In my many years in supporting business with Performance and Learning, I have created my fair share of training checklists and onboarding plans. They can go from the simple one-pager to 15-page checklist that outlines what needs to be taught when, hour by hour day by day.

Many will ask “what is the perfect onboarding plan?” expecting me to promote or espouse a “silver bullet” checklist that will ensure that each consultant they hire will become productive quickly.

However failure to onboard a new consultant correctly rarely comes down to the quality of the on-boarding checklist but two factors:

  1. Managers giving consultants tasks that will not quickly result in making money.  If I had a penny every time I had found a new consultant looking for a Latvian speaking auditor to work on a chicken farm in Aberdeen……….. Please just give them a vacancy to source that is straight forward and relatively easy to find candidates.  
  2. Managers do not make time to sit and listen to calls or review calls made to support further development.   Yes, I know it can be boring, but it is really the only way to help someone become productive quickly.   Just ask yourself “if every day someone came and took £100 cash out of my wallet and sat next to me and set fire to it how would I feel?”……… That is what you are doing when you fail to make time to observe, coach or support.

On-Boarding Made Simple: 

Just ask yourself the following 3 questions every morning:

  1. If I was in their shoes what would I spend my time doing today to give me the best chance of making money?
  2. What do they need to learn today to be able to succeed in the task I will give them?
  3. How can I help them learn how to be successful?
    • What can I tell them to get them to watch/read to learn what they are trying to achieve?
    • Can they watch me perform the same task?
    • When will I be able to make time to watch them perform the task to provide feedback and guidance?

So what are you going to do now?

  • If you already have an onboarding checklist look through it and ask “does it promote tasks and activities that give new consultant the chance to be successful quickly or just lists of topics to learn?”
  • If you do not have an on-boarding checklist it is not the end of the world.  Just start doing two things 1: Ask yourself these questions each day, which will help ensure the success of your current new consultants? 2: Write down what you will get them to do every day, in 90 days you will now have the outline of your own “bespoke” on-boarding checklist.