Train them so well they could easily leave. Treat them so well they never want to.
Your employees want to do great work. With the right knowledge, tools, and resources you can help them succeed. Training is an essential component of preparing your employees for success.
From day 1 you are training your employees. Orientation training acclimates them to the company and expectations for performance. This may include live classroom or virtual training, asynchronous learning through a learning management system (LMS), or even informal 1-1 meetings with their team lead or manager.
Best Practices
- Define what behaviors drive your company values, then build orientation training around those behaviors.
- Ask employees what they want to achieve. Help them build individual career plans, setting milestones along the way to track achievement.
- Evaluate off-the-shelf learning which may provide you with the results you seek while reducing the effort of in-house development.
Your new hire also needs the basic training in their day-to-day job duties. Many individuals prefer on-the-job training (OJT) that allows them to see the task performed, try the task out while supervised (thus reducing the risks of making a mistake), and receive immediate feedback on where and how to improve.
Team leads and people managers play a critical role in your employees’ success. It is just as essential to train them on key skills, such as: effective communication, providing feedback, managing and developing others, and leadership strategies. New people managers especially benefit from training because it reduces the “learn as you go” learning curve during which teams may become frustrated while the new manager figures things out.
