“What You Tolerate Becomes Your Standards.” This is a critical management philosophy that will assist you in driving high performance. When your employees are not performing, here are the steps to take to analyze why that performance is lower than the standard and suggestions for imbedding this philosophy into your organization’s culture.

1. Do you have clearly defined standards? When employees are not performing, the first place to look is to your definition of what you would like for them to do. Too many job descriptions are vague or contain perceptions instead of clear behaviors. Do your job descriptions include standards like, “Responds to Customers in a courteous manner”, “Dresses professionally”, or “Responds immediately to Customer concerns”? If any of these statements sound familiar, the first reason why you may be experiencing low performance is due to the lack of clarity of your standards. Define “professional” “courteous” and “immediately” and then your employees will have a clearer understanding of what you expect them to do.

2. Do your Managers hold your employees accountable for following the standard? If you look around your workplace and find that people are not dressed professionally, are eating in the work environment or are communicating in ways that do not meet your expectations; look to your Supervisors for answers. When someone does not follow the dress code, is this communicated to the employee? If Supervisors are not holding employees accountable for following the standard, then the employees will do as much as they think they can get away with. People’s performance only rises to the highest level of tolerance of your standards, not to the standards themselves. Teach your Supervisors how to effectively communicate the standards and how to convey messages that could be perceived as negative. When you have to tell employees that they are not following the standard, it can be an uncomfortable situation. But it doesn’t have to be. Teach your Supervisors how to use “I statements”, clearly stated facts and how to avoid accusatory language and their exchange of ideas will be more positively received.

3. Do you instill consequences for lack of performance? Once you create clearly defined standards and you teach your Supervisors how to communicate the desired level of performance, you must ensure that you instill the consequences for lack of performance. If your attendance policy states that after the 4th absence, there is a verbal warning given- be sure that this consequence is administered. Employees need to trust that you will do what you say you are going to do. If they know the policy and you do not follow through on the consequences, employees will lose respect for your organization. Employees need to trust that you will do what you say you are going to do- both positive and negative things. If employees observe you following the policies with some employees but not others, they will feel that you treat them unfairly. If they perceive a level of unfairness, they will become irritated and disgruntled. Then this can lead to unnecessary time being spent on HR related issues. Follow through and adhere to the consequences that you have in place and you will create a fair and respected environment.

By following these three general rules of standards, you will increase your levels of performance, increase your productivity, increase your morale and create a more WOW place to work for everyone.

With 23 years of call center experience, national speaker and author, Kimberly King, helps clients create WOW customer experiences. Contact her at http://www.interweavecorp.com or 877-969-3283. You will be WOWed by her passion and knowledge.

A lot of businesses find themselves faced with some serious issues when it comes to training. Hiring a single training manager or even a team of trainers isn’t always cost effective, but there are ways to still provide great training without having to add extra personnel. There are even ways to get expert instruction without actually having to hire an expert. Smart business turn to training videos to assist in the process. Whether custom created for a company or standard industry videos, this type of footage can be a valuable and cost savings tool for almost any business.

The advantages to video training are many. They include:

* Ability to tailor training. If there’s one thing about training that holds true, it’s the fact that there’s never a one-size-fits-all program. No two companies, or two employees for that matter, are alike. This means different training will be needed. One company might require standard customer service training programs to help their employees succeed, while another could be in need of a safety video. By providing a whole host of options, training programs can be tailored to fit many different company needs.

* Flexibility. Few companies, especially really small ones that depend on every person, can actually expect their employees to drop everything for long training sessions. Videos are ideal for helping handle scheduling problems and they can even be shipped out to different locations.

* Customization. Depending on a company’s training budget, videos can be custom created to handle different training needs. If, for example, your company handles security, you can create training videos to explain corporate policies for handling different situations. It’s even possible to have staff members in front of the camera to ensure your message is conveyed as you’d like it. Custom videos can literally cover any topic or topics deemed necessary by a company, and once made, they can be used time and again, and even updated as necessary.

* Ability to provide in house training. Since training videos can be tailored to meet needs and customized as well, there’s no need to outsource a lot of basic training. This can save a lot of money in course costs, and what’s more, the videos can be reused as new employees come onboard or refresher courses are needed.

Getting a video training program together is a fairly simple undertaking. A lot of companies offer basic, pre-made training videos for everyday business situations like sexual harassment training, first aid, driver’s safety and so on. For those who need to create custom videos, there are companies available to help do that, or even staff members who might shine by undertaking the project.

Companies that handle video creation generally will assist in everything from the script writing to the casting – whatever it takes to get the job done. For those companies who want to do things in-house, that’s more than possible with a good camera and editing equipment.

While video training won’t necessary work for every situation, it’s a great way to handle some of the more basic training programs. What’s more, the method is cost effective and saves a lot of time in scheduling and dealing with the little details.

More resources

Training video information.

http://www.trainigvideoclip.com