How to prepare new employees for development

How to prepare new employees for development

The views expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.

The success of a company is not only about the number of consumers or revenue generated. To me, true success is employees who grow inside the company. When team members stay, are willing to learn, and grow over time, that is where I see true achievement.

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If these people determine to stay and grow, it means the company is doing something right.

In my last article, I discussed how we discover and hire loyal team members. But once we have identified the right candidates, we focus on their growth and development.

At my video editing company, we have an entire system for onboarding and educating employees that I’m joyful to share with you. We don’t just fill positions; we invest in their future, and by extension, the way forward for the company.

Step 1. Internal course

Wedding videography is a unique industry with its own quirks and challenges. At some point, as we grew the company, we realized there wasn’t enough talent on the market for us. We met a lot of talented professionals—TV videographers, social media video editors—but they often lacked the vision needed to film weddings.

So we decided that if we wanted to maintain high and consistent quality, we had to build our own talent. That’s when we developed our induction course, which also became an essential a part of our recruitment process.

Our video editor accomplished the whole thing in two months. He recorded 11 lessons using Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro as his most important tools.

The course covers all the tricky parts: storytelling for different parts of a wedding, color correction, color grading, and sound design—because, let’s be honest, sound can make or break a video. We also make sure our new editors understand the basics of project management, like how to structure and organize their projects and folders.

After completing the course, our final candidates work on their first paid project. If all goes well, they join our team. This course has been a game changer ever since. It helped us educate over 50 employees and teach them all the things they needed to know in just a week and a half.

If you’re having trouble finding area of interest professionals, consider creating a similar course. It’s a wonderful means to turn generalists into experts in their field or give newbies the tools they need to get began.

Step 2. Knowledge Base

When someone officially joins our team, we give them access to our knowledge base in Notion. This is where we gather all the things new employees need to know about the company—who our customers are, how we communicate with them, our mission, our goals—you name it. It’s all there for them to read and learn about the company.

We trust our new hires to take the initiative and explore our knowledge base on their very own. Of course, if they have any questions along the way, we have mentors ready to guide them through any uncertainties. This approach gives them the probability to understand the company at their very own pace, knowing they have support every time they need it.

Step 3. Competency matrix

The learning doesn’t stop there. When a new worker joins the company, we add their name to a file called Competency matrix.

This is a table that lists all the skills our video editors need to develop. These include hard skills like storyboarding projects and adding captions, in addition to soft skills like discipline and meeting deadlines.

Here’s how it really works: For each skill listed in the Matrix, there is a cell containing an article about that skill, in addition to a link to a test that the worker must complete after reading it.

If the test is passed, the skill cell will light up green. If not, it’s going to be marked red. This neat way to visualize progress and make sure our team members have mastered the essential techniques is perfect.

So, as new hires go through the Matrix, they turn those cells green, one by one. Our leaders are there to oversee the entire process and help them adjust.

This table has proven to be incredibly effective in giving us a clear picture of the team’s progress. For example, if we notice that a particular skill is regularly marked in red, it’s a signal that the entire team could use some additional training.

To treatment this, we either prepare an internal course or hire an external expert.

Step 4. Providing a clear path

Another great point about Matrix is ​​that it doesn’t just track progress; it also helps us set clear growth expectations for our employees. For example, if someone has 80% green hard skill cells and has accomplished a certain variety of projects, they will be promoted to senior video editor. This also increases their salary by 25%.

If their soft skills cells are also mostly green, they’ll apply for a team leader role when we have new vacancies. This system makes profession advancement transparent and achievable, which motivates our team to repeatedly improve.

We sometimes add new skills to Matrix to sustain with industry trends. For example, our Head of Editing might see a new tool or technique on the market and ask someone on the team to try it out.

If it proves invaluable, this person educates the entire team and leads the direction of implementing this new skill. This way, we are continually growing and our team members have the opportunity to pioneer new directions in the company.

To sum up

The onboarding process we implemented not only accelerated the adaptation process, but also created the foundation for a culture of continuous learning and development inside our team.

While not everyone can advance to management, at least we make sure everyone reaches a high level of proficiency in video editing. All that training is a big investment, yes, but without it we wouldn’t see the growth we’re aiming for.

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