If the recruitment process was conducted properly then you should have a very clear picture of the skills set of the new recruit.  You should have compared these with the job description and ensured that you recruited someone with the closest possible match as well as the right personality to fit into your corporate culture.

Once that has been achieved there will always be some skills deficit.  This is the area that is most likely to need some attention, possibly through training or possibly through coaching by the manager.

Where it gets tricky is if the job description is unclear, not sufficiently specific or changes as a result of internal organisation.  The manager should be alert to all of these points and be ready to assess if new skills are needed and how best they could be provided.  If the job description needs to be changed to make it more relevant then HR should be involved.

In an efficient organisation the manager will have regular one to ones with their team members and will be aware of any problems that might be occuring.  During these one to ones it is important to have the discussion about the team member’s comfort zone in doing all of the tasks assigned.  If there are areas that they feel they are struggling with then these should be looked at more closely.

The manager should avoid being critical or judgemental.  It is always better to have a team member who feels able to admit to a problem in delivering part of their work than a frightened employee who continues to do the task badly for fear of being exposed.

The manager might want to consider if a problem area flagged up by one team member might be an issue across the whole team.  Then they should decide whether the skills deficit is a localised one that is specific to their company or team, or whether it is a more commonplace skills deficit. 

For example if the problem is  a new piece of highly specialised equipment then the training might require a company technician to come in and explain.  However, if the skills deficit is something like knowing how to respond to hostile customers then it might be better to bring in a customer services trainer to bring the whole team up to the required standard.

In the latter case the training might be required in other Departments within the company in which case the HR Department are the most appropriate people to handle the training needs.

Inevitably any good trainer should be able to point to real outcomes that can be measured.  If they can’t then why not?  Is it that the subject area is not one that can be measured?  In which case you might consider whether there is any real value to the training.

Which brings us neatly back to where we started, except that at least there has been a process of elimination put in place before the manager simply dismisses the idea of training.

1. People are given and expected to absorb huge quantities of information when we all know that, in reality, it is only possible to absorb two or three messages at any one time
2. Even with a lot of interactive opportunities, it is one thing learning a lesson and then having to take it into the workplace and make the same technique work – as a result the post training enthusiasm soon wanes and the old habits re-establish themselves
3. Once the training has taken place there is no opportunity to re-acquaint the trainee with the lessons learnt.

Behavioural change is most likely to work where a small number of messages are given, where the trainee can then try them out in the workplace and where they can repeatedly review those lessons until they find a way of turning the training into a reality for themselves in the workplace.

The challenge is to find that magic formula.