"The nature of human beings is such that we tend not to drift into better behaviors." —Bill Hybels
Bill Hybels, founder and senior pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Ill., states what most of us intrinsically know to be true: Rising to the top not only takes extraordinary effort, but it also often takes extraordinary effort to rise at all.
No one starts out as a roofing worker and without extraordinary effort ends up owning a successful roofing company. And manufacturing interns don't end up as chief executive officers (CEOs) without putting exceptional diligence into the climb.
To build a better, more efficient, safer and quality-oriented roofing company, you need to possess a willingness to find new ways for your company to grow and improve. And the best way to do so is through employee training.
The drift of mediocrity
Hybels is the leader of an organization with a $12 million annual budget, an international outreach, and thousands of staff and volunteers. Although a church's function and purpose are different from commercial enterprises, the organization is staffed by people who tend to function at the same level every day unless challenged to become better.
If Hybels' belief is true, when we do drift, where do we end up? We all know people who have drifted into better circumstances despite their lack of effort, but they are the exceptions. For most of us, drifting ends more or less where it begins—in mediocrity.
Drifting into mediocrity requires no energy. The enthusiasm we once had for tasks or responsibilities may wane, and jobs we once enjoyed may seem stale. There's a chance we could become irrelevant or even a menace to ourselves or others as work practices and technology move ahead without us.
If we want better behaviors in any area of our lives, we need to work for it. And if we want better for those in our companies, we must expose them to opportunities that will push them out of the drift of mediocrity. These opportunities not always will appear under a training banner, but it's difficult to imagine a list of improvement opportunities that doesn't include training.
The three hurdles
Excellence requires commitment, and an excellent training program that will help your organization reach the pinnacle of professionalism is not accomplished by a drift that offers an occasional training class. A good training program takes courage because a full-on commitment is required in three areas: resources, specifically time and money; a willingness to change; and accepting the risk you may be training an employee to be amazing for someone else.
You can do one of two things with this trifecta of training hurdles. You can view each as a negative factor and drain on company resources and do the minimum amount of training, or you can embrace and plan for the hurdles.
Let's look at each of the three training hurdles to determine whether they are, in fact, the hurdles they appear to be.
Resources
It's easy to demonstrate training experiences can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, and this doesn't include lost work time. Everyone can see tangible bottom-line time and expenses for training. Often, it costs thousands of dollars to commit to a comprehensive training program designed to help employees become excellent workers and leaders. Unfortunately, this is the end of the conversation for some owners and managers.
Yet consider how much time and money a company loses when its productivity is in the hands of employees who are less educated, effective and motivated than they could be.
A willingness to change
Reaping training effectiveness means being willing to make changes. If you believe sending people to training seminars takes time and money, consider what it might cost when your team members return. If they learn about a tool or work practice that could make a huge difference for your company, are you willing to investigate change?
Investigating change may mean any of the following: meetings; discussions; hiring consultants; wrestling with complex issues; investing in more training; purchasing new equipment; changing a time-honored work practice; killing a tradition; trying something new—the list goes on. It means time, money and discomfort.
Does the following scenario sound familiar?: A company employee attends a workshop and returns enthused about a new work practice. Everyone smiles and nods, thinking the shine will wear off in a few days. And when no one mines the employee's enthusiasm, either because they don't believe in it or because they're too busy, the shine wears off. Everyone happily continues with their work unchanged because no one really wanted to make changes.
This is when training is a waste of time and money except for the one person who is better for it. This is a challenging training aspect and begs some words of caution: Don't expose your team to excellence if you don't want to continually strive for it yourself.
Risk of losing trained employees
People typically are not looking for reasons to leave their jobs, especially in an unstable economic situation. If you treat people fairly and help them succeed at your company and make good lives for themselves and their loved ones, you will retain most of your good employees.
Of course, it doesn't mean people won't leave. Some will leave for reasons they can't control, such as caring for an aging parent. Some also will leave voluntarily from time to time. One of your best foremen, in whom you have invested time and money, might leave to work for a competitor because your competitor has a superintendent position available. But you must decide: Is having an entire workforce of well-trained, loyal employees worth the risk of losing one or two over time?
Consequences of mediocrity
Each hurdle is real. Growth is stressful. Drift and stagnation are not as painful in the moment, so the temptation is to live in that simpler space. A difficult workout at the gym will leave you limping as your muscles tear, repair and become stronger. The option to stay home will be easier on you in the moment, but it also will result in physical weakening and deterioration over time.
Not stretching your employees and company culture also will be easier in the moment and may have some of the same weakening and deteriorating effects. Without a training commitment to your employees, you likely will experience the following negative consequences:
Ineffective work processes
Recently, a local radio station aired a story about a county jail system having a difficult time using carbon copy forms to track its inmates. It's easy to laugh, but are you still using carbon paper? Is it stored in the same closet as the Polaroid™ camera and the typewriter correction tape?
Even if you're not using stashes of carbon paper from the 1980s, are some of your work practices out of date? A bigger question may be: Do you even know if you have outdated work practices? The point is not exactly how you do your work but how inefficient you may be compared with your competition.
Whether you want to go paperless or purchase tablets for your field managers, it's a good idea to know your options and it's wise to know about tools and resources your competitors may be using to their advantage.
But it's not all about gadgets and gizmos. Are your work habits as effective as they could be? Is your company losing work hours because of how materials and tools are checked out or how employees clock their time? What about your company discipline policy? Does it enforce effective work habits? Do employees understand exactly what is expected of them? Do you train field managers to enforce company expectations? Do foremen have management-supported leverage for disciplinary conversations with employees who come to work late, don't wear personal protective equipment or otherwise fall short of stellar work practices?
It takes resources, change and risk to participate in training. But ignorance and inefficiency cost more than you may realize.
Ignorance of best practices
Learning best practices is one key reason why it's worth the resources, change and risk to invest in training. For example, the Certified Roofing Torch Applicator (CERTA) program provides the latest best practices and insurance industry requirements for the safe use of roofing torches. Once authorized, CERTA trainers return to their companies to train roofing workers to use torches in ways that minimize the possibility of fire losses.
CERTA Train-the-trainer Authorization classes teach and exercise two kinds of best practices—training and torching. Being educated about training best practices means trainers will be more effective, and the roofing workers they train will leave torch-applicator classes remembering more and being confident of their abilities. And learning torching best practices provides workers the ability to convey safe work practices and change behaviors in the field.
The combination of these two lessons absolutely results in fewer fire losses. In 2002, CNA, Chicago, received 46 claims for fires, resulting in $14 million in losses. In 2012, CNA received zero claims. Although there may be numerous factors contributing to the decline, it most assuredly is a result of teaching best practices to more than 2,000 trainers and 20,000 torch applicators during the past 10 years.
Learning best practices—whether torching, roof system installation, strategic planning or marketing—doesn't only happen through training; you can think of new ideas by yourself or with your team or you can read books, but there is no substitute for learning from others. These "others" may be participants in classes or experts via video, webinar or online classes. You don't know what you don't know, so sometimes the best thing to do is seek knowledge through training.
Not seeking to learn best practices leaves you to your own best judgment. Your business may thrive, or you may be far less efficient than you could be. Or worse, you may accept a contract or complete a roof system installation and discover afterwards a best-practice recommendation shared in three different training venues during the past six months could have saved you from a potential lawsuit.
Lack of motivation
According to a September 2010 Forbes.com article, "How to Keep Employees Motivated," by Dianne Durkin, founder and president of Loyalty Factor LLC, Portsmouth, N.H., continuous learning is one of the best employee motivators. Durkin says: "Investing in employees helps increase employee engagement and commitment to the organization. Leadership training also is important. Many managers have never had to lead under challenging circumstances and need proper guidance on how to coach, motivate and reward their employees."
If you want engaged, involved employees who care about their work and your company, training can help make this happen.
First, if you can discern specific reasons for motivation problems, they can be addressed by training your entire workforce and the company can arrive at solutions on a corporate level.
Second, most people truly want to get better at their jobs. Employees usually want to develop their job skills for at least two reasons—to believe they're contributing their efforts to jobs where they're making a difference and to have a chance at making better lives for themselves whether through pay increases or promotions. These two reasons are about more than training, but training is one tool to help make a difference.
Third, employees know training takes money, and they also know they're not able to contribute to company work during the days they're away at training. This does not escape people's attention; they often recognize contributions their employers make when sending them for training, especially if it's a level of training that will differentiate them in some way.
All this not only increases employee motivation but also loyalty and retention. Most people would prefer to grow where they are than to find a job at a new company. However, if the only differentiator among companies is pay, people will follow the money. That said, many people will stay at a job that pays less money if they believe overall they're treated well, valued and given opportunities they might not get somewhere else.
According to a February 2012 Inc. magazine article, "A Better Way to Treat Your Employees," by Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction, San Francisco: "When you see your employees as whole people, they feel appreciated and supported. They're filled with more potential motivation to excel rather than just doing the basics of what's expected. Personal experiences lend perspective that encourages extraordinary contribution."
A disgruntled and disappearing workforce definitely is going to cost companies time and money. Isn't it better to be proactive and invest in training to keep good employees?
Missed opportunities
The final reason to debunk training naysayers is the potential value of positive public relations a training investment can reap. Without training, you are missing opportunities to tout your company's commitment to professionalism. Professionals always seek to improve—themselves, their employees and their companies—and this commitment matters to customers.
Nick Sabino, president of Deer Park Roofing Inc., Cincinnati, enrolled one of his top performers in NRCA's ProForeman Certificate Program. When meeting with potential customers, Sabino explains the program and his company's participation. His customers then become energized to award jobs to a contractor who cares about his customers enough to invest in his employees.
If you want to show your professionalism to potential customers, educating your employees is an indicator of professionalism that speaks for itself and also tells customers you're investing in continually bringing the best roof system installation and service possible.
Don't drift
No one really wants to drift; we want adventure, energy and significance. More of our time is spent in our work than any other single pursuit, so you have tremendous opportunity to engage your team at a level that can make a significant difference—to them as people and, consequently, to your customers and company. When you make your workplace an environment that provides opportunity for growth, improvement and learning, more often than not people will engage and be committed to being better rather than drifting.
Amy Staska is NRCA's associate executive director of education.
Did you know?
Access to education is one of the main reasons roofing professionals join NRCA. NRCA can provide resources to help you and your employees move beyond the training hurdles.
The following are some educational opportunities you can engage in right away as you seek to build a comprehensive training plan:
NRCA's ProForeman Certificate Program offers current and future field managers opportunities to hone their skills and knowledge in five critical areas: construction and business practices; general education; management and communication; roofing technology; and safety. Program completion results in a certificate jointly awarded to a company and a participant, acknowledging significant learning, discipline and persistence. For more information, visit www.nrca.net/proforeman.
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