Back to basics

Spring training. It’s not just for baseball — it’s for our industry, too. Training is essential to success, especially when the spring rush for plant sales hits.

Everyone is responsible for training, and everyone should be trained. Don’t delegate this to a few folks; everyone in the business has a skill to teach others. It may be as simple as how to answer the telephone or how to complete the sale on the POS system. Employees should take turns teaching their colleagues some aspect of their job to everyone else. Cross-training makes athletes stronger; why wouldn’t it help us?

Timing it right
This time of year in the business cycle calls for extra training, but training should be embedded in the business culture year-round. It isn’t just something to try this time of year; it should be a part of weekly and monthly routines. Weekly training sessions (half hour at the most) or bi-monthly training sessions (hour at the most) should be a regular part of company culture. Special occasions such as new product launches may call for longer sessions, but there are lots of best practices within your company that seasoned and new employees would benefit from learning.

Make standing — and paid — times of the week for training. Maybe it’s Wednesday morning before the retail store opens, or Tuesday afternoon after the break at the production greenhouse. Delegate schedule coordination and training module development to one person or a small team of people, but be sure to get everyone involved.

Sales savvy
Office Depot President Kevin Peters offered a three-step solution that could be part of many retail training programs in his article titled “Office Depot’s President on How ‘Mystery Shopping’ Helped Spark a Turnaround” (K. Peters. 2011. Harvard Business Review. 89 (Nov.):47-51). Office Depot had been measuring cleanliness and other measures, but they had hired people who were “more comfortable with their backs, rather than their bellies, to the aisle.”

What was his remedy? He required his front-line employees to start with an open-ended welcoming question. His example was, “What brings you in today?” Then the employees had to follow the response with at least two qualifying questions: “How are you planning to use the product?” or “What has worked for you in the past?” We can adapt these two questions to horticulture.

Peters also required employees to ask for the sale then see what additional products might complement the purchase. For the purchase of a petunia, for example, employees should say, “This seems like the right plant for you, so may I take this up front and hold it until your check-out?” Then they should recommend a fertilizer or trowel to the customer. This is a great thing to train your employees on during a regular training session.

Training topics
What are some of the key topics to train for this time of year? Start by asking employees what questions they seem to get every year from both old and new customers. Those “repeatable” questions deserve some training. Equipment operation, customer interaction, and product introductions/discontinuations and weekly specials should also be part of training.

What are the benefits of training? Safety training can reduce injuries and time lost on the job, and it can save the company financially on medical and worker’s compensation claims. Customer service training can improve the shopping experience and reduce complaints and returns. Maintenance training can extend the life of equipment. It doesn’t take long to see the benefits, both financial and emotional, that good employee training can provide.

Now is the time to jump-start your training program to get ready for the spring push. The time invested now will return great dividends when crunch time hits.

Bridget Behe is a professor in the department of horticulture at Michigan State University. Have a Question? You can contact Bridget Behe at behe@msu.edu.