My response is to ask if the company thinks it is important to keep hold of the best staff, equip and motivate them to grow the business and ensure that customers are provided with the best possible levels of service. In fact, if you want to attract the best talent you have to develop and nurture your existing workforce. Sadly, as employers, many of us fail to realise this opportunity today. A recent finding from Middlesex University's Institute for Work Based Learning revealed that three-quarters of UK workers feel they are not achieving their potential at work and want to be given more training on the job.
We are all in the service sector now
No matter what sector you operate in, at the end of the day customers and clients want to be served by well-trained, confident and knowledgeable staff. This means being ruthlessly focused on the supporting roles and skills that underpin this experience - whether that means ensuring an effective supply chain or maximising the in-store interaction.
It's common sense. Customer service is a battleground for market share and share of customer spend and you neglect it at your peril. As I write this, businesses across the UK are looking at their marketing strategies, seeking to maximise customer loyalty through new sales initiatives, product design and loyalty schemes. Of course, these all have a role to play, but the fundamentals of good service delivery start and end with the employee.
When looking at this interaction, we quickly identified the opportunity to go beyond simple, efficient in-store service to provide a distinctly different, high-value experience. To deliver this across 267 hair and beauty stores required a bespoke programme built from the ground up.
Connecting and embedding success
The sales contribution is an obvious positive outcome, but it shouldn't be seen as the only one, nor should it be expected immediately. Developing people provides a number of wider benefits that will ultimately improve the performance of the organisation - from addressing the constant challenge that churn of the wrong people represents through to reduced absenteeism. Our experience demonstrates the importance of targeting talent and nurturing, stretching and rewarding those employees who will provide the greatest contribution. In fact, our programme has identified that one-third of our store employees already have a hair or beauty qualification, while a further third demonstrate excellent retail skills.
This commitment from the business builds trust among employees, reinforcing the connection between the work they do, the success of the organisation and their own professional achievements. Greater engagement and trust is quickly rewarded by improved staff confidence, which we see as a catalyst for future personal and professional growth.
It doesn't need to cost the earth
A positive learning and development programme needn't consume vast resources or require large learning and development departments. In fact, the largest commitment is the visible endorsement from senior management, which effectively sponsors the programme. We have found that the more focused and accessible the idea the greater the buy-in from employees. In SBH's case, our recently launched Hair & Beauty Academy was set up by two dedicated learning and development professionals who aim to qualify 600 of our 1,350 members of store staff by the end of 2011.
On the surface, this might seem ambitious, but our programme was tailored to focus on the staff members who would benefit from the training most. By undertaking a comprehensive training needs analysis, we were able to support those employees with more basic needs while appraising everyone's qualifications and career aspirations.
Put simply, this has given us our first company-wide skills map and succession and allows us to select and prioritise candidates who have been first to enter the programme. The programme rewards our most effective and enthusiastic employees by investing in their personal and professional growth.
Closing the loop
Not only can this approach to targeted learning and development provide a point of difference for customers, it can help an organisation stand out from the crowd to new recruits. It is a very visible demonstration of how prepared the business is to invest in its future success.
In my opinion, the need to nurture talent will never change, but the way that we deliver learning and development must continue to evolve and reflect the budgetary constraints of the organisations that we serve.
Chris Ward (pictured) is HR director at SBH UK & Ireland
