Training Advances And By: Phillip Lawless Evolves Today’s most effective training techniques often work best outside of the typical classroom environment. Phillip Lawless is editor of Cleaning & Maintenance Management magazine; he can be reached at PLawless@ GrandViewMedia.com. A graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Lawless has over 13 years of professional writing and editing experience. I It is one of the most frustrating questions a man-ager or supervisor can hear: “Okay, now what?” Yet, the question is an important fixture in the work environment when a new hire begins his or her training and development. One step has been completed, one task has been learned … now what are the next steps to finish the job properly? Taken to its logical end, this simple but some-times exasperating question is the basis of all success and profit in the JanSan and service in-dustries. Answering The Question for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Training . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select BUYERS’ GUIDE from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Training . Figuring out the proper response to employee training needs has been a challenge for facil-ity managers and business service contractors (BSCs) for many decades. “Training in the past — and even today in most instances — is very weak in the industry,” says William (Bill) Griffin, president of Cleaning Consul-tant Services Inc. and a noted industry trainer. According to Griffin, the best case scenario is frequently training by slide presentation or video; the worst case scenario is a manager handing a new employee a set of keys and saying, “Here’s my number. Good luck.” Joel Levitt, the main trainer and president of Springfield Resources, recalls that about 85 per-cent of training in the maintenance market tradi-tionally consisted of on-the-job and worker-to-worker learning. Other training opportunities were more formal apprenticeships, but in recent years, these appren-ticeships have disappeared, leaving a large gap in necessary development, Levitt notes. Many see the lack of formalized training today as an especially large problem for an evolving JanSan industry looking to develop professionalism and pride in its workers around the world. “That’s, in my opinion, one of the problems that we have in the industry [when it comes to] attract-ing and keeping staff,” Griffin explains. Managers and owners often speak about “jobs” rather than “opportunities,” and this marginaliza-tion is followed up with a lack of formalized train-ing and no significant opportunities for personal improvement and advancement. In response, employees frequently look at posi-tions in the cleaning industry as temporary or part-10 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • July 2013
CMM – Archives July 2013: 10
