How to train new employees effectively
Bringing new employees up to speed can be a daunting task. Even if you’ve done it a thousand times before, different employees bring different skillsets to the table that make every training experience unique. On top of this, it’s difficult to know exactly how much employee training to do… compared to how much coaching you should do.
Do you give new employees all the tools to do the job? Or do you let them navigate some initial projects themselves so that you don’t fall into a micro-management trap? While onboarding systems and structured processes should exist for all new employees in your business, there are some “soft skills” you should know about when it comes to making new employees feel like a successful part of your team. Let’s go through them one by one.
Training employees is as much about “showing them the way” as it is about teaching them hard skills. Here are some of the most important tips to remember when mentoring your next hire.
1. Start slow and be flexible
When it comes to employee training, it pays to be flexible. New employees are often anxious and want to prove themselves as quickly as possible. At the same time, they’re likely being bombarded by dozens of different colleagues — HR managers, coworkers, managers and company leaders — with a plethora of new information.
For these reasons, make sure to give all new hires time to get grounded. Let them explore what they want their work life to look like as they get acquainted with your systems and processes.
Worried you might be “dumbing things down” for a killer new hire? If you’ve got a rock star employee who is already skilled and seems to be picking up everything right away, you can always speed up the training process. Let their behavior dictate how you approach initial onboarding, and things will go much smoother for everyone involved.
2. Teach values, vision and mission
One aspect of new employee training that often gets overlooked involves teaching new hires your organizational values, vision and mission. The goals you set for your company are extremely important to you — so why shouldn’t they be shared with your new employees, too?
Ideally, there should be two sets of goals in every new hire’s mind: the goals of the company, and the goals they set for themselves. Being well-versed in the company vision as well as their own vision of how they want their employment to look will help new employees stay on track as they continue to undergo more training.
3. Ditch the accountability model
This might be a controversial opinion, but ditch the accountability model. What do we mean by that? Simply put, don’t “baby” or over-train your new employees. Doing so might help you in the beginning, but it’ll hurt your company in the long run. Maybe you hold a new hire accountable to you, and it works, so you leave them to their own devices. Then they go off on their own and try to work out new issues without further guidance, and it doesn’t work. Essentially, you’ve created a dependency issue that only gets worse with time.
Instead, help new employees help themselves. Once they have the skills necessary to perform basic functions at your office, take the “training wheels” off and let them do some of their own problem-solving. Give them tasks and responsibilities as soon as possible. Doing so will make your organization far more independent than if you directly oversee a host of junior-level employees.
4. Get coaching from a trusted source
Most importantly, it’s hard to train employees if you haven’t received any hands-on instruction yourself. Here’s where coaching comes in — participating in a coaching program can drastically alter the way you approach employee training.
Frame of Mind Coaching™ can help you flesh out the training skills you feel you need the most help with. It’s not for the faint of heart: our coaching system is built for highly driven executives, leaders and business owners who have pre-determined goals in mind. That way, we can hit the ground running together and work out the problems you’re facing starting on day one.
In this instance, if your problem is employee training, we’ll get you connected immediately with one of our certified coaches. That coach will listen to the challenges you’re facing — maybe it’s incompetent employees, a lack of training resources, or even waning employee motivation. Whatever the case, they’ll help you dig deep and understand the root cause of your difficulties before helping you find ways to overcome those issues.
It’s not magic, but it’s pretty damn close.
If you think your organization could benefit from some hands-on coaching, get in touch with us today. In addition to working together to revamp your employee training program, we’ll also unlock other current roadblocks you’re struggling with and help you move past them.