It all starts with a plan. Every business owner can benefit having an employee training plan for their new employees.

A good training program helps new employees integrate into their roles quickly and effectively. Ongoing training ensures employees stay on the cutting edge of their profession.

Benefits of Employee Training

Employee training programs serve many purposes within an organization. First, these programs enhance your company's current workforce by teaching your employees new abilities and skills.

Second, good training programs make your company more appealing to prospective candidates. 

Everyone benefits from a well-structured employee training plan that provides relevant ongoing training. Employees will be happier and more satisfied in their jobs, if you give them the opportunity to learn and grow.

This results in fewer problems with time management, accidents in the workplace, absenteeism and high turnover. Low turnover reduces the expense of constantly recruiting new people for the same positions. 

Training programs help strengthen company morale and employee motivation. Increased motivation results in greater productivity, which spurs your company's profits. 

As employees grow more effective and efficient, they feel more confident to accept greater challenges.

As an employer, you'll have employees who can generate new ideas, resolve problems and improve work performance. There's nothing like having a skilled workforce that's committed to your business.

Types of Training

Training programs vary from company to company. It all depends on your particular objectives and needs.

Many companies integrate skills like:

•          Team building
•          Team development
•          Leadership training
•          Communication and coaching

These programs help managers and staff learn how to work together within their departments. People in management positions can especially benefit from these soft skills.

Training programs should be geared toward meeting employees' specific work needs and responsibilities. These programs could incorporate job training, mentoring schemes, in-house training or individual studies.

Training as an Investment

Companies that institute and maintain a strong employee training plan set themselves up for success.

Training programs impart valuable knowledge and skills that workers need to perform their jobs more effectively. If you're in sales, trained employees can build better customer relations and generating successful sales.

If you're in manufacturing, proper training equips your employees with the abilities and skills to produce quality products. 

Training is an investment into your company's future. Your company enhances its image, making it a more appealing place to work. Most employees prefer companies that offer them opportunities for advancement. A business that values its employees will make an effort to meet their career goals and objectives. 

A pool of talented individuals comes in handy when someone leaves unexpectedly or accepts a transfer to another location.

A good workforce requires less pushing and prodding to get the job done right. This frees your managers for more productive services. Trained employees also adapt to the ever changing business environment. This makes them a force you can depend on for the future.

The success of your business depends on having well-trained, dependable and committed employees.

Creating a small business strategy for hiring employees in Canada is a good idea. It’s more important then ever, in the wake of recent changes to the hiring process guidelines from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

In general, the first step in the hiring process begins with a proper employment listing. A typical job description includes specific employee duties, hours, salary and benefits.

CRA officials also say that a good job description should include information about any "probationary period." CRA tracks both required business numbers and payroll deduction accounts throughout the country. That’s why it’s important to meet their various employment standards for your specific province.

Any business needs to create a proper job description.  This requirement helps avoid any current or future misunderstandings. It’s a good idea to have astandard process to advertise job openings and conduct interviews with job candidates.

Hiring in Canada is User-Friendly

The hiring process throughout Canada is both user-friendly and transparent. This is why CRA wants you to document the terms of any employees work in writing.

Their advice is based on years of studying how to hire an employee in Canada the right way.

The right way includes:

1. An employer having a valid business number, and a payroll deductions account. Business owners with questions can call the Canada Revenue Agency at 1-800-959-5525. Business owners can also register for a business number online.

2. A business owner has to check a prospective employee's Social Insurance Number (SIN) within three days of the first workday. The employer must record the number exactly as it is written on the SIN card.

The CRA has issued an advisory for employers to ensure that any new person they hire does not have a SIN that begins with the number 9. They claim that a SIN that starts with the number 9 "is not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident." Thus, this type of employee is only allowed to work for select employers in Canada. If a prospective employee is eligible to work in the country but does not have a SIN, they should be sent to apply for a SIN at a local Service Canada Office.

3. All employers must instruct a new employee to complete a Form TD1, Personal Tax Credits Return. This form states how much tax will be deducted from an employee's paycheck. Also, all new workers must complete the federal and provincial TD1 "if they want more than basic personal amount" to be claimed. Employees who work in Quebec must use both the federal TD1 and provincial Form TP 105.3-V, Source Deductions Return.

This is some of the required paperwork that both the employer and prospective new worker must complete before they can legally be hired and be employed in Canada. 

Workplace Safety

The Canadian government is bullish on workplace safety. That's why it's vital to brief new employees about safety, dress code and job expectations.

An orientation session for all new employees helps fill in any gaps about required duties, safety issues and other company requirements.

Overall, it's not difficult to hire an employee the right way in Canada. But it is important that you follow all of the CRA's guidelines. This ensures you don't run into problems down the line.

Are your best and brightest leaving you? Maybe an employee survey could have helped you keep them on staff.

Turnover is always a concern for any organization—especially when it comes to top performers. But too many companies scratch their and head as to why their stars leave, or assume there’s nothing they could do to keep them. But that’s far from true.

Rosemary Haefner, vice president of Human Resources at CareerBuilder recently told Forbes.com that an employee survey can give you insights into how to reel back employees that have one foot out the door.

“Not recognizing what’s important to employees can translate into more job dissatisfaction, lower productivity, and higher voluntary turnover,” said Haefner,

“It’s critical that companies regularly take the temperature of their workplace and survey employees to identify where the company excels in providing a positive employee experience as well as opportunities to improve.”

If someone is thinking about leaving, their reasons can include everything from feeling undervalued or underpaid to not liking the company culture. If you’re aware of an employee’s issues or complaints before they start scanning job ads, you can win them back.

If you have any questions about what employee surveys can do for your organization, please contact us any time.

The Globe and Mail wants to know how work is going. They’re turning to a national employee engagement survey. It’s a move that more and more companies are using to improve employee engagement in their office.

The Globe and Mail’s Your Life at Work Survey, done in conjunction with Howatt HR Consulting, can be filled out here.  It’s said to measure your stress levels and determine whether you’re able to cope.

“This survey takes a look at four themes that affect your life at work: what causes you stress; what’s the effect of that stress on you and your health; how you cope or don’t cope with that stress; and how does this influence your commitment to your job and your organization,” said the Globe.

“The four themes come together in a our Quality of Work Life (QWL) Risk score. The higher your score on the risk index, the greater your risk for a slew of health-related issues.”

Employee engagement surveys are a great way to gain new insights into how connected your employees are to their job and your company.

If you have any questions about what an employee engagement survey can do for your team, please contact us any time.

Vancouver city employees recently completed an engagement survey. And the results are not good.

The city is dealing with low morale across the board, particularly with their fire department. Things have gotten so bad that results show that only six per cent of respondents have confidence in Fire Chief John McKearney and his management team.

These numbers even came as a shock to City Manager Penny Ballem, who has made it her mission to improve engagement and culture.

“What they told us was that if we were going to embark on this, you need to know the next (survey) in a big complex organization like this one gets worse,” said Ballem.

“We realized if we just boil the ocean for a couple of years we probably won’t get any results. So we had a very focused strategy of what we wanted to work on.” 

3,288 city employees filled out the survey last summer, with a response rate of 48 per cent. In 2010, the response rate was slightly higher, at 50 per cent. However, far more firefighters took the chance to be heard, with a response rate around 65 per cent.  This was much higher than the 36 per cent rate from 2010. 

If you have any questions about what an employee engagement survey can do for your company, please contact us any time.