Understanding The Mind Of A Millennial5/20/2016 In early November 2015 I wrote an article on the four reasons why Millennials will change us for the better, professionally, in the years to come. Since then I’ve had several opportunities to discuss that article as well as Millennials in general. Thanks to the help of a close friend (a Millennial) who offered some perspective on the topic I’ve managed to come to a conclusion on why Millennials and past generation’s leaders experience challenge. My conclusion: few people that are non-Millennials actually understand what drives Millennials and how to harness that knowledge to successfully coexist.
I was able to reach this conclusion as a result of three sets of experiences: 1) I’ve been lucky enough to manage Millennials closing in on 10 years and have experienced firsthand what they like, dislike and just straight up won’t deal with. Some of these experiences were successes and others, well not so much. One thing is for certain all the experiences have been great learning lessons, especially those in which I made mistakes. 2) I’ve read dozens of articles, books and blogs from reputable sources that speak in one regard or another to the change, challenge and complexity of managing new generations entering the workforce, in particular the Millennial generation. These resources often times talk about the differences between the Millennials and other generations which provides insight and perspective. 3) From an age perspective I fall on a weird time continuum where I don’t exactly belong to either generation, Gen-X or Millennials 100% as my date of birth falls on the cusp of when Gen-X ends and Millennials begin. As a result I have been told that I have a unique set of characteristics which are a combination of the two generations: an old school work ethic with a new school approach to business and leadership. While my conclusion on the Millennials and reasons supporting it aren’t entirely scientific I do believe it gives me a unique approach in dealing with and understanding Millennials which is the reason for this article. In prior articles I’ve shared that good leadership is an art form, one which is incredibly difficult to master. In the old days leading was mostly done by fear, with a command and conquer, take no prisoners attitude. Millennials are teaching us lots of new things, one of the biggest being that authoritarian leadership isn’t the only way, or best way for that matter, to successfully get things done at the office. Millennials are changing the way we go about business as entire industries are changing their marketing strategies and how companies present themselves, in an attempt to adjust to the Millennial juggernaut. Leadership is also changing as a result of the Millennials, the change is slow but we’re seeing change nonetheless. Perhaps you’ve witnessed it, or read one of the thousands of articles or books on the Millennial subject, as a result you know that traditional management styles are failing to produce the same results with the young professionals of today. The reason why the authoritarian leadership style struggles to successfully work with the Millennial generations goes back to my conclusion. So let’s dive into the mind of the Millennial to better understand how they operate (as I dare to grossly stereotype an entire generation – this will be fun):
To continue diving into the Millennial mind click here for the full article.
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Last week I had the chance to reconnect with a former colleague and friend to get caught up on life over a brilliant sushi buffet. Heading into the meal, little did I know that our soon to be conversation would forever change my perspective on leadership. For the purposes of this article we’ll refer to my friend as King Salad. (weird to say this but he’s got impeccably styled hair [aka salad], and if you’ve seen a picture of me you’ll know why I’m saying this as I’m a bit lacking in this department)
Eventually conversation with King Salad drifted into the inevitable “how’s work coming along this year so far”. King Salad’s first comment both surprised me and caught my attention as he said, “I’m focusing my energy in 2016 on ‘Managerial Courage’. Not to say that I wasn’t interested in the conversation prior, certainly not the case, but without knowing it he had just triggered something in me which made me ultra-alert and increasingly interested to learn more about his perspective of Managerial Courage. As I sat on the edge of the booth listening to King Salad share with me why he was focusing on Managerial Courage a thought jolted my brain which hit me like a lightning bolt. King Salad never saw any of this but he was probably wondering why I was so enthusiastically engaged in the conversation, no longer even eating. What was the lightning bolt that stopped me from eating my precious sushi? I realized something that I had never thought of before: Managerial Courage is the linchpin, the cornerstone, the apex for all things related to leading successfully. It was so clear in that moment! In the absence of Managerial Courage all other leadership qualities and characteristics suffer as without Managerial Courage we can only hope to be mediocre at best when it relates to leading and influencing others. What is Managerial Courage anyways? Simply put – it’s doing the right things as a leader, especially during tough times. Seems simple, yet it’s devilishly difficult to act on consistently. A deeper look into Managerial Courage and we find that it can be further described as a set of actions and beliefs a leader possesses which define who they are and how they go about leading and inspiring others. These actions and beliefs include:
The more I thought about it the more I realized that all this time I’ve missed the bigger picture as it relates to successfully leading others. I even laughed at myself because the notion of Managerial Courage has been in front of me for years yet I had failed to connect the dots leading to my current awareness on the matter. I always knew to lead successfully you had to care about those you supported as well as come to grips with the fact that the decisions you make won’t always be the right ones. I knew leading was an art, not something to be achieved at a moment in time, but something to work towards continuously throughout an entire career as a student of the game. What I didn’t realize until this past week was that the genesis of leadership, the very foundation that exceptional leadership stands on, comes from Managerial Courage. It takes great tenacity, strength, fortitude, mental determination and care to be a leader and do so successfully. You can’t fake leadership, you can’t say one thing then act another. People see right through that. Sure, anyone can be a leader, but those who do it successfully stand head and shoulders above their counterparts. It’s worth mentioning that few people fall into the category of great leaders which is why the concept of Managerial Courage is so important. Courage is the very essence of what leadership is all about. I am beholden to my friend King Salad for the awareness he brought to me over our sushi meal, it was an invaluable learning opportunity one which I’m thrilled to share and pass on. What does Managerial Courage mean to you? Learn To Delegate Like A Champ5/20/2016 “If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.”Have you ever heard someone say that before? Perhaps you’ve said it yourself. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’ve said it on several occasions each time not realizing the impact my words and actions had on the people around me, including myself.
When I think of the concept of leadership the words that come to mind which best describe someone who possesses great leadership abilities are words like servitude, guidance and influence. Delegation, which certainly falls within those words, is a powerful action a leader can take to empower the people around them while also alleviating workloads from their plate. Harvard Business Review refers to delegation as a critical skill for leadership. HBR also shared insight from Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, who said: “Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn’t go to hell if you take a day off.” A recently published study indicated that 78% of employees in major corporations think that their bosses routinely do work that could be effectively delegated. The research also revealed that 66% of managers said that they would like to increase their use of delegation as a time management and personnel development tool. When I first saw these statistics I was a bit confused. How can that be? More than ¾ of employees feel their bosses need to delegate more, whereas almost the same number of people who are considered the ‘boss’ realize that delegation is important and they need to do more of it. Both parties involved, the employee and leader, recognize the importance of delegation, yet it isn’t happening, or to the degree that is needed within the workplace. Rather than spending time focusing on why delegation isn’t happening in the workplace I figured it would be better to focus on what can be done to improve it. (If you’re interested learning more about why leaders struggle with delegation I suggest reading this article as it provides a comprehensive overview of the root cause of delegation issues) Improve your delegation efforts by following these three steps: Breakdown Your Responsibilities Spend 15 minutes listing out all of your responsibilities over the course of a typical day or week. Do you have projects that are ongoing or initiatives coming up soon? List out each activity or item and give it a rating based on the following scale: 1 – Vital to company, high profile importance AND time sensitive (within the next week), 2 – Vital to company, but not time sensitive (doesn’t occur in the next week), 3 – Important to the company but verging on a ‘nice-to-have’ 4 – Not important to company or divisional/ department performance Now that you have rated your responsibilities you’ll want to start by getting rid of anything you labeled as a ‘4’. Don’t delegate this work, don’t put it on the backburner. If it isn’t important you shouldn’t be spending time on it. Anything you labeled as a ‘2’ or ‘3’ are activities that are prime opportunities to delegate to coworkers, peers or direct reports. Responsibilities you listed as ‘1’ should stay with you. Caution – it's common for people to think everything they do falls into the ultra-important category of a ‘1’ activity. This isn’t the case. You’ll need to be self-policing in this area and honest with yourself as to what is a ‘1’ versus really being a ‘2 or 3’. Ask For Help First say to yourself, “I’m being unrealistic. I can’t do this all on my own. There are people around me who would love an opportunity to help.” Once you’ve had your moment of self reflection start assessing your surrounding team as well as the other teams or parts of your company. Pick out three to four people who have the potential to take on stretch assignments or additional work and speak with them about it. Tell them why you are seeking their help at which point you will then ask if they are interested. Remember – delegation isn’t throwing work on people and saying “I’ll see you when it’s done.” You are going to have to help the person get ramped up and be there to support them as the work kicks off. This may require more of your time in the beginning than you would like but the benefits that will come in the end far outweigh the time spent during the ramp up. Praise Effort, Not Just The Results Once you get the hang of delegating you may find yourself saying, “I can’t believe I didn’t do this earlier.” Now that you have removed work from yourself and are giving others an opportunity it’s important you are paying attention to the people doing the work, not just the work itself. All too often we focus on the end result, completely ignoring the effort and process that got us to completion. If you want people to continue helping you with future projects and work its important you focus on the effort they are putting in and praising that time. At the end of the day those people are helping make your job and life easier so it’s important you show them appreciation for that and do so often. People who feel like their time and work is valued will work effectively and diligently without you asking them to do so while producing the best results. “No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.” – Andrew Carnagie I’m a paperback reader, always have been, always will be. Sorry Kindle, you just don’t do it for me.
The act of reading allows us to experience life in a way that few mediums can truly impact us. When you find a great book it often has the power to uplift you from the present taking you to a far off place where you completely forget about time or the actual place you’re curled up in. Books can give off the feeling of hanging out with a new friend or the excitement of a first date. They can thrill us and keep us on edge for days on end as the story itself becomes a part of our life. When I hear people talk about books like this they are almost always referring to some sort of fiction based book, often times written by larger than life authors like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, Dean Koontz and even Nicholas Sparks, to name a few. What if you could find a book that had this same type of impact but actually made a difference in the way you live, both personally and professionally? Of course, there are endless options to choose from but which ones are truly great. So great that these books stand on the shoulders of the other books which typically receive all the fanfare. Could such a book exist? With this very thought I began a quest to find some of the greatest books out there, searching for a lifetime of impact within a couple hundred pages. I started asking others about the books they’ve read which changed their life or the way they viewed themselves and their surroundings. I sought to understand why they loved the book and what change it brought about. My quest took me to read all sorts of different books, some living up to their recommendation, many falling far short of it, in my opinion. I didn’t want books that were just touted as great reads because they appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers list. I wanted book recommendations from people I trusted who shared with me these nuggets of knowledge based on their earth shattering experience. The following 10 books have impacted my life in a way that I didn’t think was possible before I set out to read each book. They changed me for the better professionally and personally, as a leader, as a friend, a colleague, a husband and father. They changed the way I care for others and how I show affection, they helped me with my vulnerability (let’s be honest this can be a tough thing for most men) and of course my thought process. For information on each book including author and a short write up on my experience with the book click here. In no particular order these are the 10 books that positively changed the way I live, work and think: Personal & Mindset: 1. The Go Giver (my #1 book) 2. 4 Seconds 3. Finding Ultra 4. Season of Life Professional/ Business Reading: 5. Good to Great 6. Authentic Leadership 7. The Answer 8. Start With Why 9. Spin Selling 10. Five Dysfunctions of a Team Each of these books has allowed me to transform myself into a better me, perhaps you will have a similar experience. I still have a long way to go as it’s not about the end result but the journey along the way. I have a lot to still learn and much more to read. I’m forever grateful to the people who recommended these readings. Recently I found myself in a really interesting conversation with a longtime friend about relationships, dating to be more specific. My friend was sharing with me that he had just started dating a new girl at the beginning of January and was excited about the chemistry they had at such an early stage in the relationship.
As the conversation continued I learned that my friend and his new girlfriend, yes titles are already in full swing four weeks into it, are moving rather quickly in their relationship and the conversations about future events and experiences are permeating their every moment. My friend, let’s call him Nacho, further shares that “things are escalating quickly”. Nacho confides in me that he’s in a bit of a tight situation as he’s only been dating his new girlfriend for about a month and Valentine’s Day is coming up in less than a week and doesn’t know what he should do. I had to laugh because I knew exactly where he was heading. What should good ole Nacho, or any man for that matter, do in this situation as his decision on the upcoming event could make or break the future of this new budding relationship. As we discussed further we concluded there were three main options to choose from:
As we further discussed each option I shared with him a phrase I’m all too familiar with in the professional setting and in this particular case found it rather helpful. “Nacho, what do you know about Managing Expectations?” I said. He immediately shared with me that ‘Managing Expectations is when you’re realistic upfront in order to prevent disappointment on the back end. Simply put – don’t over promise and under deliver.’ Bingo! Nacho hit it spot on. To find out which option Nacho picked and what the result was, click here. We’ve all done it at one point or another in our professional careers as leaders. You have that one (maybe more) under performing employee that manages to keep their job despite the multitude of poor performance reviews year in and year out, much to the displeasure of the teammates around them.
An under performing employee is a cancer to everyone around them. Cancer in that they have a strong ability to negatively impact others, spreading their under performing ways and often times attitudes which are capable of bringing down the performance of people who were previously good employees. What if I told you that a manager’s inability to terminate poor performers costs upwards of $675,000 per year in revenue? The cost of under performing employees is staggering! Staggering to the tune of 6.75 x annual salary. Imagine that you have an employee who is under performing exceptionally bad and that person is being paid $100k. Dr. John Sullivan of ERE says that it just takes one single big mistake and your employee who should have been terminated long ago just cost you $675,000 green backs. Maybe you don’t have a really bad employee, maybe they just under perform a little bit wavering on mediocre performance. Well, that mediocre performance can cost on average $225,000 a year, assuming the employee is at that $100k base. These are the tangible costs of indecision and lack of performance management. The intangible costs on the other hand are just as bad if not worse because of the rippling affect they have on a business. As I mentioned earlier, the cancerous employee can bring down entire departments causing low morale, perceived notions of management ineffectiveness, employment attrition, poor customer service, you name it. If the cost of not firing an under performing employee, tangible and intangible, are so high why don’t managers do something about it more readily? My experience being in a leadership role for the past decade as well as being a talent resource consultant for my clients during that time has lead me believe managers don’t fire under performing employees for the following reasons:
If the above tangible and intangible costs weren’t enough to encourage people to make swift decisions when dealing with their under performers, here’s another way to look at it. The current state of our economy as it relates to employment is interesting to say the least. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the last 12 months you’re probably aware that our country has been reporting record lows in the area of unemployment for quite some time. As always, there tends to be a fair amount of controversy over our national unemployment stats as people on both sides of the political fence love to refute or praise the numbers depending on their political affiliation. Last month our country got its latest update with respect to our national unemployment rankings which came in at a mere 4.9%. What that’s supposed to tell us is 95.1% of our country, or roughly 306 million of our family, friends and neighbors, are gainfully employed. The reason it is important to look at the current state of our economy and our unemployment numbers is because this has a very real and sobering impact to companies who are looking to hire new talent. When managers are in a situation where they keep poor performers the inevitable situation begins to play out where the company’s (or divisions, departments or teams) performance begins to decline. When service levels start to suffer and the bottom line starts to drop towards the floor boards the people on the high perch start looking for answers. As this plays out further the company’s willingness to house poor performers is eventually discovered and those perched above making most of the organizational decisions send out directives to the management team asking for swift and quick action in cleaning up under performing employees. This action can have all sorts of names, including: rif’s, top-grading, layoffs, purging and competitive landscaping, etc. Here’s why this is a dangerous situation to be in… When we make decisions having to do with the vitality of our team in the heat of the moment rather than proactively we’re making things more difficult than they need to be. When we all of a sudden have to fire that under performer, the person who’s been mailing it in for months, even years, we’re now scrambling to find a replacement in hopes we can uplift ourselves from the disaster that we’ve brought upon ourselves. But wait, didn’t we just talk about the fact that 95.1% of Americans are working right now? Now we’re faced with a whole new set of challenges. When we need to hire and are faced with an economy (like present) that is tight from a resources perspective all of a sudden we find ourselves caught up in things that are outside of our control, like:
It’s crucial you are PROACTIVE in your performance management and talent identification. Waiting to the last minute to deal with either of the two often times won’t produce the results you’re looking for, putting you in between that good old spot we like to call a rock and a hard place. Is Your Word Worth A Damn?5/20/2016 “Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you.” I came across this quote over the weekend and found myself captivated by the bold statement it made. The words ‘commitment’, ‘loyal’ and ‘mood’ in particular stuck out to me as if they were capitalized, jumping off the page, further adding to the importance of the message.
The more I thought about it the more I began to consider a very interesting and unfortunate reality that we’re all faced with in business and our personal lives. As I continued to think about the meaning I was reminded of an old saying that went something like “you’re word is your bond and you’re only as good as your word”. Is this still the case today? I find many of the conversations and spoken words we’re exposed to today are just that, words and nothing more. These words are often times hollow, lacking depth and sincerity. When people speak the personal integrity which used to come right along with their spoken word back in the day now falls flat on its face in 2016. In the olden days business was done over handshakes and nods of affirmation. When someone said they were going to do something people knew they meant it and there was little thought otherwise on the matter. In the rare moments someone didn’t keep their word their reputation quickly become tarnished as the people they associated with would regard them as someone lacking integrity, having poor character and couldn’t be counted on. Given today’s social and business environments it’s apparent we’ve drifted from the days when a person’s word was basically the same as currency. Today, we often use words to fill silence, as a hollow courtesy, small talk where we don’t listen to the answer or as a way to exit the presence of another. Have you ever done one of these?
When we communicate in this way, making statements of commitment without following through, it negatively impacts our relationships as people begin to bring into question our:
If we’re all mostly good hearted then why do we make verbal commitments and not follow through? The reason is because we don’t realize the disparity between our intent and the impact of our words. Case in Point: When we run into an old friend or acquaintance we haven’t seen in a long time inevitably the conversation comes to an end. Often times that end sounds something like, “let’s get together soon and catch up.” I would guess more times than not that reunion never takes place and the second we’ve left the person we were talking too we’re quickly back into our lives, forgetting about the verbal commitment that was just made. In this case the situation was a social interaction, one which has limited consequences for our hollow commitment. Perhaps the surest test of an individual's integrity is his refusal to do or say anything that would damage his self-respect. Thomas S. MonsonWhat if we did this same thing in the office? It happens much more than you think it does in the professional setting and it’s negatively impacting our job and we don’t even know it. Case in Point: We’ve just left the break room and are scuttling back to our lair (office, cube, bean bag, what have you) to jump back into our day’s work. On our way we see a colleague coming towards us in an inevitable collision course which is going to require us to say something. As we begin to pass one another we speak up and say “Hi Bob, how are you” and keep walking. Major fail! We asked a disingenuous question and then had the nerve to not stick around to hear the answer. We gave Bob a glimpse of humanity then ripped his heart out by showing him we actually didn’t care about what he said. What if I told you that Bob just found out some really awful and disheartening news? As you were passing by him in the hallway, by the way you and Bob have been colleagues for years, he could have really used someone to talk too. By you asking how he’s doing what if he actually needed someone to talk to and it was more serious than a case of Mondays. We just asked Bob how he is doing, which we didn’t know in the moment that apparently he is pretty awful, then quickly hurried away without hearing the answer, further making him feel worse as if we don’t care about him or what he has to say. We would have been better off passing by him and saying nothing (I don’t recommend you stone wall people and not acknowledge their presence as this won’t take you far in your career) than saying something we didn’t mean and didn’t care to hear the answer too. If you want real enjoyment and prosperity in your life and relationships, whether that be personal or work, take the time to commit to your words. When we speak and follow up on those words with real action we begin to develop a reputation of someone who is dependable, trustworthy and the type of person you would call if you really needed help. My pledge - I will pay more attention to my words and follow through on my verbal commitments. When I ask someone how they are doing I will wait for the answer, listen intently and respond accordingly. Are you willing to make this same pledge with me? If you’re hiring or plan to hire this year it’s important you know two truths about present day hiring:
After a decade of working in the technical services and recruiting industry I’ve had few experiences, less than I can count on one hand, with companies that had onboarding programs which I would classify as amazing. Most companies fall short, way short, when it comes to providing a good onboarding experience to their new employees. There’s an important note to be made here. When people hear ‘hiring’ and ‘onboarding’ they have a tendency to think that those responsibilities fall on our partners in HR. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The leaders who make the actual hiring decision have much to do with this process and good leaders know firsthand that their involvement can make or break the success of that new employee. Employees, regardless of age, are looking for an ‘experience’ at work. Of course having a job is important to them but increasingly important, arguably more important, for a large majority of the professional workforce is the need to work at a place that provides an experience of comradery, meaningfulness in work, giving back, etc. and the list goes on. Part of that experience is a company’s onboarding program and these programs shouldn’t be taken lightly. Does your current employee onboarding program communicate the right message to the best candidates in the market? Forbes estimates as high as 20% of employee attrition occurs within the first 45 days on the job as a result of poor employee onboarding. In fact, new employees who attended a well-structured onboarding orientation program were 69% more likely to remain at a company up to three years. That’s a huge impact! According to iCIMS, a software company specializing in recruiting systems and software, identified that new hires meet their first performance milestone 77% of the time when a formal onboarding program is in place versus only 49% of the time when one ceases to exist. What that tells us is that when a good employee onboarding program exist BOTH individual performance and job tenure improve dramatically. I would also dare to say that the employees’ happiness and appreciation for the job are improved as well. What do you do if your employee onboarding program lacks an experience to capture the best of the best? Look no further – this article provides a complete overview of the only onboarding program you will ever need. Be prepared. There’s some work to be done here before you can just go hire someone and plop them in their bean bag cubby, or dungeon, whichever you’re working with. For the purposes of this article the ‘onboarding experience’ refers to the entire spectrum from when a job posting first gets released straight through to the new employees sixth month on the job. The SQR1 Six Month Onboarding Program: Step 1: Candidate Identification This is the employees’ first glimpse into your company, their experience during this time matters greatly as to whether or not you will have an employee for years or for a matter of months. - Job Posting – make them friendly and exciting; talk less about performance expectations and more about the opportunity and experience they will have in the role; create enthusiasm in candidates by sharing with candidates exciting things to come like new technology, new services, positive changes within the company, company culture or philosophies, etc. - Call Backs - ensure people receive call backs to their application; there’s nothing worse than when people apply to a job opening and don’t hear anything in return; automated responses acknowledging the resume submission are at a minimum a necessity, at which point an acceptance or notice of decline is appropriate and certainly better than not saying anything at all and sending people into a black hole. For the rest of the article click here... Have you ever felt this way on your first day on the job?
“Welcome to [insert your company name here]. We’re glad you’ve joined us. Now that you are an employee please note the following... We ask that you not ever leave your cubical unless it’s to use the complimentary copy machine or in case of an emergency. Bathroom breaks are two minutes long and can only be taken at, oh I’m sorry, you’ve already missed that window today. We discourage you from talking with the other people in your vicinity, so don’t do it. If you have a problem, please feel free to Google your own solution from your smart phone, but not your work computer. Your training will consist of, well we’re not sure at this point so we’ll keep you posted on that. Thank you for your unconditional submission of your body and soul and welcome to the team.” While that may be grossly dramatized, more for my own amusement than anything else, it is incredible how often employees on day-1 feel this same way. While their new employer might not communicate directly in this manner the end result is that they leave people feeling miserable on their first week of the job primarily because the company hasn’t put enough focus into their ‘onboarding experience’. I’ve experienced this directly myself. When I started with a company many moons ago I showed up on my first day to have no computer, no trainer/ direction and no workstation. As a result I had to use a computer in the office lobby for my first week completely disconnected from the rest of my new colleagues. Few times did someone come to check up on me. I was handed a large booklet and told that I needed to work through the various sections as quickly as possible. Once I was done I was to tell the office manager and they would think of the next thing for me to do. An awful first impression to say the least. The onboarding experience is a crucial first impression and we had mentioned last week that Forbes estimates as high as 20% of employee attrition occurs within the first 45 days on the job as a result of poor employee onboarding. When we started the discussion last week on SQR1 Six Month Onboarding Program the focus was to bring light to a full proof way of making sure your new employees were welcomed with open arms and given all the tools to be successful with their new jobs. As a reminder, we will reference the term ‘onboarding experience’ several times throughout this article which refers to the entire spectrum from when a job posting first gets released straight through to the new employees sixth month on the job. If you missed part-1 of this article from last week click here to view: Step-1: Candidate Identification Step-2: Interview Process The SQR1 Six Month Onboarding Program (continued): Step-3: Offer - Appreciation – when contacting the candidate who just gave their life to your tireless interview process it’s important to start off appreciating the time they spent with you and your cohorts. They most likely had to rearrange and adjust their personal lives and dodge their current employer in order to make your interviews. Taking a moment to say thank you is the least we can do. - Personal Touch – I’ve always found it odd that in many companies HR or a recruiter is the one that makes the offer to the candidate, not the direct hiring manager. I’m aware that this is done many times for legal reasons however it leaves a bit of a cold impression with candidates. As a leader I have always found it important to call the people I’m looking to hire directly and discuss the offer letter with them one-on-one. No one will have more enthusiasm and passion about wanting to hire the new employee than the actual hiring manager themselves. A key piece here is that if you are going to go this route and you haven’t had experience doing it before it would be good to take a moment to speak with your HR group to understand what can and cannot be said during these calls. - Spoken Word & Paper – it isn’t enough to verbally offer someone the job. Professional companies out there big and small follow up the verbal offer with a formal job offer which covers every aspect of their prospective employment. This offer should also require the candidate to sign off on the terms of their prospective employment so there is little room for someone to come back and say they didn’t understand what they were getting into. Email the offer letter on company letterhead as a PDF copy for quick follow through. - Open Dialogue – when discussing the offer letter make sure to ask the candidate for their feedback once they have had an opportunity to review the fine print. It’s important that all parties involved understand all aspects of the proposed new partnership between employee and employer. Step-4: Physical Onboarding - Greetings – a designated person within the company, preferably the hiring manager, should be ready to greet the new arrival on their first day on the job. There’s nothing more classy than for the new hire to walk into the lobby and see a friendly face there to greet them and get the day started. Click HERE for the full article. It’s day-1 and you’re off to the races with a new job along with all the best intentions to make this the best career yet.
As day-1 unfolds something very strange begins to build within you. Your stomach aches as it ties itself into knots like a boy scout at a retreat, you feel like vomiting could occur if you could only find the nearest trash can and hurl your brains out without being seen. Your skin begins to itch as your mind runs a marathon dealing with the uncomfortable thoughts that are swirling in your brain. (no you’re not hung over) Welcome to an experience I like to call ‘career buyers’ remorse’!It happens more than you think it does and can cause a lot more damage than people realize. How is it someone can meander their way through an entire interview process, offer and onboarding to find out within a matter of hours on their first day at work that they have made a very unfortunate decision about their career? They know it in the pit of their stomach that this new employer is NOT for them. How does this happen? For starters, the interview process is like dating, everyone is trying to put their best foot forward to impress the other person. Then when we decide to make things official between employee and employer and the first day at work comes along, and first impression for that matter, the experience can produce a potentially lethal blow to the relationship moving forward. First impressions in business make or break the entire outcome of an experience. Carol Kinsey Goman, with Forbes magazine, says we have seven seconds to make a first impression. Seven seconds?! What about a whole day consisting of 8+ hours of work at a new job where you don’t know anyone. For these reasons and many more, it’s vital that companies consider their onboarding experience and how they show up to prospective employees from the very beginning of the job posting through to their six month performance review. Over the last two weeks we covered part-1 and part-2 of the three part series, ‘Why Your New Employee Wants to Quit’. To access the first two parts of this article: Part-1 click here Part-2 click here The SQR1 Six Month Onboarding Program (continued): Step-5: The 3 Month Experience - Week 1 – we discussed in Step-4 some of the items to do and not do on the first day. The rest of week 1 is a crucial 40 hour period in which the success of your new employee greatly hinges on your ability to communicate with them the details and responsibilities of their role, impact they can make to the company and your expectations. The key in week one is to cover all of these topics at a high level without going into too much detail. You want to give your new employee enough information to settle their appetite for knowledge and curiosity without overwhelming them. Set formal meetings in the calendar for the weeks to come for one-on-one meetings with your new employee, make sure you invite them so they know what’s to come ahead of time. - Month 1 – Within the first month you want to accomplish the following: establish performance expectations set with their job for the remainder of the year; scheduled follow up meetings once a month to discuss their performance and collect their feedback; discuss company goals and your divisional /team goals fit into it, establish formal performance metrics; provide your new employee with a larger agenda which spans out the rest of their six month onboarding process; take your new employee on an adventure to broaden their perspective (visit a customer or supplier, take them to an industry event, invite them to join a management meeting, etc.). At the end of the first month your new employee should know all the in’s and out’s of what is expected of them in their new role as well as already be working towards a first goal within their performance expectations. Hint – get their ‘Buddy’ to help them with some of these things. - Month 2 & 3 – After you’ve locked up all the details of your new found relationship with your new employee from month 1 you’ll want to focus on developing a better relationship with them in the coming months. Key here is trust and respect. I know you’re the boss and you make all the decisions but it’s important to remember the single best thing you can do as a leader is CARE about the people you serve as a leader. Over the next two months you will want to spend time with your new employee, share ideas and perspective with them, ask them for their opinions and build trust through saying you will do things then follow through on them. You will also have at least two formal meetings with your new employee during this time where it will be important to seek their thoughts and feedback on how things are progressing. Don’t be afraid to deliver tough love if you need too, you’ll be far better off calling things in the moment as you see them rather than waiting months down the road. - Team Event – there’s no better way to introduce a new player to the team culture than through a team event. This outing can be anything – formal, casual, trust falls, community volunteering, happy hours, picnics, etc. The important thing to remember is the phrase diversity and inclusion. You want to pick an event or outing everyone can do (not everyone is capable of scaling a 10 foot wall on an obstacle course) to make sure that everybody is included providing the best opportunity for the team to bond and get to know one another at a deeper level. Step 6: The 4-6 Month Finale - More of the Same – it might not sound exciting but in these next three months consistency is the key to success. Continue with your one-on-one’s each month and ensure your new employee knows they are supported and part of the team, always. The more time you spend with them the better chances you will have a new partner for the long haul and the less chance you’ll experience a ‘batman’. (leaving the scene without telling anyone) - Six Month Onboarding Feedback – during your final one-on-one with your new employee at the end of the six month onboarding make sure to spend some time with them asking their feedback on how they felt their first six months went. - Performance Review – if you’ve done it right you have probably been discussing their performance monthly throughout the six month onboarding experience. Make sure towards the end of the six month you schedule a formal review where you are openly discussing their performance in relation to the metrics that were set up when the person started. Hopefully everything is lovely however if that isn’t the case having a formal review early on in the game sets you up to start documenting underperforming behaviors. We aren’t trying to catch someone do something wrong, we’re actually trying to help them do everything right and be successful. Unfortunately there will always be the occasional situation where someone falls short of expectation no matter how hard you try to help them and in these moments its best you start tracking it early on so you have a healthy document trail should the inevitable termination occur down the road. Again, I must stress the reason for this meeting is more for checking in to see where you as the leader can help and also show praise for efforts leading up to this point. - Praise Performance – this is not a step which should be left for last as it is an important part of a leader’s responsibility to always be on the lookout for people doing great things and then recognizing them for it. Assuming you have been doing this all along, a great way to end the six month onboarding experience is to share with the employee what it means to you (as the leader) to have this person on your team. It might sound a bit cheesy and overly emotional at first however I can promise you MOST people in this world would love to have their boss sit them down at the end of their first six months to hear their boss share ‘why she is thankful to have me on their team’. The onboarding experience is one which often goes overlooked yet carries such a big impact to the company’s culture, competitiveness in the market and bottom line. When we focus more of our energy on providing people with a great work experience we’ll spend less time dealing with employee turnover and more time on what matters – being great leaders. About the AuthorTravis Smith is the founder and managing director of Square-1 Engineering, a medical device consulting firm, providing end to end engineering and compliance services. He successfully served the life sciences marketplace in SoCal for over 15 years and has been recognized as a ‘40 Under 40’ honoree by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a top leader in Orange County, CA. Categories
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