Untrained Zombie Employees May be Leaving Your Valuable Customers Cold

5 HR Essentials Blog Series cont.

Last week we agreed that carrying the wrong employees can sabotage your business. To stop the rot, I revealed 4 situations when you need to fire a deadwood employee fast .

This week we jump into a scene from an HR Horror movie. Training Terror: When the Untrained Zombies Run Amok.

“FEAR, that deadliest of all emotions clutching at your heart…”Night of the Living Dead - 1968 independent film.

Before we go any further, let’s remind ourselves of the #1 horror movie survival tip.NEVER take a short-cut through the woods, graveyard, back road, abandoned building in the hopes of saving time or keeping yourself safe from the horror chasing you.

You know that taking the short-cut is almost always a fatal mistake that ends badly. Somebody will literally be 'cut’ ‘short’.Well folks, you get the same chilling result in your business when you ignore or take short-cuts with your employee training.Employee training is positively NOT the place to take short-cuts. As sure as night follows day;

You will be leaving yourself exposed to emotional, reputational and financial pain.
You will be leaving your business and customers at the mercy of the Untrained Zombie Employees.

This is how the tale of the Training Terror begins.Definition: Zombie employees start life as lively warm-blooded engaged human employees. Lack of training turns them into vacant-eyed tribe members of the 'Working Dead'.First contact: They wow you during the recruitment process with their strong desire to join your business. Brimming with relevant skills and smart ideas to enhance your customers’ experience, they are the perfect fit.Month 1 on the job: They impress you by jumping straight in demonstrating their self-starter credentials like pros. Hungry to learn the ropes they busy themselves with figuring out how things work.You thank your lucky stars because you don't have the time to train them right now. You are crazy busy with business development, product launches and sales. After all, this the reason why you hired them.Month 2 on the job: They arrive to work on time every day. They just sit there - eyes dull, energy zapped beings sucking productivity and profits from your business as if it were a brain smoothie.You are seriously disturbed. You notice that they are not even trying to look busy. You swear they are spending more time on their own social media than on your business.You feel paranoia creeping up your spine, steadily making its to your brain. "What are they thinking? What are they sharing - and with whom?"Your customers are starting to complain that the service isn’t what it used to be.

Promises are not being kept
Service glitches are popping up everywhere
Your employees don't seem to know what is going on
The peppy and prompt customer experience is no longer being felt.

You ask yourself what has happened to your plucky go-getter new employees.WARNING! You have Untrained Zombie Employees in your business and you need to take curative training action now!If left untreated it will sweep through your business, infecting other employees, scaring away your hard-won customers and eat through your profits and fledgling brand reputation.This virulent virus of disengagement is highly contagious but luckily a cure is available here.

HR Essential #4: Here’s How You Can Fight Back and Reclaim Your Business

STOP…

1. Being too busy to prepare your (new) employee for success and maximum engagement.2. Killing your opportunity to increase your productivity.3. Believing training to be a cost (your time and money) instead of an investment in your employee and business.START…1. Focusing on creating learning opportunities and stress less about training. Yes, there is a difference between learning and training. It is this difference that can help ease the squeeze on your time and finances in the start-up phase or in a small business.Google “What is the difference between learning and training?” and you will get a whopping 165,000,000 results. For speed, here is my in-a-nutshell definition.

Training is a a transfer knowledge, skills and/or way of thinking via planned event or programme delivered to you.
Learning is a a transfer of knowledge, skills and/or way of thinking via a process of (self) discovery by absorbing what you see, hear and do.

Optimise for 'experiential' learning and plan for training.In the early days of your business’ growth you may not have the budget nor time for planned (sometimes costly) training programmes.Instead, proactively create learning opportunities for your employees and build the foundation for a learning culture. Mindfully set the tone for independent learning, knowledge sharing, openly learning from mistakes, the freedom to implement solutions and cross-discipline collaboration.You will still need to follow-up on lessons learned frequently. This will help you ensure that the depth of the learning, the quality of the work output and level of transformation are of value and to the standard needed by the business.As you create learning experiences for your employees, apply the wisdom of Confucius, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”When your employees understand and embrace what they need to do, they will do more (quantity) and better (quality). This will have a positive impact on the productivity levels in your business.2. Feeding the hunger (to learn). Start-ups and small businesses have a huge advantage over large established companies. For those hungry to learn, there are tremendous opportunities with lots of responsibility and chances to quickly get involved in big and varied projects. In larger organisations it may take years to ‘earn’ the chance -and often not with the level of ownership and contribution employees can enjoy in a start-up or small business.When you feed the hunger you are boosting your employees’ professional development and your business' growth too.3. Investing in the BIG WHY. Aim straight for the heart and the head when defending your business against the attack of the Working Dead zombies. You must communicate your business' purpose with feeling. You need to make it explicitly clear how and why your employees’ work is important to the success of the business. Yes, I'm taking about mission and vision!Every employee needs to feel and know that they are doing work that matters, makes a difference and that their contribution adds value to the business. When you inject their work with genuine meaning, you increase the chances of fulfilling your business' purpose AND their personal aspirations.Employees who are engaged and locked in to the business purpose, create a tangible positive uplift in their interactions with each other and their/your customers.Growing a learning culture and training your employees are activities to which you need to pay constant attention if you and your business are to survive and thrive beyond the start-up phase.IT’S YOUR TURN...You now know how to tame the Training Terror - vanquish the Working-Dead and cure Untrained Employee Zombies. It’s time for you to create learning experiences to protect your business against the Untrained Zombie contagion. You’ve got this covered!What are your experiences of the ‘Working Dead’?Go on; share them with us. Leave a comment.Do you know of someone who is facing the threat of Untrained Employee Zombie syndrome? Send help by sharing this post with them immediately!Be sure to come back next week when I will share with you the next HR Essential and reveal the final installment of your Savvy Independent Entrepreneur 5 part series. HR Horror #5: The Putrid Pong of Stinky Communication