If your business is growing, you will eventually need to hire new employees to help you keep up and continue your steady growth. Of course, you can’t spend days watching over new employees, teaching them everything there is to know about their job and answering all of their questions. It’s important to have a training plan in place that allows you to be flexible for your trainee, while also letting you do the regular work you need to get done every day. So what can you do to develop a quality training process to help your company continue growing?
The first thing you should do is get your new employees fully immersed in your business culture. Get them involved in developing ideas, working with others to collaborate, and present problems to them that they’ll likely face regularly. Do all of this in a space where it’s okay to make mistakes and grow into their new position. One great way to do this is to give them practice scenarios or projects that they can work through, which will help them get hands-on experience while allowing them to make mistakes without frustrating customers or coworkers.
That brings us to another important point: keep negativity out of the training process. New and existing employees should always feel comfortable asking questions, so it’s best to set the standard right away that you won’t get frustrated with lots of questions while they’re training. Making sure trainees know that it’s okay to make mistakes and not do everything perfectly while they’re training is also vital to their learning process. You can’t expect them to do everything perfectly right away. However, make sure you set expectations and check-ins during the training process so you can ensure they’re learning the skills they need within your timeline. During reviews, focus on positive feedback and reward employees for progressing. If you find new employees aren’t learning as fast as you’d hoped, be flexible and adjust the focus of their learning so they can master the most important skills for their position.
Segmenting training and allowing employees to perfect one skill at a time can also make a huge difference when it comes to progressing through the training process. This will help employees gain confidence, and keep them from getting overwhelmed with too much to learn at once. It can help to assign a training mentor to new employees to walk them through different skills and tasks. Giving them someone in their same position or department to train with can also provide an important outlet for information and advice pertaining to the position, and, perhaps most importantly, help them build working relationships with coworkers right away.
Finally, get new employees acquainted with your business early. Give them a tour, make sure they know where the bathroom, breakroom, and watercooler are, and even offer to eat lunch with them on their first day. Make them feel welcome.
It’s important to understand that learning should be continuous, not just reserved for the training period. Provide training refreshers for all employees, and offer new opportunities for them to learn different skills so they can grow personally and professionally. Businesses and industries are constantly changing, so you should make sure your employees are always equipped with the skills they need to help your business move up faster!