Hiring highly qualified staff isn’t the end of the recruitment process. Companies also have to ensure their new employees reach their fullest potential, and they could not achieve this without an effective training program and strategy.
The Importance of Training New Hires
According to the Indeed survey, 39% of job seekers left their jobs just within six months, claiming that they wouldn’t have to if they were just given efficient onboarding and training opportunities.
Onboarding helps the new employees adjust to their new work environment, workmates, company culture, workflow, company’s mission, vision, goals, and more. On the other hand, training is about providing sufficient support and resources to the new hire, which can even last more than 90 days, depending on the company.
When new hires just boarded, they undergo a lag time when they don’t yet have enough skills to undertake and finish tasks. When the company has a disorganized or inefficient training program, the new employees’ lag time extends, which is not suitable for every company.
Productivity is the lifeblood of businesses, which is why companies should strive to improve their onboarding and training systems to reduce lag time and get the new employees up and going in no time.
Tips for Efficiently Training New Employees
How can companies train their employees effectively and get them to contribute to the company in a short time after their onboarding? Here are some strategies companies can employ to their new hires:
- Customize their training
Every employee is different, so be sure to know how your new employees learn best and approach them through their learning styles. Provide them with various resources such as videos, hands-on activities, and more. If you’re planning to create training modules, you can hire online video production specialists to ensure your content is immersive and engaging. Perhaps, your employees do well with less supervision, such as the manager simply giving instructions, and they’d be accomplishing things independently.
They may learn well the other way, too, being supervised and given step-by-step directions. Knowing how they learn, train them according to their way as much as possible so that they can immediately get onto their tasks.
- Give them time and a map for the onboarding process
To streamline the onboarding process, provide them a structure such as in the form of an onboarding map where they can explore things and even themselves on their jobs. Give them enough time to discover the company’s workflow, platform, and more.
Track their explorations by making them report a summary of what they learned. This way, you know if they understand how things work and interact one-on-one with every new employee.
- Be sure that expectations align
Through an orientation, relay clear expectations to your new employees, particularly their job descriptions—what the tasks are and how they should accomplish them. Expectations should align, both the new employees’ and company’s.
- Take advantage of technology
After getting hired, there may be so a good deal of paperwork to do, but your company can cut off this time-consuming process by leveraging technology and using automation processes instead.
Reducing the time spent on these admin tasks redirect the new employees and managers to what really matters—onboarding, training, and mentorship. With automation, the company can streamline the way they handle their new employees.
- Put all resources in one place
All the resources new employees need should be easily accessible, so it helps put them in one place. Update the company’s online platform and ensure that new hires can just easily navigate through it. This would be an excellent time-saver for everyone, and most importantly, make them productive much quickly.
- Use Trello to simplify the location of their resources
Trello is another best place to put all information in for the new employees. You can indicate the specific time they’ll be needing that information, such as a section of days—30th, 60th, and 90th days. Providing them with information in chunks can prevent knowledge overload.
Overloading new employees with information only makes it more challenging for the new employees to remember things. At least, when they forget about something, they can just look back at their Trello boards any time.
- Pair new employees with a mentor
To keep the new employees on the right track, you can assign them to a mentor that can thoroughly guide and monitor them. Constantly interacting with the new employees, a mentor can make new employees feel at ease asking necessary questions.
- Solicit ideas from older employees
Ask the older employees in the same role what they would’ve wanted to be trained for on their onboarding or what the critical parts of their training process are so that you can better accommodate the new employees.
Final Thoughts
Both old and new employees should have the opportunity to learn about their job and industry continuously. Productive employees are assets to every company, so investing in effective training strategies is always worth the time, money, and effort.
