How to train a new colleague

• Our tips for training a new employee
• How to set training goals

Meeting one-on-one with your new colleague is a great way to start developing a relationship with them. However, even if they’re the world’s best note-takers, they’re not going to remember complex organisational processes after one explanation.

So, where possible, try to create step-by-step how-to guides for them to take away from the session. For example, if you’re training a new graphic designer, you should have one document which lays out all the house style information, another that details the process of how a piece of work goes from ideation to publication and so on.

Remember when you’re writing these guides that, even if the person is highly experienced in their given field, they won’t know the idiosyncrasies of your organisation. For example, many companies have quirky names for different departments that will be like a foreign language to someone who isn’t familiar with them. So, you’ll need to write everything in plain English, and give plenty of examples.

Similarly, put things on a plate for them. Remember what it was like when you first started at the organisation, now knowing where things were, how things worked or who you needed to ask for help with what. So, instead of, for example, telling them “you’ll need to get access to this document”, make sure they have that access from the get-go. Not only will they appreciate this extra effort, it’ll make your training sessions run more smoothly, as you’ll be able to actually walk them through things, rather than being hit with a bunch of “access denied” messages.

Endless hours of back-to-back training won’t work for many people. So think about how you’re going to structure your training sessions to both convey the relevant information, while also providing the new starter with time to let what they’ve learnt sink in. Also, many people learn by doing, so give them time to play around with some of the tools for themselves.

Taking our graphic designer example, structuring the training might mean that you have one session where you talk through the processes for publishing an asset, then you give the person an hour or so to try this out in a test environment, so they can immediately practise what they’ve learnt. Then, after this, you reconvene and talk about how they found things, before moving on to the next broader topic. 

Crucially, if you’re looking to build a cohesive team, your training of every employee needs to contain the information that everyone needs to know, regardless of their specialist position. Of course, you’d train a social media specialist differently to how you’d train our graphic designer in terms of some of the tools they’ll need to have access to etc., but you still want them to be singing from the same song sheet when it comes to company direction, values and pan-organisation processes.

However long you think a particular training session might take, build in a decent chunk of additional wiggle room as the new starter will likely have heaps of questions.

Of course, providing time for questions is only good if you can also provide the answers to what they’re asking. The best way to do this? Spend some time thinking about what they’re likely to ask about, so that you’re primed and ready to cover the necessary ground. Again, the best way to do this is to try and put yourself in their shoes – someone who’s coming in completely cold, to whom everything will be new and different. What would confuse you? What would you want to know?

You can’t expect your new colleague to jump into the role with a complete grasp of the company culture and ethics, even if this was something that was covered in their job interview. After all, every company culture is different, and they’ll need to adapt to it, in the same way they’re learning the technical side of their new role.

When we say train for culture, don’t just simply run through the list of company buzzwords. Try to provide actionable examples of what this culture means in practice. For example, if your organisation has made commitments to being environmentally sustainable, talk about how both the business as a whole, and individuals within it, work towards this goal.

Even if you’re the person with whom they’ll have the most contact out of anyone in the business, it’s likely they’ll also have to work with others regularly.

Not only is it important for the new starter to meet these people from an interpersonal perspective, but these other colleagues may be able to provide a better overview of what they’re hoping for out of that relationship than you could. Your role here isn’t only setting up these meetings, but also, again, thinking about how they should be structured so they have a good chance of learning the most salient points and feel supported.