Training - Compliance versus Revenue

I heard a statistic recently (not sure whether it is true or not) that Australia is number two in the world behind America in the number of lawsuits and litigations per head of population.

This "new" culture of potential litigation and prosecution under the numerous governing laws, such as Occupational Health and Safety, Food Safety, Tobacco Retailing, Equal Employment Opportunity, Trade Practices Act, etc; has every business small and large, pre-occupied with compliance training.

All the various legislations state that ignorance is not a defence. The laws usually indicate that it is the responsibility of the business owner, operator and employer to ensure that they have taken all reasonable steps to comply with the laws. Lack of knowledge about the law is not acceptable.

Being able to provide 'evidence' of Duty of Care and Due Diligence under the laws is the prime concern today. Usually this means an audit trail and documentation is required.

If you and your business were before a judge or an investigator, charged with negligence causing harm to someone, you will need to have a solid trail of documentation and a robust set of processes and procedures to defend yourself.

In the training arena this will mean staff induction training, competency assessment, annual refresher training and most importantly documentation that records the staff member's skill and knowledge has been demonstrated and established.

There is a saying often quoted by training companies and educators - "Training is an investment not a cost". Ensuring that your employees and contractors meet their obligations under the relevant laws and that no harm, injury or damage occurs to them or customers in your workplace surely is an investment for your business. However, many retailers and other businesses still under invest in training and competency assessment. The potential consequences for non-compliance under the various laws can be huge.

There has been an upsurge in training processes and programs within organisations in recent years focused on compliance training, and that is a good thing. Businesses need to be compliant, they need to minimise risks. However, while this trend has improved the standards of compliance training in small and medium businesses, it has probably come at the expense of training in areas of revenue growth. Compliance is in every conversation and every business strategy.

But what has happened to the focus on customer service and making sales to customers? Is this area being neglected today due to the focus on compliance? Is there enough balance in the induction training being provided to new staff? After all, the prime reason businesses exist is to earn revenue. Ensuring customer loyalty, fostering repeat customer business and increasing the dollar spend per customer at each of their visits should be the focus of all retailers.

How much time, effort and dollar investment is being allocated to training staff in the retailing skills? If you are a retailer - ask yourself a tough question. Are my staff behaving as cashiers or are they truly retailers who engage with your customers, meet their expectations and add value for the customer each time they visit your store? Are your staff contributing to sales growth? A retail operation should be striving to increase sales turnover by double digit growth each year, about 10 to 12 % minimum.

To do this for you, the staff need the retailing skills.

Compliance is important but so is revenue.




 

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