New Employee Training Plan Template 2021

Your new employee training plan template can shorten the time it takes from onboarding to full productivity. Reliable sources say that new hires become fully productive after 8 months from the employee orientation program on average. However, this can vary significantly from company to company and niche to niche. For example, new employees performing clerical jobs are fully productive after 8 weeks. Yet, it takes roughly 20 weeks on average for professionals to achieve full productivity. It’s even longer for executives—26 weeks is the average. No matter how long it takes, an effective new employee plan template can shorten time to productivity.

How to create a new employee training plan template?

Here’s a quick rundown of how to create a new training plan and how to train a new employee:

1. Determine the learning needs of your participants.
2. Translate those needs into training goals.
3. Identify which topics will be covered.
4. Decide how much time will be devoted to each of them and in what order.
5. Make sure that the training is at the appropriate level.
6. Determine the main messages (key points) of each session.
7. Decide which method best suits the content.
8. Provide appropriate audio-visual aids in advance.
9. Divide responsibilities.
10. Integrate your training plan with LMS

New employee training plan template ideas

Now, let’s find all the details on what to include in your new training plan from the first day of your new team member, as well as strategies on how to implement a successful training program both before and after hiring your employees.

• New employee orientation booklet

Have a new employee orientation booklet or onboarding checklist as part of your new employee plan template. This handbook should be both online (for easy access via digital devices) and physically on paper (for those who prefer hard copies). Your company orientation booklet and new hire paperwork for your onboarding team program should be short and sweet. Think encyclopedia.

Here are some possible orientation booklet entries:

F – Floor plan: Show a labeled photo or diagram of the working area, including top “need to knows” such as local coffee/tea/water station, nearest bathroom, workout plan layout, closest fire exit, etc.

P – Photocopier: Photos of the locations as well as written directions; who to call/text if a photocopier is jammed/not printing/out of paper, etc.; how to recover their access code (if relevant) in case they forget it.

V – Vision and values: Concisely (briefly, not lots of blah, blah) describe the driving idea(s) behind your organization. Use a bulleted list to get your new hire familiar with the values and company culture.

• Digital New Employee Training Program Template

Today, many organizations are choosing to include a digital component for their employee plan template via an LMS instead of a word training template as a significant part of their onboarding process to train new employees. Basically, they seek help from apps like EdApp to create their employee training materials and training spreadsheet template, and at the same time, deploy these materials. New employees, on the other hand, can use this LMS platform to access their training. 

Check out this free, editable, LMS course: DESIGNxHUMANITY Onboarding Course by EdApp, which features a variety of topics. It shares information about the organization, gives specific information about the job, and informs how the onboarding course will help employees adapt to their new position. You can use it as a guide when creating your new employee training plan template. 

Takeaway: Your organization’s onboarding course should be “relevantly broad." In other words, include all the really useful information you can think of to get your new hire productive in as short a time as possible. Part of this will be training about their new position, but other parts need to be important facts about your organization’s values and culture, unwritten “rules of the game”, and your company’s employee growth plan.

Join EdApp to find more new employee training courses that you can deploy as early as today!

Topics to include in your new employee training plan template

Wondering what topics to include in your new hire training program? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a list of recommended new employee training topics to consider:

1. Onboarding is every new employee’s first stop which should start with comprehensive training on the company’s structure, policies, procedures, and goals.
2. Role orientation allows new employees gain an understanding of the major tasks of their position and the company’s best practices for that role.
3. Product training equips your employees with the right answers when a customer asks a question about a particular product or service, as well as the right solutions when developing pitches.
4. Compliance training educates employees with certain regulations or policies mandated by the government, practiced in specific industries, or implemented by the company.
5. Skills development is a supplemental new hire training essential for any organization to unleash the fullest potential of each employee to be able to perform their jobs well.
6. Workplace safety teaches safety protocols to new hires to help protect themselves and others when performing their jobs and to uphold organizational-culture.
7. Cybersecurity training teaches employees how to prevent, recognize, and act on data security threats to protect your company’s information.
8. Diversity and inclusion training is essential to reduce discrimination, break unconscious bias, and promote equality in the workplace.
9. Code of conduct training will guide your employees in making proper decisions and behaving in an ethical way in the workplace.
10. Productivity training is all about managing workload effectively to reduce stress and achieve maximum productivity.

New employee training training tips and tricks

Below, we’ve compiled a list of some training and mentoring tips and tricks that will help you elevate your new employee training and make sure that you quickly get your new hire up to speed during the onboarding process, including orientation and training. 

• Training checklist for new employees. A training checklist for new employees will help support employee engagement and inspire loyalty not only after they are hired, but also throughout their tenure with your company. The training checklist should follow the new hire from start to finish of the employee lifecycle. This can help them to become an effective employee

• Assign a dedicated mentor to your employee. Research shows that good-quality mentoring “can make a significant contribution to employee socialization and learning.” Set up a schedule of regular meetings to train new hires about each step of the onboarding process. Each meeting should cover a specific point as well as have time for the mentee’s questions and feedback.

• Nominate two staff members to be day-to-day “firefighters”. Often, new employees feel shy to ask for help. As a result, they lose a lot of time trying to figure out things on their own or find answers to their questions. Having two co-workers specifically designated as support communicates that asking for help is perfect for other employees.

• Create a timetable of networking meetings with key organization personnel. During each meeting, both the employee and organization person should share personal and professional information about themselves. Afterward, the organization person should give information about the organization’s values as they understand them. In this way, the new employee builds up a picture of who and what the organization is and how they fit in the grand scheme of organizational socialization.