‘Training’ for cost effectiveness

In recent years, there has been a trend in the cleaning industry to recruit people with skills and experience. Naturally, this is a short sighted approach, as evidenced by the widely discussed shortage of skills in Mumbai and other parts of India. This means that somebody else trains your employees for you. If everyone makes this assumption, the whole system could break down.

More recently, there has been another change. Many organisations are making a strong commitment to develop new talent from within. Many employers recognise that most skills can be taught and that expertise can be developed in-house. These employers focus more on selecting staff with the right attitudes and basic (generic) competencies like commitment and communication skills. The technical competencies are built on over a period of time.

The demand for the training in the organisation increases when it wants to expand and hire new people. The demand also increases when there is change in the nature of the job, change in the taste of clients and change in methods of product development. But the problem arises when the organisation outsource the training process. In this situation, the organisation assumes that the trainer must be aware of the type of training needs of the participants and their organisation and their content will meet those needs. This leads to failure of the programme, which results in collusion. Therefore, it’s a foremost duty of the organisation to make the trainer and their organisation aware of their culture, climate and responsibilities of organisation. An organisation has a very close relationship with the trainee and the trainer because it is the first contact for both.

When a new person is hired, he or she is usually handed over for on-the-job training to an existing staff member who must now perform two jobs: his or her own daily tasks and the employee training, often performing neither the task very well.

Hence, it is better to have in-house training centres to take care of all the trainings – equipment handling, proper chemical usages, grooming and hygiene. We should be able to help train new employees and make them productive within a couple of days by providing basic training, with training manuals and visual aids.

Products are only 20% of the typical maintenance budget. The other 80% is labour. The better trained and more highly retained the staff, the cheaper the cost of staffing. It all adds up to greater cost efficiency.