Formal, informal and self-learning: three ways to build a skill

1. Formal training follows a planned programme, such as a food hygiene course, a first-aid certificate or an apprenticeship run with a local college.
   1. Every trainee leaves doing the task the same correct way, which matters where a mistake injures someone or loses a customer, but the fee is paid up front and the worker is away from the job while it happens.
2. Informal training happens at the workbench or the counter, where an experienced colleague shows the new person how the machine is loaded or how a difficult customer is handled.
   1. Nothing is spent beyond the colleague's time and the learner keeps producing while they learn, but what gets taught depends entirely on who is teaching, so shortcuts and bad habits are passed on with everything else.
   2. The induction a new starter is given in their first days, being shown the till, the stockroom, the safety rules and who to ask, is informal training at its most common.
3. Self-learning puts the employee in charge, working through online courses or materials the business provides in their own time or in quiet periods.
   1. It costs the business almost nothing and never takes anyone off a shift, but it relies on the person choosing to do it, and nobody checks that the learning has actually happened.
4. The three methods differ on four things a business weighs before choosing, and none of them wins on all four.

The last row settles most decisions, because only formal training ends in something an outsider will accept as proof, which is why a food business pays for hygiene certificates instead of relying on a colleague's explanation.

Ongoing training: what carries on for staff already in the job

1. Ongoing training continues throughout someone's employment instead of stopping in their first week, because products, systems and the law all change while a person is in the job, so staff at a supermarket who learned the old checkout system need training again once it is replaced.

Target setting and performance reviews: how a business decides who needs what

1. The targets agreed have to be specific and measurable so that both sides can tell at the next review whether they were met, which is why 'complete the food hygiene certificate by June' works where 'improve your customer service' does not.
2. Training needs surface early: the review shows the gap between what someone can do now and what the job needs, so a course is booked before that gap turns into a complaint, a wasted batch or an accident.
3. Effort is pointed at what matters: a member of staff with three agreed targets knows which parts of the job the business is judging, so their week is spent on those rather than on whatever is nearest.
4. The business builds a written record: if someone eventually has to be let go, there is evidence that targets were agreed, missed and discussed, rather than one manager's opinion.
5. Reviews go wrong when the target measures the easy thing rather than the important one, so a target on calls answered per hour gets calls rushed and customers ringing back with the same problem.
   1. A review nobody follows up teaches staff it is a form-filling exercise, since a course promised in March and never booked makes the next set of targets worth less.
   2. A target the employee had no say in is resented rather than owned, so they work to the number instead of to the job.

Judging how much a business should spend on training

1. Training spending should rise with the skill and safety demands of the job and with how quickly technology or working methods change; simple, stable work can rely more on informal training and self-learning.
2. Staff turnover matters because training is repaid over the time an employee stays, but a high leaving rate is usually a retention problem to fix rather than a reason to leave the remaining workforce untrained.
3. Overall, compare the cost of training with the likely cost of mistakes, waste, accidents and lost customers if employees do not have the skills the job requires.