HOW TO KEEP YOUR NEW EMPLOYEE pt. 1
By VICKY BROWN
Boy, we’ve all been there. It takes you months to find just the right person, with the right experience and skills. But you find her – she fits in perfectly with the team and the company’s vision. You gladly give her more than you budgeted because you can tell she’s the perfect hire, and is just the person you need.
Then, suddenly she up and leaves. Why? And how can you stop it from happening.
There are all sorts of reasons someone may decide to leave a job, and many of them might have little to do with you or your company. You can’t do anything about challenges someone is having in their personal life. But there are things you can do to make sure you ‘ve cemented the benefits of working with you, and quickly integrated them into your environment – so they won’t even consider another opportunity.
Try these steps to increase your retention rate, and decrease your frustration rate.
First – take time creating a great candidate and employee experience. It starts with the posting.
Think about attracting, winning and retaining a new client in your service business. It’s all about the customer experience – who are you, how quickly and efficiently can you provide a solution, how can they get their questions resolved
I would guess you give them a hearty welcome, tell them how to take care of important tasks (like demonstrating how to use the service, or where to go if they have questions, or how to get help from customer service). And, if you’re really into the customer experience (which you absolutely should be), you might tell them the story of who you are, what the business stands for and what your mission is.
All these steps enhance the client experience, and reinforces for them why they selected your company, why they bought your service, and reminds them why they should continue to purchase from you.
It’s basically the same with a new employee. But it starts before they are even an employee, it starts when they are a candidate looking for a job. Everything about how you show up as an employer is noticed, and it either enhances or detracts from your brand. Is the job posting filled with typos, is it clearly organized and designed to appeal to the ‘buying’ instinct of the candidate (because that is what they’re doing – they’re deciding to buy what you’re selling – as an employer).
What does your career page look like on your website. In fact, do you even have a career page? Is it inviting, is the language accessible, do you have testimonials from current employees. What about your culture – does your career page highlight your culture and the spirit of your team. You really want to think of this page as an advertisement for you as an employer. How do you help your employees, what type of professional development opportunities can they expect from you, what makes yours a great place to work?
And remember, everything you do during the interview and selection process counts too! Don’t show up late and ill-prepared. If you have marketing materials for the company, put a little package together for the candidate so they can get a feel of how you show up in your client’s world. And be sure to talk about your origin story – humans love stories – they immediately engage us and pull us in.
Once you have selected the perfect person, now it’s time for the document portion of our programming.
You can’t get away from it – there are a goodly amount of documents new hires are required to read, retain and complete – but, you can make it as painless as possible.
“You’re marketing your brand here – albeit internally – it’s still a marketing exercise. Trumpet your great benefits, and your flexible time off policies – any perks you offer, make sure they’re front and center.”
First, make sure you have your compliance ducks in a row. Nothing says ‘we don’t have a handle on our employer obligations’ more than simply giving a new hire a W-4 tax form, the I-9 form and telling them to give you their driver’s license and social security card.
Today’s candidates are much savvier than before (the internet helps); and they most likely know (or will look up) that there are a host of state specific documents and notices that are required. Where is the wage theft notice, where is the workers comp notification, what about disability information. And asking for specific documents to complete the I-9 – that’s a mistake than can cost you a good deal of money.
Alright, we know there are documents – well, lots of documents – they will need to take care of on their first day. Make it as easy and efficient a process as possible. eSignatures are the way to go, and if you can use an online HR application to package everything together, send the candidate an email invitation and link, and track what is complete and has been returned – well, all the better.
But even if you don’t go the full-on HR app route, with today’s options you can create your own tracking and reminder process, link everything to Docusign or Hellosign, and still look really together as an organization.
Step #2 – onboarding. It’s more than simply making sure their tax documents are complete, and showing them their desk. To give your new team member the best chance of succeeding, it takes a lot more.
The goal of a good onboarding is to acclimate your new team member into the vibe, rhythm and sensibility of your company – all while giving them the tools they need to be as successful as possible.
A good way to think of onboarding is as a 3 step process – the required stuff, the stuff that will make their life easier, and the stuff that will help them fly.
The required stuff includes the mandatory HR documents, a tour of the office, introductions to the rest of the team, and training on their job duties.
Then there is the stuff that’ll make their life easier, like an org chart; how to use the phone system, your security practices, what’s the meeting cadence in the company, and what’s expected; what technology stack does the company use, what’s housed where and how will they get access (are you a Microsoft suite group, or is Google docs your go-to; how about productivity tools, Asana, Smartsheet, Trello or something else?). Helping your new employee understand, access and quickly learn the tech your business relies on, will go a long way in making them successful early on.
And finally, a great onboarding process sets the employee up to be engaged, and bring their best self to work from day one. That means you have to make sure they understand your mission, vision, values and goals. And hearing all that, along with a welcome message, directly from the head of the company shows they’re not just a faceless number – they matter, and their contribution is important, and you understand that.
So we’ve talked about the ‘what’ of onboarding, now let’s chat about the how. First off, realize it’s a ton of information, and no one can take in the firehose of information that comes at them on their first day. So – don’t expect that. Give the information room to breathe, and your new team member room to internalize it.
Honestly, a great onboarding should be upwards of a year process.
Don’t waste another minute trying to figure out how to get your business going and what should come next.
Grab your Free 3-Step Leader’s Journey Business Builder course, and get freedom and peace of mind, knowing you are on the right, proven track.
Now, before you say I’m crazy – let me explain. The most intensive part of the onboarding process will happen in the first 3 months. And yes, it will take that long, because remember they are also training on the responsibilities of their job. That means learning how to do things, doing them, maybe getting corrective feedback, and trying again. It’s called a process for a reason. In the first few weeks there should be some level of orientation and training each day; then add actual job tasks into their day; gradually the balance of training vs. doing will tilt until they are primarily doing the work of the job, with intermittent training and check ins.
Then at the 6 week mark, do a formal check-in to find out how things are going. Let me be clear – this absolutely should not be the first time you check-in. This is just a bit more of a formal conversation – but they should have regular check-ins by both their manager and by you (and if that’s the same person, all the better). It’s also a good time to begin the discuss goals.
Then at 12 weeks, another formal check-in and you can formalize their goals for the year. It’s also a great time to begin to discuss development, how would they like to grow, how would you like to see them grow. What opportunities, trainings, or experiences might help.
After the 12 week check-in, I like to pull all the new hires together quarterly in their first year for lunch, and I invite the leadership of other departments. This gives new hires a chance to spend non working time with people outside their own department, it creates cross departmental relationships, and helps them understand how what everyone is doing fits into the overall picture.
And again, since we know this is a firehose of information, the way it’s delivered goes a long way in making your company look good – or, not so good
Organize the information. And as opposed to just giving them a bunch of paper, think about putting it all online. It doesn’t have to be over the top, but with today’s tools you can easily create videos from PowerPoint on Loom, or record from your phone and put the video along with reference documents into Evernote. Of course, you can easily get a free account on a learning platform, like Thinkific, and set up your onboarding as an actual course to be completed over time.
No matter which delivery method you choose, keep the user in mind. How this information is made available to them will definitely impact the new employee experience.
Step #3 – don’t forget to give yourself credit where credit is due. You’re marketing your brand here – albeit internally – it’s still a marketing exercise. Trumpet your great benefits, and your flexible time off policies – any perks you offer, make sure they’re front and center.
Step #4 – make professional development a top priority. Again, you want them to do their best work, and contribute mightily to the business. Giving them opportunities to develop and grow will be a critical piece. Formal training, job swapping, posting internally for promotions – these are just some of the methods that can expand their horizon and stretch their talents.
Step #5 – alright, you put together a stellar onboarding process that includes variable training opportunities over a period of time. Don’t ruin it all by keeping your fingers and toes in the pie. Get out of the way – let them show what they learned, let them do what you’ve trained them for – in short, go do your job and leave them alone.
Too often we turn into helicopter managers, on top of every move, every decision, every project. But that’s why you’re growing a team, remember. So you can get out of the day to day, operate in your genius zone, and do the job only you can do. Leave the rest to your team.
Next week we’ll cover the other 5 steps to increase your ability to hang on to your great new employee.