A recent survey by a leading HR Consultancy revealed that poor performance in the workplace was a problem for 96% of UK organisations. Clearly then, it is a serious problem, and potentially one that your company is struggling with, whether you aware of the details at this stage or not.

Legally, poor performance is determined as "when an employee's behaviour or performance might fall below the required standard". Problems of this nature can arise for a number of reasons, including: poor management, unfair treatment, unclear job roles and inadequate training. On a deeper level, poor performance can also result from a lack of equal opportunities in the workplace.

Once of the best ways to combat any issues with poor performance is to use training programmes that are structured and developed by experts. These companies often have a wide variety of training programmes on offer, including customer services training.

The benefits of investing time and effort into your staff base are immense. Normally, it is possible to reduce even the earliest signs of poor performance in employees by ensuring that they feel well represented in the workplace and have opportunities to progress and to be rewarded. Firms that do invest in training and put performance development as an organisational priority tend to see great results.

Some of the first steps to take on the journey to improving poor performance by way of training programmes and customer training programmes include: holding managers accountable for managing and developing performance, rewarding high performers and proactively managing under-performance and measuring behaviours and deliverables.

With all these benefits in mind, in addition to a still shaky economic climate, researching the implications of training programmes for your employees could be the best thing you decide to do for your business.