Training Day Blog

Measuring productivity is tricky. You think there should be objective measures, but then there are all the times employees put in a lot of work but deliver poor or no results. Should they still get credit for doing the work?

Many companies have noticed the cost savings to be enjoyed by using freelance or temporary employees. The question is whether it’s ethical, and the toll this over-use of non-full-time employees puts on the company’s culture and morale. 

How do you train managers and executives to effectively (and fairly) distribute workload, and to train all employees to set boundaries, so they deliver on everything they agree to do?

How does your organization manage customer service training, so customers don’t experience disappointment and irritation over something as simple to remedy as retrieving an umbrella left in an overhead bin of a flight that just landed?

Learning how to communicate simply is, ironically, more complicated than just finding easy and fast ways to transmit messages. It’s also about striking the right tone and being personable.

What role does technology play in creating, or alleviating, employee loneliness? How much face-to-face or voice-to-voice communication is necessary?

How do you train managers to use praise judiciously, so it becomes a tool to inspire ever-greater performance across departments, and boost, rather than deflate, morale?

In addition to hiring an admirably diverse group of employees, it’s important to think about how those people can immediately begin influencing corporate decisions and public communications.

There are two management philosophies. One says you engender loyal, hardworking employees by treating them well and showing them appreciation—getting them to love you—while the other says you get superior work out of employees when they live in fear for their jobs.

When you ask the impossible, employees may do everything—including violating ethics—to make it possible.