“Onboarding” Can Make or Break Your Next New Hire

If you are a small or medium sized business, you may not bring new people on board that often. But when you do hire someone, what process do you have in place to help them be successful? Do you just give them the company handbook to read and say “we’re glad you’re here?” If so you are missing a great opportunity to integrate them into your business for the long term. Here are some suggestions to make a new hire “stick”:

• Have all of the tools they need to do their job in place before they start. I know salespeople who did not have business cards for several weeks after starting a new job. What kind of impression does that make, both for the employee and the business?
• It’s important to know company policies, but it’s even more important to know how your job supports company goals and objectives and what quality work looks like. No one works well in a vacuum. Create a clear picture of goals and expectations for the new employee.
• Facilitate connections with others both inside and outside the business. Your introduction to a key internal or external customer will help the new person see the larger picture of where they fit in.

If you make it clear that you are investing in your new hire, it’s much more likely that they will invest in you and help achieve your goals. That’s a win-win outcome!

Sharon Hamersley is Principal of Keys to Performance, Your Resource for Workplace Productivity. For more information, visit her web site http://k2performance.net or call her at 614-395-9440.

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“Orientation” vs. “Onboarding”: What’s the Difference?

As a small business owner, you may not hire a new employee very often. When you do bring on someone, do you expect them just to jump in and start working? If you do, you and the new person may be in for a bumpy ride. If you put a little more thought into it, you may “orient” the person, in the manner described below. But that still is not the best approach.

Most people are familiar with corporate version of New Employee Orientation. It’s that mind-numbing, day-long lecture on policies and procedures and how wonderful it is that you’ve joined this wonderful organization. As a small business owner you probably don’t have time for the day-long lecture. So, you may decide that the best thing is to sit the new hire down with your Policies and Procedures manual and maybe have them join the rest of the staff for a pizza lunch. Both these examples can be described as Orientation – an event that the new employee sits through and from which they learn little or nothing.

In contrast, Onboarding is a process. It starts when you make an offer and the new hire accepts. It doesn’t end until the person is fully integrated into their role in the business. Usually this period is at least three months and often more, depending on the employee’s level. And it involves planning at every step. Stay tuned for a future blog with details about the onboarding process and how you can make it work for you.

Sharon Hamersley is Principal of Keys to Performance, Your Resource for Workplace Productivity. For more information, visit her web site http://k2performance.net or call her at 614-395-9440.

Help! My Employees Have a Bad Attitude!

Are your employees “lazy?”  Do they seem to just want a paycheck without doing much if any work?  If this is the case, you probably think they have a bad attitude and you’d like to just give them the boot.  That’s a natural reaction to frustration, but before you go there, answer the following questions honestly:

• Am I consistently modeling the positive behavior I want to see in others?
• Do I wait for employees to make mistakes and then jump in to tell them what they did wrong?
• When they bring an issue or need to me, is my response that they should be happy to have a job?
• Do my employees have any idea why the work they do is important to the business?

If you come to work grumpy and complaining about the poor state of the world, you can expect others to mirror that behavior.  If you constantly criticize and rarely praise, you’ll get resistance rather than cooperation.  If you view employees as a cost rather than a investment, they will not see any reason to do any more than the minimum necessary because they know they are not valued.   And remember, without the work your employees do, you would not be in business very long.

So before trying to get anyone else to improve their attitude, try improving your own.  You might be surprised by the results.

Sharon Hamersley is Principal of Keys to Performance, Your Resource for Workplace Productivity. Sharon helps businesses create profitable, productive, and positive workplaces.  For more information, visit her web site http://k2performance.net or call her at 614-395-9440.