New recruits are essential to the future of your company. However, they can only become true assets to your enterprise if your training program empowers them to develop the necessary skills to thrive in your enterprise. Contract management training can be challenging so it’s important to set up first-time workers for success.
Here are five tips for training first-time workers in contract management.
1. Enforce Learning By Doing
On-the-job training is the best way to ensure that first-time workers learn contract management processes the right way. However, this doesn’t mean that fresh hires should be thrown into situations without skilled supervision. Just like it’s normal that new employees have questions, it’s also normal that first-time workers have even more questions.
Learning by doing has two sides: one is to provide the opportunities to new hires to develop their skills and the other one is to ensure that there experienced employees that serve as mentors to those new hires.
2. Compensate for Certifications
While there are hundreds of certifications out there, only a few may be relevant to your industry and your enterprise. You know what those certifications. Instead of lamenting about the lack of experienced job applicants that lack those certifications, encourage your first-time workers to get them by creating financial incentives. It’s a win-win situation because on the one hand, you groom the employees that you want to have and on the other hand, your employees have access to financial rewards other than salary raises.
3. Set Goals for Upward Mobility
Third-party certifications aren’t the only way to set goals for first-time workers. You can encourage new employees to move up the company ranks by providing clear benchmarks to meet. For example, you could reward your employees by completing certain milestones on your contract management product:
- Attend a session from the system’s vendor and hold contract management training for your company
- Set up a new template based on the recommendations of a committee
- Review the accuracy of the clauses for a company division
Figuring out these and other processes should be a proactive process and not just a last-minute reaction. By setting goals for upward mobility, you are creating a healthy work environment and ensuring that workers learn the intricacies of your processes.
4. Explaining the Importance of Customer Service
No matter your industry, treating the client with respect and courtesy is a must. Managing client relations is just as important as managing their contracts. Improving client management is essential to the future of your company. Don’t assume that first-time workers know the appropriate way to handle client relationships, so clearly establish and outline your enterprise standards.
By investing the time upfront in teaching new hires how to improve client management, you prevent client defection due to poor customer service.
5. Don’t Be Afraid of Youth
Last but not least, don’t judge a book by its cover. Focus on the positive aspects of hiring young, first-time workers, such as high energy, fresh perspective, and lack of preset ways. You have an opportunity in young, first-time hires to develop employees with the right set of skills in the right way. Remember that the more seasoned a contract manager is, the harder it is to ask them to perform processes in a different way.
Image Credit: U.S. Department of Education