As a small business owner, you wear many "different hats" from strategic planner to bookkeeper. However one area may owners aren't prepared for is managing people. Although employees allow you to get more work done, they create a whole new series of problems from hiring issues to worker's compensation. And there is no way to tell if the people you hire today are going to be a good fit for your company. At a certain point, you might find you need a crash course in handling difficult people.

Many conflicts can arise between small business owners and their workers. These problems can range from salary disagreements to performance problems. A conflict with one of your employees, for example, can cost you a valuable client because he or she is misrepresenting you and your company. On the other hand, one of your workers may have attendance issues or may refuse to perform certain necessary tasks.

Whatever the issue, difficult employees all have one thing in common. They will negatively impact your business. So as a business owner, you must accept the realities of handling difficult people. Here are a few tips that will help you deal with such individuals.

Handling difficult employees? Here's what you must do before they destroy your business.

How to Deliver Training and Development that Delivers the Desired Business Outcomes

To be competitive and to remain a player in today’s 24/7 knowledge driven business world requires that your employees be thoroughly trained to deliver the best customer service both to your external and internal customers. The old 19th and 20th centuries’ paradigm of controlling the employee has transformed to one of freedom for today’s knowledge worker.

Yet, continued research suggests that the majority of training and development initiatives estimated at 80% to 90% whether they come from the human resource department to the executive management team fail to deliver a positive return on investment. Consequently, when training fails, the first department to experience budget cuts is human resource because of this failure.

Part of this reason that a positive return on investment is not achieved potentially begins with a failure to connect the learning with the desired results. For example using customer service, is the training about the correct procedures in processing the sale or is the training about creating a loyal customer during the sales process? A recent customer service survey indicated that the number one response customers do not want to hear is “That is not my department.” This response is probably a result of knowing the procedures, but those procedures do not necessarily create happy and more importantly loyal customers.

Another part of may reside in how the training is delivered. Most training goes against the best learning research that indicates repeated exposures to a learning event deliver significantly greater long-term memory when compared with one time exposure. From our earliest school days, we all know what 10x10 is, almost without thinking. However, to respond as quickly with the correct answer to 23x24 is far more challenging. Common sense tells us that if we can’t remember what we learn then we can’t apply what we have learned.

The instructional methodology may also contribute to the failure in corporate training. Even though many corporate trainers believe that they facilitate learning, their classroom behaviors resonate from their 12 plus years of conditioning from the traditional classroom instruction where the didactic format prevailed. This approach is the least effective way to learn and retain information. Some consider this learning experience to be “drinking from the fire hydrant” where more knowledge is lost to the gutter than is retained in the brain while others name it “spray and pray.”

If you truly desire to secure a positive return on your training dollars, then remember these three key points:

1. Identify the desired results and align your training to those results

2. Create multiple opportunities for memory retention and application

3. Evaluate your instructional methodologies to ensure that an engaged learning environment presents numerous opportunities for understanding and application

Learning is necessary and training is absolutely essential for companies to be competitive in today’s information economy. How you choose to deliver training is up to you. However, the real question is can you afford to deliver training that is not effective and does not deliver you loyal customers?

Word Count: 496

Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, www.processspecialist.com

This article may be freely published. Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).

About the author:
Leanne Hoagland-Smith helps individuals and organizations to double results through innovative training and development. She builds lifelong change through proven processes seeking that next level of success. If increasing your revenue, improving your culture or finding balance interests you, visit www.processspecialist.comor ask to subscribe to complimentary copy of Power Choices a monthly newsletter at info@processspecialist.com


Circulated by Article Emporium

Handling difficult employees? Here's what you must do before they destroy your business.

Mr. Brown is coming! The Need for Feedback and Coaching

“Get a move on, Mr. Brown is coming!” Those were the words I heard about once a month when I was a 14-year-old kid working as a stock boy in a retail store. It was usually my store manager making the statement. And Mr. Brown was our district manager who came to inspect our store. The visit lasted a few hours and during that time he would walk the store and look for things he didn’t like. I have no recollection of him ever speaking directly to me, although I remember him watching from a distance as I moved freight or stocked shelves. He seldom spoke to anyone other than the store manager or . . .