Hey guys,

I need some professional development advice.

These past ten months my boss has been leaning on me to train some newly hired employees and, after speaking with him this past Friday, this will be a common theme going forward. The first few new hires worked out nicely but the most recent one is…. Young and inexperienced. I feel like he could be a benefit to our team but he will need a fair bit of help to get there and I lack the skills to bring him up to speed.

This has demonstrated to me that I don’t actually know what I am doing with the onboarding of these folks and I need some actual training on how to train new hires. During our conversation Friday afternoon I mentioned this and my boss agreed so now I need to find something that will better prepare me. Unfortunately, I do not know where to begin and so I am here to ask whether anyone here knows of any resources out there?

The first thing is to have a good job description of the employee position.
Prepare a list of expectations and things to learn, rules(including OSHA), knowledge items , skill items that the hire must acknowledge, understand and must comply with as conditions of employment.

I was waiting to see if you were going to receive more informed replies than mine, but since not, I'll offer some comments and suggest a resource.

Over time and through experience, I've come around to the idea that bringing on quality new-hires and then giving them quality training is crucial to an organization's success.

After certifying in areas that fell under my primary duties and reaching a level of proficiency, I was eventually asked to become a certified trainer in two different organizations, and took on the responsibility of informal training in a third organization.

Eventually, I got pretty good at it, and even had some trainees request me as a trainer, and although it can be a real challenge, it can also be rewarding... or it can be a disaster.

It takes a quality trainee motivated to do a good job, a quality trainer that not only knows how to do the job well, and also effectively communicates and demonstrates the tasks required... and it requires an organization that recognizes the importance of quality training, and dedicates the necessary resources to facilitate quality training. For many orgs. training is an afterthought, just something to check a box, and is often under-resourced. Training is often one of the first items cut, when revenues and budgets decrease.

As Hamden 106 pointed out, a good job description is required, along with a comprehensive list of tasks/ duties/ job requirements for that specific position, along with any legally mandated training. Over time a Training Department or Trainer will create a syllabus and a checklist to document that the employee has received training on every task they need to know for their job, and also documents whether they have achieved proficiency. The syllabus and checklist (sometimes combined with quizzes/ tests) will not only document one employee's proficiency, but will also help to make training uniform, even when different trainers are doing the training. Having the trainee demonstrate proficiency in the required tasks and having a different trainer check/ sign off on their job knowledge helps to verify quality trainings.

What I learned was that I got much better at my job, after training others. If you don't know a job well it's difficult to train others to do the job well.

It takes a while before an organization learns how to train new hires. Identifying key personnel who do their jobs well, and have an aptitude and interest in training others, and then making them trainers. Some circumstances call for dedicated trainers, others, training can be just one of the roles they fill as part of their overall responsibilities.

You didn't mention what type of training you are trying to learn before training others, so I don't know if this suggestion is any way helpful.

There is a training company that specializes in a wide range of online trainings for employees. IT certs, public speaking, Excel Spreadsheets, data analysis, dealing w/ difficult people, photography, branding, etc..

They are a subscription service that companies rely on, in many cases to help existing employees grow into roles by giving them new skills and certifications. They are not a degreed program, but after the trainee successfully completes the course material they can print out a certificate, which is often recognized in the industry.

When I used them they were known as Lynda. com, but it looks like Linked In has purchased them.

They are offering a one month free trial subscription, so you could check out their catalog of courses and see if any of them fit your needs.

Linkedin Learning

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Modern Day Savage,

I trained hires at a local govt agency. Mostly in safety and light maintenance. It was not as professional as MDS stated above. My department was small. I used to say to hires they had to be able to at times think outside the box. I found some could not do that. And some had a too small a box to begin with.

Some more info would be helpful in giving you a useful answer.

What type of work is it?
Are your new hires already able to do the work or are you training them to specific tasks?
What type of environment is the work done in?
How often do you have to onboard people?
How many do you onboard at a time?
Are your current employees doing the same job or do they all have specified jobs?

There are many different types of training but you'll need to identify your specific needs before you can make sure you get the right skill set.

So, coming from a manufacturing background:

A) It’s mostly personality and mindset. Anyone coming from manufacturing background is far ahead. Kids can be a tough read.

B) I found sports psychology books to be very worthwhile. They are written by “winners” in leading small groups. Welch, other big dogs, wrote great books about running large organizations but most formal business education is written by the “Never Dids” making guesses about what work is like.

C) Really work on processes and documentation. Give an exact list of every step, be able to describe it all.

D) Video. Detail videos both from the operator perspective and from what is going on, which the operator may not be able to see.

E) They need “tag along” time. The fellow who regularly does a process has a mind, and thinks about his work. He will find refinements in his work. Documenting/promulgating those refinements is important.

And, if you can, putting carrots is useful. Raises once trained/bonus programs for increases in individual efficiency, monitoring individual efficiency etc is very useful. He will know when he’s better at his work. He will want to see that recognized.

If at all possible, avoid hiring the “requires supervision” crowd, even though some jobs require no one moves without supervision and explicit instruction. (A family member is a lineman. Cleaning gutters with him was instructional.)

Hoping DrewR reports back as this is a interesting topic. I very much enjoy the knowledge of you folks. Bring it Drew..

It depends on what you're supposed to be training them to do. Since it sounds like you've been doing this awhile without benefit of a documented training process, it doesn't sound like your job doesn't need much.

As to how to get training yourself on how to train people, I suggest you google "How to put job training systems in place."

What I'm about to give you is from a highly regulated environment so you may have to figure out how much to tone it down for your application.

You need to break down what the person needs to know in order to do the job correctly and reliably. Then you need to determine how do you tell when a person is qualified and trained in how to do the job correctly and how often do you need refresher training and testing. You also need to qualify the people who will train the new hires; it could very well be just a simple document that states Joe has done this job for 20 years so he knows how to do the job and can train new people. You also need to document people's training in terms of what they are trained at.

If it's training in an area that no one in your company has the expertise, there are plenty of training courses available. For example, a new buyer can go to a purchasing class which is like 1 day to 3 days.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
What I'm about to give you is from a highly regulated environment so you may have to figure out how much to tone it down for your application.

Rey HRH, you make some excellent points, several I had considered and intended to include in my post, but failed to do so.

Many of these points I consider so intrinsic to the framework of a quality training program that I just assume that others know and implement them in their own organizations training programs...when in reality I've seen smaller orgs. with pathetic inconsistent trainings.

Training syllabus, checklists, proficiency demonstrations, quizzes/ tests, certification sign offs, handing the trainee off to be evaluated/ certified by a different trainer to verify training quality and comprehension, initial certifications, cross trainings, periodic recurrency certifications, re-certs for employees that allowed their certifications to lapse, re-trainings when processes change and require operators to perform different tasks, or tasks in a different sequence, train the trainer programs, documentation and record keeping for Compliance, HR, and liability purposes... some or all of these may need to be included in an organization's training program.

Depending on how involved and complicated the tasks and whether an organization is bringing on experienced or inexperienced new hires, there might be several days of orientation training followed by days/ weeks of more specialized training, possibly involving several different trainers through the training process.

My apologies for the delay in posting a response to this thread but I appreciate everyone's input on this topic.

To shed some additional light on this topic I work for a state agency providing IT support but my job has morphed these last few years to be more administrative with some direct desktop support. I did not have the opportunity to sit in on the panels for the new hires that I have trained but that will be changing after this last one.

We have an account with LinkedIn/Lynda so I will be spending a lot of time on that site but I was hoping for something a bit more 'in-person' like taking my Lean/Six Sigma classes.

My role as a trainer grew from having the new hires shadow me for a couple days to spending a week with me to "DrewR will be training you and will let me know when you are ready to provide desktop support" but I just don’t actually know what I am doing. Having someone shadow me for a week is entirely different then providing them with formal training in desktop support. We typically hire people with years of experience so that has worked to our advantage previously but the last few were contractors with limited experience that required more thorough training.

I hoped that help.

Again, thank you.

I didn't know people were still doing Six Sigma ..

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
I didn't know people were still doing Six Sigma ..

That’s because six sigma is focused on making processes, especially manufacturing processes, to produce results having attributes inside of a narrow band.

It’s obvious where manufacturing in the US has trended so that explains why you don’t hear much about six sigma anymore.