The Biggest Mistake Your Are Making With Your New Hire

And how to avoid it!

You finally did it! After months of deliberating, you decided to hire an employee. You followed all the best hiring steps, you found an excellent candidate, and now it's all done! Not so fast- the most critical part to hiring just started and if you aren't careful, you could be committing the biggest mistake I see business owners make and not even realize it.

The first few weeks of having a new employee is critical in determining their attitude, success, and how well they actually help you for years to come. But if you lose their buy in right from the start because you don't onboard them the right way, it's like running a marathon and quitting at mile 25- a whole lot of effort without crossing the finish line.

Here are my top 2 tips for starting your employee off in the best way start off on the right foot, creating CONFIDENCE and CLARITY.

1. Your preparation will determine the confidence of your employee: There is nothing that brings an employee more confidence than knowing that the leader or organization they are following has a clear plan and knows EXACTLY how their work will fit into that plan. But many small business owners are so stressed and busy when they finally hire that they enter into a new chapter with an employee and look more like the hot mess express than the totally amazing entrepreneur they really are. Why does this happen? Obviously, it's because most of us need help well before we actually hire. And then when that new person enters the scene, it's tempting to unload all that stress and disorganization onto the new hire. But this is not the best way to treat a new employee, or to establish the type of excellent working environment you will want down the road. Instead, walk in with a plan. Gather passwords, get them their access and equipment ready and in their workspace, prepare their contract and training materials. Show them you are ready and eager to start working together. It's demoralizing to show up for a first day of work and not even have a computer to start on because your boss was too rushed to prepare for you. Not sure where to start? Check out my Onboarding Checklist for New Hires to see all the things I personally do to prepare for my new hires and to give you an outline for your first day.
   

2. You model strong communication to eliminate ambiguity: Everyone says they want a culture of feedback, but do they really practice that principle? Usually it's either only top down feedback, or it's a bunch of people tiptoeing around each other until someone loses their cool. My best advice is to model this practice by inviting feedback from your employees during the training process. Tell them, "During your training I will be showing you things and I fully expect it to take you a few times practicing before you understand and remember what I'm showing you. I will explain the same processes to you a few times and I expect you to ask questions until you are completely confident in how we do things and what I expect the outcome to be." You must be willing to invest enough time with your new hire to show them at least 3-5 times how to follow a company procedure before you expect them to have it down solid. Maybe it takes less time than that for them to nail it, but when someone is starting a new position, they are likely very overwhelmed. Their brains simply cannot hold all the information they need to learn. By telling them up front that you don't expect them to know how to do things until you have worked through it together multiple times, they will stop trying to impress you and start to trust that you are committed to hearing their feedback and patiently working toward the same goals.

Ambiguity kills confidence and communication. By being prepared and clearly modeling feedback, you will get the best out of your new hire, and your entire team.

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