As a new or growing business, you have to make sure you're making every penny count - and when it comes to hiring a new employee, that means getting them settled in and productive as quickly as possible.
These five simple steps should become a crucial part of your new hire process, and if you follow them youll be making sure each new starter hits the ground running and gives you real bang for your buck.
Step One: The Pre-Hire Test Drive
Just like test-driving a car, you should test-drive any serious candidate youre thinking of employing. This does not mean see how much unpaid work you can get them to do! But it does mean you should invite them into your place of work, even if its just for an hour, to see how they respond to the environment and their future colleagues, and to see how they handle a little bit of real work.
The interview stage should help you choose which candidates to consider, but it is the session that should help you choose which of those to employ. But dont just hire off the back of this trial session - make sure you ask for previous work samples during the earlier stages of recruitment, too!
Step Two: The First Quarter Road Map
Before your new hire begins their first day at work, you should prepare a task list that outlines the goals you would expect them to achieve in their first three months. This will not only make sure theyre performing the right tasks youve employed them for, but it will add structure to help them settle in with more confidence.
You might find it helps to sit down with your new hire and talk them through this road map on their first day - you could then schedule a monthly or weekly chat to review their progress and address any concerns, and even add an incentive at the end of the three months if they complete all goals successfully.
If you are using HR software that lets you add task lists, then add this roadmap there. And if your HR software allows for employee self-service, now would be a gbuddyood time to show your new hire how to access their account and manage their details.
Step Three: The Driving Companion
If you have other employees already - particularly ones that work in similar roles to your new hire - then you should assign your new employee a buddy, or driving companion. You should pick an employee who works well with others and who values your companys morals, as new starters will look up to their more-experienced colleagues and most likely pick up their habits - good or bad!
Of course, if this is your first new hire, you could always take the role of driving companion yourself!
Step Four: The Easy Checkpoint
When a person feels like they have succeeded, they will have the confidence and drive to succeed again and again and again. So for this reason, you should create an easy checkpoint or a quick win early on in the game, to boost your new hires confidence.
This could be a short project that requires not much on-the-job experience, or even a heavier task that the new hire can work on jointly with their driving companion. Either way, it should be fairly easy to complete, it should not span more than 1 week, and it should have a clear point of completion for that win to be felt. Dont tell your new hire this is an easy win though, that would ruin the goal of this exercise!
Step Five: The Appreciation
Harvard Business School conducted research that told us productivity improved by 50% when the CEO personally thanked each employee for their input (source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/03/the-power-of-thanks/).
So even as your business grows, you should never forget the power of a simple thanks - it can work wonders on your workforce morale, and has genuine, tangible results for the outputs your employees produce!
Sat Sindhar
PeopleTM - HR Software with Ambition
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