Promote from Within: Developing a Training Program for Your Business
When you operate a business and need to fill a non-entry-level position, choosing to fill that position by promoting employees who already have a feel for your company's culture, goals and mission is the obvious choice. But at that time, you often have to face the difficulties of whether the employee knows enough or if you're throwing them in the deep end without sufficient background. Fortunately, there's an easier way to make the transition simple: add a training program to your business.
Start by determining your goals and outcomes. This training will go beyond the basics you covered for all employees during the hiring process and should reflect that expected level of experience and expertise.
Is your business steady or growing? This will help you determine how many people you'll have in the program at a time. For example, if you're training a restaurant manager position for a couple locations, you'll only have one or two trainees, but if you're opening three new locations, you'll need to train more.
Are there industry requirements? If you're training accounting supervisors, you may want to supplement the training of someone who already has CPA credentials or a similar level of experience.
Supplement generic resources with your own training materials or outside educators. Is there a MOOCS course that will provide a certificate with a certain amount of verifiable learning? Use that with software company training for your system and training on your in-house practices to get the best of all three options at an economical price.
Create a consistent schedule and stick to it. One of the major reasons training programs fail is because they'll happen "when there's time". This approach doesn't prioritize training, so other tasks will take priority. Set aside at least an hour a week to move things forward.
By promoting employees who have been through a training program, you'll be able to drastically reduce the learning curve while having additional help if something were to happen to a member of your management team, such as an accident or illness. But what if you're not quite sure exactly what your training program should look like? The experienced business professionals at AccountRely are ready to help. Please feel free to reach out today to get started.
