The Management Tip of the Week blog will present one tip each week based on content in the MDM Archives. Sign up for the RSS Feed for this blog here.

More and more companies are bolstering their training efforts as they seek to do more with less, according to the new 2011 Distribution Landscape Report. “There is such a great need for that in-house training because the knowledge in the marketplace is disappearing,” says Skip DeVilling, president of DeVilling & Associates, LLC, a Sarasota, FL-based executive employment search firm, in Hiring Lags Despite Return in Business. That training should be part of a wider effort to ensure workers feel like they belong, which is critical if you want to retain them.

We Deliver Distribution News to Your Inbox Sign up below to receive MDM Update, your free weekly distribution news update by email.

"We've probably lost some good people because we didn't have a defined way of moving up through the company," says Mike Baker, vice president of marketing and vendor relations at Independent Electric Supply Inc., San Carlos, CA. Independent Electric has developed career-track sources for all employees, and has bumped up its communication to ensure they are on the right path for them.

But even if your training efforts are successful in increasing the amount of work an employee could do, take care not to overwhelm them. In a recent survey, more than half of U.S. workers said they weren't happy in their jobs.

“The concern is when does it start to stress the work force too much? At what point do you need to do more?” DeVilling says.