Last time, I talked about a challenge we had in our store.  Rest assured that the situation didn’t stop when I was done blogging about it: I knew we had to do more training.

Some times, as retailers, we wind up training on the type of things that just seem like regular, ordinary common sense.  The truth is we have to train on this kind of stuff — because we can’t afford to take common sense for granted.

What happens if we do?

Your crew will make mistakes.  Big mistakes.  And when you ask your crew member why they didn’t do the proper procedure, they’ll look at you with this vacant, clueless stare: “I never knew we were supposed to do that!”

If you want a fool-proof, guaranteed way to eliminate this problem, just keep reading.

Write out the procedure you want your employees to follow.  Keep it short and to the point: you only want to focus on one issue at a time.

Include the procedure in your employees paycheck.  Before they get their NEXT paycheck from you, they have to read and SIGN the paper and return it to you to be kept in thier employee file.

That way when you’re faced with the “I never knew that..” scenario, you can say, “Well, according to this paper you signed, you did know that.”

Since we’ve started this policy at our stores (and it’s been in place for years now) the whole “I never knew” situation has virtually disappeared.  This is a quick, simple, and effective way to start improving your employees performance — TODAY!