Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

Maybe you're sweating as you know there is a big day ahead of you. It's grand opening day and in an hour people will be coming through your doors. Every possible scenario of what could go wrong is running like a movie through your head. You're concerned about the mistakes that your employees will probably make throughout the day.

While some of this will always be part of doing business and managing, with proper training and those that are allowed to learn from their mistakes, it can be an exhilarating and satisfying experience.

But we want to go beyond just grand openings and things like that, into day-to-day operations. What is the best way to prepare employees? Now a great training program will be an absolute necessity. One of the top companies year in and year out, Wegmans, won't even open a store until they're satisfied the employees are completely ready to do their jobs, as they're considered one of the top customer service companies in the world.

Still, even with the best training, nothing matters until you're on the job. The question is: How much of our training should be allowed on-the-job? In other words, what can be allowed to be learned from mistakes and what shouldn't?

Would you want to fly in a plane where the pilot would be learning through experience alone? I've known seemingly simple things like making keys for a customer turning into a nightmare because the one doing it hadn't been properly trained in doing it. They made the keys and the person went to their numerous properties and ruined each lock seeing if the keys worked properly.

What needs to be decided is what is essential to the point where the person has to have the training down completely before they are allowed to engage customers and what is allowable to learn as they go. People that will be considered experts by customers, absolutely need to be fully qualified before they are let loose to do the job.

To me it seems expectations is the way to measure this issue. What is expected by customers concerning the products and services you're offering? Certain offerings have higher expectations that must be met at a high level. Others, well important, don't have as high expectations and so can have more room for learning through the process itself.

Nothing can ever ensure not making mistakes. Those in high-expectation positions need to be highly trained and tested to make sure they really understand the level of service and expertise they must provide.