5 Tips for Training Younger Staff

High schoolers, college students and recent graduates are often good employees because they’re ambitious, eager to earn a paycheck and ready to apply what they know in a real-world setting. But they may be intimidated by older adult customers and worse, those customers might not trust their knowledge or experience. Neither scenario is productive to your workplace. To reduce employee turnover and set younger staff up for success, you must help them become experts about your products and company, while giving them opportunities to test and demonstrate their skills and growing knowledge base. These five practices will help you bring younger staff up to speed in a meaningful and engaging way.

Conduct a Comprehensive Onboarding

Help young adults see the business big picture. Give them the layout of other staff and their responsibilities, as well as an overview of your company’s goals, your typical customers, and standard operating procedures. Providing that insight helps younger staff understand brand objectives and internal conversations, which helps them connect with the team and company.

Then, start training sessions on core tasks before branching into specific technical skills or advanced sales techniques. If you hired a bow technician, enroll them in the ATA’s Bow Technician Certification Course so they learn the safe use of a bow press, draw board and other shop equipment, as well as how to perform a complete compound bow setup. Click here to learn more.

Provide Incremental Education

Education motivates younger employees. Providing a few minutes of education each day keeps employees excited and engaged. Share additional details about processes they already know or teach them new facts about products, brands, events, partners or customer preferences. Consider getting them certified to teach archery if you plan to have them instruct a class or run your range. The ATA offers archery instructor certifications at the annual ATA Show or you can sign up through USA Archery.