What Are The Key Elements Of Training Staff Well?
While your staff are much more than a machine could ever be, they also require the tools to perform their jobs well. Part of their toolkit is the training they are given. In fact, this could be considered the most fundamental aspect of proper professional functionality within a brand. So, as the leader of that brand, no matter how small and humble, it’s important that you know how to move forward and develop confident training techniques.
But how can you get started in this direction? It’s not always easy to figure out just where you should set the baseline of training, or just how much your staff actually know when they join your firm. Thankfully, provided you give everyone access to the same information, you stay consistent, and you keep updating the training as industry standards suggest, then you’ll always be in the right place.
This means considering the systemic approach to training you take within your brand. It means refining it. With our advice, you’ll be able to perform that task entirely:
Great Onboarding
Great onboarding is important. It helps your new staff know how the little idiosyncrasies of your brand will come to affect their daily life. For this reason, it can be thoroughly interesting and quite freeing for them to have this space to learn, adapt and ultimately master their position within your new firm. From helping them understand the new computer programs you’re using, to showing them around the place and introducing them to various teams, to the little things, such as helping them become familiarized with office documents – great onboarding is essential.
Teach Them How To Act, Not What To Act Like
We mustn’t teach our staff to behave like automatons. They’re not. Instead of telling them what to think, teach them how to think. This is the difference between giving support staff a script, or helping them understand your systems and apply creative solutions to problems. It’s not that you can help train every staff member in every possible problem they may face, rather, giving them the tools and familiarity to understand how to counteract problems, no matter what role they face, within your structure, will be essential.
Review Their Skillsets
Reviewing their skillsets is important. We often see annual staff reviews as a means in which to assess their performance, and that’s fine, because you are paying them at the end of the day. But it’s also worthwhile to figure out if your satisfactorily-performing staff are comfortable in their skillset. Could they use more instruction? Could they use more training? What are they not comfortable with in their daily workloads, or what advice might they have for you in your attempt to structure your business in a manner that aids, not diminishes, your staff? For instance, looking for a Freight Class shipping calculator? Why not teach your staff how to recognize and designate a service worth using? These are worthwhile questions, and those that almost every business leader can come to answer with a little dedicated thought.
With this advice, we hope you can more easily train your staff well, using these key elements by your side.