Starting something new can be nerve-wracking. New schools, new hobbies, new projects – each of them introduces an element of the unknown and with it, challenges, hopes, and fears.
That’s not to say there are no positives to new ventures, but the nerves and anticipation mingle to make that first step into something new feel like a big one. Starting a new job is a significant example, so a good onboarding and training program is vital to lowering those anxiety levels for new hires.
An onboarding plan may be less successful if it’s relegated to a spreadsheet and an outdated procedure manual. While the essential information may be available there, including a record of who has access to it, it hardly supports those who are nervously trying to find their way in a new context. Interruptions and slow-downs quickly ensue, reducing the effectiveness of new staff and the teams they’ve joined.
The onboarding challenge
Traditional procedure manuals are historical documents at best. They’re a picture of processes as they exist at a point in time, but they’re usually scattered in paper form across an organization, rarely updated (or updated uniformly) and prone to being mislaid, misused, or misunderstood.
When you compound this scenario with manual training records, it’s very hard to have any level of confidence in training or onboarding. Execs can’t easily access the records of who has been trained, or clearly define what that training has encompassed. Those who receive the training similarly are left out in the cold, and will likely slow their team down as they try to fill in the blanks themselves.
Productivity suffers as newcomers try to supplement their orientation by asking questions of those around them, and colleagues and managers alike have to devote time to hunting down the documentation that will provide answers.
The Nintex Promapp® training dashboard reduces the drag on productivity by allowing teams and managers to sign off on training and competency units as they happen. The platform connects the training units to the relevant processes, so all the information needed is available in one place, keeping teams focused on strategic goals and not hunting for answers.
The central record ensures that it’s also easy to see who has undergone which training programs, so there are no blind spots in the onboarding regime.
Training requires governance
There are numerous pressures on execs and management that demand effective training solutions. Compliance to standards like ISO or industry regulations, changing legislation, and growing health and safety requirements are just some of the requirements that need efficient, organized training.
Competence is becoming a significant focus for training staff, particularly in the operations area, requiring role-specific training that ensures operators meet the required standards. It’s not enough to log attendance at a training session. Organizations need to record evidence that those who undertake critical functions do so with an awareness of the processes, the relevant risks and potential consequences of their actions.
Real progress in real-time
The Tararua District Council in New Zealand knew the pain of scattered and incomplete training resources. There was a significant knowledge gap between their established processes and the everyday activities undertaken by staff. When new team members came on board, they were invariably trained by incumbent workers, who didn’t often reference the process documentation.
Peter Wimsett, the Deputy Chief Executive – Manager Strategy & District Development at Tararua District Council saw how the integration of training with their process platform could make a difference.
“Managers quickly realized that with Nintex Promapp they could easily identify and fill the gaps in what their teams are actually doing every day,” he says.
As onboarding activities were collected and captured on the platform, the council saw a difference in the effectiveness of new staff and the teams they joined. Interruptions were reduced, and new hires became more productive, faster. Since the training was directly linked to the council’s process library, it ensured that new staff was made familiar with what was expected of them early on.
Now everyone was on the same page, from new workers on the front line to elected officials. Peter explains: “Giving councilors access to processes when and where they need them has increased elected members’ confidence that they are part of a well-run business, plus they get to tangibly use the business processes.”
Regardless of the level of the trainee, the process management platform makes it easy for new staff to track what they need to know, and where to find it. Information about training units and competencies can be found on their personalized dashboards, along with who is responsible for the training. They can review the content and sign off units with a simple click of the mouse.
Engaged teams achieve goals
Integrated training and process management ensure that teams are focused on what they need to know and do, promoting a culture of ongoing learning, and engaging new and existing staff alike.
The Nintex Promapp onboarding and training add-on also offers additional benefits:
- Automatically updating onboarding records tied to training units
- Personalized notifications about trainings, including certification expiries
- Mobile sign-offs for attendance and process changes
- Connections between compliance risk records, incident tickets, and training responses
Starting something new can be a cause for a few jitters, but a great onboarding plan can alleviate those nerves. Forget the spreadsheets and dusty documentation and integrate training with world-class process management for smoother, faster, more effective onboarding that serves everyone.
If you’d like to learn more about how Nintex could help your organization implement good practice with process mapping, schedule a personalized demo of the Nintex Process Platform today.
