Hello,

I was wondering how you guys train your Webhosting staff? Right now, i have never done any trianing, I have always just done a thing where if they have questions they ask, but i dont think it is working how I planned, and I do not know how to train the staff. Any information would be helpful.

Regards,
Ryan

You can put together a type of manual that's specific to your company and outlines how staff is to handle certain procdedures - ie, when to escalate a ticket to management, handling a rude customer, and so on. Have a demo/instructions of how your helpdesk works (if they are responsible for manning it) to help them find their way around it more easily. Get an idea of the most common questions your staff is/has asked and add those as well. Some here at WHT have mentioned having a wiki accessible to only management/staff, which makes keeping it updated much easier.

You probably expect your staff to know how to do the technical part of their jobs (setting up accounts, handling billing issues, and so on), so theoretically you should be able to focus more on how you'd like them to do/handle things in your company.

Hope this helps! :)

Normally we have manuals, but the main training is OJT under which the new staff is trained by a senior staff. I think OJT should be the most efficient under such working conditions.

Of course besides OJT, there are the customary MCSE etc certifications which needed to be train by outside organization.

Normally we have manuals, but the main training is OJT under which the new staff is trained by a senior staff. I think OJT should be the most efficient under such working conditions.

Of course besides OJT, there are the customary MCSE etc certifications which needed to be train by outside organization.

Certifications would increase the confidence of the user. Normally its the senior staffs or mentors who take up this job to train accordingly.

We do OJT and have extensive internal documentation, including a wiki.

Then once a year, we all meet in one place (we are spread across 2 countries) for a company "retreat" for a few days and train together, as well as doing some fun activities like going go-karting, dinners, etc. I think this year we'll go to Bangkok :D

I think that the best way is unusual situations. Very close to the real ones. I think that you can imitate them

Challenge always would be the new staff..well , besides manuals probably what you can do is in your training schedule put aside a week or maximum two weeks where the new staff teams up /buddies up with an experienced staff in real time operations ; that he he /she gets an hang of the real thing ..coz any amount of training in the training room or reading manuals can do do only so much ..the real experience would mean a lot

We have a wiki and go through a 2 day intensive training plan with all new starters. That covers everything from where to find information to what our different clients SLAs are.

Precisely! The certs themselves aren't much use as what they are doing are more than what the cert is examining. But you do find more confidence in the staff after completing the course. So I would consider it a worthwhile investments.

This also helps to show that at least the company take care of them, with more of such certs, when the time comes that they feel they need a new working environment, such certs will certainly increase their value in the work market.


Certifications would increase the confidence of the user. Normally its the senior staffs or mentors who take up this job to train accordingly.

Only issue with training is that once trained you must do something to make sure that you keep your team and they are not poached off by other hosts that are willing to pay more than you. So remember to write something into your contracts to prevent this!

Get some manuals and show live demo for the staff. If the staff understand what you say, you are somewhat safe. If they don't understand after training three to four times, fire them and get a new one.

Note: First teach the command rm -rf and its impacts LOL