Employee Training in the UK

Author:  Leo Hidalgo

            

The service industry is made up of both small and large companies profiting off an array of intangible products, or services, and typically includes hotels, restaurants, transport, distribution, education, retail, communication, finance, government etc.. with the greatest contributors to growth being business services and finance sectors. The service industry in the UK contributes around 77.8% to the national GDP and the Index of Services increased 3.3% since last year.

            

            The most important asset of the service industries is People. The salesmen, doctors, technicians, drivers, waiters, accountants, consultants, realtors, travel agents, teachers, and everyone in a call center. They are not only the face (or voice) of their employer but could possibly be perceived as the whole organization. It is through them that customers gain access to information or help and ultimately the intangible product. In other words, one bad experience with one bad sales rep. could be enough to permanently stain that customers view of the entire company. Naturally, it is in the organizations best interest to make sure every single employee can be firm but polite, well informed and level headed to every single customer in order to build and maintain a strong and favorable reputation.

           

            To achieve such consistency, companies have to invest in the training and development of all of its employees, which makes it one of the greatest expenses an organization must shell out. From 2012 to 2013 around £42.9 billion was spent on employee training across all sectors, averaging approximately £2,550 and 6.7 days spent per employee trained. Interestingly, there seems to be a negative correlation between the size of the company and the time/money spent on training and development. According to some, this could all just be a waste of money, given that the more classic and widely implemented training practices are proving to be counterproductive. One of the biggest setbacks may be that most employers wrongly believe that their employees are already as good as they should be.

           

            One solution many employers have turned to is ‘off-the-job’ training, or even outsourcing training. Even though this may reduce total costs, it is only a short term solution and more employers should be concentrating on light, continuous training practices in order to truly establish and reinforce the organizations core values and operation philosophies. Today, more than ever, certain sectors have to concentrate on sensitivity training. This not only entails politically correct terms for different ages, races, religions, and sexual orientations but also a more empathetic front when dealing with those living with metal or physical handicaps, the homeless and anybody that could be perceived as ‘different’.

            In a quickly changing world where streamlining automating and reducing human contact has been the trend in several of the service sectors (tourism, banking, customer service etc…), offering an Amazing customer service experience could be enough to give one organization a huge advantage over its competitors.

References:

BBC News (17 september, 2014) Customer service ratings revealed by Which?. Business News, [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29223073 [Accessed: 25/09/2014].

Freeman, C. (2014) Disney's Focus on Employees to Focus on Customers. HR Focus Bloomberg BNA, 91(7) [Online]. Available at: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uwl.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=46f9078c-c36d-436f-a0cc-ac4562197a82%40sessionmgr115&vid=1&hid=127 [Accessed: 24/09/2014].

Jones, J. (2013) UK Service Industries: definition, classification and evolution. Office for National Statistics, [Online]. Available at: file:///Users/leonorhidalgo/Downloads/ukserviceindustriesdefinitionclassificationandevolution_tcm77-325207.pdf [Accessed: 24/09/2-14].

Medland, D. (September 2013) Money spent on training is often wasted, claim authors. Financial Times, [Online]. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/697f3742-09a5-11e3-ad07-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3ELf9Rq2y [Accessed: 24/09/2014].

Office for National Statistics (2014) Index of Services, May 2014. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ios/index-of-services/may-2014/stb-ios-may-2014.html#tab-GDP-impact-and-components [Accessed: 25/09/2014].

Winterbotham, M., Vivian, D., Shury, J. & Davies, B. (January, 2014) The UK Commission’s Employer Skills Survey 2013: UK Results  . UK Commission for Employment and Skills, [Online]. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/327492/evidence-report-81-ukces-employer-skills-survey-13-full-report-final.pdf [Accessed: 25/09/2014].