If you’re a manager or own a business, put in the effort to train your employees properly. Why is it that Americans have a lackadaisical attitude towards training, compared to the efficiency of the Germans or the mindfulness of the Japanese?
Cultural differences play a huge part. However, that doesn’t mean we should accept lower standards.
Yes, I’m calling out every employer and manager who refuses to invest time in their employees. Don’t act surprised or pissed off when an employee makes a big mistake because they didn’t receive training from you, the manager. And don’t you dare blame it on other people.
I understand you’re always busy but why bother having a business if you keep making excuses for your professional shortcomings? Learn to schedule another manager or supervisor to take over while you train the newbies if you’re that busy.
It’s not the job of an employee to train themselves if they barely know their daily tasks. How can they possibly know every rule and task if you don’t tell them? Let me be clear, I’m not saying that employees shouldn’t learn and take the initiative.
It’s unrealistic to expect employees to know everything on the first try, and although this sounds obvious I see this problem too often. Recently I quit Chipotle because the managers didn’t want to train me to corporate standards, and I got in trouble for that.
The managers handed me a clipboard with a checklist of everything I needed to close properly, or so I thought. So I did everything according to the list but the next day I was pulled aside into the office for a chat about my performance.
The manager who pulled me aside, let’s call him John, shut the office door and proceeded to list off how I caused him to stay until 4 a.m. cleaning the things I’ve missed. I felt extremely uncomfortable because the door was shut and the office is about the size of a bathroom stall. As a young woman who has been through threatening situations, I didn’t feel safe.
A couple of important rules weren’t on the checklist. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to clean the tortilla presses before 11:00 p.m. or else I would be “terminated on the spot.” Those were John’s exact words. Later, I relayed that rule to my coworker and he asked John about it but was given a different answer, “You’re not supposed to clean it before 10:30 p.m.” So now I have two contradicting answers from the same manager.
Another rule was, I could also be terminated on the spot for using dirty mop water. That’s reasonable but what is considered dirty? Is it dirty after I mop one section of the restaurant? Or after two uses? I asked John these questions but he just shrugged his shoulders and said he wasn’t given any other details from the higher managers.
The lesson to be learned here is, set aside time to properly train your employees so that they won’t make costly mistakes. And don’t be like John. You have expectations for your workers and in return they have expectations they’ll be taught properly. This is what it means to lead. If you want to know great leadership and teamwork, look into the training at Disney theme parks. There’s a reason why they’re able to consistently provide the same customer service.