OJT and the Small but Growing Business: When Should You Start?

For startups and many small businesses, it may seem like on-the-job training (OJT) isn’t particularly necessary. After all, you run lean. Your teams are very small (maybe “team” is too generous of a term?). However, growth happens. In fact, it’s your goal.

As your business grows, your teams will expand and you’ll need to look into ways to build expertise, improve employee retention, and develop leadership in-house. On-the-job training, or OJT, is a proven way to achieve those goals and many more. How do you know when it’s time for OJT though?

It can be a difficult call to make. Doing so effectively will require that you have your finger on the pulse of the business, understand industry shifts, know best practices and how they are evolving, and more. In this post, we will explore some of the key signs that it’s time for you to implement an OJT strategy within your organization.

Technology Changes

Today’s organizations are directly tied to different forms of technology. Chances are good that you use a customer relationship management tool (CRM). You likely use accounting/bookkeeping software, digital marketing tools, employee scheduling software, and more.

One hallmark of today’s tech-driven world is that nothing stays the same for very long. Changes in technology can come very quickly, and, when they occur, they require immediate action. Consider HIPAA compliance for organizations dealing with consumer health records, or PCI-DSS compliance for organizations that process credit cards.

Dealing with technology changes will require training — your employees (both current and new hires) will need to be trained in how to use the components of your technology stack. What better way to do that than through on-the-job training? It ensures that your employees are paid for the training, gives them hands-on experience with the systems that you require for success, and ensures that there’s a training period where it’s permissible for employees to make mistakes, rather than allowing them to “sink or swim”.

Business Practices

Another sign that it’s time to begin OJT is when your business practices change. Perhaps you have had to rethink some of your company’s goals. Maybe you were forced to pivot into a different direction because of government regulations, industry rules, or even a strong competitor.

Whatever the case, altered business practices will require significant effort put into training. OJT offers a way to do so while connecting the training to things that your employees experience during their day-to-day responsibilities.

New Hires

Perhaps the best sign that you need to start implementing OJT is dealing with an influx of new hires. New employees may come with a specific skill set — the reason they were hired in the first place — but chances are good that they lack the specific knowledge required to perform their job duties.

• They may need to be introduced to specific equipment.
• They may need to be walked through a production process.
• They might require an introduction to systems used by the team.
• They could need training in specific tasks or responsibilities they will be assigned.

These are just a few basic examples. On-the-job training is a critical consideration for getting new hires up to speed and should be baked into your onboarding process. As small businesses grow, they need to hire more and more employees to handle tasks once performed by someone who has moved up to a higher position, or to deal with expanded responsibilities brought about by growth and evolution.

Reduced Productivity

Slowdowns in productivity can occur for any number of reasons. However, in many cases, they’re due to a lack of knowledge concerning processes, tools, systems, and procedures. It could be because of a significant influx of new hires, creating an imbalance between new talent and seasoned employees. However, it could also be because of a lack of familiarity with new tools, software, or systems.

Growth can be painful. Reduced productivity can be growth-related. However, it doesn’t have to be a permanent feature. OJT can help ensure that, whatever the underlying cause of the reduction in productivity, you’re able to deal with it and change the paradigm.

You’ve Outgrown Your Old Training

Small businesses go through different growth stages over time. You might have started out as an ultra-lean organization with teams no larger than one or two people. Training provided was likely the bare minimum — just enough to help someone new keep their head above water.

However, as you grow, so must your training initiatives. If you find that you have outgrown your old training, OJT can help. Perhaps the best sign here is that your old training was the bare minimum and is no longer sufficient to ensure that employees can perform their job duties to the best of their abilities.

Don’t Wait for a Sign

Most companies will face one or more of the situations above. Some will successfully deal with them, move on, and grow. Others will face major challenges, perhaps even affecting profitability and forward momentum. How do you ensure you’re part of the former group and not the latter?

It’s simple: don’t wait to develop an OJT strategy.

Small businesses able to cope with training-related growing pains don’t wait to develop an OJT strategy. They assume that growth is going to happen and they plan for it before it occurs. That way, they can hit the ground running when it happens. It’s all about agility — with an OJT strategy in hand, you can move seamlessly as the business expands, rather than being caught flat-footed and potentially suffering damaging consequences.

Of course, assuming you’re going to grow and implementing a successful on-the-job training strategy based on projected growth are two different things. You’ll need an understanding of what your employees know (and what they need to know), knowledge of the optimum OJT training program design, and the right tools, such as a cloud-based LMS, just for starters. If you’re unsure what an LMS is, it is a learning management system; a system to help create, deploy, organize and track your learning and training activities.

However, on-the-job training doesn’t have to be an insurmountable challenge. Recognize its importance, plan for growth, and begin roughing out your approach now, before your organization hits critical mass.