Tips To Tailoring The Quality of Training

As trainer, you have the awesome opportunity and responsibility of passing on knowledge to employees who can make or break a contract.  No pressure, but something to ponder.  The quality of the training will have a direct impact on the supervisor’s load and may allow him/her to manage a larger group than if the employees were untrained.  Please refer to the preceding article as the basis for these comments.  We now continue with the trainer:

1. Are you standardized in your chemicals and processes?  It will be next to impossible to successfully train workers generically who will then have to determine that although they were trained in a green colored all-purpose cleaner, the building has purple and it even has different properties.  That could increase the chance for errors.

2. Do you have excellent (not good enough or even great) support from your distributor and vendor?  They should be in partnership with you providing enhanced training for you and supervisory level staff.  That is another reason for being standardized since a vendor cannot train on someone else’s products for obvious reasons.

3. Does your vendor/distributor provide job cards, videos, online access and support training in topics ranging from proper rest room care to floor care to carpet spotting to safety?  If not, you have the wrong vendor no matter how cheap the price.  Real vendor support is invaluable in training and success in custodial operations.

4. Are your janitor closets and vehicles equipped and standardized with the same products, equipment and layout.  One suggestion is to build a sample closet that closely matches what you expect from all employees.

5. Do you have a testing system?  This could be a brief written test (15-25 questions) with true/false or multiple choice.  The same test could be provided verbally if necessary.

6. Do you have a demonstration test for those to show you they really get the process?

Training poorly without any real though is a waste of time and resources. 

Your comments and questions are always welcome. I hope to hear from you soon. Until then, keep it clean…

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678.314.2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net.