I work for a company that is growing consistently, but the training program is incomplete.

Anonymous

July 29,2022 at 2:45PM UTC

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I work for a company that is growing consistently, but the training program is incomplete.

Some of my coworkers who are newer than I am agree that the current onboarding process does not prepare us for our roles on the sales team. We also are not told the extent of triage or customer issue resolution we are expected to do upon hiring, and our management acts inconvenienced whenever we have questions. I’ve been at the company for 4 months and have noticed how frenetic they are to hire. The benefits are good, but the lack of tailored training worries me. Am I just overly critical in my assessment of the situation? If not, what solutions can I offer without writing a comprehensive training program without pay?

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AnonymousJuly 29,2022 at 2:54PM UTC
It sounds like they have not spent the time to consider the new hire experience and gaps in training.
So just bringing up the issue will not resolve it. So either outline the shortfalls with suggested fixes or keep it to yourself and try and learn on your own.
When things grow quickly, programs don't always grown and evolve as needed. It's a tough spot to be in but you've been there for 4 months, I don't thinks it's going to improve with some driving those necessary improvements.
AnonymousJuly 29,2022 at 4:18PM UTC
I don't think you are being overly critical, but it is a fine line between things learned during the onboarding process and things you can learn in the field. It could be that management has been asked the same question by each of you, or they have been in the industry long enough that they have forgotten what it's like to be new and think the questions they are being asked are things you should already know. Whatever the reason is there is at least one thing that you and the trainees could do without creating a full training program.
Do you have a document shared between everyone that includes typical questions asked, common customer issues and their resolutions, or even general processes to follow in xx situations? If not, this would be something great for you and the other trainees to create. It should be a shared doc that is sectioned out by topic and easily searchable. As people ask questions and get answers to them, the questions and answers should be added to the doc. Also good to add who gave the answer.
My group has something like this for our products and it's really nice especially as you are learning the product. When a customer asks a question we don't know the answer to that's the first place we look. If the answer isn't there and we can't find it on our website or other internally shared locations we ask the general manager of the product. Once we have the answer (usually via email) the question, the answer, and the date of the answer are added to the doc for all of us to reference later.
You might also suggest a survey be done a certain time after onboarding is complete and people have had time to be in the field. Maybe 3 months after the onboarding process or shorter if the onboarding program is currently longer than a month. Soon enough that onboarding is still fresh, but long enough after that a person would have been able to experience some time in the field.
Hopefully one of these helps! Good luck :)