Today, we’re talking about the challenges – as well as some solutions – to the process of onboarding new staff.
We spend a lot of time here at Best Practice with our team members, and really try to enhance our working relationship to inspire them to get the best results. When we’re hiring someone, we want to take them to that absolutely top level; one of the ways we do that is to get the foundations right in the first couple of weeks, when they jump on board.
We’ve had a few questions in the last week that have come through us around what is a really successful way to onboard staff, so I think one thing that’s really important is to give people time to digest what you want them to start absorbing the role you’ve got for them, so as you go through the filtration process, and you do your interviews – we’re going to talk about that in a video – you’re going to get an understanding of: do they get the job, do they want the job, and have they got the capacity to do it?
Once they come on board you’ve got to give them time to digest and absorb the information. Maybe on the first day they’ve got lots of reading to do, and you’re going to show them what they need to do, but you’ve got to give them time to practice. We talk about it a lot here at Best Practice: keep improving everyday… practice, practice, practice.
It’s also important to give people time in a controlled environment to make little mistakes, so they can learn from the process and get better, and better everyday. Particularly early on, don’t chastise them for making a silly little mistake. Under closer supervision, this is really important, so even myself here as a CEO, I spend a lot of time one-on-one with people in the first couple of weeks, so that we can bring them up to speed kind of like the old master and apprentice philosophy.
How could you adopt the master and apprentice philosophy in your business to bring new people on board give them time to digest gives them time to learn before you expect them to be fully functional and up to speed.
It’s your decision about that timeline in terms of what’s acceptable, because you do have to make the call about whether or not this person is not going to work out, but ultimately that’s why we have trial periods, and incubation periods.
Our top tips here for Best Practice in terms of onboarding people are: make it fun, make it an enjoyable learning period, they have the support in place to help them in the transition period, make sure they’ve got a really good cultural fit with your business. When people enjoy going to work, and when you enjoy going to work, that’s a great time, and there’s higher levels of compliance, more acceptance of your management systems, which is really exciting and ultimately that delivers results on your scoreboard.
