Onboarding Training Focused on Performance Improvement

🔴 Knowledge isn’t the goal — performance is. If training doesn’t change what learners do, it’s useless information. To design learning that drives real behavioral change, focus on performance-based outcomes. Here’s how: 1️⃣ Define the desired behavior. Before you create content, ask: "What should learners be able to DO after this training?" ✅ Instead of “Understand conflict resolution” → “De-escalate workplace conflicts using a 3-step framework.” ✅ Instead of “Know safety procedures” → “Complete a safety check before each shift without missing a step.” 2️⃣ Align content to real-world tasks. Cut anything that doesn’t directly impact performance. ✅ Teach skills, not just concepts. ✅ Show learners how to apply the information. ✅ Use realistic examples, not just definitions. 3️⃣ Make practice the priority. If learners only consume content passively, they won’t be ready to act. ✅ Use scenario-based activities. ✅ Have them make decisions and see consequences. ✅ Design realistic practice opportunities. Example: Instead of listing customer service principles, let learners handle a simulated customer complaint -- and refine their approach. 4️⃣ Measure success by actions, not completion. ✅ Set clear, observable performance goals. ✅ Assess what learners can do, not just what they remember. ✅ Provide feedback that helps them improve. Learning should change behavior, not just transfer knowledge. 🤔 How do you design training with performance in mind? ----------------------- 👋 Hi! I'm Elizabeth! ♻️ Share this post if you found it helpful. 👆 Follow me for more tips! 🤝 Reach out if you need a high-quality learning solution designed to engage learners and drive real change. #InstructionalDesign #PerformanceBasedLearning #BehavioralChange #LearningAndDevelopment

How do I build a 12-month roadmap for a recruit using their production and my company playbook? Let me share a quick story. One of the leaders I coached was struggling to onboard a new hire effectively. They had great potential but didn’t quite understand how they fit into the big picture. As they dove into the role, the rookie felt lost and overwhelmed, leading to a few early missteps. We worked together on a solution. Instead of just assigning tasks based on numbers and quotas, we flipped the script. We created a detailed 12-month roadmap aligning their production goals with our company playbook. This wasn’t just about selling; it was about grasping our vision and understanding how their contributions would make an impact. Here’s how you can do the same: Start by identifying key production milestones for the recruit, breaking them down into manageable quarterly goals. For each quarter, align these objectives with specific elements of your playbook — training modules, key projects, or team collaboration opportunities. Ensure that each milestone has clear, actionable steps and reasons behind them, so the recruit knows not just what to do but why it matters. Also, keep communication open. Regular check-ins will help you both stay aligned and pivot if necessary. This framework works because it transforms the onboarding experience from a transactional series of tasks into a collaborative journey. When recruits see how their efforts support a greater vision, they’re not just going through the motions; they’re genuinely invested in the success of the team and the company. A meaningful onboarding process can set the stage for long-term engagement and high performance. Let’s make sure our new hires feel they belong and can see the roadmap to their success right from the start.

Stop “welcoming” new hires. Give them a win in 30 days instead. When I first hired 8 years back, I thought the best onboarding was all about making new hires feel at home. I was wrong. New hires actually struggle with: → Understanding the business and their role. → Aligning with company culture and expectations. → Getting that first “win” to build momentum. → Building relationships with colleagues. I’ve now completely changed our onboarding process. The only goal is to get new hires to their “first win” fast. Instead of generic training, we work backward from their first big achievement. Here’s the framework: Step 1: Define the “first win” (within 30 days) Every new hire gets a specific, meaningful milestone. 1. It should be important enough that not doing it has a business impact. 2. Something that pushes them but is achievable with team collaboration. 3. It should give them real insight into how we operate. Our new Demand Gen Marketer’s first win was securing Market Development Funds (MDF) from a partner. To do this, they had to: - Work with our internal team. - Engage with a partner manager. - Propose a campaign relevant to both companies. This wasn’t just a task (it was a meaningful contribution). Step 2: Provide context (without overloading them) Most onboarding programs drown new hires in endless presentations. We limit training to what they need for their first win. 1. A 45-minute deep dive on the company’s journey, priorities, and challenges. 2. Targeted learning on only what’s relevant for their milestone. 3. Hands-on guidance instead of passive training. For the Demand Gen hire, we focused on: - Who the partner manager was and their priorities. - How the partnership worked. - What MDF campaigns typically get approved. Step 3: Align them with our work culture Culture isn't learned in a handbook. It’s experienced. Every new hire is paired with a mentor to guide them through: → Quality Standards → What "good" looks like in our company. → Processes & Tools → How we work and collaborate. → Feedback Loops → How we review, iterate, and improve. The result? New hires achieve something meaningful within their first month. They feel pride, momentum, and confidence (not just onboarding fatigue). Great onboarding isn’t about information. It’s about impact. 💡 How do you set up new hires for success?

My two cents… I had an enablement colleague ask me a question about onboarding and how it’s changed, how we tailor it, what reps should know and when, how much selling vs. product vs. industry training should be done, and when they should start selling. My peers in the business know this line of questioning well. In my opinion, onboarding programs need to shift away from focusing on content and move toward sequence and intent. Stop prioritizing information completeness and instead design around progressive capability. New hires should start doing real things earlier. Do small things first, then bigger ones. The training doesn’t disappear; it gets reorganized around the doing rather than the knowing. Here’s a reframe that changes how I think about onboarding entirely: new hires should be selling from day one. What they’re selling evolves. Day 1–10 – Selling themselves internally. Learning the business, earning trust, building relationships. Understanding how the organization actually operates and not just what the org chart says. (And ideally not asking where the coffee machine is for the fifth time.) Day 10–30 – Selling curiosity externally. Joining calls, asking smart questions, observing experienced reps navigate conversations. Not pitching like a caffeinated product brochure. Listening. Reading the room. Developing instincts. Day 30–60 – Selling pieces of the deal. Running discovery. Owning the recap. Setting next steps. Still supervised, still supported. Think of it as a learner’s permit where you have real driving in controlled conditions. Day 60–90 – Selling full-cycle. Pipeline, deals, forecasts; basically the whole beautiful, complicated mess. Accountable for outcomes, supported by the system, coached by the manager. Actually in the game. Designed this way, onboarding isn’t a waiting room before the job starts. It is the job, at progressively increasing altitudes. The new hire is never a spectator. They’re always a participant. The only question is what role they’re playing this week.

We weren’t trying to fix training. We were trying to fix performance. At one point, we were facing a familiar problem: New hires were taking too long to ramp. Experienced employees weren’t consistent. Leaders were frustrated. The initial ask? “Can you improve the training?” But the real issue wasn’t training. It was: • Lack of clarity on what “good” looked like • Too many disconnected learning experiences • No alignment between leaders and learning So we changed the approach. Instead of redesigning content, we: • Defined performance expectations • Simplified the learning journey • Aligned leaders to reinforce behaviors The result: • Onboarding time reduced by 43% • Time-to-proficiency improved by 57% That’s the shift. L&D isn’t about building better courses. It’s about building better performance systems. Where have you seen this disconnect show up?

I once worked with a team that was proud of their onboarding process. New hires got swag bags, welcome lunches, and long orientation decks. But here’s what no one was tracking: How long it took those new hires to make a real impact. In one case, it was 90+ days before someone delivered their first key result. Not because they weren’t capable—because we hadn’t built a runway for them to land on. So we reworked onboarding completely. Not as an HR checklist. As a business acceleration strategy. We asked questions like: • What does success look like in the first 30, 60, 90 days • What’s their first deliverable that actually moves the needle • Who are the people they need to build trust with quickly • What tools, data, or decisions are they missing to get started • How do we shorten the time from “welcome” to “impact” The result? Time to productivity was cut in half. Confidence went up. Retention improved. So did results. Because when onboarding is done right, it’s not about orientation. It’s about acceleration. #HRRealTalk #OnboardingMatters #EmployeeExperience #TalentDevelopment #NewHireSuccess #HRLeadership #PeopleStrategy #TimeToProductivity #WorkforceEnablement #FutureOfWork

Sales onboarding horror stories I’m sure most of us have a few.... “Familiarize yourself with our product through this one-pager and sales deck." “Meet John, our top-performing rep. Despite his busy schedule, he’ll show you the ropes.” “Here’s your login to our CRM and Gong. Play around and let us know if you have any questions.” Overlooked and overtly lazy onboarding is (unfortunately) still too common. It’s unstructured Too broad (rather than role-specific) Lacks clear learning objectives Or, even worse, it’s non-existent You can’t expect new hires to perform if you don’t lay a solid foundation for them to perform off of. This is even more heightened when you run a fully-remote sales org. What would you say is most helpful when you’re onboarding? Here’s our approach at Insightly: Balance of training types:  • Self-paced learning (ex. customer stories, webinars, Gong calls) • Live instructor-led training  • Shadowing colleagues • Collaborative group activities within the cohort Deep dives into: • Industry, market, and competitive landscape • Personas and ICP  • Identifying problems and communicating value props • Products (feature, function, use case) • Sales process  • Tech stack Learning by doing: • Elevator pitch delivery (EOW 1) • Mock CRM demo presentation (EOW 2) • Call & email cadence creation (EOW 3) • Discovery call and sales deck roleplay (EOW 4) We employ an onboarding scorecard to evaluate and gauge new hires' progress toward objectives, including a monthly bonus tied to successfully achieving training and on-the-job performance goals. Really this just scratches the surface... Every onboarding program is different. Effective onboarding cultivates confident salespeople. If you want your salespeople to be confident, you need to provide them with effective onboarding. 

I used to think a few weeks of onboarding was enough. Shadow a few shifts. Learn the ropes. Then sink or swim. But that’s not training. That’s just hoping people figure it out. And hope isn’t a system. So we changed the way we build our teams. We created a 52-week training program that delivers real development every single week. One core focus → One habit → One value → Week after week. It gave our team structure.  It gave them clarity. And it gave them confidence to lead without waiting for permission. Turnover dropped.  Performance jumped.  People started solving problems without being told. We didn’t change who we hired. We changed how we equipped them. If someone on your team feels lost after onboarding, that’s not their fault. It’s the system’s fault. A strong team isn’t built in the first two weeks. It’s built through consistent investment over time. Keep training.  Keep sharpening.  That’s how you scale a business that lasts.

It only took 5- weeks to diagnose a problem that had been costing this org over half a million dollars a year. 👇🏾   This healthcare organization had been stuck in the same pattern for years: hire medical assistants, watch them struggle, watch them leave, repeat.   Leadership was doing everything they thought they should do: posting jobs, screening candidates, making offers, trying to train people fast so they could get to work.   But 67 out of 95 new hires still failed.   This is why when our Element of Change team came in, we didn't look at resumés or audit their job descriptions.   Instead, we took our 3D Discovery Framework to examine what actually happened after someone said yes.   Here's what we found:   >> No standardized onboarding (every site did it differently) >> Provider-driven training (what you learned depended on who you got)  >> Zero role clarity (nobody knew their boundaries) >> No feedback loops (problems weren't caught until exit interviews)  >> No growth pathways (high performers had nowhere to go)   The system was designed to confuse new hires!   The fix: A systematic onboarding lab with peer-led training, a 7-week phased curriculum, and a manager toolkit with early warning indicators.   The impact: >> Up to $400K in annual savings  >> Turnover projected to drop from 48% to 25%  >> 20-30% more managerial bandwidth  >> Faster ramp-up and improved cross-site productivity   This is why we're obsessed with proper diagnosis before prescription.   When you understand the root cause, the solution becomes obvious.   Curious how this approach could work for your organization? Send me a message. I’d love to hear what you're working on.   #lisarigoli #elementofchange #healthcareonboarding #discoveryframework

*One week of training isn’t onboarding* It’s barely orientation. But I keep seeing companies toss reps into the field after five days of call shadowing, role plays, and a few slide decks… and then act surprised when they don’t hit quota. I’m not saying it’s impossible for these reps to succeed. I’m saying you shouldn’t bank on it. Some of these SDRs don’t even know how to update lead statuses in their CRM. Here’s the shift: Onboarding isn't a sprint to the finish line. It’s a 90-day runway. Give reps time to build the foundation and the confidence. At demandDrive, we like to think of it in 3 phases: 1️⃣ - First 30 Days – Learn the job (30–40% quota): Understand the product, tech stack, talk tracks, and start building muscle memory. 2️⃣ - Next 30 Days – Apply the skills (40–70% quota): More volume, more ownership, more scenarios. Add call reviews and feedback loops with other departments. 3️⃣- Next 30 Days – Operate with confidence (70–100%+ quota): Add new channels. Own their pipeline. Start coaching others. Bonus Stage 4️⃣ - Beyond 90 Days - Continuous Coaching (100%+ quota): Learning is never done, and your reps can always get better. Whether it's autonomous or structured, building in opportunities to coach and upskill after their onboarding will help develop mastery. Quota expectations should ramp with tenure. If you're holding a new hire to the same number as a vet, that’s not just pressure - that’s mismanagement. Your reps *can* be top performers. But only if you give them more than five days to survive the sharks. What does your onboarding, training, and coaching program look like?