Off to the Right Start: Teaching Basic Skills to New Hires

culled from: mindtools.com

Although his new hire is bright and competent in the technical aspects of the job, Nathan quickly discovers that he's sorely lacking in other, more basic areas. For instance, his emails are poorly worded, and he doesn't use a To-Do List or other planning tool to help him remember tasks and deadlines. What's more, within a few days, his desk is so disorganized that he has trouble finding key files.

In short, he's missing many of the fundamental skills that any employee needs to be successful in the workplace.

According to recent surveys in the U.S. and U.K.*, the majority of employers polled reported problems with the numeracy and literacy standards of recent graduates. Other skills, such as communication and people skills, can also be seriously underdeveloped in people new to the workplace.

In this article, we're looking at the fundamental skills that inexperienced people need, to get off to a good start in their careers. We'll identify how to assess their training needs, and we'll explore the key areas where they're likely to need additional training to bring them up to speed.
Identifying Current Skill Level and Needs

Before you can work on building basic skills, you need to identify your new hires' strengths and weaknesses. Administer a Training Needs Assessment   to help you see where they're lacking, so that you can develop an effective training plan.

Although "hard skills" (such as literacy and technical skills required for a job) are relatively easy to assess, "soft skills" (such as interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence  ) are just as valuable.

Important soft skills include the following:
Organization and Time Management Skills

Basic organization skills such as managing email  , filing  , using To-Do Lists   and prioritization   are important for staying on top of a large workload. If your new hires aren't effective in these areas, they may quickly fall behind.

You may also need to teach them other time management skills as well. For example, everyone has a "peak" time of day. This highly productive time should be used for high-value tasks and projects. But, often, people waste this valuable time doing mundane tasks such as checking email or returning calls. (You can learn more about this in our Is This a Morning Task?   article.)
Communication Skills

Working with people who lack communication skills can be a frustrating experience. No matter what your new hires are doing, they need to be able to read, write, and speak effectively.

First, make sure that they know the basics. For instance, they should be able to read and understand documents commonly referred to in your organization. You may have to address your new hires' writing skills   too – they should know how to compose emails effectively   and write reports  .

Understanding the Communication Process, as highlighted in our Introduction to Communication Skills   article, will also be useful here, particularly in highlighting the importance of Active Listening  .
Problem Solving

Problem solving is a crucial skill-set in many roles, and even entry-level new hires may need to have some of these skills.

Begin by identifying their basic problem solving skills  . This includes how to identify a problem, brainstorming   potential solutions, evaluating solutions, and then implementing the best idea.

Then, focus on teaching a variety of problem solving techniques such as Appreciative Inquiry  , Drill Down  , and the 5 Whys  . The more tools that they are comfortable with, the likelier they are to solve problems effectively.
Interpersonal Skills

New hires are likely to be part of a team. This means that they need to know how to work with others.

This is why they need to develop qualities such as empathy  , emotional intelligence  , conciliation  , positivity   and supportiveness. These traits may not fall under their job description, but they can make or break a team.

Make sure that your new hires know how important these soft skills are. Then, try to discover where they have soft skills gaps. For instance, they might be great at keeping a positive attitude, but as soon as tension flares up in the team, they may retreat inward without knowing how to resolve the issue. (This behavior would indicate that they need to work on their assertiveness   and conflict resolution   skills.)
Tip:

Keep in mind that approaching new hires about their lack of basic skills requires sensitivity and empathy. Use principles from our article on Heron's Six Categories of Intervention   to help you understand how to help your people effectively.
Creating a Training Program

Once you've conducted a Training Needs Assessment, you'll need to set training goals, and create a training program that addresses the basic skills that your new people are missing.

Your training program can involve a number of different approaches. For instance, you might find that mentoring   works well – pairing new employees with experienced team members can accelerate learning and improve staff retention. If you decide to set up mentoring relationships, make sure that your experienced employees have the right mentoring skills   – this will help you ensure that relationships are productive and effective.

Another approach is to administer the training yourself, or to use different team members based on their strengths and their experience. For example, if one of your team members is extremely organized, use her to deliver training on using To-Do Lists, or managing email  .

If you go this route, use Active Training   strategies to keep your new hires engaged in what you're teaching. For instance, keep your lectures short (10-15 minutes), invite participation, and use a variety of different activities and techniques that will accommodate different learning styles  .

For some areas, it might be more appropriate to provide your new hire with useful online resources, or printed material to read. On-the-Job Training   may also prove useful.
Note:

As with all types of training and development, it's important to review your new hires' progress regularly. An effective way of doing this is to ensure that their training and development is tracked through the regular performance review process.
Identifying Potential

It's also useful to identify whether or not your new hires have leadership potential. This can help you customize your training and mentoring to help them take on additional responsibilities in the future.

Our article on Building Tomorrow's Leaders   will help you identify and develop leadership potential in your new hires.
Key Points

Organizations often discover that new hires, especially those new to a work environment, are lacking basic communication, time management, and organization skills. So, you may find that it's up to you to teach these fundamental skills to new recruits.

Start by conducting a Training Needs Assessment. Then, once you've identified the skills that you need to address, put together a training plan or program to help them learn these skills, and monitor their progress at regular intervals.

It's also useful to identify leadership potential in new hires, so that you can tailor their training and development appropriately.

* The surveys were carried out by the Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the Society for Human Resource Management and, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).