A seemingly obvious question
How important is staff training? Why invest time, resources and budget in it? What does it mean for a business to have people who can respond to customers’ needs with real expertise? And above all, does training concern every department of the company, or are there some where you can afford to “cut corners”?
These are all legitimate questions, and the immediate answer would be that training people goes without saying, just as keeping that training up to date over time does. In daily practice, however, things are not quite that simple.
Being informed is not the same as being competent
With the ever more intensive use of tablets, smartphones and, more recently, artificial intelligence, many people now arrive at a meeting with a supplier having already gathered information on the features of a product or service. How well that information has actually been understood, and whether the person who compiled it can actually tell the difference between one offer and what the competition proposes, is another matter entirely.
The same goes for the other side of the table. You sometimes see salespeople who bring a technician along for the moment the conversation moves into even slightly more demanding territory. And in the worst cases, you see businesses hiring low-cost staff specifically to save on training, turning apparent savings into a structural limitation.
So how much does training really matter today?
It all starts with the company objective
To answer properly we need to go back, once again, to the company objective. Starting with the founder: what do you want to offer the people who buy from you?
Once the objective is clear, though, you also need to establish how you intend to achieve it. And this is where training comes into play across every area of the business.
- Offering high-quality ceramics necessitates having the right workforce.
- Managing the administrative side of a company that operates internationally requires staff who can deal with different types of banks and different tax regimes.
- Purchasing the metal needed for production presupposes real knowledge of suppliers and of the various markets involved.
The examples could go on at length, and they all point in the same direction: training is by no means an area to overlook.
Big schools are not the only route
Looking at the best-known schools offering structured training programs, Italy’s options are concentrated mainly in engineering, finance and economics: SDA Bocconi, Luiss Business School and 24Ore Business School are among the most familiar names. Companies can certainly recruit there, but is it really the only way? What if the business is small? And how can experience gained in the field help?
Going back to the question of how to reach company objectives, a first strategy is to bring in the right people with the right experience: people capable not only of passing on what they know, but also of drawing other colleagues toward the goal, colleagues who in turn need to be coordinated with a clear purpose in mind.
Alongside the big schools there are also qualification bodies and organizations that can train and certify staff. It’s up to the company to work out which ones best suit its needs, bearing in mind that experience acquired in the field remains something no theoretical program can fully replace.
Training is not enough: results need to be verified
Once people have been trained, you need to verify the results that training has produced, in order to judge the quality of the choice you made. Without this step, training remains a declared cost, not a measured investment.
But in reality, all too often we see outright failures caused by insufficient training. The most serious are undoubtedly those linked to poor management of workplace safety, which can lead to serious and in some cases fatal accidents. But limited knowledge of production processes, or of how to use machinery correctly, also creates significant slowdowns for a company. And an untrained salesperson doesn’t just risk proposing the wrong product: they risk damaging how the company is perceived from the outside.
Mozzanica’s approach
From the very beginning, Mozzanica decided that in both maintenance and system installation it would offer the highest possible quality, focusing on large, medium-to-high risk customers. To do that, it didn’t just choose the right people: year after year, it has planned a training program built around the company’s objectives.
This is not simply a matter of meeting what the law requires, but of going beyond it.
Here are some examples:
- Technicians are trained to use the right instruments, to know the software and hardware side of a detection system, and to understand the mechanical and hydraulic aspects of the most complex systems.
- Sales staff are the customer’s first point of contact: their skills cannot be limited to selling. They need technical and regulatory knowledge, and the ability to pass on as much accurate information as possible to the other departments.
- A command of English is fundamental for a company operating internationally, which is why courses are organized involving people from multiple departments.
- And let’s not forget qualifications and certifications, which formally attest to the skills acquired.
The return on a continuous investment
This constant investment in people pays off. In the questionnaires our customers complete every year, the quality they recognize in us most often is precisely that of having highly trained staff.
That figure is worth more than any statement of intent. An employee with all the necessary knowledge is without a doubt the company’s first calling card: the person the customer meets, listens to and judges, and the one through whom a reputation built over years is carried forward.
Conclusion
Training is not a box to tick, nor an expense to squeeze when budgets get tight. It’s the concrete way a business turns its objectives into real capabilities, department by department.
Companies that choose to save on this front don’t reduce their costs: they simply push them further down the road, in the form of mistakes, slowdowns, missed opportunities and, in the most serious cases, accidents. Those that choose instead to train their people in a continuous, verifiable way build the one competitive advantage no rival can copy quickly: the competence of the people who work for the customer every day.