Catherine de Salvo explores an often overlooked area of training which is proven to save money and improve efficiency.
There is an important area of skills development which hardly ever emerges in a Training Needs Analysis and is therefore often overlooked by learning and development professionals. Yet it delivers measurable results which provide a return on investment like no other training initiative can.
Not many people will say to their manager in a performance review, "You know, what I really need is some accuracy skills training." We all like to think of ourselves as pretty accurate and around 97% of the time that's correct. So, we never even think about asking for help in improving accuracy skills and most of us think that people are just born more or less accurate and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's wrong.
Accuracy is a trainable skill. It can be learned and practised just like any other. But unlike improvements in many other skills, the benefits of accuracy skills training can be measured. The results are clear and the payback on the training is quantifiable.
"We never even think about asking for help in improving accuracy skills and most of us think that people are just born more or less accurate and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's wrong."
Take the average national error rate of 3% [1]. It doesn't sound like very much. But it means that where you have teams of people processing information 3% of their time is spent entering the wrong information onto your systems. Clearly, it's going to take another 3% of their time to re-key the information correctly. So that's 6%.
Once an error is in your system it starts to do damage. Wasting time. Causing the wrong information to be sent to the wrong person. Leading to angry customers. Resulting in the incorrect amounts being paid or transferred. Meaning the wrong shipment is sent or the executive travels to the wrong airport or is checked onto the wrong flight (yes, that happened).
Ask any team of administrators or data processors how long it takes to find an error once it's been made and you'll get some interesting stories and a clear acknowledgement that it takes 'a very long time'. Let's say that conservatively it takes twice as much time again, so that's another 12%. We're now up to around 18% of the administrator's time making, finding and correcting mistakes. Or put another way, 18% of their salary. Multiply that by the number of people in the team and across all personnel involved in working with data and you start to see the enormity of the problem. And that's before you factor in the cost of damage to your reputation, compensation payments and the costs of rectifying what initially might have been quite a 'small' error - for example, a decimal point in the wrong place.
Talk to your operational managers and ask them about the kind of errors that occur. They will be aware of the problem but chances are the idea of accuracy skills training won't have crossed their minds. Yet you can solve this problem for them and give them a measurable improvement in their operational performance, enabling them to cut costs and boost productivity. Wouldn't that make L&D more relevant to the business needs of your organisation and boost your credibility with your business managers too?
Errors occur for a number of reasons. Distractions, both internal and external, play a part as do the physical structure of the eye and the way the eye and the brain coordinate. Moreover, the way we are taught to read impedes our ability to perceive information correctly because we instinctively look at the overall shape of a series of numbers or letters rather than 'superconcentrating' on each individual character in its exact location.
The good news is that if you understand why mistakes occur you can address the underlying causes. There are simple, practical and effective accuracy techniques which are proven to work and which are readily applied to the kind of data your people use. It's also important to explore how your people check their work and to investigate the levels of checking that your organisation operates. You can show people how to check information accurately and ensure that they understand the repercussions of any error they make.
"There are simple, practical and effective accuracy techniques which are proven to work and which are readily applied to the kind of data your people use."
Organisations tend to overlook the human aspect of errors and instead focus attention on updating their processes and computer systems. Yet this addresses only one part of the problem. No amount of improving data capture and processing procedures will reduce mistakes if the human beings using those systems aren't trained in the people skills of reading, checking and transferring information accurately.
Simply making people aware of the importance of accuracy helps to raise the bar but simply telling people to get things right will never work on its own since nobody comes to work thinking, 'How many mistakes can I make today?'
Equip people with practical and easily applied accuracy skills and help them to discover for themselves that they work and you'll find staff are enthusiastic to use them. Who wants to spend time going back over work to find and correct mistakes? Helping people to take a pride in getting it 'right first time every time' means that they are more engaged in the work they are doing and conscious of the significance of their role. After all, their work has a direct impact on their colleagues, on your customers and on the overall performance of your organisation.
Find out more and discover the true cost of human error
Catherine de Salvo is a director of Scott Bradbury Limited. She is a regular presenter and author of articles on data accuracy skills training and works with organisations to reduce error. Scott Bradbury Limited is the publisher of the in-house training courses Developing an Eye for Accuracy and Coaching for Accuracy
[1] 3% is the national average error rate measured by Scott Bradbury across all sectors prior to accuracy training.
