Your recruitment machine is only as good as its parts - which is why you owe it to both your business and your staff to prioritise learning and address any knowledge gaps. But what can you do to ensure the recruitment training you deliver is a good investment?
As much as 74% of UK workers wish they received more training at work, and 40% who don't get the training they want will leave a job within a year. So, whilst investing in regular training does cost time, money and resources, remember a high turnover rate will cost your business a whole lot more.
The most intelligent thing you can do to ensure your training sessions are a good investment is to think about how you can deliver training that actually sticks. Here are some tips to get you started!
Train from the top down
If your recruitment team is big enough that you have team leads to work with, make them your first round of trainees. Arrange an overview session to run through training material and use this as an opportunity to clarify any gaps or grey areas before it reaches the rest of your recruiters.
You can then build the learning and implement change from management downwards by having them bring in the changes gradually on a weekly basis instead of overwhelming your recruiters with too much information at once. Spreading the training over time like this will give staff the time and headspace to absorb it better, and it also means management will be able to serve as a point of contact for training support.
This should create a positive learning environment where your recruiters are able to ask as many questions as they feel is necessary to ensure the training sticks – which also takes some of the pressure off you!
Encourage participation
The old days of getting your recruiters into a room and running through a manual while they sit there trying desperately not to fall asleep are (thankfully) dead. If this is your idea of a training session, you’re wasting your time – and everyone else’s too!
It’s a good idea to get straight to the ‘doing’ part of a training session as soon as possible. Practical learning environments, where staff go through the steps of a new process themselves is instantly easier to understand, easier to pick out (and break!) any bad habits, and a lot harder to forget.
Use role play
Try using live examples that your recruiters are currently working on so it’s instantly clear how to apply your training to real, familiar situations. This will also be a more rewarding way to learn as your team will instantly get results.
You could also indulge in some role play when it comes to things like warm calling and initial candidate interviews. This shouldn’t be too hard to facilitate if you’re working with small groups (and small groups are more effective for training as they assure accountability).
Another trick is to encourage your recruiters to recap on new processes with each and even hold the responsibility of training any new starts during their induction period. There’s no better way to solidify your understanding of how to do something than when you attempt to teach it to someone else, so this will be a mutually beneficial exercise.
Track progress and provide feedback
The best way to keep your team motivated to continue building on the new skills they’ve learned (and not revert back to those old habits) is to provide them with a benchmark to work towards and feedback on how they’re doing as a team each month. This way, you’ll be encouraging them to reflect on these new processes, consistently refer back to what they’ve learned and recognise the improvements they’re making.
Likewise, you should always make time to review and constantly evolve your training on the basis of these results, too. Is a new process you’ve implemented not producing the results you’d hoped for? Go back to the drawing board.
Each time you try to save on costs by convincing yourself that your staff are skilled enough that they don’t ‘need’ any training, remember that it has other purposes too. Training also increases productivity levels (which means more money for your business) and most importantly, it prevents your staff from taking their skills to another company – one that is willing to invest in their personal development. The risk is yours to take!
