What's your BuildIQ: The Importance of Continuing Education

With rising interest rates, skyrocketing insurance costs, and increased customer expectations, today's home builders face unique challenges. All builders want higher quality houses free of defects, with stellar customer satisfaction and higher profit margins, too. While there's no quick and easy fix, most large production builders are realizing that there's a solution that can help mitigate risk, increase customer satisfaction and protect profits: effective employee training. Continuing education programs, like the training offered through HousingZone University, can supplement a builders' internal training program to ensure a builders' team stays up to date with best practices in design, construction and customer relations.

George Casey, president of Arvida's Mid-Atlantic region, highlighted continuing education's importance at the 2003 BENCHMARK conference. "People and process improvement are at the core of maximizing a home builder's return on assets," he said. "They make the difference between mediocre and outstanding financial performance. Training our people in the most important aspects of construction quality and customer satisfaction is a no-brainer. It pays multiple dividends."

Continuing education not only provides critical information about construction and customer satisfaction best practices, but also stands as a builder's investment in employee growth and development. This investment in employees can raise employee morale and create lower turnover rates.

The key to effective training is consistency, which ensures that every employee is on the same page. However, getting your entire work force into the same place to hear the same message can be a logistical nightmare. That's why many builders are supplementing their internal training program with continuing education programs offered online. These courses can be accessed 24/7, ensure a consistent message is being delivered to everyone who takes them, and can boost employee satisfaction by providing the opportunity for career development.

HousingZone University offers a continuing education program composed of best practice training for anyone in the home building industry. The courses in HousingZone University are designed to provide consistent information on quality home building and customer relations practices. Topics range from mold prevention to building for performance to setting customer expectations. To learn more about HousingZone University and to see the courses available go to: hz.buildiquniversity.com