We all agree that an essential element of employee success is adequate job skill training. Training is a broad subject with many facets. Unfortunately, in many cases, employees enter the credit and collections arena with no relevant background or formal training in the skills needed. They enter because there was an opening, or management transferred them into the area out of necessity. Often, it may be the case that employees are thrown into the pool and expected to swim or sink.

Here are some alternatives and ideas that may help you address credit department staff training. The hope is to bootstrap new employees to be early department contributors and to develop your current staff, enhancing their careers, and value to your company.

Ten Ways to Approach Training Your Staff

1. Provide comprehensive new employee orientation:

• Make sure they know what your company does, your customers, the internal stakeholders it serves and those it depends on, and the role of your department within the company.
• Organize “walk in their shoes” opportunities. This will educate your staff on what other related departments do. They will get to know their counterparts, facilitating communication and problem-solving in the future.

2. Take advantage of professional conferences and training events:

• Encourage staff members at every level to attend professional conferences and professional education events.
• Have those on your staff who attended a training event present what they saw and learned in a team meeting. This is a training experience in itself, particularly for someone working to promote into a supervisory position.

3. Network through industry groups:

• Send key staffers to Industry Groups. Encourage them to develop networking opportunities.
• Help them with resources for benchmarking best practices and how to deal with specific business challenges.

4. Take staff members along with you to customer visits:

• This will help them better understand your customers, develop relationships with their counterparts, and while on-site, resolve issues and account reconciliations.

5. Set up an internal mentoring process: 

• Make more senior staff members available to new hires to answer questions and give guidance. This will add value to your team in both directions.

6. Conduct lunch and learn sessions:

• Either you, a member of your staff, or another department stakeholder can present training or lead discussions on topics relevant to the department.
• This could cover technical aspects of their job, best practice sharing among your staff, and soft skills such as effective communications, or negotiating techniques. It could cover business updates or changes, new processes, or just familiarizing them with the activities of another department.

7. Rotate assignments:

• This will both broaden staff training and deepen your bench in the event of absences, or staff turnover.

8. Engage subject matter experts as advisors:

• Think of banking contacts, attorneys, credit insurers, or others who may be available to provide valuable advice as problems arise.

9. Encourage curiosity:

• Set the stage for a team environment where If there is something someone does not understand or needs help with, it is OK to ask.
• Encourage your staff to advantage of the incredible resources available on the internet that can improve their understanding of a topic.

10. Take advantage of third party training opportunities and resources:

• These can be in the form of publications such as Credit Today, the Credit Today ListServ, or the Highako Community.
• Send staffers to face-to-face training or workshops, and encourage them to participate in virtual training through webinar sessions, panels, and workshops.
• Take advantage of on-demand training such as offered by the Highako Academy and the various credit associations.