How well do you train?
About the Author
Wayne has worked in sales for a large portion of his life, and joined the StorMan family in 2007. Wayne frequently travels between both our New Zealand and United States offices and works in sales for both of these regions.
You can get in touch with Wayne via our Contact page.
Related Posts
"I was whinging at my spouse one evening about how we pay all this money for bigger and better hardware only to be working at the same speed (or slower it seemed)."
NB. Please be aware this is NOT a Vista-bashing article. This article is about increasing productivity.
Now that we have established that fact, has anyone out there got Vista? I am familiar with XP and Vista. When I recently upgraded my laptop it came with Vista. No problem, Vista is compatible with StorMan products. But Vista does have some quirks. These are a result of Vista's attempts to introduce programming standards that make computer life more functional or idiot-proof. Vista is working on so much more than an old XP system does when performing the simplest of tasks. It does make Vista more user friendly than XP was, but even with twice the RAM my new laptop seems so much slower than my old one.
I would equate the time elapsed on almost any task on my new "Vista" laptop (with 4GB RAM) to the time elapsed doing the same thing on my old XP laptop when it only had 1GB RAM (before I upgraded it to 2GB). I was whinging at my spouse one evening about how we pay all this money for bigger and better hardware only to be working at the same speed (or slower it seemed).
Now my spouse loves Vista, probably because it is full of so much functionality that is easy to use, although she had to agree with me about perceived operation speed. Vista does not require as much computer ability on the part of the user for them to access terrific levels of functionality as older systems did, but because Vista performs so many more checks and balances for the user, even on a faster machine, there does not seem to be much of a gain in productivity. This led me to wonder, can software developers deliver more value to this industry by training people to better use their software or would industry rather software vendors, like Microsoft, complicated their software further to reduce operating errors?
Of course, with Windows the debate is moot because you cannot really buy a machine on XP these days. But with management software developers like StorMan can either keep developing their products so industry can employ people with less computer ability, which means production decreases, which means wages stay low, which means staff are being employed at an ever decreasing ability level, which means industry is paying more for our software so that employees can produce less, or we can focus instead on delivering effective training, increasing productivity, (hopefully) making it more possible for industry to incentivise staff and increase retention.
So here is your chance to tell software vendors like StorMan what YOU think. Assuming current management systems have all the required functionality such as web capability, on line searches, reservations, and payments, dynamic rent control, all the necessary reporting features, anti-fraud measure etc., does industry believe it is far better to keep systems working more productively and train staff in how to use them effectively or does it believe systems have to be further complicated in the name of greater functionality, idiot-proofing, or for some other reason?
I write this because there seems to be some hesitation on the part of industry in paying to train their people (when this is the way to higher levels of productivity). Smaller training budgets can only result in increased spending on systems and software with (potentially) reduced productivity. So much great functionality lies dormant and un-tapped in management software, causing our industry to lose money. Who needs to do that in this environment? I believe the answer lies in training. I am not sure yet of what industry believes is the preferred solution, but this article outlines the potential problems in companies not training their people.
If staff retention is a concern then I think many of the people in this industry are older and therefore less likely to move from job to job, especially if training is offered along with performance by return incentives, and therefore training potentially holds even greater value for the employer.
In these times this could be a worthwhile strategy for the industry to adopt. But I may be wrong and I would invite you to tell me if you think I am email to wayne@storman.com.
Regards,
Wayne (VP Sales and Marketing, StorMan USA).
Leave your comments & feedback on this post...