Training a new employee can be daunting. What skills do they already have? What skills do they need? Are there tools they need to learn about? Procedures? Is there anything they need to unlearn? I expect I’ll address all of these questions in future posts, but today I want to offer a single, simple goal that might provide some focus.
Give your trainee the knowledge they need to ask good questions.
Starting a new job is also daunting from the employee’s perspective. Even if they have experience with similar jobs, there is always something new to learn, and the hardest part can be that they don’t know what they don’t know. If the first goal of training is to provide a framework of expectations, this can free the new employee to take some agency in their own training – by asking good questions.
“Great, Tapley,” I can hear you saying, “but how exactly do I achieve this ‘simple’ goal?”
Start with the job description:
- What are the specific tasks this employee will be expected to perform?
- Are there any tools the employee will need to use?
- Are there any results for them to achieve?
- Are there any consequences for them to avoid?
Use the answers to these questions to create that framework of expectations I mentioned above, and then discuss it with your new employee.
If they know they are expected to log certain transactions in a spreadsheet, for example, that opens the door to questions about those transactions, about using the spreadsheet, about when in the workday they would perform this task. Once you are confident that they are comfortable asking questions, and they have the context they need to ask good, useful questions, the training process can become a partnership with the two of you working together to turn your new employee into a knowledgeable and productive member of the team.
Tell me, what are some of the good questions that your new employees have asked? What are some you wish they would ask – and is there a way you could open the door to those questions?