Development_of_a_Training_and_Mentoring_Program

Development of a Training and Mentoring Program New Training and Mentoring Needs “Training consists of planned programs designed to improve performance at the individual, group, and/or organizational levels.” (Cascio, 2005). Now that the merger is complete and we have our new team in place to launch our new full-service cleaning solutions for organizations in the health care industry, it is time to begin identifying the training and mentoring needs for our new team. We have brought people to the team from both EnviroTech and InterClean so it is imperative that we provide adequate training to get members from both sides trained in the same way. The new product and service line is new to all of the team members so there is the need for extensive training of our sales staff. First, sales members will need to be trained on the various areas of governmental regulations. Sales members will need to learn all that they can about the new products and services we are offering, OSHA standards governing medical organizations, company policies and procedures, and refresher course on communication and sales techniques as well as information on existing products and services. By learning government regulations and OSHA standards, our sales staff team will be able to better convey to the customer what they need and answer any questions customers may have concerning those regulations. This is one more way that we can be of use by our customers and offer a more knowledgeable sales team, which will help in retaining the customers we have as well as building our customer base. Objectives of Training and Mentoring Program and Performance Standards By the end of the training and mentoring program, our new sales team should be familiar with company policies and procedures as well as the mission of our company. They should also be knowledgeable in the area of medical supplies and services. Each member should know the OSHA laws governing medical providers so that they can better inform customers of what they need as well as train new employees. Each member is expected to know detailed information about the new products and services we are offering as well as our existing products and services. The main goal of our training program is to enable each member of the sales team to be able to answer questions posed by the customer about our products and services. Sales team members also must keep abreast of changes in the industry and stay up to date on new products and services so that we can keep our customers informed. Delivery Methods and Content for Training and Mentoring The training of employees is critical to the success of your company. For this reason it is important for our company to be willing to spend some money on our training program. Our training will consist of a classroom setting. Each team member will be given a handbook that not only details company policies and procedures but that also outlines what is expected of them as salesmen. The handbook will include information on our new product and service line as well as information on our existing products and services. The handbook will also contain information pertaining to OSHA laws and other government standards in the medical field. Also, the handbook will detail their sales goals individually and as a department. Team members will be able to interact with the instructor training them as well as each other. There will be a question and answer session after each segment of the training. Also there will be a large use of role playing within the training. Team members will be given various situations and will be given the opportunity to act out how they would handle the situation. After each role playing activity, the rest of the team will be allowed to give feedback on how they think their fellow team member handled the situation and the instructor will give feedback as well. If the instructor does not agree with the method of handling the situation, the instructor will discuss how it should have been handled. After training is completed we will be giving out scenarios and having trainees actually practice selling our products and services to other team members. The instructor will then evaluate them on how they presented our products and services. Time Frame The training program will take approximately six weeks to complete. The first week of training will be going over company policies and procedures as well as the mission statement of the company. Also during the first week, we will be reviewing sales techniques and strategies. During the second week of training, sales team members will become familiar with our existing lines of products and services and how to sell them. This will be an overview for some of the members but will be the first time learning about our existing products and services for some. The third and fourth week will be spent strictly on learning the new products and services we are offering to the medical organizations. This will consist on exactly what the products and services are that we are offering and why they are important to medical organizations. Sales team members will learn every detail about these services and products so that they will be able to convey the need for them to our medical organization customers. The fifth week will be spent going over government laws regarding sanitation in hospitals as well as OSHA standards and procedures. The more knowledgeable our sales team members are on these regulations, the more helpful we will be to our customers. Finally the sixth week will be reviews and tests to ensure that the sales team members are ready to begin marketing our new products and services. Evaluation Methods We need to answer five basic questions when evaluating trainees. First we need to ensure that the trainees achieved a specific level of skill, knowledge or performance. Second, we need to see if change occurred. Third we need to decide if the change was due to training. Fourth, we need to evaluate whether or not that change was positively related to the achievement of organizational goals and last will similar changes occur with new participants in the same training program. (Cascio, 2005). The first step in evaluating our training program will be to test the team members who took part in the training to ensure that they learned what they needed to learn. The second step will be to send out customer questionnaires to each customer to ensure that the sales team gave out adequate information on our new products and services. Customers will be asked to answer questions about the delivery of our sales pitch, as well as how knowledgeable our sales team members were about our products and services.We will be monitoring sales numbers as this will be a key indicator of how well our sales team has done in transmitting what they learned in training to customers. Feedback Surveys will be given out to team members who participated in the training and they will be asked to complete the survey based on how well they thought the training was relayed. They will be asked to give feedback on what they liked about the training and what the did not like, what they thought was helpful and what was not, etc. At this time, they will also be able to comment on their first month’s sales and if they felt their low or high numbers in sales was based on what they learned during the training process. Alternative Avenues for Further Development If a sales team member does not seem to be meeting goals and does not seem to have learned what they needed to during training there will be alternatives for further development with this team member. They will be working with a member of the sales management team one on one to develop skills that they are lacking in.We will be sending a sales manager out on sales calls with them so that they can observe how to sell our products and services. Once they have observed a senior sales staff member for a week, they will be asked to make the sale in front of the senior sales staff member. This way, someone else will be there in case the sales team member still cannot answer all of the questions and also will be there to evaluate how they did after the one on one training. References Cascio, W. (2006). Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits, 7th ed.