Employee training is essential for businesses of all sizes, including small businesses. You likely already have an employee onboarding process. But how much have you invested into ongoing education for your employees?
Continuous learning is increasingly important as more businesses see the benefits of ongoing professional development. According to the 2021 Training Industry Report from Training Mag, businesses reported that their employees received an average of 64 hours of training per year, an increase from 55.4 hours in 2020.
Helping your employees advance their careers creates a stronger workforce. Plus, your business can benefit from improved internal knowledge, helping you grow profits sustainably.
With that in mind, let’s review four tips for creating an effective onboarding and continuous training process:
- Create a comprehensive onboarding program.
- Review technology and communication policies.
- Plan opportunities for ongoing education.
- Ask for employee feedback.
Investing in employee success can pay off in the long run, providing a positive ROI for your business.
Create a comprehensive onboarding program
Think back to your first day at a new job—you likely arrived feeling excited but uncertain about what to expect. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed on day one. Thorough onboarding procedures help new employees find their footing faster.
Follow these steps when building your onboarding program:
- Set goals and timelines. What would you like employees to accomplish in their first week, month, or three months on the job? Setting a specific goal helps you understand the training elements you should emphasize in onboarding.
- Develop helpful learning materials. Providing new employees with an onboarding guide or new employee handbook can be effective for getting them up to speed quickly. Make sure your learning materials are stored in a shared drive and contain all of the information you cover during your training sessions.
- Cover essential policies. Set expectations for work hours, remote work, and your code of conduct. In addition, cover your safety and anti-harassment policies.
- Encourage employees to take notes. The onboarding process will contain a lot of information in a short time frame. Remind employees to take notes during each training session to reference throughout onboarding and use until they get comfortable with your business’s processes.
Your onboarding program helps employees get up and running and establish good continuing education habits upfront. When they get used to taking notes or using your online training modules, they’ll feel more comfortable participating in ongoing training opportunities.
Review technology and communication policies
Other training elements you should establish right away include how new employees should use your technology and online marketing tools.
It’s important to maintain your reputation as a trustworthy local business. When you properly train your employees on using your communication and payment systems, you can reduce the possibility of mistakes or security breaches.
Use your onboarding and ongoing training activities to get employees up to speed with using tools like:
- Your payment system. According to Gingr’s payment processing guide, your business’s payment system “facilitate[s] your business’s operations, creating a smooth and streamlined process for you and your customers.” Ensure employees feel comfortable checking customers out or processing refunds using your payment processor.
- Your business software. Whether you run a pet-care business, local bakery, or marketing firm, you likely use some form of business software to handle internal operations like time tracking or payroll. Walk employees through your system and host refresher training whenever new updates or features are released.
- Your email marketing platform. You may have new employees work on creating email marketing campaigns or managing customer service via email. Let them know important details like how to use your email marketing system and protocols for communicating with customers over email.
- Your social media marketing tool. Similarly, your business probably uses social media to spread the word about your products or services and build an organic online audience. Train your employees on social media best practices, such as how to use hashtags and what types of updates to post in your business’s Facebook group.
Review these tools in your onboarding sessions and throughout the year as each platform releases new updates. This ensures you’re making the most of your business’s resources and seeing the highest ROI possible.
Plan opportunities for ongoing education
As mentioned, continuous education offers benefits for both your business and employees. According to a report by LinkedIn Learning, “companies that excel at internal mobility retain employees for an average of 5.4 years, nearly twice as long as companies that struggle with it, where the average retention span is 2.9 years.”
When you focus on improving your employee retention, you can develop a more stable workplace and maintain a happier staff. With this in mind, here are a few opportunities to consider to facilitate ongoing learning:
- Workplace learning. Continuous workplace training includes regular training seminars, book club discussions, and online courses. Make sure employees have time in their schedules each month to devote themselves to these educational opportunities.
- Employee coaching. RealHRSolutions defines employee coaching as a collaborative process where coaches provide direction and recognition to help employees reach professional goals. You might set up coaching relationships between managers and their direct reports or long-time employees and new employees.
- Conferences allow business leaders and professionals to come together and discuss important issues that affect everyone in the sector. Attending or speaking at a conference allows employees to connect with fellow professionals in the industry and further their professional development.
Build these ongoing educational opportunities into your business’s calendar. For example, you might schedule a once-a-month meeting for employees to work through a training session together. This solidifies employee learning as a business priority.
Ask for employee feedback
Your continuous learning efforts are meant to benefit your employees, so they should have a say in the types of training activities they participate in.
Gather employee feedback to determine whether your training sessions are effective, gauge which educational topics employees are most interested in, and gain insight into the success of your onboarding program.
Ask for employee feedback by sending surveys with questions like:
- What was the most effective aspect of the onboarding process?
- What was the least effective aspect of the onboarding process?
- What additional ongoing training opportunities are you most interested in?
- What topics would you like to cover in our next training session?
- Are there any upcoming industry conferences you are interested in attending?
Respond to the feedback you receive by incorporating employees’ ideas and input into upcoming training sessions or your onboarding approach.
Your small business should prioritize ongoing employee training just as larger businesses do. It can help you foster a more experienced workforce, which can ultimately boost your employee retention and help your business thrive.
