Within any staff, you're going to have a number of new recruits, and a number of more experienced employees. It is usually the task of the senior employees to train the new recruits, as the ?old hands? know how the job works better than just about anyone. However, employee-to-employee training doesn't always work.

It definitely should, of course. You want your senior employees to know how to guide the newer employees to the highest levels of excellence, but it doesn't always work out simply because of the fact that being good at your job doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be able to teach the job to others in a clear, effective manner.

Teaching is a skill, and nobody's really born with it. All the years of on the job training might not actually endow an employee with the ability to teach that job to others.

One solution would be to hire a third party to come in and train the new employees, but this is kind of silly when you think about it. Someone from outside the company isn't going to understand the job as well as someone who has been with the company for a decade or longer.

So what you should be doing is training the trainer. You want your senior employees to know how to pass their knowledge on to the new recruits. Honestly, this is the only answer that makes sense.

When your whole staff knows the job, knows their duties, and is confident in their ability to perform, the whole company just plain works better. Employees who know exactly what they're doing tend to have higher morale and be a lot more productive than employees who aren't quite sure, or are flat out confused about the task at hand.

If you want to ensure that your older employees are able to pass their knowledge on to the newer employees, you may want to look into professional trainer training. You don't need a Harvard degree in teaching to know how to train new employees, but by contacting a national trainer training company and setting up a custom trainer training session, the basic knowledge of ?how to teach? will be passed on to your own staff, ensuring that the knowledge of the job goes ?viral?, in that it spreads from employee to employee very easily.

Again, nobody is born knowing how to teach efficiently and effectively. Without using trainer training and development programs, you're more likely going to have to teach your new recruits through trial and error. With trainer training, you pick up teaching methods that have been shown to work to improve the abilities and know-how of your staff.

Oftentimes, it seems like a promising new employee is simply lazy or doesn't really value the job. But think about it, if nobody's ever taken the time to show them exactly what their tasks are and how the company works, can you blame them for lacking interest in a job that, through no fault of their own, they do not understand? When you train your trainers, you have a senior staff who are more than capable of making sure that every new recruit knows exactly how to perform their duties.