Although you may not be able to imagine your work life without your nonprofit’s leaders and their guidance, even the top changemakers at your organization were once new hires. What has made them the successful leaders they are today?
While their years of experience certainly help, proper training can give new hires a leg up and put them on the path to success. Training new team members to not just be productive but also effective in their roles can lead to better outcomes for individuals and the nonprofit as a whole. Explore these tips for upgrading your training program and transforming new hires into potential leaders.
1. Tailor training to each team member’s needs.
Not everyone learns the same way or needs the same training. While you should find a balance between generalized training and a different training program for each team member, here are some strategies you can implement to personalize the training process:
- Issue self-assessments. No one knows what you’re capable of better than yourself. By issuing self-assessments to new hires, you can gain a better understanding of their prior knowledge and learning styles. That way, you can analyze what content you’ll need to include in training and how to adapt your training materials to different formats to serve various learning styles, such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and interpersonal.
- Consider prior experience. While individuals know their strengths best, your team knows its work best. Review each new hire’s job history to identify skills that overlap with their new roles. Then, ensure your training program covers any skill gaps.
- Develop specialized training for different roles. While you may receive general training for organization-wide operations, other roles will require specialized training. Break new hires into separate groups by department, such as fundraising, programming, and volunteer management, so that they can learn more about their specific roles in depth.
Along the way, check in with new hires to ensure training suits their needs. For instance, you may find that one of your new hires used the same project management system at their previous organization, allowing them to skip that part of the training to expedite the process.
2. Create an interactive training experience.
Making training more interactive creates a more memorable experience that helps new hires retain the training material. Additionally, hands-on training is more engaging, providing new hires with a positive first impression of your nonprofit.
You may make your training program more interactive by:
- Implementing roleplaying exercises. Mimicking real-world scenarios can help new hires apply what they’ve learned in a low-stakes setting. For example, let’s say you’d like new hires to practice donor stewardship techniques. You can create fake donor personas and stage phone calls with these donors, allowing new hires to learn what makes an effective donor thank-you call through hands-on experience.
- Putting team members in donors’ shoes. Conversely, acquainting new hires with the donor perspective can help them approach their roles with a deeper understanding of the people they’re serving. For instance, you may have new hires navigate your donation page so they understand exactly what donors experience and can assist them in troubleshooting during the donation process.
- Hosting peer-to-peer learning sessions. You’ve heard of peer-to-peer campaigns, but what about peer-to-peer learning? Have new hires come together to reflect on what they’ve learned and offer any insights that might help their fellow team members succeed.
Interactive training elements also help to break the ice among new hires and build camaraderie. A study by Gallup revealed that having a close friend at work increases employees’ likelihood of recommending their employer, staying with their current organization, and being satisfied with their workplace. Therefore, please encourage them to get to know each other throughout the training process.
3. Ensure team members can effectively use relevant tools.
By the end of the training process, new hires should be familiar with the tools they’ll need to use regularly and how to leverage them effectively. Build an understanding of your top tools and resources by:
- Hosting technology workshops. Lead sessions demonstrating how to use tools in your tech stack, like artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, your constituent relationship management system (CRM), fundraising tools, and marketing software.
- Highlighting unique features. While you should familiarize new hires with the basics of each platform, don’t forget to point out the special features that can add greater value or save time. For example, Bloomerang’s nonprofit CRM guide explains that top platforms will have features like supporter timelines that allow you to dive deeper into each donor’s engagement history with your organization.
- Reviewing cybersecurity best practices. Keeping donor data safe should be a top priority. Help new hires uphold cybersecurity by teaching them how to create effective passwords, use multi-factor authentication, and enable data encryption.
At the end of the training process, consider testing new hires’ knowledge by giving them tasks to complete within your different systems and evaluating their execution. For example, you may instruct them to add a new record to your CRM or automate an email campaign.
4. Develop leadership skills.
Fostering a positive leadership culture starts with instilling leadership skills from the onset. Help new hires build their leadership capabilities and envision a future at your organization by:
- Creating a mentorship program. Pairing new hires with mentors can help them learn from organization leaders, ease into their roles, and hone their skills. Bell and Howell’s new hire mentorship program found that “Mentees have demonstrated improved confidence and faster skill acquisition, reducing their onboarding time by 20 percent. Additionally, 85 percent of new hires report higher satisfaction with the mentorship experience compared to previous onboarding processes.”
- Offering leadership coaching sessions. In addition to one-on-one mentoring, nonprofit leaders can offer advice on broader topics such as strategic planning, decision-making, and conflict resolution within the workplace. Allow new hires to ask questions to get the most out of these sessions.
- Making promotion requirements transparent. Inform new hires of the tasks they must complete to advance to the next level upfront. That way, they can focus on building the necessary skills and preparing themselves to advance.
Consider offering other leadership skill-building opportunities throughout employees’ time at your organization, such as a book club featuring leadership-related titles or monthly webinars featuring different organizational leaders.
5. Encourage a learning-oriented culture.
Employees should never stop learning and growing during their tenure at your nonprofit. Instill a culture of continuous improvement and innovation by implementing the following strategies:
- Discuss industry-relevant news. Keep employees informed about news and trends affecting their work and the industry at large. For instance, you may assign a different team member each week to compile and present the top three most relevant news stories to the rest of the team.
- Support external learning opportunities. Encourage employees to take advantage of other learning opportunities. Provide stipends or free access to online courses, conferences, or certification programs that can help team members expand their knowledge.
- Recognize employees who prioritize learning. Demonstrate your organization’s commitment to learning by publicly acknowledging employees who complete various training programs or attend conferences. You may also reward this drive for knowledge with increased pay or bonuses.
Learning opportunities are also a strong employee retention tool. Ninety-four percent of employees claim they would remain at a company if it invested in helping them learn, so developing this type of company culture can help you attract and retain top talent.
While these tips will help you provide a more enriching and meaningful training experience, every new hire and organization is different. Throughout the process, gather feedback from new hires and staff to determine what is working well and what needs to be changed to improve your program.
