TRAINING & EDUCATION
ARE YOU GETTING YOUR TRAINING RIGHT?
Telephone answering specialist Moneypenny is a people business through and through. Business Development Manager for the FM Sector, Julie Hulme explains how Moneypenny delivers training to get the very best of new employees from the start.
“Excellence is an art won by training – then it is not an act it’s a habit”. Greek philosopher Aristotle coined that phrase more than 2000 years ago, yet if we think about it, it’s still as relevant today. As businesses we all want to be delivering excellence as standard – our customers expect this, and without it, there’s every likelihood we’ll just get lost in the white noise of the competition around us.
A business like ours relies on great people. Our employees are representing around 7,500 UK businesses every day; answering telephone calls for them either on an overflow or fully outsourced basis, so it’s vital we are equipping each one with the confidence and ability to deliver the best they can.
A ‘one size fits all’ approach is unlikely to yield the greatest results when it comes to training new staff members. The trainer who approaches their task in military fashion, armed with every policy and procedure in their arsenal, with Powerpoint loaded and pointer ready to go; doggedly determined to get through their material come what may, is unlikely to hit the spot. The trick is not to throw out information and hope it will stick – it’s to tap into what makes people tick as individuals and then harness that to deliver a meaningful experience that yields results later on.
We have small groups of new starters training together and recognise that not everyone learns in the same way. Lots have had past experience on the telephone but many have not. A `learning style’ questionnaire - made up of 40 quick-
48 | TOMORROW’S FM “A ‘ONE SIZE FITS ALL’
APPROACH IS UNLIKELY TO YIELD THE GREATEST
RESULTS WHEN IT COMES TO TRAINING NEW STAFF MEMBERS.”
• Pragmatists - who like to experiment, solve problems and see how things work in practice
It can be a challenge trying to satisfy all these styles at the same time, but good trainers use techniques to keep everyone happy, engaged and not overloaded - such as slowing down the pace and taking breaks when they naturally arise to allow reflectors time to absorb. They also provide paper aids so theorists can take them away and delve deeper, breaking up sessions with a mixture of theory and practical call-handling to satisfy the activists with itchy feet and allowing plenty of time to explore our call handling system.
fire tick box scenarios; which we give to people before they start, enables us to prepare in advance and tailor the way we approach their training needs, taking into account each individual’s preferred style.
TYPES OF LEARNERS • Activists- who welcome new
challenges and generally like direct action and thinking on their feet
• Reflectors - who tend to think before acting, read everything in detail and take their time
• Theorists - who are analytical and work well with concepts and models; enjoying seeing how things fit into an overall pattern
You can identify early on who is happy learning in a group and who prefers one-to-one support. There’s no right or wrong, but companies can easily trip up if they assume that the information they put in at one end will automatically come out the other.
There’s no greater investment in a business than the time spent training your people. Our receptionists are trained for four weeks before they join one of our telephone answering teams and it is six months before they take on clients of their own. For us, those early weeks represent quality, focussed time, which you rarely get again later, so it’s important to make the most of the opportunity.
People are your best asset. Creating the right environment for them to develop and grow with not only a great introduction, but ongoing training and support, adds up to a positive culture with happy, fulfilled staff.
www.moneypenny.co.uk twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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