If you research the cost of training a new employee, you’ll discover a variety of answers. But there’s one similarity throughout them all – it’s not cheap. Whether it’s hiring an employee for a brand new position or replacing a departed staff member, every business owner and manager wants his or her new employee training to be effective.
Here are two things that an effective employee training program can’t be without.
1. Employee Handbooks
We touched on why employee handbooks are crucial to success last week. A company handbook is more than likely the first thing that your new hires will read. It will outline expectations and set the tone with your company’s mission and ethics policy.
Handbooks can also increase efficiency, especially if you have role-specific guides to accompany the company manual. These role-specific guides lay out responsibilities, processes, and other details vital to performing duties well. Providing them to new hires will make it much easier to transition into a new position.
The bottom line: handbooks are a critical resource that give new hires another place to turn to should you be unavailable to answer questions, which leads me to the second feature that an effective employee training program can’t be without.
2. Good Communication
“New employees yearn for constant communication,” as Jeremy Day says.
Reflect on your first few weeks at a new job. All you wanted was for your new boss or co-workers to reassure you that you were on right track, doing things the right way. You even wanted to know if you were doing things incorrectly, so you could correct your actions and avoid disappointing everybody.
Your new hires feel exactly the same way. They want and need constructive criticism, so you must communicate often during and after training. An effective employee training program will always emphasize communication.
Plus, the more you communicate with helpful feedback, the faster a new hire will be up to speed, which gives everyone more time to do their jobs.
Foster communication by:
- Always making yourself available for questions
- Designating another colleague that the new hire can go to with questions should you be busy or out of the office for an extended period of time
- Checking in often
- Emphasizing this point: There is no such thing as a dumb question.
Bonus tip: Regina Paul suggests working with trainees one-on-one. Getting feedback from multiple people at the same time can be overwhelming for a new person, who is trying to soak up as much information as possible. Multiple people giving directions only bombards them, instead of helping them.
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