YOU ONLY GET ONE CHANCE TO MAKE A GREAT FIRST IMPRESSION

Do you remember you first ever day at work in hospitality?

Were you greeted, introduced to everyone and given a buddy to hang out with or go to if you had any questions? I’d like to think the answer is yes. Yet surprisingly and alarmingly this is still not the way most businesses operate. Everyone needs to be made to feel welcome and comfortable so that they can perform and fit in as quickly as possible.

It’s no more than you’d expect for your child when they arrive at school on their first day. If they didn’t receive a warm welcome and were buddied up with another kid, you’d probably be devastated. New starters in established businesses are no different.

Starting your first ever job, aged just 16 or 17, can be a little daunting. A new job, a new team and new technology. Naturally they’ll be little nervous because everyone around them is confident and busy getting on with the job in hand. But they haven’t yet acquired their knowledge, skills or experience. But that first day can feel a whole lot easier if they were just given an induction of sorts.

This doesn’t have to be a 3 hour sit down conversation and it’s certainly not a form filling session or health and safety lecture – that’s not an induction! An induction is arguably the most important thing you can do after hiring a new team member. An opportunity to do these 3 things:

• Welcome the new team member and tell them how excited you are to have them and that you are going to give them the best training and support possible.
• Tell them that they are going to be buddied up with a friendly, confident and patient co-worker who is there to look after them until such time as they are no longer needed.
• Tell them they are welcome, invited and expected to come and ask any questions they may have at any time, reminding them that they are never alone and that you are committed to ensuring they enjoy the training period and succeed in their new role.

If you do these 3 very simple things, then you dramatically increase the chance of retaining your new employee. But if you don’t take 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to tell them how important they are and buddy them up with someone, then you risk losing them pretty quickly. And you may only have yourself to blame when that bright, bubbly school leaver decides that you are not the people first business they were told about in their interview, and takes their undiscovered talent elsewhere, somewhere that recognises the importance of valuing your biggest asset, your people, especially new starters.

Ask yourself…

• Are they receiving the training they were told about?
• Have they been partnered with the right co-worker?
• Do then understand how the online employee management system or online compliance training works?
• Do they know the name of every manager should they have any questions?

So if you do one thing today – go and speak to your newest employee, whether it be their first hour, day or week and ask them how they’re doing. Explain that it’s sometimes super busy and hectic and that you may forget to introduce or explain something to them, but you are there and available for them at all times.

You only get one chance to make a great first impression, so share this short message with as many of your managers as possible. Recruitment is already hard enough right now without adding to the challenge, especially when it’s so easy to show the love and protect your newest investment. I promise you’ll get out what you put in.

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