Recently, we asked Paul Glover, Ewing’s Executive Business Coach, to share his expertise about how to improve the onboarding process for landscape contractors. The Ewing Education webinar, Onboarding for Fun and Profit, highlights how an entire team comprised of high-performing employees can positively influence your bottom line.
You can watch a replay of the webinar here.
In this webinar, Glover outlines the three types of new hires:
- Good Hires are intelligent, agile, talented and exert 21% more effort than other team members.
- Bad Hires do not assimilate easily into an organization and don’t have the required skill sets for the job.
- The Working Dead are toxic to an organization, its culture and its high-performing team members.
Based on these three types of new hires, here are seven tips to use as a guide to onboard high-performing employees at your company:
- Create a Formal Onboarding Process
Time and energy spent in the recruiting and hiring process should include a formal onboarding process that determines whether a new hire is a good or bad fit for your business.
- Orientation is More Than a One-Time Event
A well-structured onboarding process begins on the day the individual accepts the job offer and should immerse them into your company’s culture and ensure they understand their role and how it contributes to the company’s mission.
- Coordinate Your Onboarding Process with Recruiting and Hiring
Set up a Recruiting and Hiring Team so that potential employees and new hires can have a positive experience from the moment they express interest in your company. This front-line team can help new recruits understand your company culture as well as their job duties and tasks.
- Establish an Onboarding Team
To be effective, assemble an Onboarding Team of key players including an HR representative, the new hire’s team leader and an onboarding buddy. This buddy is the new hire’s go-to person who introduces them to other team members and helps them acclimate to their new work environment.
- Provide Opportunities for New Hires to Socialize and Make Contributions
Schedule team lunches, a facility tour or an exchange with another department to help your new hire feel a sense of belonging. For the new person to feel a sense of accomplishment, have them participate in a team project.
- Correct Any Hiring Mistakes
If a new hire is not the right fit, the Onboarding Team needs to determine if additional training is needed or if termination is necessary to avoid negatively impacting the rest of the team and your company. And also remember that no company hires 100% of the right people 100% of the time.
- Measure Your Onboarding Process
One of the best ways to keep your onboarding process going strong is to measure its success and efforts over time. Gather information from new hires, their team leaders and teammates, then compare their responses to your previous onboarding efforts.
To learn more about onboarding, contact Paul Glover at Paul@PaulGloverCoaching.com for a copy of his eBook, The 10 Rules for Onboarding High-Performing Employees.