One of the trickiest aspects of starting a new job is simply learning all the processes and systems that your new workplace utilizes. Employers are advised to remember just how disorienting being the newest member of a team can be when developing their staff onboarding materials and processes.
The same goes for routine staff training requirements too – especially as we venture further through the digital age and business technologies grow increasingly advanced. More often than not, workplaces that invest in their staff training and development are naturally going to equip themselves with more confident and competent staff. And confident, adaptable staff is the key to staying on top of digital transformation trends in your industry.
To help, we’ll be sharing some of our top tried and tested tips for developing clear and concise staff training materials that you can use when onboarding new staff or even retraining existing staff members. Read on to learn how you can establish a strong culture of learning and teaching in your organisation.
Develop Easy-to-Access Digital Learning Materials
Maintaining easy-to-ready digital learning materials is paramount to investing in your staff training and onboarding. Thankfully, you can use tools like ‘Speak to Type’ functions or even a Word to PDF converter to turn notes or documents into highly engaging digital learning sheets and other resources.
Converting learning materials into a PDF format can be helpful for new staff as these resources can easily be saved onto their devices and opened up whenever staff feel they could benefit from referencing these materials. Something as simple as storing PDF learning resources on every department’s digital noticeboard (via tools like Asana or Trello), can help ensure these materials stay universally accessible, helping new staff members find answers to questions themselves rather than feeling reliant on their direct supervisors.
And if you’ve found your team benefits from physical references, you can easily print out your PDF learning materials and stick them up on the walls or on department cubicles. That way, staff can benefit from maintaining both digital and hardcopy formats of learning materials. Just make sure that your hardcopy formats stay up-to-date alongside your PDF ones!
Use an LMS to Facilitate Training Modules
Developing digital learning materials is one thing, but what if you want your staff to absorb onboarding or training materials into their memory in a limited timeframe? If you’re training staff to conduct business processes that require a solid understanding of systems from the get-go, then creating training modules is the best way to make sure your team members reach a certain level of competency. For instance, staff training modules can be programmed to fail team members who recorded a < 60% score or answered a certain number of questions (or even particular questions) incorrectly.
It’s also easier than ever to develop and roll out your own staff training modules now, thanks to the development of learning management system (or LMS software). Contrary to popular belief, LMS software isn’t just a valuable investment for schools and tertiary institutions. These tech tools can also be the key to streamlined staff training for organisations of all scopes and sizes. You can set training modules and course outlines for individual departments, or even develop a general module solely for staff onboarding. You can also upload staff training materials directly onto your LMS and course outlines as revision materials that help staff prepare for particular tests in their modules.
We recommend experimenting with different LMS software to see which interfaces and features are best suited for enhancing your enterprise’s unique learning materials and training modules.
Create Checklists For Introducing Staff to Digital Workflows
Of course, even if your staff pass their training modules with flying colours, retaining information in the long term can still be tricky. Creating expiration dates for module certification can help here, as it requires staff to recomplete training modules routinely to keep their knowledge up-to-date.
Between these module retakes, however, your enterprise can support knowledge retention by providing new staff and trainees with detailed but highly concise checklists which outline organisational workflows. These checklists can be a godsend for new staff who are currently engaging with a process that they can expect to perform everyday once they’re fully trained.
We recommend securing input from existing team members and team leaders when developing these checklists, however. This is vital for ensuring that your trainees are being conducted to use the most natural, sustainable approach to completing a workflow.
Establish Unique Employee Login Credentials
In the event that there does happen to be an error caused by someone failing to follow an outlined system or workflow, the first thing that most managers do is try to find where the communication breakdown has occurred. Identifying the cause of the error isn’t an opportunity to assign blame, but rather to ascertain whether staff retraining or module updates are required to reduce the likelihood of the error occurring again.
So what’s the easiest way of determining where an error occurred and which team member may have caused it for any reason? By checking user credentials and tracing the point of breakdown back through project or task history, if you’re using project management software like Asana.
This is just one of many reasons why establishing unique employee login credentials is vital for keeping your business running smoothly. Not only can this measure help in keeping your business data secure, but it can also greatly increase the likelihood of your company being able to identify the source of any operational errors or more importantly – digital security breaches. Which leads us to our next vital tech tip!
Integrate Cybersecurity Protocols Into Staff Training
As companies adopt digital technologies into more and more of their business workflows, it’s effectively now essential to integrate an introduction to your company’s cybersecurity protocols into staff onboarding processes. After all, digital security is a shared responsibility, and as such, you can’t confidently begin to train new staff on your systems without ensuring that they know what’s expected of them to maintain compliance with security protocols.
And speaking of compliance, any enterprises who are looking to maintain compliance with globally recognised information security management standards like ISO 27001 will undoubtedly need to tick some boxes when it comes to staff cybersecurity training. For starters, you’ll need to maintain routine digital security training for all members of your staff, alongside ensuring that your team members are educated on your company’s security protocols from the get-go. So in short, your business cannot confidently claim to be compliant with security standards if you’ve failed to integrate engagement with cybersecurity protocols into your staff training and onboarding processes.
Be Open to Staff Insights For Future Digital Transformation Strategies
Finally, it’s important for employers and their management teams to keep in mind that processes can evolve, and the way your staff work day-to-day might change with the adoption of new and emerging technologies. Advancements in software development like AI and machine learning capabilities have opened up a myriad of possibilities for creating new business technologies. SaaS providers also have their hands full innovating with these new technologies, seeing how their software can work in tandem with hardware (i.e. the IIoT) and create dynamic technological solutions that businesses can use to further streamline their operations and propel their business forward through the digital age.
If you want to ensure that your business stays well-positioned to take advantage of these emerging technologies, then it’s imperative that you keep your staff training and onboarding processes equally adaptable and – most importantly – open to any insights from your staff. Your team members who have feet on the ground and are using existing processes on a daily basis typically have the best insights to provide regarding potential areas for improvement. So set up systems that encourage these developmental conversations and digital transformation strategising.
Invest in Your Staff Training And Onboarding Processes
With these top tips, you should be able to develop concise training, development, and onboarding processes that support your staff in learning and growing right alongside your organisation. Just remember to work with management teams and team leaders to keep all your learning materials up-to-date (especially those hardcopy ones!).
And keep in mind that the most effective training materials and modules are those that are both adaptable and developed with your trainees in mind!
