In a dynamic workforce that comprises so many levels of skill and talent, it is to be expected that your members will find themselves looking for additional opportunities and ways to branch out. In most cases, stagnant employees are dissatisfied employees.
To keep your workforce happy, you might want to cater to their need to feel valued, or you might be looking at high turnover rates.
Did you know that approximately 40% of students that enter the auto service industry will leave within two years? When nearly half of your workforce is turning over every two years, it can be difficult to stay on top of the training needs of your service employees. There is one way to combat this lack of retention, and that is to establish a culture of learning and development.
By offering the appropriate development paths for your employees and network members, you can ensure that new skills are offered and developed to promote a culture of growth and learning in your workforce. Demonstrating that you are invested in the growth of your network is the key to retaining talent.
Strengthen the skills of your employees by establishing a well-defined development plan for each role within your network. With this framework, you can maintain a dynamic workforce in an ever-evolving industry.
Starting Off on the Right Foot
Orientation is important. It’s what sets the tone and expectations of your staff from day one. It is critical to provide a comprehensive orientation program for your new hires to familiarize themselves with the organization’s culture, values, and goals.
This program should include introducing them to team members and representatives from other areas that they may work with frequently. Give your new hires a big-picture overview of their role and how it fits in the organization as well as the other areas they will need to leverage or correspond with.
Opening these channels of communication with your new hires allows them to build relationships within your organization, encourages questions in moments of uncertainty, and establishes a mentorship of existing members to guide the new hire in their role.
In addition to a solid overview of their position within the organization, you will want to clearly define the job description of your new hire. Giving them a firm understanding of their roles and responsibilities within your organization will give them confidence in their position. New hires who understand their daily tasks and goals are more apt to achieve them regularly.
Discuss the expectations you have for their performance, including how it will be measured against key performance indicators (KPIs) and any specific milestones they should strive to achieve.
Training Program
Once your employees are properly onboarded and have a firm understanding of where they fit into your organization, you’ll want to perform a training needs assessment. These assessments are critical to the new hire adjusting to their training program. With the ability to gain insight into your new hires’ current understanding of their role and what skills they are competent in versus which skills need improvement, you can customize their training plan.
Interviews, skill assessments, or a thorough conversation with them about previous work experience can help identify any training gaps. This will help you build a relationship with your new hire by understanding their strengths and areas that require improvement.
Once you understand the learning needs of your employee, you can customize their training plan. Their plan can include a combination of formal training programs, workshops, online courses, mentoring, and on-the-job training. This will ensure that they have the skills and knowledge appropriate to excel in their role and will help them feel valued as a member of your organization.
Valued employees are retained employees. Retention is the cure to your constant frustration of stress and expenses that correspond with frequent turnover. When you are constantly devoting resources to training just to lose those that have been trained, it can feel defeating trying to manage your workforce.
Giving your employees an environment where they feel valued and a clear path that shows you are invested in their development will increase not only the quality of work you get out of your workforce but the retention of your members.
Mentorship
Another component of retention is providing mentorship. Giving new hires someone they can turn to that is familiar with the ins and outs of their role is a valuable resource. A mentor can provide guidance, support, and answer any questions. Your new hire’s mentor can be an experienced employee from the same department or a senior staff member who can offer insights and help the new employee navigate their role effectively.
Mentors can also provide insight to the new hire of roles that they can expand into based upon the skill sets they witness. Experienced members of your organization have a firm understanding of the different departments and areas that their skills overlap with. They can help guide your new hires to develop additional skills to become more dynamic within the organization.
The relationship of a mentor can also streamline a new or transitioning employee’s efficiency. When working with someone who is very familiar with their role, your employees can learn from their mentor’s mistakes and past experiences. This can provide a buffer for errors and increase their learning curve.
Vision and Opportunity
New hires, as they get established and settled in, need to know where they are going, what opportunities they have to grow into, and find where they can succeed. Too often, in service organizations, new hires are seen as filling a job, not pursuing a career. If positioned that way, there is a high likelihood that they will look elsewhere to find a culture and fit that is better suited to their pursuits.
Service organizations that embrace this vision of a career for their new hires set them on a different trajectory with more long-term benefits and retention opportunities. Likewise, new hires that come in with that career mindset and receive support from the organization, their manager, and mentors are the ones that stay in the industry for the long haul.
It may seem counterintuitive to make this part of the onboarding process, but setting the tone for an employee’s long-term success is a necessity in today’s tight labor market and with the new hires coming into the service industry. It’s not that they don’t want to work hard – it’s that they need to know where they are going and how their efforts will be rewarded.
Collaboration, Feedback, and Ongoing Development
Studies have shown that most people learn and retain information when they collaborate with others. This is one of the reasons that on-the-job training is so effective. In addition to on-the-job training, fostering a collaborative learning culture in your workforce can allow knowledge to be shared among team members.
By holding regular team meetings, workshops, or collaborative sessions to solve common problems, teams can exchange ideas and build trust and rapport with one another. Consider higher-level meetings that incorporate multiple teams or departments that frequently work together to enhance communication among internal customers.
Communication is multi-faceted and should extend to the new hire-manager relationship as well. Performance feedback and evaluations should be performed regularly to keep new hires up to date regarding their performance. This is a great opportunity to highlight the achievements and successes of your new hires while helping them develop their skills further within the organization.
Most employees crave development within their roles in an organization. By keeping an open channel of communication concerning performance, you can gauge the desired development of your new hires. This can be accomplished by offering continuous learning opportunities such as workshops, conferences, webinars, and industry certifications. Support new hires in attending relevant training programs or acquiring new skills that align with their career goals and the organization’s objectives.
Tools for Onboarding and Development
Onboarding, training, and feedback can be very time-consuming tasks. It can feel frustrating when you are struggling to keep timelines and milestones straight for multiple employees starting or developing at different times and rates.
This is where a learning management system (LMS) comes in, and it can take a lot of the legwork out of your training processes. An LMS helps you create training materials and plans for all roles within your network. With this level of customization, you can ensure that each role is getting the best training possible to excel.
At LatitudeLearning, we pride ourselves on bringing you the best, most comprehensive LMS for your training and onboarding needs. With the ability for customization, timeline scheduling, and metric analysis – it has never been easier to provide a seamless training and onboarding experience.
When you are faced with jumbled timelines of multiple employees, LatitudeLearning LMS can help you keep everything straight with automatically deployed training and scheduled dates for milestone completion. You want to instill trust in your new hires and employees. By showing them that they are on a scheduled timeline for development, they will know that you are invested in their growth.
Metrics for employee performance can also be measured with the LatitudeLearning LMS. Measurables such as KPIs that relate back to employee performance can be compiled and analyzed, providing you with actionable feedback for your members.
Keep in mind that effective onboarding is an ongoing process, whether you are onboarding a brand-new employee or onboarding an existing employee into a new role. Providing continuous support and development opportunities will help new staff members succeed in their roles and contribute effectively to the organization.
Whatever your training needs may be in an extended enterprise, LatitudeLearning can help. Subscribe to our blog today for more actionable tips to improve your training program!