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Why should you assume that employees need to be trained from scratch?
Should you assume that your employees need to be trained from scratch? Does this change if they're fresh out of college, or have similar experience with another business?
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4 Answers
Employees need to be trained from scratch in the sense they need to be provided insight into the nature of the business, product, operation, culture, etc. But, I would offer that basic skills are basic skills. A person, regardless of education or experience with another business has interpersonal skills or they don't. They have an inclination towards organization, or they don't . They have strong ambition, or they don't. While these things can be cultivated, I try to profile candidates that display these skills organically. Obviously it depends on the job in question, but as a general rule, I think everyone is capable: it's a matter of sifting through those with a mediocre ethic and finding the strongest eggs.
We have a core belief at Turpin Communication that our learners are not blank slates. They have experiences, habits and assumptions that must be acknowledged and accommodated.
Understanding this and tailoring the training accordingly is the only way to ensure that training is relevant and applicable.
Our core business is Presentation & Facilitation Skills Training, but I would suggest that this core belief would apply to all kinds of workplace learning.
If you’re interested, my colleague, Dale Ludwig, wrote a White Paper with this concept front and center. You can access it by going to our home page and clicking on the link under the video. It’s called “Getting Past 101.”
Greg Owen-Boger
VP & Trainer, Turpin Communication
Anytime you use the word assume you are setting yourself up for failure.
If you only do it your way you will never learn any new ways of doing things.
It's important to try not to compartmentalize your learners i.e. fresh out of college, old pro, etc. as this labels them with an educational bias and in the long run might skew your approach to teaching them. If you have the bandwidth to perform needs/skills assessment training prior to teaching employees on a task, it will give you a much clearer image into what their abilities are like and what the training plan should in fact look like to teach these people. This alone might save you countless hours of teaching material that could've been glossed over or gone over in-depth.
In my experience, any net-new program, application or requirement should be trained from the ground floor up to ensure continuity amongst the class. In order to avoid a rift in the acquisition of new knowledge, learners should be on level ground (or as close to level ground as possible). While you may find some people that have a working or fictional knowledge of the new material, on the whole, the class should have the ability to learn together. If you do happen to have an individual or individuals with advanced knowledge or a particular topic, then utilize them as an in-class mentor for the less-experienced employees. Alternatively, if there are several qualified staff, run the training as a skills refresher for that group rather than net-new training.
If the content is more of an add on to their existing spectrum of knowledge, then roll out content in pre/post shift meetings, small focus groups or even desk drop scenarios; all with the opportunity for additional clarification time if needed. This saves on both training hours and employee engagement.
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