Is your supply chain training strong enough?

The supply chain runs first and foremost on efficiency, and to help ensure that you are able to continually meet your goals, you need to set your employees up for success. The best way to do that is to engage in an ongoing training program that guarantees they have all the skills they need to meet your needs and continue their advancement in the industry.

The question you need to ask yourself, then, is whether you are set up to give them as much benefit from your training regimens as you can, according to Supply Chain Digest. Often, that will start with giving yourself a clear understanding of what you want your workers to take from these sessions. This is true both of individual sessions and your overall, long-term approach.

Moreover, though, you have to ensure your employees are learning from the best available instructors, so that everything you are trying to impart sinks in effectively, the report said. Whether that's internal managers or someone from outside your organization brought in specifically to run these trainings, you want someone who will stay on task and make the sessions as engaging as possible so that you make sure each hour you spend on the effort is being maximized.

A good training program incorporates your entire organization.

Where companies fall short
When it comes to employee training, many logistics companies feel they don't necessarily have the time or flexibility to hold comprehensive training sessions, according to 6 River Systems. After all, if one session takes even an hour, but requires you to pull 20 people off the warehouse floor, that's 20 worker hours lost. However, you can't view it that way; this is an investment in future productivity. Yes, you are sacrificing perhaps dozens of hours of productivity initially, but you will more than make up for it with improved efficiency when your training is working well.

Moreover, it's important to ensure that your workers are able to move up and around within your organization so they continually gain more skills they can leverage for you, and otherwise stay with your company for perhaps years to come, the report said. By diversifying promising employees' skill sets, you make your entire organization more agile.

What to focus on
Obviously, it will behoove your employees to receive training that's relevant to their roles, whether they work on the warehouse floor or within your procurement department, according to Supply Chain Secrets. Of course, all these efforts should be aligned so there's an overarching theme to what you're pursuing, but they should be specialized with a focus on that specific role.

But beyond that, it's also a good idea to show them the importance of collaboration, and give them an idea of what workers in other departments go through, the report said. That way, there's a clearer understanding of the ins and outs of more jobs under your roof, and employee have a baseline knowledge of how their own work affects the company as a whole.

The more you can do to get your arms around an organizational training strategy that radiates from the top down, the better off your employees will be going forward. As such, now is the time to start planning for this effort.