Adult Learning & Dealership Development

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Adult Learning & Dealership Development

By Floyd Jerkins

With over 35 years in business, Floyd Jerkins is an accomplished senior executive in business development with more than twenty-five years of successful consulting and training experience across various industries. He’s well known for offering specialized services for business development. His is an important voice on the topic of adult learning and dealership development.

Through lifelong learning and having a host of practical experience from a career of developing his own company’s and leading people, his background and passions serve his customers with personalization and excellence. He’s coached and worked intimately with hundreds of business owners and executives to help them achieve more success. Floyd has led large scale project development and execution on an international platform. Today, he’s providing executive coaching services.

 www.floydjerkinsexecutivecoaching.com

 floydj@me.com

618.218.1763

Adult Learning & Dealership Development 

I’ve often heard that it’s easier to teach a 5th grader than an adult. I’ve never taught a 5th grader other than my kids, but what I’ve experienced first-hand teaching adults isn’t always the easiest.

As a child, we have this interest in nearly everything and are naturally curious. Then we become teenagers and have all the answers. As adults, there is a point where many stop learning about themselves and the ingredients for creating a prosperous career and lifestyle.

Education Creates Predictability 

I’ve employed a lot of people in my career. Through my consulting practice, we helped hundreds of businesses with various employee development issues. Nearly every business segment requires knowledge-based workers. These skilled men and women have to learn more because the business and customers are evolving. Each week and year, they accumulate this knowledge through experience and education.

An equipment dealership evolution is relatively predictable. Consolidation is well documented that the volume owners are shrinking, and the size of complexes are getting larger. As you move from a two-store to a 20 store complex, specific policies or procedures change with the organization’s size and scope.

The knowledge and skills required to operate the business at a corporate level are different, but still predictable, based on the roles and responsibilities. Location management and key production roles like sales and parts and service management are easily duplicatable. Well, easy is not always the case. If these folks need to learn more, where do you get this knowledge?

Typically, OEM’s offer training on various topics. When the notice comes in, key managers look across the room to see who they will send. A few training companies in the industry offer workshops for a couple of days on selected subjects. None of these offer a holistic curriculum-based education model similar to what you find at a local college or university. Why not?

Developing Talent and Bench Strength With Holistic Curriculum

Teaching adults always requires the teacher to develop methods to undo past learning experiences. Adults have a way to tune out things they think they already know or are uncomfortable to learn. That’s why at a college standardized testing is used to create reliable comparisons across all the test takers.

As the organization grows in size and scope, developing talent and bench strength should become as predictable as knowing when the next sale will happen. Growing this talent requires planned approaches to measuring what they learn by their roles and responsibilities in the organization.

Learning Without Scars has developed a holistic curriculum pathway for dealership personnel that measures learning. I don’t see this type of “behavioral education” anywhere in the industry. Here are just a few thoughts to consider:

  • The curriculum allows a dealership team to be taught the same methodology vs. sending your people to various classes that often require that you undo some of what’s taught to match your dealership.
  • The content contains concepts and applications that are proven; it isn’t guesswork.
  • Students are assessed before attending a class to know they are in the right class and the proper instruction level. Then they are tested after a class, so you know that learning has taken place.
  • Online learning classes that include video instruction is a win-win learning model. Students can access information 24/7 365. Anytime, anywhere so they can learn when they are ready.
  • A manager oversees this personal development and knows the test scores to evaluate performance, so there isn’t any guesswork if the learner has learned something.

Many people today want the magic potion to succeed. You can’t take a class and become effective if the teacher or the class material isn’t relevant. It takes real experience and a proven background of success. Ron Slee and Learning Without Scars has been successfully coaching and developing leaders and businesses for 40 years. That’s the facts, and I approve of this message.

 

 

 

 

Training is Hard!

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Training is hard!

Steve received a degree in Electrical Engineering and then served in the US Navy. He started with Komatsu America 1978. For the next twelve years Steve worked through various equipment sales positions before becoming the Vice President of Parts, Vice President of Service. During this period Steve sat on the board of a major distributor in the North east US as well as Hensley Industries. After twenty-five years Steve moved from the OEM side of the business to the Distribution side by joining Tractor and Equipment Company in 2003 as Vice President of Product Support. Steve is continuing his guest blogging in series for us today with a post on the reality that training is hard.

Throughout his career Steve has learned the Industry from the ground up. This allowed him to have a very clear view of what was needed to support customers, employees and owners in their pursuit of excellence. Working at high levels in both the Manufacturing and the Distribution side of the business gave Steve some great learning opportunities and chances to develop insights.  Steve retired in January of 2020.  After spending 40 plus years in an industry we are very pleased to be able to share some of Steve’s insights with you and honored to consider Steve a friend.

Training is hard

The guy that ultimately became my successor drove “Needs Based Training “in our organization.  He assessed the skill sets of each of our technicians and set up a training plan for each one of them.  The training plan is discussed with each employee during their annual review.  Every employee deserves to know how we think they are doing and how we intend to grow their skills.  This is hard stuff. The training for us was divided into three basic slots

  • Basic and remedial training.
  • Intermediate training and skill enhancement and
  • Manufacturer specific training.

Basic and remedial training includes managing scholarship employees at trade schools and online fundamentals training. Trainers have to be special people.  They need to have a deep understanding of their topics and they have to know how to teach.  We all think we know how to teach because we all went to school.  That is a ridiculous presumption.  Teaching is a real skill and a special talent. People have different learning styles and a trainer needs to be able to “read the room” to figure out how to best present concepts to each style of learner.  Technicians tend to be “hands on” people but they are not exclusively so.  Today’s young technician is probably much more diverse in their learning style. We need to be able to assess the appropriate skills each employee needs for their job through testing and the assessments need to continue throughout the employees’ career.  I also think pre-employment assessments are important.

I once had an employee with thousands of hours of training who could only function in the shop with considerable supervision.  The training was wasted on that individual. Why did he get so much training?  He was the easiest person for the Service Manager to do without.  Had we done appropriate assessments we would have found that person something else to do. Skills assessments are one of the best ways to determine who to invest in and perhaps to see who might need to get off the bus. The annual training plan for each employee is quite a task but well worth it. Employees are excited to have a plan they understand.  If compensation is also tied into training it really drives the perception that the company values competence. Your Trainers and Training Manager should probably be the individual deciding who should attend each class.

Of course, they should work in conjunction with the Service Manager but in the end, the Training department should make the call.  That probably won’t be popular but it is a needed discipline.  To make it easier to swallow, the training plan for each employee should be a joint effort of the training department and the employee’s direct supervisor.  Having an annual plan means you can have a training budget by branch and by employee if you want one.  This is hard and tedious but worth it. I once sat on the Tennessee Governor’s “School to Work” initiative.  The board was made up of 12 regions of the state and each region had a business person and an educator representing it.  We had a mediator who was a VP with AT&T who had both an education and a business background.  He told us he would act as a translator because business people tended to focus on results while educators tended to focus on process.  We really ended up needing lots of translation. I think one of the reasons Training is so hard for us is because “process” really is critical to success in training.  As a businessman, I have to tell you that if you aren’t willing to sweat this out, don’t waste your money.

For more information on focused training, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

High Demand Jobs

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High Demand Jobs

This week brings our second guest post from Don Shilling. He talks about the not-so-glamorous world of high demand jobs. Don was born to this industry. In his own words:

Don Shilling

I grew up in a construction family and worked for my Dad several summers during and after high school. Then while working on my degree at North Dakota State University I was hired by a construction equipment dealership. I started in their service department part time until I finished college. Then full-time service employment for a couple of years then transitioned into sales management. During the recession of the early 1980’s myself and three other managers started General Equipment & Supplies, Inc.

First as Sales Manager and eventually as President we grew our business from one location and 20 employees to 10 locations in four states and two Canadian Provinces and over 250 employees. Along the way we developed relationships with area Technical Colleges and created a College Tuition Reimbursement Program where today we Recruit a handful of new technicians annually into that program. Our company has also developed two Department of Labor Certified Apprenticeship Programs to fill hard to find skilled positions. I am currently semi-retired as Chairman of the Board.

High Demand Jobs

In my initial blog I discussed the fact that we need to be able to find good people and then train them. This seems simple enough, except what the Workforce Development Council defines as “High Demand Jobs” typically are not considered glamorous. High Demand Jobs don’t get a lot of attention when our youth are exploring their future careers.

Why is that? We find it easy to blame our educational system and all the College promotional materials out there that tout the excitement of degrees in computing or high tech. But, as they say, maybe it is time to look in the mirror if you want to lay blame. The “High Demand Jobs” are typically tied to industries who have allowed this to happen. Owners and managers within these industries have not taken the time to engage the educational system and demand equal time with our youth as they select their career options.

How Do Young People Discover Us If We Don’t Tell Them We Are Here?!

However, thanks to the Pandemic . . . maybe, just maybe, we have reached a time where we can turn that corner. What we have found in our local Workforce Development Council is the jobs that were lost during the Pandemic were tied to people who are perhaps under-skilled. In some cases, these were people who made employment choices early in their careers that were not focused on these high demand employment positions. In fact, most of the jobs that were considered “essential” during the Pandemic are also  on the “High Demand Jobs” lists. Perhaps with only a little additional skills training we can help the now under-employed find a stable career that is also considered “essential”.

Industry needs to react to this immediately! As Ron Slee says at the end of each blog, “the time is now,” especially for all of us who employ people in these “high demand jobs.” It is time for us to pull together to support the Career and Technical Education sector as it begins the process of re-tooling our unemployed or under-employed.

By support, I mean something very simple: you need to get involved. Perhaps you can start an apprenticeship program, or connect with your local Career and Technical Education system and see what they might need to start a program that would benefit your labor shortage areas. You can work at recruiting our youth and consider helping the right candidates with educational expenses. Bring them into your businesses and show them opportunities they might have never imagined. Let’s get started! You are going to like what you see in the mirror when you do.

For further information on re-tooling your skills, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

The Woes of Unfocused Training

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The Woes of Unfocused Training

This week, we continue with a guest post from Steve Day, in which he discusses with us the woes of unfocused training. Steve received a degree in Electrical Engineering and then served in the US Navy. He started with Komatsu America 1978. For the next twelve years Steve worked through various equipment sales positions before becoming the Vice President of Parts, Vice President of Service. During this period Steve sat on the board of a major distributor in the North east US as well as Hensley Industries. After twenty-five years Steve moved from the OEM side of the business to the Distribution side by joining Tractor and Equipment Company in 2003 as Vice President of Product Support.

Throughout his career Steve has learned the Industry from the ground up. This allowed him to have a very clear view of what was needed to support customers, employees and owners in their pursuit of excellence. Working at high levels in both the Manufacturing and the Distribution side of the business gave Steve some great learning opportunities and chances to develop insights.  Steve retired in January of 2020.  After spending 40 plus years in an industry we are very pleased to be able to share some of Steve’s insights with you and honored to consider Steve a friend.

Unfocused training is a waste of time and a huge waste of money!

This may not be immediately obvious but I believe that a lot of the training we give our people is unfocused.

A manufacturer tells us that they want our people to attend certain classes at the manufacturer training center or they want our trainers to be able to teach the classes.  We then usually use a very scientific method of choosing who should attend.  We call up our branch service managers and ask them who they want to send.

The day that our chosen attendee is to leave, something comes up and the manager sends somebody else.  The thing that usually comes up is that things got busy and the service manager didn’t want to send the original technician because he is too important to the branch.  The person we end up sending doesn’t learn much because they didn’t have the basic knowledge to get the most out of the class.

But, something just “came up.”

We waste money. We damage our reputation with the manufacturer and we don’t do much for the self-esteem of the tech we sent off to fail.  We also disappointed the good tech that we didn’t train. This happens more than you can imagine.

If you want to ruin your day I strongly suggest you do the following:  Go to your Training department or your HR department and ask them to give you the training record of each of your Technicians and any of your Parts people that work with customers or the Service department.

Tell them you would also like to see this year an updated copy of each of those employee’s skills assessment and this year’s training plan for each of those employees.  I only know about five distributors that won’t be disappointed.

I will continue with these reflections next week.

For focused and sound employee development training, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

The Critical Importance of Measuring…

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The Critical Importance of Measuring…

Today’s guest post, The Critical Importance of Measuring the Customer and Employee Experience, is from Ryan Condon. Ryan is the Co-Founder and CEO of SATISFYD. He has grown from a first-time entrepreneur at 24 years-old, to a business leader with 20+ years of software and service experience. Ryan was an early innovator in Customer Experience (CX) Management and developed a SaaS platform in 2001 to enable clients to gather feedback, resolve customer issues, and drive customer-focused initiatives. The SATISFYD platform provides Customer and Employee experience at every level of an organization and has been used in over 70 countries and 32 different languages. Ryan, his wife Aimee and their family moved from Chicago to Austin in July of 2016 to escape the northern winters and enjoy the outdoors.

Ryan Condon

The Critical Importance of Measuring the Customer and Employee Experience

We are at an interesting and ever-evolving crossroads as it relates to customer and employee experience. Although most believed we were already experiencing a gradual sea change where the importance of physical location on work options was diminishing over time, COVID has forced a more rapid transition to work-from-home/work anywhere opportunities for workers. This sudden change has been challenging for many as they try to adjust to this ‘New Normal.’ Opinions vary from those who think we will never return to working full time in physical locations to those who expect everyone will rush back into a collective space as soon as it is deemed safe.

Regardless of what side of this fence you sit on, we can all agree that things will never be the same. What this exactly means for the future is uncertain, making it critically important that we constantly keep our pulse on the ever-changing sentiment of our prospects, customers, employees, and candidates for employment. While existing employees will most likely stay at their current jobs short-term, they are being presented with new opportunities that do not require a physical presence and may be perceived as less risky to an in-person job. Candidates that you interview are actively listening and evaluating the different approaches organizations are taking to manage through COVID. How these approaches align with candidates’ beliefs and desires will have an important impact on their employment decisions. How is your organization being perceived?

This is a dynamic time

It requires flexibility, forward-thinking, and a willingness to challenge the norms that have made your business successful up until now. Good leaders will attempt to solve these challenges for stakeholders by drawing on years of experience and having a conversation with direct reports. Great leaders will also be sure to collect information from all stakeholders (prospects, customers, employees, and candidates) and constantly make course corrections to their organization as needed. They will also be testing and evaluating the outcome of those changes by continuously listening to feedback from stakeholders.

In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to listen. Those leaders who are able to gather and utilize stakeholder feedback in order to anticipate and adapt to change will have the edge.

We will discuss this more in future blogs.

Please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org for information on our course offerings.

 

The Dramatic Change

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The Dramatic Change

There has been a dramatic change in leadership, and in teamwork. Collaboration requires an engaged workforce, but only 13 per cent of the world’s workforce is engaged right now. In this working from home mode the current ways of engaging are clearly inefficient. The old approach – engaging people from outside-in through the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of work and company brand – no longer inspires people, especially the younger generations coming into the workforce. Engaging a workforce to collaborate and innovate requires a new lens and tool kit, starting with ‘who’ and ‘why’. (excerpted from Jeremy Scriven published in the Australian Human Resources Institute 2016)

The old days of “telling” employees how to do their jobs, hopefully has gone away. Of course, there are many businesses that still do things this way. “Let me show you how this is done, now you go and practice and get good at it.” I can’t imagine a workplace like that anywhere, anymore, that would attract and retain talented people.

What Does This Mean For Us?

However, this is the challenge for leaders isn’t it? How do you pass your success (or failure) to your employees and feel good about it? In my view, the hardest transition in life is going from being a performer to a leader – from doing to directing. In fact, many talented people fail in this transition. Too many people have ‘control or ego issues.’

In our management learning on demand class we identify Understanding, Accepting and Committing as three critical steps in leadership. Everyone has to Understand what we are trying to do. Everyone has to Accept that what we are trying to do is the ‘Right Thing To Do.’ Then, and only then will everyone be committed to getting it done. In America surveys tell us that only 10% of business achieve their strategic goals. Further, those surveys tell us that only 5% of the employees can tell us their company goals. It would appear that we have to work harder on communications.

Engaging motivated people is the way to satisfy everyone. I believe that everyone wants to do a good job. In many cases leadership doesn’t clearly explain to the employee what doing a good job looks like. How can anyone succeed in that environment?

Food for thought? I hope so.

The Time is Now.

For more information on how we can help your business adapt to these changes, please visit us at learningwithoutscars.org.

Continuous Improvement and Employee Retention

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Continuous Improvement and Employee Retention

Today’s Guest Blogger has a great deal of wisdom to offer us. Here’s a bit more about Don Shilling, in his own words.

Don Shilling

Bio

My background is what has helped make me so passionate about continuous improvement and employee retention. I grew up in a construction family and worked for my Dad several summers during and after high school. Then while working on my degree at North Dakota State University I was hired by a construction equipment dealership. I started in their service department part time until I finished college. Then full-time service employment for a couple of years then transitioned into sales management. During the recession of the early 1980’s myself and three other managers started General Equipment & Supplies, Inc.

First as Sales Manager and eventually as President we grew our business from one location and 20 employees to 10 locations in four states and two Canadian Provinces and over 250 employees. Along the way we developed relationships with area Technical Colleges and created a College Tuition Reimbursement Program where today we Recruit a handful of new technicians annually into that program. Our company has also developed two Department of Labor Certified Apprenticeship Programs to fill hard to find skilled positions. I am currently semi-retired as Chairman of the Board.

Training is an important element of continuous improvement and employee retention. But before we can train our employees, we must find them!

I am currently on the Workforce Development Council in our area. Congress mandates that every state have a Workforce Development Council. The Governor appoints Members and the Council should consist of at least 50% business and industry leaders.

As a Council, we first develop the list of “High Demand Jobs” in our region. After that, we advise the Governor on what programs we need to attract people to these jobs. The High Demand Jobs we all know; some vary from state to state but certainly 75% of them are skilled jobs. These careers require two years of college or trade school or less. Many are apprentice learned skill sets. Certainly all of these skilled positions require additional training annually.

What Comes Next?

We, as business leaders, must explore the information and recommendations from our local Workforce Development Council. All of us need to do our homework by engaging in a deep dive into all the programs available in our area to attract people to these High Demand Jobs. We have to support the recruitment, education and continued training of the employees we attract.

Every State has programs that support us as we fill these High Demand Jobs. These programs can include tuition reimbursement, as well as grants for On the Job Training and Job Shadows. There might be incentives for continuous improvement.

It costs money to educate and train our current employees or these future employees but finding monetary relief through available State Sponsored programs can help you to get engaged and ease that burden. The successful businesses of the future will be the ones who utilize these programs. These businesses will aggressively explore options for finding and training people.

More detail in future blogs.

For more information on how we can help you with continuous improvement and employee retention, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

Training Is Important!

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Training Is Important!

Steve received a degree in Electrical Engineering and then served in the US Navy. He started with Komatsu America 1978. For the next twelve years Steve worked through various equipment sales positions before becoming the Vice President of Parts, Vice President of Service. During this period Steve sat on the board of a major distributor in the North east US as well as Hensley Industries. After twenty-five years Steve moved from the OEM side of the business to the Distribution side by joining Tractor and Equipment Company in 2003 as Vice President of Product Support.

Throughout his career Steve has learned the Industry from the ground up. This allowed him to have a very clear view of what was needed to support customers, employees and owners in their pursuit of excellence. Working at high levels in both the Manufacturing and the Distribution side of the business gave Steve some great learning opportunities and chances to develop insights.  Steve retired in January of 2020.  After spending 40 plus years in an industry we are very pleased to be able to share some of Steve’s insights with you and honored to consider Steve a friend.

Training Is Important!

This week, we continue with Steve’s guest blogging.

Training is important!

This is one of those obvious things.

Our manufacturers tell us that our technicians must attain certain levels of expertise.  In fact, I believe that most manufacturers will eventually base warranty compensation on the level of proven training expertise the performing mechanic has received.

Our customers will not pay for on the job training.  We often have to cut hours of billable labor off of a job that took too long.  We all have customers that will request a specific technician that they consider competent.

Poorly trained technicians tend to over or under order the parts that they will need and create inventory issues.  They also create expensive redo.

Poorly trained parts counter employees frustrate customers and miss sales opportunities.

Good employees expect ongoing training to help them improve their skills.  They consider this a perquisite of the job.  Good employees are very receptive to training and are great judges of whether training is worthwhile or worthless.  We all want good employees.

We will be continuing with Steve’s series here next Friday, as he continues to reflect on a career well-spent.

To explore the options available for training your employees, please visit learningwithoutscars.org

How Do We Measure Success?

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How Do We Measure Success?

Today we are pleased to introduce to you a valued colleague. Ed Wallace. Ed will share his insights with us from time to time. You will see in his bio that he is an author. I would strongly advise those of you who read and gain new perspectives from books that Ed provides clear and easy to read advice which you can translate into your work and your personal life.

Ed Wallace, President, AchieveNEXT Human Capital.

Ed consults with and speaks for corporations and associations across the globe with a client list that is a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of Fares to Friends, Creating Relational Capital, Business Relationships That Last, and his most recent the #1 best seller, The Relationship Engine.  In addition, Ed is currently on the Executive Education faculty of Drexel’s LeBow College of Business and Villanova University’s Human Resources Master’s program. https://www.linkedin.com/in/relcapgroup/

How Do We Measure Success?

Hint: It comes through the experiences we create for others

While many leaders prioritize new products and services and hard assets that can be plugged into spreadsheets, research reveals that core business relationships are the true catalyst for driving high performance. At the same time business relationships are unpredictable and hard to measure. They’re rarely captured on organization charts or strategic plans. Most leaders, in fact, leave business relationships to chance, and simply hope that cross-generational conflicts, organizational complexity, diversity, and other organizational barriers will just go away because, ‘we’re hiring great people.’

We see today’s leaders winning by investing in ‘Relational Capital’ with their colleagues, teams, and across their enterprises. Relational Capital is defined as the ‘distinctive value created by people in a business relationship.’ It forms where the qualities of credibility, integrity and authenticity converge when working with each other. So how do ‘relational leaders’ hit the relational mark?

My experience through many years of research into business relationships and training over 30,000 business professionals has revealed five identifiable principles that lead to effective relationship development and, not surprisingly, superior performance. These principles don’t exist only in the business world but are at the heart of most successful people’s lives. Through my experiences and research, I know they can be learned, practiced and improved, bringing a surprising level of precision to relationships in organization.

The Five Principles of the Relational Leader

  1. Display Worthy Intent
  2. Care About People’s Goals, Passions, and Struggles (GPS)
  3. Make Every Interaction Matter
  4. Value People Before Processes
  5. Connect Performance to a Purpose

(Wallace, The Relationship Engine, Harper 2016)

These principles form a system of beliefs for high performers that Relational Leaders follow and apply intentionally. The result is what I call ‘relational agility’ that can bridge the generational and cultural gaps that exist in today’s organizations and harness the collective talents, thoughts, and efforts of people. As Ron Slee, who heads up Learning Without Scars, suggests, ‘the biggest differences that I see are that millennials are impatient. Today a lot of older management view that as a negative quality. I view that as a positive. If these younger employees are not learning and growing their potential, as employees, they do not want to stay around. I really admire that quality. They have a need, if not a thirst to learn. They want to continuously improve. They want up-skilling.’

Understanding this element of the Relational GPS of younger employees will allow for management to understand ways to support and foster the development of younger team members.

We will visit again soon.

Up-Skilling Is Not Just a Buzzword

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Up-Skilling Is Not Just a Buzzword

I remember when most people used to think that when they left school, their learning was complete. Whether that was High School, Technical School, Junior College or University. As a teacher, I taught education, in other words I taught people how to teach. I used to tell my students at University that when they graduated and went out into the world – that is when their learning really started. I always told aspiring teachers that one of our primary goals as teachers, is to teach people how to teach themselves.

With the world we live in today that is truer than ever. The younger generations are much smarter, at their ages, than we were at comparable ages. They know a lot more about things and subjects than my generation did. (I learned how to wire Unit Record Equipment – almost an analogue computer.) One of the biggest differences that I see is that they are impatient. Today a lot of older management view that as a negative quality. I view that as a positive. If these younger employees are not learning and growing their potential, as employees, they do not want to stay around. I really admire that quality. They have a need, if not a thirst to learn. They want to continuously improve. They want up-skilling.

The moves us directly into our term for today: up-skilling is not just a buzzword. This is the term that explains that the skills of the employees are being constantly improved and enhanced, they are being up-skilled. That fits perfectly into our view of learning. First take an assessment and understand your individual strengths and weaknesses. Take classes, address your weaknesses, and fill in your skills gaps. Get Up-Skilled. And that never ends. There is always something more to learn.

We provide dealers and employees Learning Paths. They are based on Skill Levels reported in the Job Function Skills Assessment. Those Skill Levels: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert allow us to recommend subject specific classes to allow the employee to improve their skill level. When used in conjunction with an annual performance review, dealerships are unlocking the potential of each individual employee and enhancing their company value to the workplace.

Never forget that talented people serving your customers are your heroes. Neither forget that the talent pool available to us is shrinking. The competition for these talented people is becoming fiercer that at any time I have seen. I don’t believe that this will become any easier, in fact I believe it will become more difficult. If you want to be able to attract, hire, develop and retain your workforce you must have a solid foundation, skill set inventories and career path opportunities, for each individual employee. You also need to be able to discuss with them their specific career path and what is necessary for them to be available for promotions and other opportunities in the company. Do you have these skill set inventories in place? Do you know the individual skills required for each job function? This is that solid foundation that is required. Do you have it in place? Should you?

The choice is yours. I would urge you to consider that the consequences are significant.

The time is now.