Training new employees is very important for quite a few reasons. Those reasons become even stronger when it is a new business as well as a new employee. Training employees as a unit before a grand opening is an opportunity that rarely presents itself, allowing all employees to be trained together, hopefully creating unity and strong team bonds from the very start.
1. Wanted: Productive Employees
The goal of training is to produce employees who will be assets at the grand opening celebration and who will be productive throughout the coming life of a new company. The hope is to have a healthy, thriving company and the owner or manager can’t do that on their own, they need help. Its encouraging to see a lot of people apply for work with a new company and see qualified resumes flood a desk, but the important thing in the end is to be a quality business which can only happen with quality employees. Some managers and business owners are reluctant to take the time to run thorough training sessions, believing their time can be spent better elsewhere. But the investment of a few hours of preparation is worth the return of well-prepared employees. This is especially true at the grand opening when a company is being introduced to a community for the first time.
2. Performance Expectations
During the interview process, particularly for manager positions, candidates are often asked questions such as “have you ever had to fire someone before?”. But a question that is often sadly forgotten is “of those you have fired, how was it known whether the employee understood the expectations of their position and yet was not fulfilling them?”. The idea behind this question applies to more than just managers. If a position is not clearly defined, how can either party (the boss or employee) know whether they are falling short, meeting, or exceeding expectations? Explaining clear boundaries and expectations is an important part of the training process, letting both parties know where the bar is set. If an employee is professionally trained for a job, they will know that is what their position will require of them. And it needs to be clear before opening day.
3. Long-term Employees
Quality employees are those that love to learn and enjoy taking on a challenge. One of the biggest reasons employees quite their positions is because they are bored, they feel they aren’t learning. These feelings ultimately mean employees feel the company they are working for is not investing in them in return. This means that while in the end training before a grand opening is important, so is on-going training. As a company grows, develops, and comes into its own, the dust begins to settle resulting in a solidifying of company positions as well as the addition of new ones. This can mean that job descriptions may change over the years or completely re-assigned. When this happens, a new round of training can make a world of difference by investing in current employees. This has two positive results: 1. Employees will want to invest back into a company they feel respected and valued by, and 2. Fewer new hires will come on board, saving time and man-power in starting training from scratch.