‘Tis the Season: Invest in Cross-Training During Lower Volume Times
There’s a chill in the air and the first snowflakes have fallen — which signifies the annual switch from the busy warm-weather housing season to a quieter time for home buying and obtaining mortgage loans.
While the real estate and title industries are slower through the winter months as people settle in and prepare for the holidays, this doesn’t mean your company’s productivity has to come to a screeching halt. On the contrary, the slower pace of winter offers an opportunity for you to take on tasks you normally wouldn’t have time to complete.
How To Make the Most of the Slow Season
To begin with, you can take advantage of the slow season by creating a healthy working environment. Deep cleaning your offices can ensure employee safety by helping to control the spread of viruses and other illnesses, doing away with dust and pollens, and eliminating clutter that may be detrimental to your employees’ well-being.
In addition, the quieter season is an opportune time to dive into data, so you can gain valuable insights and, ultimately, increase sales. This data can include behavioral, demographic and personal information about your customers. Making your data work for you can help you better serve and engage with your customers by helping you understand their needs and preferences.
One of the best ways to maximize the extra time in your schedule is to cross-train your employees. Cross-training is the process of developing a multi-skilled labor force by providing employees with training and development to ensure they have the necessary skills to perform various job functions. Employees are trained to perform two or more roles, skills or tasks which may or may not be related to their current work.
Tap into the Advantages of Cross-Training
Investing in cross-training during times of lower productivity can pay off big during busier seasons. Here’s how cross-training can benefit your company:
- Makes workers feel valued and increases engagement – When you train your employees to work in multiple roles, it demonstrates that you value them and trust them to complete various tasks. This can help lower turnover rates and improve employee satisfaction, as well as create a more versatile and independent workforce that makes your company stronger. In addition, cross-training provides an opportunity for personal and professional growth, increasing your employees’ engagement and dissuading them from looking elsewhere to enhance their skills.
- Streamlines your process and increases productivity/efficiency – With fewer people involved in each task, cross-training can help your organization provide products and services more efficiently. The more skilled your employees are, the greater productivity and efficiency will be across departments. As each department passes a valuable skill set on to another employee, your diversely skilled workforce can streamline all aspects of your business and its processes.
- Saves money – Perhaps the most appealing aspects of cross-training are its positive impact on your bottom line and its potentially significant return on investment from your team. Empowering your current staff to share their knowledge can save your company thousands of dollars in outsourcing employment or hiring additional staff. Why allow productivity to suffer while you wait for new hires to get used to their positions? Done right, cross-training can save your company from added onboarding costs down the line.
- Establishes scheduling flexibility and creates workforce sustainability – Having a limited number of employees, or even just one, per department, can lead to frustration when a last-minute absence arises or a vacation request is submitted. Cross-training increasing the flexibility of your employees in the case of increased workload or staff shortages, allowing your company to remain sustainable and keep the ship sailing smoothly when unanticipated needs arise.
- Facilitates succession planning and makes your company more agile – Hiring outside of your company can be costly and time-consuming, making training within your company an attractive option. Through cross-training, employees can develop a skill set that would prove beneficial if someone exits the company. Plus, cross-training can reveal skills and talents in your employees that may otherwise have gone undiscovered. This increased skill set can lead to a more agile company, as all of your employees can more easily advance its goals and objectives.
Proliant Is Your Key to Success, No Matter the Season
Proliant Settlement Systems understands the need to keep your business going strong no matter the season. Proliant dramatically simplifies starting, owning, and operating a successful title agency — one that can withstand the slower season. That’s because our private-label franchise system provides your back-office support, giving you access to an entire team of title professionals that will assist you through the entire settlement process. Contact us today to learn how you can start your own title company with the most difficult barriers to entry removed.