The experience of a new employee in their first 90 days on the job almost single-handedly predicts their future success at the company. This becomes even more true for new graduates – those employees entering the workforce from undergraduate or graduate school. If those 90 days are spent learning, practicing skills, and engaging with colleagues, it is likely that that employee will be successful. That success translates into higher engagement, improved performance, and longer retention, which all impact the bottom line of any organization.
Given the clear connection between new employee training and the bottom line, it stands to reason that companies should invest heavily in training their new hires – something most companies are not doing at a level that reflects the importance of the first 90 days. Instead, they subject their new employees to boring and theoretical training that is driven more by compliance than data or pedagogical best practices. Companies often state that “on-the-job” training is all new employees require, without acknowledging that the success of on-the-job training depends on the manager’s ability and interest in training, the base skill set of the new hire, and the first project.
Our First90 team interviewed hundreds of professionals on what they’d want to see out of new employee training and extensively researched what better training would look like. Ultimately, our findings conclude that better training relies on three critical and interlocking pillars – experiential real-world simulations, training in teams, and applicable measurement and feedback.
Experiential Real-World Simulations
Simulation-based training is proven to be more effective than lecture-based training at increasing participant motivation and knowledge retention.
Research has shown that students prefer hands-on learning and more importantly, it is more effective for engagement and knowledge retention. A study by McKinsey found that 62% and 58% of young people prefer on-the-job and hands-on learning training respectively. A 2019 study found that students in active classrooms (experiential learning) scored almost half a standard deviation (0.46) higher on exams than those in passive classrooms (theoretical learning). Despite this, most companies still rely primarily on theoretical and lecture-based training.
Ulrik Juul Christensen, an expert in the education technology space, explains that combining training and work activities will improve knowledge, retention, and job performance. Activity-based learning works with knowledge acquisition to tackle actual problems that an employee may face on the job. It is critical to design training that helps employees practice not only technical skills but also behavioural and mindset skills (which are where the biggest gaps exist today), and this is where training in teams (our second pillar) can help.
The biggest problem companies face with implementing activity-based learning is the ability to scale the training across many employees. The First90 platform is designed specifically to help companies deliver activity-based training at scale using technology to ensure a low administrative burden.
Training in Teams
In today’s work environment, employees rarely work completely independently. Even individual contributors often work in teams to solve problems – making it clear why behavioural and mindset skills are so heavily valued by employers. Unfortunately, most academic programs do not place enough emphasis on these skills so companies have to take it upon themselves to train new grads on these critical skill sets.
Training in teams becomes especially useful in a virtual environment where it is more difficult for new employees to meet and build relationships. The First90 team interviewed 30+ training leads from various sectors including consulting, law, accounting, and technology from companies like McKinsey, BCG, Google, and Ernst & Young. One of the most common concerns that surfaced was that in a virtual environment, training leads had difficulty facilitating relationship-building for new employees, either within their own group or with current employees. Both of these relationships are critical to the onboarding process and for effective performance.
“I don’t know what to do in this virtual environment,” said one training lead.” How are people supposed to meet each other in a 30-person Zoom training session?”
Research has proven the benefit of cohort-based training in both educational settings and corporate training environments. A 2004 study by The College Quarterly stated that cohort-based training encourages the merging of professional and social behaviour, which students, is “key to locking in student persistence with their studies.” In addition, adult students felt they learned better in a cohort structure, as it facilitated “the creation of individual and group identity and cohesion, and it promoted the development of professional behaviours through ongoing inquiry and critical reflection.”
Safe and supportive environments facilitated by team-based training generally lead to higher employee engagement, lower attrition, and an increased sense of emotional support, all of which influence company productivity and profitability. According to The Chief Learning Officer Organization, the most successful team-based training programs occur when managers get involved early and where feedback is provided by both peers and current employees (our third critical pillar).
Applicable Measurement and Feedback
There is a strong demand from senior executives to better link corporate learning investments to business outcomes, but companies are unable to do so. According to a McKinsey survey, 55% of executives said not knowing how to measure success was a major constraint in investing in training. Measurement comes through both formal and informal means, but one of the more critical methods of measuring performance is through collecting and delivering feedback.
Beyond just proving the ROI of training and development, feedback also helps people feel valued and improve over time. 72% of people in the workplace feel that their performance would improve if their managers provided constructive feedback. Moreover, timely and specific feedback that is created by both managers and peers also contributes to a good culture of measurement in a company.
By creating strong feedback loops that measure performance, providing opportunities to improve performance, and then measuring performance again, new employees and training leads can quickly identify where they need to improve and concentrate efforts on the highest priority areas. Feedback plays a key role in increasing retention and engagement. On engagement, 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week (compared to 18% of employees with low engagement). On retention, companies that implement regular employee feedback experience 14.9% lower employee turnover rates when compared to those that don’t.
If measurement and feedback can be incorporated in an effective way into training, new employees will be able to quickly improve their performance in a low-risk environment, while executives will be able to better see the ROI of their training dollars.
There are noticeable and important differences between poor and proper training. When companies onboard by incorporating experiential real-world simulations, team-based training, and applicable measurement and feedback, they are able to ensure greater success for both employees and the organization. First 90 helps make the first 90 days on the job as impactful as possible - learn more about us below.
About First90
Here at First90, we believe in the power of better training. As you read above, research proves that training that is experiential, team-based, and supported with measurement/feedback is an incredibly powerful tool to drive performance, engagement, and retention. However, companies do not have the ability or resources to do this type of training today - so we built First90.
First90 allows companies to build and deliver experiential training – fast. You can ask new employees to practice day-to-day tasks in a simulated environment – writing emails, doing data analysis, interviewing clients, or almost anything else. Most importantly, you can customize this training entirely for your company – adding your own tasks, resources, and advice to new employees. By using First90, new employees get to practice and receive feedback on the skills they need on the job, while companies get to increase performance, engagement, and retention through their better-trained employees.
Interested in learning more and potentially partnering with First90? Send us an email at info@first90.io – we respond to every email that comes our way.
