Once the hiring is done, you still have to train your new manager before you can consider it all a successful onboarding!
While an exceptional candidate might be able to pick up the job and succeed without much training, that's not something you should count on. Besides, even an experienced self storage manager should be trained on the nuances of how you do things at YOUR facility.
Check out this Gabfocus Spotlight, where Tommy and Melissa talk with Terry Campbell (Copper Storage Management) and Sue Haviland (Haviland Storage Services) about what it looks like to have a successful manager training program.
Question: "What should a successful training program for managers look like?"
Check out the video clip below to hear their answers:
In this Gabfocus Session: Maximizing Your Team, Tommy and Melissa were joined by Sue Haviland (Haviland Storage Services) and Terry Campbell (Copper Storage Management). They discussed all things hiring and managing when it comes to self storage team members.
Check out the full Session to dive deeper!
Don't want to watch the clip? Here's what Terry and Sue had to say:
I'll tell you the way we do it, and obviously there's a difference because we have the manned facilities and then what we do. So you've got different roles and different things.
So with us, our training is almost like a ride-along training.
They're trained with the person who is going to be their supervisor or their peer that's doing the same job. They're trained on the software live as you're going and until they get proficient at it.
So there's a lot of that that we do, and as far as the actual training for the job, that's the way it's typically done.
But we also have other types of training we do. We have a PEO that has a lot of online courses that we provide and actually require on certain things such as internet security and not clicking the wrong thing on emails and stuff like that.
So that's sort of a process for us in the world we live in."
—Terry Campbell
"As far as for us—this is something I'll say every time we do a session like this too—the most important thing is that you have some kind of training.
And there's a lot of places you don't have the setup to have an onsite trainer or somebody that goes around. But key one, make sure the right person is doing your training.
Say you had two stores and your site manager at the one store is the best manager that's ever walked, doesn't mean they can train. Being able to do your own job well doesn't always mean you can equate it into training somebody else and how they learn things and that.
But if that's what you have then making sure they have the tools in place.
And there's no right or wrong answer, I believe, to how many days or that, but you have to look at your own resources. But, gosh make sure you have some.
You don't have to keep up with the big companies that have all the online courses and all that to be able to have a successful program.
It can start if your small and one store and you don't have a lot of staff to just even daily training checklists of things they go through, and if they need to go through it again. We try not to let anybody at our stores be on the front counters for the first five days. And mainly it's because I want them to learn and have practiced what the sizes are, what goes in them, be comfortable answering the phone, and then they mirror somebody.
They go through our checklists, our different videos, materials, and then they get to start doing it themselves.
We utilize our software demos, I have homework for our demo, so they do homework on our software. Doing rentals, vacates, all that kind of stuff.
So they've had a lot of practice with that before they're shoved.
But occasionally, sometimes you do have to shove them to the wolves too."
—Sue Haviland
