How to On-Board Effectively
Hey listen entrepreneurs, when you’re looking to bring people into the business and you’re thinking of hiring a new employee, STOP. Before you even run an ad, or before you even start looking or passing the word around that you need somebody, I really, really encourage you to sit down and make a list of responsibilities and tasks that this person will do for you.
This will give you a good idea of a few important things:
-How to title the ad
-The type of person that you’re looking for
-Where that person fits into your into your business
This way, you know that making the decision to hire somebody is a really, really good one. You can get rid of things that take up a lot of your time that maybe you’re not an expert at and this allows you to focus more on building your business and doing the things that you’re really great at and that’s all good. But...on-boarding someone quickly and effectively is so, so important. So, let’s talk about a few things.
First of all, there’s a big difference between Abdication and Delegation. I’m a big fan of delegation and I’ll tell you that abdication doesn’t work so get your mind set around that. If you have a list of tasks and you’re going bring somebody in to do them, many people think that’s going to save a 100% of the time that they spent doing those tasks and that it’s going to free them up a 100% of that time. Maybe its 3 hours a week, or maybe its 5 hours a week that you’re looking for a part-time person for example. That’s not necessarily true. I always tell people, it’s going save them about 80-90% of that time. The 10-20% of that time that it’s not going to save them, is the time that’s going to be used to manage and communicate with this new person on your team. So, just be clear about that.
Secondly, really knowing what that person is going to do when they come in to your business is crucial. So, once you get your job description done and you’ve run your ads, you’re then going to go through the process of sorting through the resumes and applications. You’re going to look for the typical spelling errors and people who don’t really seem to fit the bill. You can tell A LOT from those resumes and those inquiries. You can tell how long they’ve been in a particular job or position, how much experience they have, where they’ve worked, and if they've hopped around a lot. There are a lot of things that you look for in a resume. But the reason that we get into the interview process, and this is also a key thing, is that you need to hire people who you can work with and who are going to do business the way you want it done and that goes back to your values.
I’ve written a blog post on values and why it’s so important to document them as a sort of a theme and a culture that you’re going build throughout your company as you grow. So get your values statement out when you start interviewing, get your job description out and when those people come in, you’re going to talk to them about their work experience and their history. But you’re also going to talk about the values of the business. See if they fit with your organization’s culture and values and if they are going to be the kind of worker that will fit in well with you and your other people.
More on how important it is to communicate your values.
When you start on-boarding that person and bringing them in to your culture and your company, it is so, so important that you sit down and spend the time and invest this time upfront.
1. Go through the job description and bullet by bullet by bullet let that person know exactly how and when all resources are available, and address the individual items that need to get done. Chances are, you’ve been doing it yourself and you have a very specific method for each of these items.
2. In this meeting, that person should document all of the ways that you want things done. They should document your resources that are available. In essence, what they’re doing is creating a procedure manual for themselves, and this is great! By doing that, they can then answer their own questions when they get stuck if for example, you are not there.
3. Another fantastic reason is that you’ve already been clear about your expectations so that they themselves are very clear on them. This allows you to get back to work with minimal interruptions. They’re not coming to you every 5 minutes saying “Hey! How do I do this?” “Hey! Where do I get this?” It’s already been discussed.
I can’t tell you how important it is that you invest this time upfront, set the stage and make this person an independent and productive part of your organization as quickly as you can. You’ll be really glad you did. You’ve decided to invest in someone and leverage their skills so that you can go out and you can create more business or do whatever it is that you do best. Really, really think about that and on-board them quickly and correctly.
Do it once. Do it right.
Make it a great day!
Rick Day