4 Best Practices for Training and Onboarding

By Eyal Lewinsohn

Gaining new talent can be an exciting time for everybody. As an organization, you receive fresh perspectives, new skills, and a person who is generally at his or her motivational peak. As a new employee, you now have a springboard to grow professionally and further cultivate your career goals.

While generally the onboarding process can start on a high, it is easy for it to go sour fast. Hence, creating a great training program is critical for all organizations who wish to retain employees and grow their ultimate success.

Creating a flawless training program is tricky business. It differs with the industry, company size, and employee experience. Yet, no matter what process you choose, there are a few key elements you should include in order to make the training and onboarding process productive, fun, and successful:

1. Begin by focussing on employee strengths

There are many skills an individual may need to acquire in a new position. However, while they may lack critical skills in some areas, there are surely other areas in which they are proficient. Focus on those in the beginning of the training process.

We all know the beginning of a new job is exciting, yet moderately intimidating. If the new employee can smoothly begin the transition by utilizing skills he or she already has, it builds confidence, comfort, and motivation to grow. On the other hand, when the employee is bombarded with tons of new information, it is easy for them to become overwhelmed and retain very little of what they learned. Even more concerning, it can throw them off enough that they lose confidence and motivation way too early on in the process.

2. Make training fun

Though work can’t always be fun and games, it’s definitely not a bad place to start. By using gamification, a company can elevate its entire training and on-boarding process. Interactivity drives engagement and promotes substantial learning which makes any training process more effective. It can be applied in many ways including: promoting healthy competition by using leaderboards, using a badge system to signify specific achievements and implementing a progress bar to motivate the trainee.

Whatever you choose, studies show that the more fun training is, the more motivated employees are to accomplish and progress within the company. In addition, it gives them a positive association with the company as being a fun, interesting, and rewarding place to work from the get-go.

3. Have new employees work together on practical projects

Filling the day with busy work is a waste of time for everyone. After all, there is nothing more frustrating than hours of training without tangible accomplishments. In contrast, delving into important projects with fellow employees gives a new worker an idea of their everyday workload, an opportunity to learn from experience, and to develop positive working relationships with fellow team members.

Best of all, at the very end of the project, they have accomplished an actual goal, gained confidence, and hopefully set the tone for more successful team projects for the future.

4. Take personal interest in a new hire’s development

Working for someone who lacks interest in your professional development is very discouraging. Therefore, when a new person joins the team, it is critical that they understand exactly what is expected of them. Encourage them to ask questions — not only to help them accomplish tasks but to help them grow into who they want to become in the future.

Let them know that you see them as an integral part of your organization — but don’t think that alone is sufficient. After all, actions speak louder than words. So reach out to them about the next steps in their career, make it clear what you need to see from them in order for them to achieve accomplishment. Partner with them and give them that little push they need in order to accomplish their goals.Not only will this improve day-to-day performance it will also yield long term results by increasing employee loyalty.

There’s no question human capital is your company’s most valuable asset. Without motivated professionals to have your back, there is nobody to put in the hours, go that extra mile, or work endlessly to ensure the organization’s goals and reputation are up to your standards. Remember — since you can’t grow your company alone, taking an interest in how your organization is perceived by a new employee is one of the smartest investments you can make in order to grow a successful business with successful employees.

About the Author

Eyal Lewinsohn is the CEO of Iridize. Eyal has been developing software for almost 20 year now, having led R&D teams at RSA, the network security division of EMC (NYSE: EMC) & ZoomInfo. Eyal is a true believer in making the digital world accessible to all, and in the power of good onboarding to do that. Eyal holds an MBA from Tel Aviv University, is happily married and father to 3 kids and a dog.

The secret to making onboarding as seamless as possible? An employee community. Learn more by downloading the free Salesforce e-book.