3 Tricks to Train New Staff so it’s Fast and Easy

Jun 9, 2022 | Business, Staff

Are you struggling to hire and train staff at the moment Parent Bosses?

Do you work long hours, covering team members who are off with COVID or in isolation as a close contact?

Are you tired, with sky-high stress levels and less family time?

We hear you! Staff shortages are getting to critical levels. We’ve just had to recruit ourselves.

We all need staff, but having to take the time to recruit and then train them to do the job the way we want it done, makes us feel even more tired and drained.

So, how can you get staff and then train them quickly to take the strain off you?

Here are 3 tips we’ve used recently to hire and train 3 new staff members quickly:

Move quickly – Advertise, interview & call back within days.

The longer you take to do these steps, the more time your potential employee has to find another job. Read the resumes and call the good ones straight away as soon as they come in. Some might think this shows desperation. I disagree. I think it shows action. This speaks to candidates that need work NOW.

Old-school ways of waiting for ads to be up for a certain period, interview, reference check, and inviting them to trial are gone. You get left behind if this is still your procedure, as they’ve started somewhere else in that time.

If they sound good, speak to them, then get them in.

Try them out for a short trial.

People can talk a good game in an interview, so a trial will let them try out the job and let you see if they have what it takes. It is a small investment of time for you both.

No point spending a week training them, for them to turn around and say it’s not for them (or not turn up one day) or for you to decide they aren’t the right person.

Previously, our trials went for 2 hours (paid, of course) – we have since cut it down to 1 hour.

We have a trial sheet that we use to assess everyone with the same tasks.

Our focus is on the basics – customer service, slicing bread, how they gel with the team, always looking for something to do etc.

Here is what we use, feel free to use it for your next hire.

Give them information so they feel comfortable.

People get nervous in new situations. It can stop them from being 100% focused, no matter how much they want to be. They will forget stuff and have questions, and sometimes they don’t feel comfortable asking them. I’m talking about paydays, when rosters get posted, who to call if there is an issue etc.

A) To make this easy at the start, we always include a Welcome Letter in our hiring documents.

We think this helps send a message to our team that we want them to feel comfortable and that we are professional, prepared and quick to share relevant information.

Here is a copy of ours, feel free to use this as a base letter for your business.

B) We also have a procedure folder in the store where each job has been recorded.

The steps are listed out, so staff can reference this anytime. We used this only 2 days ago when we had a new team member use our close procedure to see what they were supposed to do and what time to do it.

Here is a sample page of that close procedure to see how we list our info out, so it is easy to reference.

Knowledge is confidence, so if your team member isn’t worried about remembering all the steps they need to take to do the job, only where to find the information they need IF they need it, they can begin to relax.

When they relax, they become comfortable.

When they get more comfortable, they take more in and remember more.

They do the job faster and get up to speed more quickly when they remember everything.

THIS is how you get speed in training staff.

So, to recap:

Act quickly – advertise, interview and call in quickly to secure the best candidates.
Give them a short trial – this gives you and them a chance to try the job out to see if it works for both of you.
Make it easy for them to access any information they need. It will increase their confidence, which increases their ability to retain information, which gets them up to speed faster.