Caroline Rekar: Associate professor, leadership and HR, University of Victoria
To be industry leaders in today's global economy requires commitment to training. Training employees to be good at their jobs and to contribute to your company helps you meet your business goals and brands you as an employer of choice.
Here are five guidelines for training new hires:
•Contextualize learning by communicating "the big picture." Along with communicating goals, mutual expectations for working together, job instructions and standards, provide realistic expectations of how their job contributes to the organization. Young new hires want to know how they can add value to your business. Invite them to departmental meetings early in their employment, include them in discussions, and involve them in initiatives where the input from the next generation of workers might be beneficial.
•Explain "why". Convey the rationale behind what you expect. This results in new hires taking pride in their work, being conscientious in completing tasks and being less likely to take short cuts that may be detrimental to the quality of final products or services.
•Provide frequent and direct feedback. Meet regularly to acknowledge achievements and contributions and to discuss further development. Treat these meetings as coaching conversations focused on behaviours you want them to continue, stop and start doing.
•Capitalize on e-learning. Consider how instruction can be delivered using computer, networked and web-based technology. Young hires are digitally savvy and instinctively search for information online before asking others for assistance. Online learning allows them to learn in a familiar and self-directed manner.
•Model the way. New hires will watch and listen for clues on acceptable behaviour. They will perceive you as a credible mentor when your actions mirror your messages. You play a key role in shaping aspiring leaders.
Amanda List: Employee development consultant, Amanda List and Associates
Young new hires entering the workforce have an abundance of confidence and enthusiasm that can inject new life into an organization. However, they may lack the know-how gained through experience. The trick to training and mentoring new hires is supporting them to gain the know-how without dampening their enthusiasm or damaging their self-confidence. To achieve this requires a shift in our approach to training and mentoring to a coaching approach.
These seven steps will support this shift.
•Determine their baseline. Rather than assume they are starting at ground zero, through observation and questions determine the new hire's true starting point.
•Development plan. Based on the new hire's current starting point, work with them to create a plan for their development that you are both invested in.
•Communicate. As they work through the plan communicate regularly and often. When working with a new hire there is no such thing as over-communication.
•Actively listen. Ask open-ended (what, where, when and how) questions to solicit information and rephrase or repeat what has been heard to achieve a common understanding. Try to avoid asking "why" questions as they may be interpreted as negative or accusatory.
•Feedback. Regularly include feedback on successes as well as areas that required correction.
•Solicit ideas for improvement. The new hire is coming in with a fresh set of eyes. Let them know they are an integral part of the organization by asking them for suggestions on ways to improve.
•Recognition. Find out how they like to be recognized and use formal and informal recognition to reinforce behaviours you want to see repeated and maintained.
Incorporating a coaching approach to new hires creates a positive experience for the coach and the new hire while achieving great results for the organization.
Ashifa Dhanani: Director, customer service, Industry Training Authority
When training young new hires there are a few things you need to think about.
Flexible training: Training young new hires is about being flexible to suit individual styles. For customer service teams, a mix of training methods from classroom to quizzes to shadowing others helps with different learning styles.
Foster healthy competition: Mentoring is about building confidence and giving stretch goals while fostering a healthy competitive workplace. Young people have so many ideas, and it is important to encourage sharing of opinions right from their first day on the job.
Listen and act on input: Recognize and acknowledge contributions because this makes people feel valued. Don't just ask and listen – implement their ideas.
Benchmark scores and coaching: To foster a healthy learning and competitive environment, organizations should implement quality benchmark scores for achievement, with coaching at both peer and supervisor levels. It's a fine balance between encouraging productivity and finding ways to have fun.
Celebrate successes: Stagger achievements so hires feel they are accomplishing all along the learning curve rather than at the end, and celebrate each milestone.
Provide ongoing feedback: Young workers thrive on continuous input and feedback from their managers; they need to feel that they are valued.
Ensure opportunities for continued learning: Make sure young workers are aware that the learning is continuous within your work environment and provide opportunities for growing their careers.
Be transparent and committed to a high level: Younger generations have high expectations of their bosses and expect full transparency, open communication and managers that are themselves highly committed to a high level of work expertise.
