New Employee Training: Two Vital Best Practices for Training New Hires

Did you know the average new hire has to deal with around 54 tasks as part of joining a new company? That's a lot to think about any day at the office, let alone your very first!

So, with that in mind, what are some of the golden rules of new employee training? How can businesses in the process of hiring up make sure they are onboarding and training new employees effectively without overburdening them?

There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of tips out there on how to hire, onboard, and train new employees. Here are two of the most important.

Establish a Comprehensive New Hire Program and Make Sure Managers Follow It When Onboarding New Hires

It can be tempting to let the chips fall where they may with a new employee. You have work to do, you don’t have time to train somebody new. You can show them just enough to get started, and when they need to know more they can ask you. A full-blown onboarding plan feels redundant. Right?

Unfortunately, that couldn't be more wrong.

The loose notion that you'll tell new hires whatever they need to know whenever they need to know it might sound easygoing and flexible, but in reality it just means all sorts of little crucial details about working at your company are going to slip under the radar.

This leads us to our first recommendation: By establishing a concrete onboarding procedure and giving your managers a checklist with every step, you make sure absolutely nothing gets forgotten. That means your employees will be in a far better position to do great work from their first day.

The best companies in the world are the best for a reason: They sweat the small stuff. That means having a full, detailed onboarding plan, complete with new hire orientation, tasks, and training.

Take Zappos for example. They have one of the most talked-about new hire programs around. Their onboarding process includes spending 3-4 weeks answering the phones in the Zappos call center, just so new hires can learn how to respond to customer needs. This practice reinforces Zappos’ company culture from the very beginning of their career, and it’s one of the reasons why they have such a legendary reputation for customer service.

Account For Different Learning Styles

Humans, thankfully, are all different. We all learn in different ways, too - you can't craft a one-size-fits-all approach to new employee training.

The second practice we recommend when training new employees is this: Create different approaches that meld with different learning styles.

For example, you might have a training agenda that makes heavy use of images and charts for the 65% of us that are visual learners, and an agenda that makes heavy use of clear, friendly verbal communication for those employees that have more of an auditory focus.

At the end of the day, you have to mold your company to your employees just as much as your employees have to mold themselves to your company. Establishing learning routines and programs that correspond to their individual learning preferences is the best possible way to start off on the right foot in that regard.

New Employee Training: The Most Important Workday of Your Life

So there you have it, a couple of tips on crafting a new employee training plan that will benefit your employees and your company. A plan that works for multiple types of people and follows a concrete onboarding process will turn your new hires into competent professionals quicker than any other methodology.

So don't delay, plan ahead today! Consider incorporating Habitly training into your onboarding process. Ready to sign up? Click here to get started.

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