Motivating Senior Employees To Help Newcomers

How do you help develop the right kind of motivation for your senior employees to help welcome and train newcomers—especially if you have a fast growing company?

Since it is crucial for the integrity of a fast growing company that management makes sure to advance the elements of a strong culture with each and every new employee, there must be a method put in place to assure the ongoing strength of the company. When this is overlooked, a kind of creeping dissolution is bound to take over which will over rule what was rightly valued and put forth by the founders. But the maintenance of cultural branding can only be scalable when new hires are introduced to the culture by senior employees who believe in and actually live by the organization’s cultural norms.

All too often, especially in fast moving and fast growing companies, Human Resources will assume that their one-day onboarding program will do the job. But it won’t. For the most part, that one-day onboarding is a fast moving introduction rather than a deep dive into fundamentals.

Consequently I hope you look at all of your current employees as leaders in your company, people who want to positively influence others, especially those new to your company. After all, why would you want them working for you and representing your business if they were just after the dollar?

When New People Join You

For your existing employees, make sure they understand that in helping to integrate newcomers, their senior status affords them the opportunity to practice and grow their career development skills—for themselves as well as for the new hires. .

Whether it’s during team meetings,1on1's, and/or company all hands, engage your employees in recognizing the potential to them and their professional growth of helping bring onboard new hires. Taking this responsibility seriously will:

* Develop their leadership skills
* Grow their ability to inspire others
* Expand their onboarding skills
* Illuminate their managerial skills
* Increase their collaboration skills
* Practice leveraging their professional experience

Rewarding Excellent Attitude and Behaviors

However you convey the message that you will observe how well senior employees include and inspire new hires, make sure they know there will be additional payoffs. All too often outstanding company allegiance goes unnoticed or even taken for granted. Instead, embody your cultural values by reinforcing the behaviors you are encouraging by including concrete rewards.

For example, you can:

* Make clear that their contributions will be noted in their performance reviews
* Provide surprise bonuses to motivate further evidence of leadership abilities
* Move the promotional process along for those who exhibit optimal behavior toward new hires
* Include your top leaders in this process as speakers and/or award winners at your upcoming offsite or conference
* Give your stand-out inspirational and cultural leaders the opportunity to head up plum assignments that will make them more visible within the company and perhaps outside as well

Creating A Culture Of Inclusion

More and more people want to work for companies where the culture is inclusive, respectful, and caring. More and more businesses are having to develop guidelines and trainings that encourage and coach for these capabilities.

Remember, it’s a recruiter’s dream to be able to promote your company to a potential candidate as being socially responsible, high on emotional quotient (EQ), and committed to the career development of all employees.

Optimizing for the entry of new employees by training and rewarding your senior staff members’ for greater participation in the process is a win-win for everyone involved.

What has been your experience of being taken under the wing by a senior person when you entered a new company? If so, what was it like? If not, what would you have wanted to happen?


Judith Sherven, PhD and her husband Jim Sniechowski, PhD https://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabuloustm. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing—they are always succeeding. The question is, at what? To learn about how this played out in the life of Whitney Houston for example, and how it may be playing out in your own life, check out their 6th book: https://WhatReally KilledWhitneyHouston.com

Currently consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. Their core program is called “Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous” https://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com

Note: Their 7th book, short and to the point, “25 Power Speaking Tips That Will Leave Your Audiences Wanting More,” has just been published in kindle at:
https://tinyurl.com/25PWRSPKGTips

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