Can’t Get Your Staff to Use Company Tools? Here’s How!

As program owners and managers, you want your staff to have resources they can fall back on yet all too often, they don’t use them when needed. It’s a frustrating issue for many managers who feel they have put in time and effort to create valuable tools for their staff yet they are left untouched.

What I tend to find is your staff isn’t purposely snubbing these tools. Rather, they don’t know how to apply them to real life situations.

I often reference the story of the man who bought a new chainsaw.

After using it for two hours, he returned it to the store claiming that he sawed less wood using the electric saw than he had with his manual saw. The store manager looked it over, took it in the back, tried it himself, brought it back out, and told the man to take it home and try it again because it appeared to be working fine.

The man went home, used it for two hours again, and returned to the store with the same complaint. The store manager was clearly puzzled so he brought the man in the back with him so the customer could point exactly where the problem lay.

As the store manager turned the saw on, the buyer asked, “What’s that noise?”

The moral is that a tool is no good unless you know how to use it.

When buying resources (or creating your own) make sure to include hand-outs depicting images and the various jobs they apply. Have staff match and create analogies for the tools with appropriate jobs and talk about how each resource enables them to be more successful.

It may sound silly but you would be amazed how something can look very obvious to you yet, go right over someone's head. Ensure everyone has a clear understanding of the tools you are providing them and you will have a confident, informed staff.

Have you ever had this issue with your staff? If so, leave a comment and let me know how your team resolved it.

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