TakaraSwoopesBullockIt’s quite possible that I had the worst on-boarding and training process ever, in the history of teams, for new instructors. That sounds extreme but girl, I WISH I were exaggerating. It was awful. Here’s why.
Last year, I found myself in a really exciting time of business growth. My business was growing so fast that I could hardly keep up. I’d reached a point where I simply could not continue teaching so many weekly classes (twelve). I was running the risk of burn out. I needed to hire instructors, like yesterday.
Online certifications hadn’t been launched yet, so I had to recruit multiple instructors at one time, wait for a trainer to come to the island to train them all, onboard and train them- all at the same time.
The recruiting and certification parts went well. The on-boarding and training part though…. Girl…….. smh.
I pretty much FAILED on that last part.
I hired eight new instructors and truthfully, I simply didn’t know, what I didn’t know.
But I quickly learned because the boo boo hit the fan.
I didn’t have an on-boarding plan, outside of a welcome email. (Bless her!) My team-teaching was not fully developed. (Trouble coming…) I didn’t set expectations early on. (Oh snap…) And, there was poor communication on my end (Bless her lord…. bless her.)
For real ya’ll, when I say it was horrible. Boo Boo. Baaaaad. I’m not lying. It makes me cringe and uncomfortable, just writing this. But, the train was moving and there was just no way I could have trained all eight instructors, at one time. So, we all suffered through it, best we could.
I learned a MAJOR lesson though.
Get your ish together, BEFORE you hire new team members.
Whatever you do, don’t welcome new team member into chaos. Have a plan. Communicate that plan. Even if you have a super enthusiastic instructor who wants to get started ASAP. Stick to your time-table, not theirs and get it together.
When bringing on new members, you MUST have a very clear plan in place for them to be on-boarded AND trained. If you don’t have that, girl….. good luck with the storm ahead.
There is a lot of good that came from that experience though.
Here it is, my snuggly, thought-out, Love My Team So Much on boarding and training plan. It’s pretty much everything I’d like for my instructors to know and to do, BEFORE they are flying solo. Complete with quizzes. Because, I need mastery.
You guys, I literally spent months on this. I sat down and walked myself through the entire process, from application through thriving amazing veteran instructor on the team. And I created videos on everything I wanted my team to know, learn, and master.
Finally! Finally! I have it together.
Go Here To Download The Canva Template
Yes ma’am, I’m coming correct with my team on-boarding and training henceforth!
THIS is how I imagined my on-boarding and training would run. THIS is how I imagined I’d run my business. THIS feels good.
If you are new and trying to figure this out. Or if you’re a vet and you don’t have it nailed down, I hope this inspires you to map out your own on-boarding and training plan for your team!
Love + Aloha,
Takara
TakaraSwoopesBullock
