Some People Love Stress And Hate Money

The level of stress and profit a business generates is dependant on internal as well as external factors. We can only affect internal factors so let's focus on those. We'll start with the overarching framework of a business, the business architecture. It can be structured as the following relationship:

Business Strategy
 
Business Operating Model (BOM)
 
 Business Capabilities

In order to properly implement a business strategy, there needs to be a set of rules, standards, processes, procedures, and so on, that structure how the organization works - this is the Business Operating Model (BOM). Training and development programs are part of the BOM.

Business Capabilities are the deliverables that an organization can consistently produce to a certain standard. The caliber of the BOM will directly determine the caliber of the Business Capabilities. A high caliber BOM is like a well-oiled machine, and the opposite of that is... pure chaos. Those who don't strive for a high caliber BOM must be the type of people who love stress and hate money!

Let's delve into the cost-benefit analysis of investing in the right training.

Put An End To Preventable Mistakes

The most obvious and direct ROI from a good training and development program is improved employee performance. For concrete scanning, this means preventing costly mistakes that cause the cutting of unapproved embedments such as conduits, PT cables, stud rails, and even the wrong rebar, or too many rebars.

In addition to embedments getting hit, there's also an operations cost due to poor communication between the concrete scanner and the client, as well as the Cutting/Coring Technicians who work off the scans.

Drastically Cut Training Time (And Cost)

How long does it take to train a concrete scanner through employee shadowing? It's usually around 6 months, give or take a couple months. Sure, the trainee slowly starts pulling their own weight after a few months, but the majority of the jobs are one person jobs. Not only is that money down the drain, there's an opportunity cost from the lost revenue from the other jobs that person could be working on.

And if an employee doesn't work out because they're either underperforming, eating crayons or licking markers- would you prefer to know sooner or later?

More Opportunity Costs

This one is an indirect effect of training and is often missed by managers. If you aren't spending time, money, and mental energy on fighting fires caused by poor performance, then you can spend it on other business goals like improving or growing the business, or...  recharge your mental energy with personal time/goals.

Dominate The Industry With A Stellar Reputation

If you consistently outperform, clients will notice. They rarely use only one company for scanning. They may have their preferred company, but due to a lack of availability, an engineer's recommendation, or an incident caused by a bad scan, they're often forced to find an alternative. This is an excellent way to gain ground through organic growth.

But consistency is key here: the standard of service the company provides is the performance of the worst technician, not the best. The goal is for every single technician to produce the same deliverables for the same tasks. Any differences among them should be inconsequential to the client, and preferably, never noticed. The right training isn't a cure-all for everything operations, but a haphazard training and development program will surely produce haphazard Business Capabilities.

Upskill To Stay At The Leading Edge

If any employee in any highly skilled field claims they have nothing left to learn, they should retire. We've built the definitive training program for scanning concrete, yet we're still thirsty for knowledge and still looking to refine our GPR-C processes. The talent in any successful organization should always be striving to hone their skills. And this is never more true than when a new paradigm comes along. The technicians with many, many years under their belt will be surprised to learn that some of their long held beliefs about GPR are in fact incorrect.

 Intangible Costs

The goal of a competitive company is to hire the best and brightest, then train and support them. If you do the first part only, then you get the best and brightest who are poorly skilled in a field that demands highly skilled technicians. Using a tool without fundamentally understanding the technology, and not knowing if you used it to its limits, will not only cause an employee to underperform and make costly mistakes, it'll demoralize and stress them out. They get blamed for not doing a good job when they don't understand what they could've done differently. This is especially vexing when a technician from another company, or their own company, gets called in to correctly rescan their scan. They usually either stop caring (putting in low effort), or they quit. Then who gets demoralized and stress???

Business Value

There has to be an advantage to buying a business rather than starting one from scratch, finding/training personnel, buying equipment, and building a customer base. The idea behind growth through acquisitions is that the BOM, and therefore the Business Capabilities, will be used to implement the buyer's Business Strategy. It follows that the value of a business with a high caliber BOM with Certified GPR-C Technicians is much higher than one with "workers with a scanner".

Conclusion

If you hate stress and love money, then level up your BOM by transforming your concrete scanners into Certified GPR-C Technicians

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