Training Newbies
You’ve finally found the perfect person to join your team. You made an offer, and they accepted. Now what?
If you’ve prioritized personality and attitude over experience, that individual may have no prior optical experience. The thinking? Skills can be learned, but personality qualities can’t. (See the previous Staff Hiring, Training + Retention column, “Help Wanted,” in the July/August issue of EB for more about the importance of soft skills.)
So, what steps should you take to successfully train that new person? We posed this question to the three experts who shared their perspectives in last month’s column: Tom Bowen, president of Thrive in Roca, NE; Robin Elliott, president of consulting at Williams Group in Lincoln, NE; and Mary Schmidt, ABOC, president of EyeSystems in Pleasant Hill, CA. Why is this topic so important? As Schmidt explains, “We can no longer train in a fractured and disorganized manner. It’s too expensive.”
How To Integrate
Here are eight key points shared by these experts about the importance of training, what to include, and how to integrate a new hire into your team.
1. TIMING. “Remember, the best investment may require patience. Allow three to six months for them to shine brightly,” says Elliott.
2. SUPPORT. “You must have an organized training plan with strong support and also regular encouragement,” says Schmidt.
3. PREPARATION. “This is such a difficult dynamic right now,” says Schmidt. “We’re understaffed but don’t make time to properly train people, then lose them [due] to the failure to prepare them properly. Adjusting the patient level for a few weeks to enable you to properly train and prepare people will be a short-term hit for a long-term benefit.”
4. FREQUENCY. How often is often enough for ongoing staff training? According to Schmidt, “Weekly meetings will keep everyone informed. I prefer one-hour meetings, segmented by department. At each meeting, there should be a ‘what’s new’ segment where you focus on new skills or information.”
THREE STEPS
You’ve completed the initial training of your new hire, so what’s next? As Robin Elliott, president of consulting at Williams Group, explains, “A training program without follow-through is like glasses without lenses—clear vision is impossible.”
To ensure that your training sticks, adopt a three-step approach:
1. Demonstrate
2. Imitate
3. Iterate
“Consistency,” concludes Elliott,
“is the frame that holds everything in place.”
5. FORMATS. “Once they have the basic skills, you continue to incorporate training just as you did in their initial phase,” says Schmidt. “Make sure to integrate in-person, distance, and self-study activities. It is difficult to learn only from videos. It really helps to be able to ask questions during development, and it’s hard to retain knowledge and skills without repetition. You need it all.”
6. VIDEO. There is, however, a real benefit to video, especially when it’s homegrown. “We need to capture training on video. Even when we’re not hiring, we’re training, and we’re capturing it,” says Bowen. “We advocate a training video series combining excellent available industry training with our own.”
7. SHADOWING. “Have the individual shadow everyone in the practice, not just people in the position for which you’ve hired,” says Bowen. “More than ever, team members need to be able to relate to the demands on and responsibilities of other team members.”
8. DOCUMENTATION. “We need to spool people up fast, and documentation is key,” adds Bowen. “No practice should be without written procedures. They’re key for training, too.”
According to these experts, new hire training should encompass multiple formats. The more ways newbies are encouraged to absorb information, the faster they will become assets to your practice.
