Sundaymail Editor
Entrepreneurship Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere
In today’s competitive business environment, the capabilities and skills of employees are fundamental requirements for continuous productivity, innovation and success in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Human resource development is a vital ingredient in the achievement of performance goals, improvement of productivity and sustaining of competitive advantage in any business.
Top-performing organisations regardless of size have taken training or continuous development into their culture. The demands of your target market are continuously evolving, changing at an alarming rate and failure to change in that regard means you are outpaced and left behind.
If you remain in business, you will become the laggards en-route to chickening out of the market.
The whole SMEs idea is premised on wrong ideology and at most given discouraging names in our vernacular such as WANA MUSEYAMWA.
Under such circumstances, training people the way they should do things is the only way forward.
Training in SMEs must not be for the employees only but even for the owners of these enterprises also. Due to the many years of taking serious business issues for granted in the sector, it has become very difficult to introduce new culture, systems, philosophies and ideologies in the SME sector and the best people to start dealing with are the owners of the businesses.
We have a popular adage that it rises and falls on leadership. It is important for SME owners to understand the importance and benefits of training and continuous development within their domain.
You can’t effectively lead forward when your understanding of the current and emergent issues relating to your business, industry and trade is limited.
An understanding of where you are and where you want to go as a business makes you see the gap in your capacities and capabilities which you are forced to fill in.
Most SMEs start as a one man business but as you grow, you will start to add other people on board who have their own way of thinking and view of business. There will be every need to align their minds to your mind in the form of a training called induction.
Type of trainings for SMEs
In any organisation, you are likely to encounter occasions when you need to learn or adapt in order to succeed in your role.
Training enables you to gain the skills you need to perform your duties while contributing to your organisation.
Depending on organisational needs and goals, training can come in various forms, ranging from orientation to sales and marketing. Some businesses may have several training programs, depending on their size and activities.
Leadership and management training for owners (directors)
We become owners and directors of businesses in different ways. Some inherit their parents businesses, while others sweat it out to establish their undertakings. Regardless of how you have navigated the terrain into becoming who you have become in your business, training and development is not optional.
Once you find yourself running your own business, there is every need to continuously develop your business mind in order to remain in the game.
The business landscape is changing every now and then and if you fail to adjust and change, you will quickly become irrelevant especially as a leader. Your team always looks forward to seeing you leading by example and you cannot effectively do so if you are not informed. Leaders ordinarily paves the way, goes the way and shows the way to their followers.
Orientation
When employees are new to an organisation, there is a certain type of training that they are subjected to and this is popularly known as orientation.
Most SMEs don’t take this process with the seriousness it deserves that’s the reason why most of the times they have operational problems with their employees.
Under the orientation program, one is taken through the company’s mission statement, vision and values. As the owner of that company, there is need to share with every employee you hire your mission and vision so that they also have an understanding of where you are taking them to or where you want them to accompany you to.
Every organisation has its own way of doing doings, which is their corporate culture. It is within this orientation programme that employees are enculturated into the organisation’s way of doing things. Employees must be taken through some administrative procedures and corporate policies.
Onboarding
The orientation process is usually part of a larger process called onboarding, a series of department-related training sessions that occur over an extended time.
This process is specifically designed to quickly enable you to perform your role well. It starts immediately after you have hired and continues until the team or the individual can work independently.
Within your business, there are various business operations that takes place that employees must understand.
There is also a certain level of skill that they must have in order to carry out certain tasks. These are normally called technical aspects of any job.
Such training is aimed at improving performance and employee engagement as you seek to boost the attainment of departmental goals.
Technical skills development
Technical skills training is a basic component of employee education because it is a primary way for you to develop the skills you need in your role.
Employees who are already competent in their jobs can undergo further training to gain new skills and stay current with the latest technologies and processes.
There are various skills that people learn on the job depending on the type of work that they do including content creation or even social media marketing skills.
Products, services, sales and marketing training
SMEs must make deliberate efforts and come up with training programs for their employees in terms of products, services, sales and marketing. Business revolves around these issues of products, services, sales and the market.
I have talked about the employee and the need to continuously improve them.
There is every need to continuously develop the minds of your team so that they can perform in line with customer expectations.
Conclusion
SMEs must embrace training for it keeps them relevant, productive and effective. Customer needs are ever changing and technology is always improving systems, processes and procedures and training becomes an imperative. SMEs must not take forever to adopt and adapt to new ways of doing things.
The writer, Dr. Kudzanai Vere is an entrepreneur, author of four books, business and personal development, multiple award winning entrepreneurship and business coach. Dr. Vere has coached more than 5000 entrepreneurs globally and continues to impact people in the areas of entrepreneurship, business and personal development. He is the CEO of Kudfort Group.
Contact Dr Kudzanai Vere for transformational entrepreneurship and business coaching and training on [email protected] or +263 719 592232
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter