Looking to build a strong company that is ready for expansion and success? While there are various strategies to achieve this objective, investing in an employee training program stands out as one of the most advantageous steps you can take to bolster your business. The development of such a program holds substantial benefits for both your workforce and the overall organization. Consider the time spent creating this program as an investment with many positive returns. If you’re on the fence, or not sure why you might need an employee training program, here are just a few benefits to consider:

Why Develop an Employee Training Program?

Skill Development: A well-designed training plan helps employees acquire and develop the skills necessary to perform their jobs effectively. This can include technical skills, soft skills, and industry-specific knowledge. As employees enhance their skills, they become more proficient and contribute more effectively.
Increased Productivity: Proper training can lead to increased productivity as employees become more competent in their roles. When employees are knowledgeable and skilled in their tasks, they can complete them more efficiently, reducing errors and wasted time and this yields higher profits from your projects.
Employee Engagement and Satisfaction: Investing in employee development demonstrates a commitment to their professional growth. This, in turn, can boost employee morale, engagement, and job satisfaction. Employees are more likely to feel valued and motivated when they see that their employer is invested in their success.
Employee Retention: The cost of employee turnaround can be damaging to a small business. It can also create feelings of insecurity within your company. One of the best ways to avoid this is properly train and support your employees. Employees who feel supported and challenged are more likely to stay with an organization. A well-thought-out training plan can contribute to employee retention by providing opportunities for career advancement and personal development, making employees less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Adaptability: In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations often face changes in technology, processes, or market conditions. A training plan helps employees adapt to these changes by providing them with the necessary knowledge and skills. Resilience is crucial for an organization’s long-term success.
Consistency and Standardization: Training ensures that employees across the organization receive consistent information and are aligned with the company’s values, policies, and procedures. This standardization helps maintain a cohesive corporate culture and ensures that employees are working toward common goals. On the jobsite, this means that crews have a blueprint for how they work and install from product staging, cleanliness and cleanup, installation steps and customer touchpoints.
Risk Mitigation: If you train your crews properly, they are less likely to make errors that can lead to accidents, compliance issues, lost profitability, customer dissatisfaction, or other risks. Training can include safety protocols, regulatory compliance, and ethical considerations, reducing the likelihood of costly mistakes.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Employees who are well-trained can provide better service to customers. Whether in direct customer interactions or behind-the-scenes roles, knowledgeable and skilled employees contribute to positive customer experiences.

What Should Your Written Training Program Look Like?

Now that you know the reasons why it’s important to create an employee training plan, we’ll dive into the necessary components of a good plan. It is important that each of the training phases is in a cohesive written document or manual that is provided to the new employee to be used as a reference guide during their training period.

Training Schedule
Plan how long the training process will take. Typically, this this is a 2–4-week process.

1-2 Weeks Prior to First Day
- An Employment Agreement
- An Employee Handbook
- IRS form W-4
- IRS form I-9
- A direct deposit form
- Company email setup
- Account creation for internal productivity or time tracking apps
- Company software access (If necessary)
First Day
- Assign a Mentor for the training period
- Do Introductions and a Facility Tour (if applicable)
- Provide the Employee Training Manual and review the components
- Discuss expectations and Schedule for the next few weeks during the training period
Week 1 & 2
- Develop a schedule for the first and second week of employment that will include training in the following:
  - Being on-site for customer projects
  - Training manual review
  - Training and demos on individual system installation
  - Customer communication touch-points and appropriate interaction

Systems Training
The systems training section of your employee training program should provide a complete, step by step guide to the installation and procedures for each system that your company installs.

Create written application instructions for each system you install. list all materials used with mixing instructions, application rates mix sizes.
Make sure your instructions are clear as to who is responsible for each phase of the project. IE crew chief squeegee and roles while crew members cut in, mix and broadcast.
Every step should be written into your training guide with photos to give a graphic representation.

Truck & Trailer Loading/Unloading Procedures
This section should outline the expectations for loading and unloading company trucks and trailers. If you have a brick-and-mortar shop, it should also include how to handle returning tools and products to your company location.

Proper truck and trailer loading and unloading
Proper unloading of equipment
Processing of unused product
Inventory review

Customer Touch-Points & Communication
The systems training section of your employee training program should provide a complete, step by step guide to the installation and procedures for each system that your company installs.

Initial greeting
Daily check-ins
On-site behavior
Process for handling issues
Project wrap-up
Job walk-throughs with customer
Project photography/video consent for marketing use
Collecting payment

Employee Advancement
Be sure to include a section in your employee training program about employee advancement so crew members have a solid understanding of how to move up in the ranks.

Show each position from apprentice to crew leads and foremen illustrator progression
Show what skills they must master to be considered for advancement to the next position
Make clear what the company will do to put them in a position to learn these skills
Schedule quarterly or bi-yearly reviews to support these goals

Looking for business development tips for your concrete coatings business? Check out our other business development articles.

WHY DO I NEED TO DEVELOP A SERVICE OFFERING?

When you’re establishing a concrete floor coatings business, there are numerous factors to take into account. Your focus might revolve around identifying a reliable supplier, acquiring the necessary equipment and tools, and determining your pricing structure. However, before delving too deeply into these aspects, it’s crucial to ensure that you have a well-rounded and manageable range of services to offer to your prospective customers.

KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Maintaining simplicity in your service offering is crucial for effectively managing and growing your business. One of your first objectives in developing your business plan should be to carefully select a target market and specific product offerings and concentrate all your resources and efforts in that direction. By doing so, you can channel your focus and expertise, optimizing your business processes and strategies to cater to the needs and demands of your chosen market. Simply put, you can’t be everything to everyone. It’s better to be a master of one particular area than provide mediocre or subpar services across the board.

Although it may be tempting to provide a broad offering that will appeal to a large target market, attempting to serve too many markets can have a detrimental effect on your growth trajectory. The inherent complexity of managing a wide range of applications in different markets can potentially slow down your business’s expansion. Moreover, training installers becomes a more intricate and resource-consuming task when dealing with a broad range of applications and market dynamics. Minimize the number of flooring systems and potential options you will offer and be sure to have suppliers setup that can quickly provide materials for your projects.

By adhering to a focused approach and specializing in a specific market and product offering, you position your business for more efficient growth and operational excellence while ensuring that your team of installers can be effectively trained and proficient in delivering high-quality services.

So, now that you understand why it is important to focus your service offering, what does that look like? There are quite a few areas that you can choose to build from so we’ve put together a quick graphic to show you the six main areas of focus.

POTENTIAL SERVICE OFFERINGS

Residential Garage Flooring:
• Color Chip Flooring; 2-Day and 1-Day systems
• Solid Color Systems
• Metallic Flooring

Residential Exteriors:
• Driveways
• Patios
• Color Chip Flooring
• Solid Colors Systems
• Stains & Clear Sealer Systems

Pool Decks & Exteriors:
• Deck Repair and Restoration
• Installation of New Pool Deck Systems
• IE Knock-Down Texture
• Faux Flagstone Overlay
• ECT

Residential Interiors:
• Concrete Polishing
• Stains & Clear Sealer Systems
• Grind and Seal Systems
• Metallic Flooring.

Commercial Flooring:
• Concrete Polishing
• Concrete Sealer Systems
• Grind and Seal Applications
• Thin-Film Epoxy Coatings
• Color Chip Flooring Systems
• Metallic Flooring
• High-Build Systems
• Epoxy Broadcast Systems
• Urethane Cement

Industrial Flooring:
• Thin-Film Epoxy Coatings
• High-Build Epoxy Broadcast Systems
• Urethane Cement
• Concrete Repair

NARROWING IT DOWN: QUALIFYING QUESTIONS TO ASK

When you’re looking at these potential service offering categories, you’ll want to consider some qualifying aspects that will ultimately help you land on the best offering for your company.

1. Expertise & Experience: Do you have an area of expertise or extensive experience? If so, this is a great place to start. For example, if you’ve been installing epoxy color chip garage floors for years, you might look closer at garage flooring, residential flooring or commercial flooring. If your experience falls within multiple categories, you should next determine if you are able to provide the full range of installations within that area.

2. Education & Training: Do you require training and education before you can confidently provide quality services within a specific offering? If you simply need to round out your training on one or two systems types, that may be attainable but be sure that you have the time and resources to commit.

3. Installers & Labor: Do you have access to qualified installers and labor for the service area that you are interested in or will you be working solo? If you are working alone, it’s important to develop an offering that you can confidently manage on your own. Taking on too much can cause quality and efficiency to suffer and creates trust and credibility issues for your business. If you need to hire installers and labor to carry out your installations, it’s important that you have access to industry networks that help to facilitate job searches and hiring.

4. Training: What’s necessary for the training of new employees? Establishing a training program for new recruits is advantageous for all businesses. The primary aim is to create uniformity, quality, and efficiency across all of your installations. If your goal is for your business to operate seamlessly, it’s imperative to onboard each employee, providing them with the knowledge of installation procedures and the company’s expectations. The greater the number of systems and system options you provide, the more time and resources will be demanded for employee training. This can also make it more challenging to sustain consistency across all tasks, ensuring that every job is executed correctly. Keep this in mind as you develop your service offering.

5. Colors, Options & System Options: What colors, options, and system types will you offer to your customers? Within each service offering, there exists a multitude of system types and options, each offering a range of colors and choices, including the possibility of custom orders. If your aim is to streamline and simplify your offering, it may be wise to limit the number of systems, colors, and options you provide. Not only does this make the decision process easier for customers, but it also grants you greater control over your business operations, ensuring efficiency and coherence in your services. By carefully curating your selection, you can tailor your offerings to meet specific customer needs while maintaining a manageable and profitable business model.

6. Target Audience: Do you have a clear understanding of your target audience? If not, conducting research on this specific demographic is paramount. Understanding their purchasing behaviors, income levels, influential factors, and general demographics can help you fine-tune your communication and marketing strategies. When your messaging and product offerings align with the values and needs of your audience, it increases the likelihood of creating strong and enduring relationships with your customers. This, in turn, fosters brand loyalty and encourages repeat business. Furthermore, audience research can provide valuable insights into new opportunities for products or services, as well as potential enhancements to your existing offerings, promoting innovation and ultimately leading to higher customer satisfaction.

7. Supplier: Do you have a supplier that stocks the materials, tools and products that you will need for your service offering? You want to ensure that you’ve got a good working relationship with a supplier that stocks materials that align with your needs. For example, if the majority of your systems will be epoxy or polyurethane based coatings, be sure to choose a supplier that stocks a robust line of these materials and the tools to work with them. Ideally your supplier will also provide field support and training in the areas specific to your service offering.
Dedicate time to address each of these questions in order to construct an overview of your service offerings. Subsequently, you can further fine-tune and enhance them. The primary objective is to simplify and guarantee the manageability and sustainability of your business. Once your business experiences growth and operates smoothly, you can contemplate expansion when you’re confident and prepared to do so.

NOTE: Last month, we posted an article called “10 Tips for New Concrete Coatings Contractors” that outlines important factors that can set you on the right track to ensure a strong start in the industry. This article provides a fundamental framework for your business development. If you missed it, pop over and give it a read.

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