Employees are the main driving force of every business. They take care of the customers, maintain the working place in good conditions and do everything they can to keep their business rolling on. Employees still need to be trained to be effective, it is almost impossible to ask someone without experience to become a skilled worker in a day or two, and this still applies for experienced people that are starting in a new working environment.

Ramping or on-boarding is the method by which a new employee is accustomed to a new working environment. The goal of this training is to give the newcomer the required skill, knowledge and confidence to be effective in their new occupation.

But training a new employee takes time, time that is worth money and that could be used to do more important tasks, so what simple things can one do to reduce the time in which a worker starts being effective?

The truth is that there isn’t such thing as “simple things” when speaking about training newbies, as developing effective employees is a process that involves various layers of complexity, the true question we should ask ourselves is “how should we properly train our new employees?”

The first and most important thing to do is to assign them a mentor. This mentor should give the new hire a welcome presentation that will make him feel secure, as it will make the whole process easier

After giving a presentation, their new mentor should teach them their way around and the basics of their new working environment. He should also act as a counselor so the newcomer can ask questions, give ideas and receive feedback. Receiving proper feedback from a more experienced figure will allow newcomers to grow confident and will also increase their team playing.

A proper training period can last from 2 to 6 weeks  and in that amount of time the new hire should receive feedback and comments from his new colleagues too, this way they can make a friend of him. A friendly working environment will remove any social pressure that the newcomer may feel, if they have a feeling that they are not welcomed by his new colleagues then everything will get complicated as they won’t be able to focus as much as someone that feels secure and accepted.

After the training period is over any newcomer should have a better view of his new job, but they should still receive feedback and be allowed to make questions, growing and developing never ends.

Every business should put importance in the training of new hires as it is a process that will increase their effectiveness at their new jobs, but besides getting trained newcomers should feel like they are entering a new home, nowadays people aren’t looking for mere jobs, they want places where they can work with a feeling of accomplishment and safety, so be sure to tell your more experienced workers to treat their new colleagues like they would treat a friend of a friend.