Insurance agents today all spend time and money on training staff. The training may take place on the job or in seminars and courses. With all this expense, you may well ask, 'Are my staff getting any better at doing the job?' That is, are they providing better service for the customers?
Training is required if everyone is to stay up to date. You must decide what type of training you and your staff need. Are new skills needed? Might old skills need to be sharpened? Does your staff need to learn about (or brush up on) any specific products? Should computer programs be learned? Does someone need to learn advanced skills for a particular program?
If you don't decide what you want from a particular training session, how do you know whether it's working for you? Compare it with getting in the car, starting the engine, and putting it in gear: Without a destination in mind, how do you know when you've arrived?
Often, you don't have the information you need to decide whether the training session will answer your specific requirements. Because Continuing Education is mandatory, it often becomes more an issue of credits needed for license renewal than of goals.
To make the money you spend on education contribute to your bottom line, plan your training expenditures. Here are some basics:
- Find out what training everyone in your organization needs. Do a need analysis and determine exactly what courses or seminars are necessary to make your staff more efficient and more effective. Find out which training method will work best for your staff.
- Contact the training suppliers in your area and ask them for detailed course or seminar outlines. This will help you determine whether the courses or seminars will meet your staff's needs.
- Determine when the courses and seminars will be offered in your area, and decide who will attend each one, and when. Remember to register people in a logical sequence so they can build on prior learning and knowledge.
- Register your staff and tell them about it. Make them responsible for learning by assigning them a learning outcome that they must be able to demonstrate when they return to their jobs.
- Evaluate the training after your staff has returned to the office. Have the staff complete an evaluation form for each course, rating the content, effectiveness of training, the trainer, and the location.
- Review the evaluations and discuss them with the course or seminar providers. If course or seminar providers don't deliver on their promises, stop using them-and move to an alternative.
This process can be carried out by a designated person in your office. But even though you don't need to do it yourself, check to ensure that the process is being carried out.