There is an efficiency gap between employee performance and the productivity expectations of the company. Employee training and continuing education does not rank amongst the top 10 priorities of management. How can this be possible if employees need certain tools to meet the minimum performance requirements of the job?
Society’s Acceptance of Technology
As a business and technology educator my passion involves integrating technology tools into the educational environment. As a Computer Network Engineer I understand the positive effects technology has on society when properly utilized. Society has come to accept and respect the power of technology in their everyday lives. This is observed by the use of mobile devices, internet driven entertainment and the rapid growth of social media platforms.
I have learned that not all managers and supervisors are accepting to the emergence of technology driven business practices. I recently listened to a sales and marketing expert talk about outbound sales. Although outgoing sales strategies still work they only account for about 5-7 percent of the total leads generated. Buyers are now shopping through the method of research and education online. The buyer learns all they need to know prior to transitioning into buying mode.
Businesses Shift to Big Tech
Companies are now shifting to more aggressive marketing strategies via website tool that forecast where the potential buyers are. These tools include using very advance customer relations management systems or CRM’s. The CRM is a central repository for all information of contacts from lead generation to closed sale. When these tools are properly used to their potential they provide a great benefit to the organizations bottom line. The more advanced CRM systems can cost 20 percent of a companies operating budget. Many times these systems are abandoned for lack of performance success.
Does technology increase profits
Why do organizations invest so much time and money in the implementation and consulting of an enterprise system. Imagine a sales person comes into your office and presents you with the next best thing to your business. They tell you that their software is going to generate sales profits year over year for the business. You agree to a demo and after the presentation you are sold on the system.
The non-technical end-user doesn’t realize that the demo system is highly modified and heavily tested before going to market. The system shows all of the bells and whistles of which do not come out-of-box ready. Most of those features are add-ons and may be after the sell conversations. The most important observation is that the demonstrator is highly trained on the operations and nomenclature or the system. Training and continuing education is reflected in the demonstration.
Corporate training to avoid wasting money and time
Organizations adopt software packages or other types of change process assuming it is the magic pill for success of the organization. No change process including software deployment is a one size fits all or just add water solution. The organization must invest the time in training and testing while doing so in a pilot environment. Employee corporate training and continuing education is key.
It is important to give the business users access to become comfortable with the system. It is equally important to afford them the opportunity to ask questions and make suggestions. In most situations the business unit that deploys the change are not the intended end users. My favorite phase is “We don’t plan to fail but we fail to plan.” We must prepare our business users through training and preparation. We must deploy employee corporate training and continuing education to adapt change process if we expect the change to be successful.