Independent Component #2 - Training Your Employees

LITERAL

(a.) I, Diego Luna, affirm that I have completed my Independent Component #2 which represents 34 hours of work.
(b.) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the Independent Component #2

All of my books have been used in some way, but these sources are the most influential during the training process.

1. My mentor Sara Timberlake and my former mentor, Mr. Andrew Johnson helped me throughout the training process and store policy.
2. Mr. Richard Branson's book "The Virgin Way" helped me to understand how to connect with employees and train them with patience.
3. Caba, Susan. "Hire Good People." The Complete Idiot's Guide to Leadership: Fast-track. New York: Alpha, 2013. 59-77. Print.

(c.) Update your Independent Component #2 Blog

Okay.

(d.) Explain what you completed.

INTERPRETIVE

The finest method of managing a store during the busiest hours of the day is proper preparation of both employees and the manager. Proper preparation falls under the lines of training your workers effectively to deal with any scenario that comes their way, eliminating the need of having a manager to completely micromanage the situation. The idea is that employees should be informed and be knowledgeable of store policies, procedures, and protocols. As the store becomes busy, the manager should have lesser stress knowing that their employees are well prepared and well trained to deal with the urgent tasks that either customers or others might bring. 

Now, one might ask themselves the following question: "what can this 18 year-old teach me? He hasn't worked professionally within the industry?" It's an odd notion to lead or train someone who is twice as old as you and has had true job experiences in other fields. Truth of the matter is, I know how my store works. I've had about a year and a half of experience about store policies, what tasks need to be prioritized first, and working with customers who tend to underestimate what type of leadership skills that I truly have. Experience comes easy with time. I adapted rather well to the busy store environment, and I know my stuff. My mentors back me up due to the fact that I've had to train new volunteers on what to during the summertime.

Bringing people up to speed on how the dynamics of the ReStore works wasn't a hard task at all. The problem was blatant consistency issues. As planned before, I wanted to train ONE volunteer, and record all of my time with him/her. Problem was, when I would be in the process of training a volunteer, they wouldn't come back until a month from then. I would ask what happened, and instantly think that it was my fault they didn't come back. I would get answers all relating to them coming once a week. One person actually told me that they were serving community service time for a parking ticket. Despite this minor setback, I grit my teeth and did the best I could training with different employees, and taking pictures within the process.

The basic store policies that I have taught my trainees during the duration of the process were the following:

• Always be friendly and approachable towards customers!
• Customers are limited to a two-hour hold sticker, unless given executive position from the manager or assistant manager.
• When the truck comes in, all volunteers must rally towards the loading dock to ensure that the delivery is unloaded and a new influx of merchandise makes it onto the store floor.
• All items must have a price-tag, measurement, and department number.
• Donors get priority service due to the fact that they are giving items to sell within the store
• If anyone needs help lifting something, do NOT hesitate to help
• Customers cannot and shouldn't haggle with volunteers or staff about lowering price of items (the items at Habitat for Humanity ReStores are naturally 50-80% off normal department stores)
• Always dress presentable and casual, as the ReStore is a job that involves regular heavy lifting. 

The first volunteer I had trained was a woman named Shelly, who handled tasks around the ReStore such as pricing and placing measurement on doors and items. I told her that before products needed to be taken out onto the store floor, they needed to be priced, measured, and checked for major damages such as molding for wood or rust for metal. Once those three things are done and the product is undamaged, I then had to take those items onto the store floor, in their respective departments. The picture on the very left are our measuring and pricing tapes. We use those to also account for which department the item was sold in. For example, doors are department ten, and to aid in customer convenience, we at the ReStore measure the item to eliminate the need of a customer having to bring a tape measure everywhere. To the middle picture, Shelly had labeled the item, which was a desk set. To further emphasize the idea of customer convenience and organization, I told her that alike items had to go together and look presentable in fashion.

The next trainee was Louie, who was a volunteer that regularly dedicated his time to building homes rather than working within the ReStore. Being an easy to approach man and a strong partner in lifting heavy items with, he and I both worked on primarily three tasks: receiving product, putting the product in the right departments, and aiding customers who needed assistance. In the picture on the right, Louie was helping the man behind him as they were both looking for certain set of shudders for exterior windows. I pushed him into the job, telling him to ask what he needs and if he needs something in particular, to tell you. Nothing quite like pushing someone to help someone else to get the wheels rolling! As the day went on, Louis and I had talked over key store policies, using even core store activities to put them into practice. One of those key policies was to ensure that customers are serviced and fully satisfied because at the end of the day, that's what keeps a store alive and kicking!

                                                               

Lastly, Sean was an interesting volunteer to bring to speed on the ReStore. He preferred to carry giant items on his own strength. I had a minor conversation with him on safety standards and that our tools within the ReStore such as dollies, hand carts and palette jacks were readily available for volunteer usage should an item be way too heavy to carry. After a while, he adapted to the usage of these items and we went from there. Employee efficiency could be increased by just simple knowledge of how their tools and technology works. As he and I carried around an iron cast bathtub, I told him it wasn't going to work out, thus bringing out hand carts to ease our work load. 

APPLIED

How did the component answer your EQ? Please include specific examples on how it helped?

This component was very pivotal in answering the EQ due to the effectiveness of having proper preparation. On a much larger scale, the store manager has to train hundreds, maybe even thousands of employees who walk into those doors, depending on what type of store is owned. I realized that as the day went forward, Louie and Shelly were both informed at what needed to be done and didn't need me to come back to give them orders on what to do. Sean knew that the tools were available for his usage of heavy items and unloading merchandise off the truck became faster after that small change. We had a clear system and it worked. When the store starts to become overcrowded with customers and the problems start to arise, a store manager doesn't need to break a sweat due to his confidence in both his training process and his hardy employees. This lesson teaches myself that a manager must always have a hand in the training process because that's where the most information is to be learned, the first day.