Did you know 22% of staff turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment?
If people don’t feel comfortable within their roles, they’ll typically leave to go somewhere where they will. The best way to help new employees move into their roles successfully is by offering a thorough and professional onboarding and training process.
Training employees properly is essential if you want to promote a thriving workplace. Keep reading to learn how to train new employees as they move through the hiring process.
Start With the Hiring Process
Training is much easier later on if you focus during the hiring process. Hiring equipped individuals who will fit in well with the company makes it easier to help them learn tasks and fit in with the company culture.
Making the hiring process as necessary as your training process helps avoid wasting time. And it ensures only strong candidates make it onto your team, you can check futuresense llc as they are one of the experts in the field.
Hire Qualified Individuals
The first step is to hire people who are qualified for specific roles. The easiest way to get to know potential employees is to ask them as many questions as possible.
Their answers should demonstrate that they already have the base knowledge they need to succeed.
Whether it’s having a good personality for customer service or knowing a specific software, looking for key qualities is crucial. If someone isn’t qualified for a role, keep looking until you find someone who is.
It’s better to spend more time searching than wasting time and resources training someone who won’t fit in well or stick with the company for long.
Make Expectations/Duties Clear
When people are looking for a new job, they often have in mind what they’re comfortable and willing to do. So try not to create any unrealistic expectations about the position.
Instead, outline a clear list of what will be expected of them if they accept the role. And provide them with a list of duties that fall under their position.
You don’t want to surprise someone once they accept the offer and begin training because it can lead to them being stressed and overwhelmed. But, training will go more smoothly if they’re adequately prepared.
It’s also wise to use this as an opportunity to let them know about the pay for the position. Any negotiations should take place before a training date and time get scheduled.
Choose the Start Date Wisely
It’s essential to choose a start date for each new employee that fits the organization’s needs well. Try to avoid starting new employees when key managers are out of the office.
They should have access to managers when they first begin.
Also, avoid scheduling training when employees who don’t set the best example might train them. Instead, you should choose their start date carefully and ensure the ideal trainer will be available to help them.
Onboarding Process
Having a thorough and organized onboarding process is as important as the training process. You want to make sure all legalities are handled, and the new employee has everything they need to make it through training successfully.
Forms/Legalities
Every business has tax forms their employees need to fill out. Getting this out the way immediately helps prevent you from forgetting.
Using remote I-9 everywhere when you hire new employees helps ensure the tax forms get filled out correctly. And it eliminates data entry errors and creates an audit trail for future use.
Before moving them further into the onboarding process, you should also have them read through and sign any contracts, including non-competes. You don’t want to give them more information than necessary before completing this step.
Official Job Description
Next, offer them a printout or email with a copy of an official job description for them to go over. Then, if a time comes when they’re unsure of their official role or try to claim they weren’t hired for a specific task, they have this document to refer back to.
Values, Visions, and Goals
It’s wise to introduce them to your company’s values, visions, and goals so they can begin to understand the company better.
It also might motivate them to do their best to grow along with the company. Seeing where things are headed helps them value their new role more.
Company Culture
The company culture is something new employees will eventually pick up on their own. But providing them with a brief explanation of what to expect and how you believe they fit in with the culture already will help them feel more comfortable.
Set up Accounts on Software
If their role requires access to an email address, login information for specific programs or software, or any other account setup, complete this during the onboarding process.
Once they officially begin training, they should already have access to everything they need so people aren’t scrambling to help them get set up.
Tour of the Facility
Offering a tour of the building early on is crucial. They should be made aware of where the bathroom is right away. It’s also important to show them any break room areas and emergency exits and familiarize them with the fire safety plan.
If you don’t handle tasks like this now, chances are they won’t end up being covered. They’ll feel more confident working in the building if they know where everything is.
Introduce to the Team
One last thing to make part of the onboarding process is introducing them to team members. If the team is large, it’s still appropriate to introduce them to key team members they’ll be working with.
While they will eventually meet everyone, it takes some nerves and stress away if someone is there to formally introduce them before training begins.
Training Process
Once employees reach this point, all onboarding tasks should be finished. Then, they’ll be able to focus on their training much easier. At this point, they know what’s expected of them, understand the company more, and know who they’re working with.
Choose a Dedicated Trainer
Try choosing a dedicated trainer instead of scheduling them and seeing who else is working the day their training begins. The person should know ahead of time that their day will be spent training.
Springing it on someone last minute can stress them out or create tension that doesn’t allow them to train the new employee to the best of their ability.
Offer Virtual Training When Possible
Before throwing someone into live training, it’s best to offer a virtual training option whenever possible. Virtual training through video or print allows them to digest things at their own pace.
Start Slow
Whether virtual training is an option or not, it’s a good idea to start slow instead of bombarding them with all the information they need at once.
Doing it this way gives them time to learn the information thoroughly, so you don’t need to go over it multiple times.
Check-In Often
As the manager or owner, it’s crucial for you to check in often when new employees get trained. You want to ensure the trainer is handling things properly and the trainee understands things well enough to move to other tasks.
Give Small Tasks
Once they have all the base knowledge they need, giving them small tasks to try on their own helps them put what they learned into practice.
For example, in a customer service role, you might have them begin by greeting customers or checking in to see if they need help finding something.
In a role with computer-based tasks, create sample tasks for them to do to see if the end result is up to par. No matter what your business does, there is a mock task you can offer them to try so they can see how they feel in the role as well.
Offer Time for Questions
After they’ve tried putting their knowledge to the test on their own, stick around to provide them with the opportunity to ask questions. Someone with an accurate understanding of the role should be there to answer them correctly.
Keep a close eye on their questions. You or the trainer can see where they’re at and determine if more training might be necessary before they’re on their own.
Provide Consistent Feedback
You want to provide feedback throughout the training and after training to help them learn and grow. However, once a new employee is through the official training process, it doesn’t mean you don’t need to worry about them anymore.
Their first weeks and months in their position will be overwhelming even if they made it through the training with no issues. You want someone to be there for support.
They should easily be able to ask questions and get feedback on their work to help their confidence grow.
Things to Consider
The onboarding and training process varies for each company. However, here are a few more things you might consider making part of your company’s process.
Shadow Before Job Acception
One option to consider is making shadowing a necessity before someone accepts a position with your company. Many new hires have unrealistic expectations about the job or company.
And many recruiters and hiring teams don’t get the complete picture before hiring someone.
So a shadow day or period before someone is officially an employee gives everyone a chance to see how things go.
A Trial Period
For the same reasons mentioned above, offering a trial period instead of a formal job offer gives you an opportunity to see how a new employee performs before extending a binding offer.
If things don’t work out as you expected, you can let them go after the trial period instead of needing to stick with a poor employee or fire them.
Group Training
If your company hires new individuals regularly, it might make more sense to offer group training instead of individual ones.
Group training makes it possible for one trainer to teach several new employees. It’s a better use of resources.
Group training offers trainees more variety, and being around other new people can help them feel more comfortable.
Independent Training Materials
If your company doesn’t have independent training materials to offer new employees, it might be wise to develop them.
Independent training saves a trainer time and helps people learn at their own pace. And you can be sure each new employee receives the same training if all training documents are the same across the board.
Updating Training Over Time
No matter how solid your training process is, it can’t stay the same forever. As your company grows and changes, the onboarding process might change drastically.
And when new technologies, workflows, or standard operating procedures change, the training needs to reflect that. Overall, if there’s a significant change within the company, make sure the training reflects it.
And as technology develops, try taking advantage of more advanced training options. The better your training process is, the better your employees will perform.
Thoroughly Training Employees Leads to Success
As a business owner, you likely recognize much of your success depends on your employees.
Your employees will only perform well if they get trained adequately when they first begin their job. The sooner you focus on training employees, the sooner they become an active part of the team.
So use the information here to create an onboarding and training process that leads to excellent performance!
If you enjoy the thorough information found here, please check out some other articles on our site designed to help people grow their businesses.
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