On-boarding or Getting Them On Board? How You Approach Welcoming New Hires Determines Their Success and Longevity with Your Company
? 2020 By James Bahm
The moment you doubt whether you can do something, you cease from that moment on to ever be able to accomplish it.
I saw that (or some variation thereof) some months back on LinkedIn and I recognized it from the Peter Pan line on flying. I thought how well that equates to on-boarding, especially in relation to a few places I’ve spent time working.
Talk to 100 hiring managers and you’ll get just about as many opinions on what constitutes a great on-boarding program. All too often stations are bringing in new hires, some of whom have no previous experience, and they think taking a day to go over the rate sheet and current promotions are all that’s required.
In 1995, my first radio GM handed me a copy of the Yellow Pages and said, “Pick out 100 businesses and go call on them.” At least he took 9 minutes to go over the sales sheet and what I needed to do to fill out an order before letting my fingers do the walking. It’s come a long way since then; however, some stations provide on-boarding that is not too dissimilar to my boss in Nowhere, Kentucky.
Here are a few easy-to-implement ideas to make on-boarding easier, more effective, and set up your new hires for success.
DON’T HAVE SOMEONE DO THE TRAINING WHO DOESN’T KNOW THE SOLUTION
I met with a cluster sales manager last year who asked me a question about digital solutions. As soon as he asked, the first thing he said was, “Now I’m the sales manager and I would have no idea in how to answer that question, if a client were to ask me.” Not only did I know the answer, I explained the best way to implement them. He was genuinely surprised, and that was sad.
If you do everything in-house, make sure whomever leads the training can actually train on the topic. Learning as you go, is not an effective approach. It’s better to have an extensive training on various solutions and platforms, with someone available to continually provide training, clarification, and answers to questions so they can have an intelligent conversation with clients and can speak to solutions conversationally.
ON-BOARDING IS NOT JUST A SERIES OF MEETINGS
Most places like you to spend an hour, or half-day with a department to learn what they do, who your point of contact is, and what form must be filled out in triplicate. And then turn you loose. Knowing that Rachael is the Accounting Manager and Jordan oversees production is great, just make sure that the doors to their office are always open and training is on-going.
Even the most seasoned sales professional may need a couple of follow-up meetings to fully learn how to enter the order into ABC if they’ve only ever used XYZ. Meeting all the department heads, ops managers, and more people than they can remember is great, just be sure to emphasize that the initial meeting isn’t the only one they’ll have.
GET TECHNICAL
How long are we on our phones/tablets/PCs throughout the day? Why not move your on-boarding materials to the cloud, or in an app, that new hires can access on their phone/tablet that will allow them instant access to internal items they need when they need it?
In a recent column on inkling.com, they discuss a study from the Brandon Hall Group that said while most companies provide traditional on-boarding activities, employees want to know that they will have on-going access to the resources and training that they need to be successful.
Having learning that allows new hires to get instruction and immediately apply it helps them retain “up to 90% of what they learned instead of only 20% -30% with traditional onboarding.”
DON’T HAVE EXPECTATIONS
I hear from friends and colleagues throughout the country who say that turnover is still high and good people aren’t sticking around. When I moved to Louisville a couple years ago, my GM told me that for the first two months they had zero expectations of me bringing in business. They wanted me learning. Learning their system, learning the platforms, absorbing what I needed to be successful. I closed my first annual contract in my second month.
New sellers have enough pressure on them to sell, learn your stations, learn the market (especially when relocating across country), and learn all you are teaching them – don’t expect them to hit any budget until month three or four, unless you’re including a billing client list to get them there.
I get Radio (and any other sales position) is a what-have-you-done-lately industry and ultimately sellers need to be selling. Don’t make it that much harder for new hires by muddying the on-boarding waters and making them feel like sheep being herded to pasture rather than a valued member of your team.
Bottom Line: Your employee’s success, or lack thereof, is a direct reflection of you. From how you make them feel from the moment they come through your doors, to the on-going training and development you provide: make it a pathway to success, not a precursor to disaster.
James Bahm is a 25-year broadcasting veteran, owner of The Bahm Consulting, a marketing and advertising consulting company in Las Vegas, NV, and recruits for companies throughout the Western United States for Kelly Services - any thoughts herein are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of the staff and management at Kelly.