link that creates results.
In regard to training, it’s not something that can only be done when you seem to have time for it. It’s not something you put aside during your busy season. You absolutely MUST make time to train at least once a week. It can be done in 20 minutes. In those 20 minutes, simply go over the basics of a service call. Reinforce what your techs should be looking for on calls—and all of the missed opportunities. Then pump them up about all of the money there is to be made. Training doesn’t have to be complicated—but it must be offered…always.
3. No More Excuses
If you have a weak link in your business’ chain… get them trained. If you have a new employee and you want to set the right work-performance ethic early in their employment…get them off to a great start. Learning Alliance has just been launched; that will provide a great starting point for your team member(s) to understand how they should operate within the home and communicate with homeowners. Then, it’s up to you to support that training on a regular basis while also monitoring their performance, their tickets, and demanding accountability.
It is essential to get your employees trained, if nothing else it can reenergize them. Training allows them to share knowledge and work with their fellow technicians to develop real-world solutions to challenges they face. New knowledge is always gained during training.
There is no better way to kick the dust off or remove the rust from stagnant employees than getting them involved in training. Even the best of the best employees need a little refresher now and then—give them what they need to succeed.
Stop asking yourself, “What if I train them, and they leave?” Instead start asking yourself, “What if I don’t train them, and they stay?” The second question, if answered poorly, could keep your company dormant forever. Choose wisely.