Putting a dollar figure on training can be tough, but the benefits go far beyond the balance sheet, according to a shop leader.
Many shop owners face the question of how to know if their investment in training is paying off and it’s a tough one to figure out, observed Bill Snow, vice president of franchise development and operations at Rad Air Complete Car Care and Tire Centers.
“Measuring ROI on training investment is tough because there’s so many variables that could lead to sales success at a service centre. Are we doing marketing better? Are we doing operations better? Are the operations better because of training or is everyone just in a good mood because now we have pizza every Tuesday?” he said, tongue in cheek on the last example. “There’s some times you just don’t know what led to that increase.”
He explained that, while it’s hard to draw a straight line from training to profits, the impact is real.
“The assessment of your team, the investment in that employee, the investment to make things better for your clients, is well worth it,” Snow said.
He noted that his team looks for feedback after every training session.
“We solicit a lot of feedback on the trainings that we do. And there’s been some trainings that we thought were going to be awesome and they were duds” while other times you’re going through the motions and the training ends up being really great, Snow said. “It’s just really trying to understand what didn’t work, tweak it a bit and then retry it.”
But not every training session is for everyone. If his shop is bringing in a trainer, they try to make sure it’s someone who can speak to the technicians at different levels.
“Because we’re going to have some apprentices and we’re going to have some 30-year master techs, and that’s two different training groups,” Snow explained. “So how can we get the training to be relevant to everybody?”
While the numbers may be hard to pin down, Snow believes the investment is worth it.
“You never want to waste money on anything. And sometimes training can be a little trial and error,” Snow said.
But once you find what works for your team, what resonates with them, if they retain the learning and come back with positive feedback, then you know you’ve found something that works.
“Sometimes folks … will nod their head, they’ll come back from an evening training and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, kind of a waste of time,’” Snow said of the bad sessions.
For Snow, the real return on training is in the growth of his team and the satisfaction of his clients.
“The investment to make things better for your clients is well worth it,” he said.
Image credit: Depositphotos.com
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