If you have been a business owner for any length of time, you know your people are the key to your success. You may have a great product, or a great vision, but without the right people, your company will not grow. If you can get the right people in your business, even an average product can position you for significant growth.
The problem is that you do not have time to create a plan for finding and keeping the right people. Your recruiting efforts are last minute. You will hire the first reasonable person who says the right things. All you are looking for is relief. Your onboarding process is slow, out of order, incomplete, and different with each new hire. What you are really looking for is someone willing to find their own way. You may have even said in the past that you know after one or two days if someone is going to “make it”.
What you are really saying is that you know within a day or two if your new employee is willing to put up with little to no training. You may have found some of these people over the years, but the reality is that most people are turned off by disorganization and a lack of clarity on what success looks like for them.
What if you could turn your hiring and onboarding process into one of the best parts about working for your company? How would that improve the caliber of people you attract? How much faster would their ramp-up period be? How much more would your current employees appreciate the new ones? And how much more efficient would YOU be?
Here are five simple tips to improve your onboarding process today:
1. Create a Checklist of Your Employees’ Needs
Before you can meet any needs of your new employee, you need to have them defined. Make the list of comprehensive as possible.
2. Explain How They Fit In
Explain to your new employee why your company exists, where it is going, and how they fit in. Every role is important, help them feel that.
3. Create a One-Wee, Four-Week Plan
People want a plan. People want a schedule. Set times for them to learn from your best employees. Put a start and end date to onboarding. Detail what they will learn. They should know clearly what success looks like.
4. Meet With Employees Often
Ask what they learned. Ask what questions they have. Give them helpful feedback on how they are doing their job. Show some appreciation.
5. Write It All Down
This is the key….for next time. Don’t wing it. You will never save time and you will never improve your process if you don’t write it down.
You may be looking at this list of things and still thinking that you don’t have time. Do yourself a favor and try it. Spend 30 minutes on #1 before they show up for their first day of work. Spend 60 minutes on their Week One Plan. Take a few minutes at the beginning or end of each day to invest in your new employee, it will go a long way. If you do ONE THING though, write it down. Your future self will thank your current self for all the time you saved.
