Trudy, when TRU employees here were initially trained, they were trained by SJA here but they have not for several years now. When I was in the local store, a couple years ago, making the pitch to have their staff trained and talking to the manager she mentioned that they stopped sending people to us because mainly of 2 things: 1) they have used the manual given and developed its own in-house manual and training program for employees and 2) they didn't find the returns-on-investment great especially when these trained employees would leave TBU.
See this is the problem - they do have an "in house manual and training program" - but they don't use it, at least not at our store and if other stores have the same training issues our store does, then most of them probably don't use it. Not to mention it's dated 2007 IIRC, so horribly out of date.
Our store put 2 people through the SJA course 1.5 yrs ago. All of the stores in AB put people through the course at the same time with Red Deer employees actually being sent up to Edmonton. But last I heard from my store director - who is top of the pole at our store, is they've "revised the in-house training and are just sticking with that" from now on.
To be honest, I've been told things that aren't fully true in the past because it's what they think I want to hear. (Sometimes about the dumbest things - if you want to leave a stroller with a broken canopy of display, just say so - don't tell me you're going to reduce it and sell it cheap and then stick it back up - you're the manager and can do whatever you want as far as I'm concerned - my job is just to tell you the issue so you can make a decision.
)
So anyways, I don't fully trust what I'm told when it comes to something like the training. After all of their resistance to me giving any training, I ended up signing off the techs at the end of the course they took because the instructor couldn't be there for the clinic. And I'll admit I found something satisfying about that.
And they're still not using the in-house training in our store. I'd love to see the new materials if there truly are new materials. Perhaps what I actually need to do is approach the person who makes training manuals about assisting in the creation and maintenance of a proper in-house training program. Not that I know who is in charge of that, but I might be able to find out...