As a manufacturing leader and business owner regardless of your daily responsibilities, there will come a time when you have the job of onboarding new talent. While it may be true leadership skills and trainer skills overlap, the skills of an effective trainer can sometimes differ.

Onboarding requires you to spend a lot of time training people on how to do the work you need to be done each and every day. When you set out to do this, you should be set up for success. 

Developing your action and learning plan for onboarding new employees: 

• List the skills required

• Break down the job into pieces

• Identify key points and reasons

• Create job instruction sheets

Next, pick an important job that's often done by new employees. Start listing out the skills required. Then begin to think about the steps for explaining and teaching how to do those skills. 

Once you have identified the areas in which you need to train new employees and have developed the steps for training, you can focus on your trainer skills. 

The book Toyota Talent by Jeffrey K. Liker and David P. Meier goes into some of the skills needed in order to be an effective trainer which are: 

• Willing and Able to Learn

• Adaptable and Flexible

• Genuine Caring and Concern for Others - Dutch Uncle Temp workers

• Patience

• Persistence

• Taking Responsibility

• Confidence and Leadership

• Questioning Nature

As you begin to train and onboard employees, remember you will continue to learn and develop skills as a trainer as well. Be patient, be open to feedback, and be persistent with your students and yourself.