WE HAVE TRAINED PERSONNEL

How many times have you heard the phrase "We have trained personnel" or better yet, how many times have you used it yourself? It seems to be the slogan for every BSC all over the world. Now, my question is this,

Since the initial training and orientation class (if you have one), when was the last time you had all of your line technicians go through a refresher course to assure they are doing the processes and procedures that you are telling the customer you possess? Many companies (yours?) put their new employees through an orientation and then put them in the field never to provide any additional technical training. So when your employee reaches the 3 year or 5 year time of being with you they have one hours training 3 or 5 years over. Sound at all familiar?

This brings me to the issue that many BSC's have. They hire a new employee, give them the orientation and some initial technical training and then put them in the field to work with and learn from an "experienced" cleaner. And more often than not, that experienced cleaner is one that has learned to do it wrong. Oh!, they really don't mean to do it wrong, they just got into some bad habits over the months and years and no one has corrected them and so their "wrong" way of doing the procedure all of a sudden becomes the accepted way of the company and the new employee becomes an expert at doing it "wrong".

My company instituted the every 6 month program for the very reasons listed above. We were a Team Cleaning company using exclusively back packs and those of you that do Team Cleaning the accepted way know that while it is a terrific way to do a thorough job in a fraction of the time needed for zone cleaning, it can also be difficult to implement. After instituting Team Cleaning, about 3-4 months into the program I began to do random visits to our buildings to see how the procedure was working in the field. To my amazement I saw some cleaning procedures I didn't recognize and frankly, didn't want to recognize. I wondered if these were the same employees that were at the initial training. The faces looked familiar but the cleaning procedures sure didn't. Anybody had that happen to them? Anyway, I guess this negative turned into a positive because it forced us into the on going every 6 month training process (more on this later).

You may have heard me say in a workshop or read in one of my books that "on the job training is a recipe for on the job failure". Not intentionally, but it just evolves if a company doesn't have an on going follow up training policy. That brings me to my next point,

If you have not already done so I want to suggest that you implement a program whereby each employee is required to attend a 2 hour refresher course in your main office or training center every six months following their date of employment. You can hold them at different times on different days to allow for the schedules of your employees, knowing that many have other jobs, full time. Pay them to attend and one good procedure is to let one of the "experienced" cleaners teach different segments of the training. This lets you observe if they have picked up any bad habits and allows for you to correct them. Always correct in a positive, helpful fashion and not in a "gotcha" attitude. I am of the opinion that you will learn that there are all kinds of cleaning procedures taking place out in the field that you weren't aware of. I surely learned that.

At the risk of sounding too elementary let me remind you of how we remember in a learning situation. We remember,

10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
80% of what we say
90% of what we say AS WE DO.

So it follows that you will want to involve the class in the training and let as many of them as possible teach the rest of the group by saying AND doing a procedure. It really does provide for a better learning atmosphere. That is one of the reasons I suggest you have those "old timers" involved in demonstrating the various procedures because these are probably the ones you are relying on the most and you want to make sure they are doing it right. Remember, all of us learn one step at a time.

An additional thought---make the training fun. Give prizes for correct answers and get everyone involved. I have learned through the ages that giving prizes like cash or grocery gift certificates gets all the shy ones and those feeling like they were forced to attend involved in a hurry. Amazing.

So, how about it? Do you have a follow up training program or do you just train when they are hired and then train only supervisors after that? Remember, the cleaning techs are the ones doing the work that customers are paying for. How does your staff measure up. If you don't have an ongoing technical training program, now would be a GREAT time to begin. With all the new products, including green, on the market today, your employees need to have a thorough knowledge of how to use them and that needs to come from you, and not trial and error. Happy training.

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