Let’s say you lose a key member of your staff and it takes you 6 months to get the replacement hired.

You’re really desperate to get that position filled so that some pressure is taken off the rest of your team and so that any tasks that were put on hold as the position was vacant can resume.

Even with those two critical factors, it’s vital to your continued success to take the time to properly train your new staff member.

4 reasons why you should train your staff 

1. There’s a difference between skills and knowledge

What if that person comes to you highly qualified with the exact skills you need?

Even in that instance, this person is not going to be familiar with the way that you do things. They are not going to immediately understand your culture, corporate policies, and expectations.

Even though this new hire may have key skills, he or she doesn’t have key knowledge.

2. Training adds knowledge

Good training helps your new hires to acquire key knowledge.

Finding the time to properly train your staff is a struggle for almost any company or organization in any business sector.

“It would be great if you could hire employees who could ‘hit the ground running’, but this just isn’t reality.  “Good training is one of the most critical components of supporting your staff and giving them the tools they need to succeed and to help you succeed.”

It’s true. Several things will be missing as a new hire begins his or her first day with no training.

• Knowledge of company-specific use of technologies and work tools
• Knowledge of unique policies and procedures
• Establishment of realistic expectations
• Knowledge of staff expertise
• Insight into undocumented pecking order
• Understanding of chain of command and hierarchy
• Recognition of communication cues
• Syncing up with workplace rhythm

Each of these components plays a part in the value the new hire is able to contribute.

And the sooner your new hire feels valuable, the more confidence he or she will have in their new role and that confidence means greater contributions to come.

“An untrained employee is like a deer in the headlights. They spend too much time frozen without any knowledge of what should be done. As an employer, it’s my responsibility to do what I can do to keep that from happening. Training is the best path to ensuring new hire success.”

3. Training is a good investment

The cost of training is a good investment to make in the success of hires.

Trained employees:

• Work more efficiently
• Get ramped up with less guidance
• Are more in-tune with leadership
• Develop stronger loyalty to your company

It’s important to offer training that fits how your new hires want to learn and learn best.

This may be through self-paced videos, printed guides, group classroom learning, off-site vendor classes, one-on-one guidance, and shadowing.

You may have employees who want someone sitting by their side and others who are perfectly comfortable watching videos in their PJs. Your company may require product or services knowledge, project management tools skills and policies and procedures instruction. And with some jobs, that’s just the beginning. There are also customers to meet, vendor relationships to understand, supplies to become acquainted with, and forms and codes to learn.

Whether training takes 2 weeks or 2 months, it’s worth it to have a new hire that is ready to be a contributing employee.

4. Fear of lost investment when employees leave

Losing employees is always a possibility. However, good training encourages employees to stick with you so the potential for loss of investment actually drops when training is provided.

Training can be provided via videos on a private YouTube channel or company portal that reduce investment costs. This is convenient for the employee and for the staff that is responsible for training. It keeps your existing employees on task and doesn’t distract them and interrupt their responsibilities to train someone else. Video training also maintains a standard of training that is practically impossible with live training.

Including company values and culture with skills training attaches a sense of responsibility and inclusiveness that new employees appreciate. They feel responsible as a part of the team and become committed to doing their part.

Training that improves or teaches skills that will be valuable to the employee regardless of where they work also provides a value to the employee that subliminally obligates them to your company.

“Your investment in the employee returns to you in the traits that your training has developed and you’ve mitigated your potential loss of investment. You have a highly-prepared and skilled employee with a commitment to their team and loyalty to your company.”

Training opportunities through Jackrabbit Class

Jackrabbit makes training employees simple.

Training on the softwares that help your business operate is one of the most critical components to your new hire training.

Jackrabbit makes it easy for new hires in organizations using its software to get training. Training is provided in multiple formats and on platforms that users can access long after they’re considered new.

This is very important to ensure that users are brought up to speed quickly and can refresh skills that they don’t use frequently. 

Believers in Assistance and Education

From onboarding services and jumpstart coaches to training videos, training webinars, online guides, a comprehensive online help center, classroom training, and the industry’s only user conferences, Jackrabbit takes care of its users in a big way. Jackrabbit’s Education Team looks at the topics that are the center of users’ questions and concerns and creates learning in response. Jackrabbit truly believes in providing the best learning tools and opportunities for users, new and seasoned!

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“We’re passionate about several things: excellence in software standards and development, providing the best and most helpful support and services that we possibly can, and continuously making our users more proficient with our software. After all, helping our users to develop also helps us to improve the software to stay ahead of what they need. And Jackrabbit always wants to be designing and developing ahead of the curve.”

Mark Mahoney, president and co-founder of Jackrabbit Technologies.