Do you know how easy new employee onboarding is at your company? How long has it been since you were onboarded at a company? For me, that answer would be a very long time. It has been so long that I no longer remember it.
If you’re tired of seeing new employees struggle to adapt to your company’s technology, then this post will help give you some ideas. If employees aren’t onboarded properly, you will have some unhappy employees.
And what’s an essential part of onboarding employees? Corporate technical training that introduces them to your company’s technology and how to use it effectively and correctly.
Do you know how many applications employees need to use in their jobs? A lot. The answer is a lot.
We’ll jump into the world of employee onboarding and explore the best practices for integrating technical training into the onboarding process. When onboarding new employees, companies often focus on introducing them to the company culture, policies, and procedures. However, one crucial aspect frequently overlooked is providing adequate training on the technology and tools they use daily.
Without the necessary technical skills, employees will likely feel lost and frustrated, resulting in decreased productivity and engagement. Unless they’re a tech wizard, there’s a good chance they’ll need some help.
Technical training is part of a well-rounded onboarding diet for new hires.
That’s why implementing technical training for employees in onboarding is essential. By equipping new hires with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate your company’s technology, you can ensure a smooth transition and set them up for success from day one.
But how exactly should you incorporate technical training into your onboarding process? That’s why we’re here to help you. This post explores various strategies and techniques to help you seamlessly integrate technical training into employee onboarding programs.
From identifying the key areas of training to creating engaging and interactive learning experiences, we’ll cover the essential parts to get you started.
Get ready to revolutionize your onboarding process and empower your employees with the technical skills they need to thrive in the digital age. It’s helpful first to understand the importance of technical training for employees during onboarding.
The Importance of Technical Training in Employee Onboarding
Without the necessary technical skills, employees are likely to feel lost and frustrated. That almost always results in decreased productivity and engagement. Starting a new job feels like drinking from a firehose.
A significant portion of the overwhelm stems from company technology for most employees (yes, even younger generations are not tech gurus by default). That’s why implementing technical training for employees in onboarding is essential.
By equipping new hires with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate your company’s technology, you can ensure a smooth transition and set them up for success from day one. If employees don’t feel well-trained, then turnover will likely be high.
One of the most important aspects of technical training in employee onboarding is to minimize employee turnover. Yes, corporate technical training will reduce employee turnover, guaranteed.
Without good technical training new hires will feel like they’re drinking from a firehose.
During onboarding, it’s essential to provide comprehensive technical training, ranging from a high-level overview to more detailed guidance on essential tasks. Acquiring technical skills benefits individual employees and contributes to the organization’s overall success.
By investing in their development from the outset, you demonstrate your commitment to employee growth and foster a positive work environment.
Identifying the Key Areas of Technical Training
The first step in implementing technical training into your employee onboarding program is identifying the key areas employees need to succeed in their roles. This varies depending on your industry and specific job roles within your organization.
A personalized playlist for each major role is helpful, allowing training to be customized and enabling individuals to become familiar with the technology relevant to their specific role.
Begin by analyzing the technology requirements for each role. You should ask these important questions.
- What applications do all employees need to use?
- What applications do specific roles need to use?
- Are there any specific technical skills they should possess unrelated to an application?
By thoroughly analyzing these requirements, you can identify the core areas that must be covered during training.
Consider any upcoming technological changes that may impact your employees’ roles and responsibilities. There should be no surprises, which means the onboarding process should always be up-to-date.
Assessing the Current Skill Levels of New Hires
Don’t require all new hires to undergo all training. Unless training is necessary to do the job, make it optional. You may not know every new hire’s skill level, so they can decide what training they need.
Rather than trying to determine their level, empower them to choose their skill level and what they need. Give employees the time and resources to get up to speed on the necessary tools, but ultimately empower them to make the decisions.
Knowing where new hires start will help you create a good path for their technical training.
This will help them tailor the training to their needs and avoid wasting time on topics they’re already proficient in. Make them aware of what they need to know once ramped up in their role, but allow them to choose most of their path.
This builds trust and empowers them to develop their skills for their role.
While there’s likely specific training for systems that employees won’t be familiar with, they will be familiar with some tools. Only make training required for systems that they must know and that are very specific to your organization.
Designing a Comprehensive Technical Training Curriculum
Once you identify the key areas of technical training and assess the skill levels of your new hires, it’s time to design the most helpful training that covers the right topics in the right amounts.
Don’t be fooled by the word comprehensive. Nothing is comprehensive, nor should it be. It should be the exact amount required in as little time and content as necessary to complete the job.
If you try to take the comprehensive route, you’re likely to overwhelm employees and lead them into the dreaded realm of ‘train brain‘. Make sure each topic is sufficiently broken down into manageable chunks. That could be courses, modules, lessons, or even job aids and help articles.
Don’t be afraid to leverage performance support. It’s an extremely powerful option for training that’s often forgotten.
Training content should include only what employees need soon after training. Here’s a trick: Make sure employees have plentiful resources available so they can help themselves (don’t let them develop a sense of helplessness). However, ensure that all training points them towards the resources where they can help themselves.
New hires are extra vulnerable to being overwhelmed with training that’s too long and has too much content.
New hires should have available onboarding communities on the enterprise social network. It’s a great place to provide technical training support. It also means that any questions and answers are on display for all other new hires.
That’s a valuable resource!
Ensure the corporate technical training includes real-world practice, not just theoretical or boringly process-driven training (click here, then here, now here). Corporate technical training isn’t all about simple software tutorials. That can become a snooze fest real quick.
One of our favorite types of workplace technology training is realistic software simulations, a powerful way to provide hands-on, real-world experience to employees in a safe environment. Scenario-based technical training helps employees truly connect with the training by equipping them with skills they’re likely to encounter in their work. These are valuable resources for connecting the dots between technical and soft skills.
These real-life examples and case studies make your onboarding more relatable and practical. This “hands-on” approach reinforces their learning and boosts their confidence in using company technology effectively.
Focus On What’s Needed at Each Level to Scaffold Training
To ensure a smooth learning experience for new hires, it’s important to scaffold training bit by bit. That means starting slowly without overwhelming employees and building a solid foundation to establish knowledge.
It’s beneficial for them to know what software tools your organization has and what each tool does, as a basis for knowledge. With that, you can then piece together the vital information about how they connect and how each one works (and sometimes work together).
Begin with foundational concepts and gradually progress to more advanced topics as needed. Remember, no course or resource is meant to make someone a pro.
Scaffolding training ensures employees get only what they need when they need it.
Mastery comes with time, and that’s likely not necessary for a while. Provide employees with what they need to succeed on days 30, 60, 90, and beyond. Providing resources and support materials at each level helps employees build upon their existing knowledge and skills while not feeling overwhelmed.
For example, if you have employees with varying proficiency levels in a particular software program, offer different training modules or tracks based on their skill levels. This way, employees can progress at their own pace and focus on what they need to learn for their specific job role.
Focus on performance and ensure that each resource provides employees with only what they need to know in the short term, nothing more. Don’t tell them what they might need to know in a month; that won’t help anyone.
Providing Ongoing Support and Resources for Continued Learning
I mentioned this throughout this post, but it’s important enough to warrant its own section. Always ensure that new hires have access to ongoing support and resources.
If you don’t want employees to develop helplessness, provide them with the resources to help themselves. That means there should be one source of truth where they can search for knowledge. Don’t separate information among your intranet, knowledge base, and service desk support pages.
Keep all the resources together and make them easy to search. Otherwise, employees won’t know where to look, and they’ll call the help desk. The training resource’s job is to reduce calls to the help desk, not increase them.
Providing ongoing support for new hires is as important as the onboarding process itself.
Here are some ways (some I mentioned already) to ensure new hires have the necessary resources.
- A dedicated Q&A community for new hires on your enterprise social network (ESN).
- One source of knowledge that searches all resources.
- A dedicated support contact who knows they’re dealing with new hires.
- When possible, point them to where they can find the answer rather than providing it directly.
Technical training shouldn’t stop once the onboarding process is complete. To ensure continuous growth and development, it’s essential to provide ongoing support and resources for employees to expand their technical skills even after they have been onboarded.
Create a learning culture within your organization by encouraging employees to find answers. We worked on a project to create multiple short videos that helped employees resolve issues for which the help desk received the most calls.
If new hires have nowhere they feel comfortable asking questions, then they’re going to feel uncomfortable at their job.
That way, when the help desk receives tickets and calls about an issue, they can direct users to resources that will help them resolve the problem themselves. That saves time in providing support and enables employees to help themselves.
Just be sure training videos aren’t your answer to everything; videos aren’t always the best solution for technical training.
Wrap Up
Implementing technical training as part of the employee onboarding process is crucial for setting new hires up for success. By identifying the key areas of training, assessing skill levels, and designing a comprehensive curriculum, you can ensure employees have the necessary technical skills to excel in their roles.
Don’t assume younger employees are being hired with all the technical skills, though. They’re not. Surveys indicate that it’s one of the most sought-after types of training. Not every employee is comfortable with technology, so support them as well.
Remember to tailor the training to individual skill levels and provide ongoing support and resources to facilitate continued learning. By empowering your employees with the skills they need, you invest in their professional growth and contribute to your organization’s overall success.
That means you’ll increase the chance they’ll stick around for longer and be valuable employees who thrive.
So, take the necessary steps to integrate technical training into your employee onboarding program and watch your team members thrive in the digital age. Schedule a free consultation to discuss how we can help make your new employee onboarding programs thrive with top-notch corporate technical training.