I found myself standing in a line last weekend and reflecting on one of my long-espoused mantras. On-the-job training only appears inexpensive. But in fact, the most expensive training in business is the training paid for with customer good will.
When saying that, I'm not knocking on-the-job training. No matter how much classroom or online training a person gets, his first days on the job are going to be OJT — whether you call it that or not.
Training can identify and develop the skills necessary to succeed. But it's only after those skills are put into practice in the "real world" that folks actually become good at their jobs.
Too many organizations seem to forget that the T in OJT stands for training. Time and again, employees are thrown into work situations they are ill-prepared for without reasonable support.
Often, the experienced workers in these settings are not properly prepared or motivated to actually "train" new employees. And if staffing levels are low (as they often are), the environment created is even less conducive to learning. More important, these environments seldom foster high levels of customer service.
The incident that got me reflecting anew on this subject happened at a Starbucks kiosk inside a local grocery store. Truth be told, I'm a longtime customer and fan of Starbucks, and I have the receipts to prove it.
That said, the situation I encountered did them no favors. I know that the employees in that kiosk are actually employed by the grocery store. But most customers reasonably assume that they are Starbucks employees.
When I arrived at my usual time on a Sunday morning, the line was longer than usual. I figured it was a fluke and walked over to a table to set up my laptop. I got up 10 minutes later to get in line. It was no shorter than when I had walked in, and some of the same folks were still in line.
I shook my head, thinking that there must have been only one person working on a busy Sunday morning. But when I got closer, I saw three folks. The two young guys behind the counter were lost and shell-shocked. The one at the cash register stared at the keys like he was reading hieroglyphics.
And the guy next to him couldn't quite grasp the abbreviations he needed to write or boxes he needed to check on the cups. Of the eight drinks I witnessed being made (I had plenty of time to count them), three were wrongly prepared. Some customers were explaining to the young men how they thought their regular drinks were made.
The third person in the kiosk was a woman I had seen many times. Even in good times, she always seems irritated. Today, she was seething. She practically growled at those young men and berated them.
A guy behind me in line quipped, "This is insane. Why do they decide to train people during their busiest times?" I turned around and said, "Well, I'd call this a few things, but training isn't one of them. All those two guys are learning is how much they hate being here right now."
He laughed and said, "Good point. I'm wondering why I'm here, too." Hearing that, several folks in line began commenting on the customer service train wreck we were witnessing.
The one senior employee behind the counter seemed more interested in making sure we knew that it was not her fault that we were annoyed. The "rookies" were slowing everything up.
On the contrary, I found myself blaming her more than those two hapless young men. She was more concerned with whom customers were mad at than the fact that they were being made mad in the first place.
When we throw inexperienced employees into sink-or-swim situations, it's our service levels and customer good will that frequently sink along with them.
Properly training front-line employees before deploying them requires planning, time and resources. But it's far less expensive in the long run than making your customers pay for that training with their patience and good will.
Make sure your customers aren't getting that bill.
