Online Employee Training: Retention Through Education
What does online employee training have to do with employee retention? More than you think. Here's the problem: employee turnover has consistently been an issue for the cleaning industry in the past, and it still is today. Unfortunately, we're not just competing with our rival cleaning companies—we're also going head to head with other industries, including food service and retail.
How do you start to build a team that's actually interested in your particular company, and won't leave you in the lurch because they can make an extra ten cents per hour at your competitor down the street? Many studies have shown that offering ongoing employee training and education has a direct correlation to employee retention and, ultimately, increased revenue.
Why Offer Online Employee Training?
There are a number of reasons why your employees might be interested in participating in online training. Let's break it down:
Convenience—Online employee training can be accessed anywhere, anytime, and on any device, making it easier than ever for your employees to access training. If they can't remember how to do a particular task, a quick peek at a training video can refresh their memory. And gathering the team together at the start of their shift to watch a short video is a convenient way to provide ongoing training.
Engaging—Online training tends to be more interactive than the old-fashioned way, which relies heavily on supervisors showing them around the building, explaining how to do the tasks, and then setting them loose to go clean. Online employee training can get them engaged from the start, especially if you make it interactive. For example, viewing a section of video, discussing it and having them perform the task in a classroom setting. This is ultimately more appealing than having to learn it all on the job.
Pace—Your employees can take their time with online employee training, ensuring that they've fully mastered the skill before they move to the next module. This will relieve some of the pressure they might feel with a more traditional training. And if you are grooming your supervisors and managers to become better leaders, you can assign a series of videos in preparation for higher level training meetings and discussions.
Individual or Group Setting—If you feel that your employees would work better individually, online employee training will accommodate that. If they prefer to work as a group, they can embark on the training together and discuss what they've learned. The training is customizable to your group's needs.
Why Invest in Online Employee Training?
You might be concerned that purchasing an online employee training module might be more than you're ready to spend. Is it really worth your money? Let's look at some of the stats related to employee training:
- In 2017, 77% of companies used online learning (elearningindustry.com)
- For every dollar spent on online learning, companies make back $30 in productivity (elearningindustry.com)
- Knowledge retention is 25-60% with online employee training versus 8-10% for one-time face-to-face training, per the Research Institute of America.
- 42% of companies that use eLearning say that the training led to increased revenue, according to Ambient Insight, Worldwide Mobile Learning.
- Companies that utilize eLearning technology achieve an 18% boost in their employee engagement, says Molly Fletcher Co.
Training vs. Development
While you might believe that these terms are synonymous, that's not quite true. There is definitely a difference between training and development, and online employee training can play a role.
Training is a relatively short-term activity that assists people in engaging in the main function of their job. For example, you would train your cleaning technicians in the proper way to clean restrooms, empty trash, vacuum floors—these are all the primary functions that they perform every day.
Development, on the other hand, is a more long-term prospect, and it helps you and your workers to achieve your future-oriented goals. Business owners embrace this strategy as a way to develop strong employees into team leaders, supervisors and managers. Not only will you be teaching employees new skills, but you'll help them to think more strategically and consider the big picture. Development encourages your employees to consider the ramifications of their behavior and decisions, particularly when they're managers and supervisors. It helps push them beyond what they might consider their capabilities to be, enabling them to consider what they're able to do in their professional life as well as their personal life.
When you own a business, not only are you responsible for leading your team by example, but you must involve yourself in your team's training and development. Begin by developing your managers and supervisors so they can help you lead the team to success.
Just because it's called "online employee training" doesn't mean that you can simply sit them down at a computer screen, have them watch videos, and then take a test. Get involved in their training and make it interactive. Discuss each video, see how they scored on their test, review the questions they got wrong, and ask them what they learned in the process.
Leading a Fully Developed Team
Sure, it's more challenging to put more effort in the training and development of your team; many cleaning business owners have the mindset that the time they're putting into training is wasted—the person won't be around long enough to make a difference. This mindset starts a cycle of high turnover that has become the trademark of the cleaning industry.
It's important that you start to look at your company in a different light. Don't think of it as "just a cleaning company," but think of it as a training company, where your primary job is to groom and develop talented people.
Consider Jancoa; they're a commercial cleaning company that sees themselves as "Dream Managers." They help their employees achieve their dreams, both professional and personal. They realized early on that having a cleaning job is merely a stepping stone for most people, so they made it their mission to make their employees' time with the company a great experience; not just while they're working, but as a means to a happy ending. They assist their employees by helping them reach their next goal, and then they send them off after an average of 3-5 years with the company. It works for them, and their retention rate is very low.
You can take a slightly different approach. Creating your own pipeline of supervisors and managers will not just differentiate your business, but it will help you outshine your competition, too. Make a name for your company as the place that takes the time to engage your employees with training beyond anything they've experienced before. When your employees eventually leave, as they do with Jancoa, you can feel better about the fact that you helped to develop them into a productive member of the workforce, and maybe even a strong leader allowing them to pursue their purpose in life. For some employees, it may mean staying with you and helping to grow your cleaning company. For others, it might result in moving on to a new opportunity. Regardless of the outcome, your new mission becomes positively affecting other peoples' lives.
When it comes to developing your best people so they become better supervisors and managers, make a point of scheduling regular group meetings to discuss training and video topics, what they learned from their training and how these lessons will translate into their day-to-day jobs. This leads to deeper discussion that further engages them and teaches them more than passive training ever will. The more they're engaged, the longer you'll retain them. The longer you retain them, the lower your new-employee training costs will be, and the more productive your long-term employees will be. Your supervisors will also have time freed up when they're not micro-managing new employees all the time.
Delivering Better Training and Development
You could develop your own training programs from scratch, but what business owner has time to do that? Some companies use eLearning sites or LMS (Learning Management System) sites, but that's a spendy proposition for a small business owner. Larger companies might have the resources to invest in sophisticated proprietary LMS systems or in training sites that house literally thousands of training videos, but these sites charge tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars to set up all your employees on their platform – depending on the size of your business.
How You Can Get Affordable, Online Training
The Janitorial Store has an award winning LMS training and development site to offer cleaning business owners top of the line training from professional training providers on topics ranging from Janitorial and Safety training, HR compliance, leadership and management, business skills, customer service and sales, and even software training.
We have developed a Premium Membership subscription that includes access to all the training and resources The Janitorial Store has to offer cleaning business owners – PLUS – access to the entire library at Clean Smart University and CSU Business Library
With access to over 8,000 professional training videos, you certainly can't go wrong by joining The Janitorial Store's Premium Subscription!
Visit this page for a complete list of everything you get with Premium Membership, including a video tour behind the scenes.
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