New Employee Onboarding

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When it comes to your company’s onboarding program, forget about “The Jones’s”

14/11/12
New Employee Onboarding

We work with lots of different companies and they all feel they are unique. There is one area in which this is absolutely true: your new employee onboarding program.

Yet, since we work with many leading company, we are always asked, “what does so-and-so do for their new employees”?And my answer is always the same… “It doesn’t matter.”

I get that you want to copy best practices, especially if the company you’re attempting to copy is successful, but onboarding is definitely where you shouldn’t worry about what “The Jones’s” are doing.

Why? Because it’s one of the most unique program you should have at your company. Your new employees have a unique set of needs and what works for another company might not work for yours. There is no tool or technology or solution that is “one-size-fits-all.”

In our research, we’ve seen two companies with the exact same program. In one company it was a success. In the other it failed because the program did not meet the needs of those particular new employees.

ONLY through an analysis of your company’s new employees’ needs can you design the RIGHT program for you.

Check out Novita’s “Navigator: Personal Onboarding Coaching”. We coach you step-by-step through the process of analyzing, designing and building your company’s onboarding program. Click here to learn more or contact us.

 

Advertising Your Training: The Final Step

13/11/12
Blog Employee Training Franchise Training New Employee Onboarding

Having held the position of Creative Director at several advertising agencies before I entered the training field, I am troubled by the “if we build it, they will come” attitude that is prevalent in the training field.

Many training departments are under the false impression that employees are eager to take their training or even know why they must. Advertisers know they are a nuisance – an intrusion into people’s lives – and Training professionals could learn something from them.

The training development process should not end when the product is complete. The final step is creating a campaign to advertise the program internally to employees (just like Apple, Life Cereal and Honda Cars) in order to get employees and employers excited about the training.

So you must swallow your pride and put away the misconception that people want to learn. I know this sounds extreme and unrealistic (and it is), but think of it as your motivation for creating an effective internal advertising campaign. Advertisers do.

Sure, you’ve got a great training program from which everyone will benefit immensely, but the employees in your company are bombarded with internal information in the form of announcements, meetings, company newsletters, intranets, and gossip. Why should they pay attention to your training?

The challenge is to grab people’s attention and tell them why. But how? The same way advertisers do it: by creating an advertising plan.

Novita Training can teach you how or do it for you. Contact us to learn more.

Here’s a Sure-Fire Way to Get Your Training Budget Approved

08/11/12
Blog Employee Training Franchise Training New Employee Onboarding

Did you ever notice that people with certain “reputations” get treated differently? For example, let’s say growing-up you had a sibling who was known as the “good one”. They probably weren’t questioned as hard when someone broke the lamp… they got the benefit of the doubt.

Well, unfortunately, the same works in reverse. For example, there have been several studies conducted over the past few years that state that CFO’s approve about half the projects put before them for funding, but only approve about 10% of those projects that are HR/Training related. The reason given? HR/Training projects are normally “heavy on emotion but weak on data.”

So you’re probably not going to get the benefit of the doubt when you go to get your budget approved.

How do you overcome this? By establishing a reputation for providing data. Do it once, maybe twice and suddenly your reputation changes and getting your projects approved for funding becomes easier.

So you need an initiative with tons of data. Onboarding, for example. Spending money to improve your new employee onboarding is one of the few HR/Training projects that’s easy to measure and “prove” the ROI. And it’s a great way to make an impression on the leaders in your organization. This way when you present your next proposal or budget, you are already starting from a positive reputation.

Not sure how to go about improving your new employee onboarding, contact us and we’ll show you.


Your training doesn’t have to stink!

18/10/12
Blog Employee Training Franchise Training New Employee Onboarding

Many managers and executives complain about the training their company offers and you know what? Many of you are right. The percentage of quality training out there is low.

But as managers and executives, you have to take some of the responsibility. YOU have considerable influence over the training that your organization offers its employees. This influence comes in FIVE forms:

  1. Demand quality training AND FUND IT. You can’t create gold-standard training with a shoestring budget.
  2. Bring in experts. I don’t mean expert speakers (although sometimes that’s needed) but experts who can help you create better training. Most training departments are short on people and skills. Experts, of course, cost money, see point #1.
  3. Share your training needs with your Training department. They’re not mind-readers. Help them diagnose your training needs. Not sure how, see point #2.
  4. Provide feedback on the training currently being offered. Not smile sheets but real data. You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Not sure how to measure, see point #2.
  5. Participate in the development of training. You know your employees best and should contribute your TIME and KNOWLEDGE.  And yes it takes LOTS of time. Don’t have the time, see point #2.

Still not sure if you can or want or need to or should? See point #2 or contact us as a start.


Social Media as a Learning “Development” Tool

21/06/12
Blog Employee Training Franchise Training New Employee Onboarding

[subscribelocker]There’s been much to-do recently about social media as a learning delivery tool, but there’s not much being said about social media as a learning development tool. And that’s a shame because it can be quite powerful. If you think about it, one of the greatest struggles for training professionals (and organizations as a whole) is accessing good content upon which to build your learning programs. Effective and available SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) are notoriously elusive.

So why limit yourself to just a few people within your organization, when you could access the entire organization through social media? What’s more, what better way for your employees to feel invested in your training than by including them in the development?!

It can be leveraged for straight content, but is most useful for best-practices and case studies, not to mention common issues and challenges that your training should address. In other words, real-world examples that we all love to include and that learners love to see (relevancy!).

So, next time you’re pulling your hair out because your SME has gone missing or can’t provide the situations you need to build your situational learning, blast out a request to the entire organization. You’ll be surprised how many useful, thoughtful, insightful responses you’ll get.[/subscribelocker]

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