‘’Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to’’ - Richard Branson
Simple right?
Well, yes and no.
At first glance such a modus operandi seems incredibly straightforward, but you only have to trawl through the comments section of the article on the Virgin Website to understand how murky this argument can become. My personal favourite comment: ‘’If you pay them well they never stop asking for more, if you underpay them they will always be ready for overtime, so win win’’ is so inherently flawed I’m not entirely sure where to start.
It is worth noting that Branson by no means pioneered this school of thought, as back in 1943 an American by the name of Abraham Maslow developed his Hierarchy of Needs model. Self-Actualisation (realising personal potential, self-fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences) was the pinnacle.
With that said, why do so many businesses get it wrong?
Box Ticking - Introducing training programmes for the sake of being able to say they have a training programme is a guaranteed route for staff disengagement.
Generic Training - Your staff are individuals, treat them as such. One-size-fits-all approaches may work for certain courses (Health and Safety, Compliance), but for the majority they don't.
Outdated Content - Software and technology move on at an ever increasing rate. It is no use offering the same regurgitated content from last millennia; your employees will see right through it.
If you really want to empower your staff, take a leaf out of the John Lewis training handbook. They recently gave 16 year old John Sutton the opportunity to run their Norwich based store for a day as part of ‘National Employee Ownership Day’.
There are many ways to look after your staff: training them properly is possibly the most effective and rewarding one.
Jack Marshall
We are Filtered, an Online education provider of outstanding tailored training in Microsoft's main applications.
We teach the features of each discipline that we believe to be critical, stripping out the rest to produce a highly refined syllabus. Furthermore, using our signature "Filter", a series of carefully-selected questions, we filter and tailor the course content for each individual. Our interactive courses give your staff 24/7 access to videos, tests, exercises and quizzes to support them every step of the way.
