Over the past three weeks we've covered the six steps to implementing a solid and memorable new hire onboarding experience which companies can use to improve their process for introducing new employees to their company and culture.
Why is it important to have a defined onboarding experience?For starters, 20% of all attrition happens within the first 45 days of employment. What this tells us is that first impressions carry a lot of weight with new employees. It's also important to the success of your new employee for the company and hiring manager to do everything they can to ensure that person is set up for success. With the cost of hiring being quite steep the more time we spend up front making sure our new employees feel good about their decision to join the company the better our chances will be of retaining them for the long run. SQR1's onboarding experience consists of six steps which help company's create a formal program that is used to then tie in culture and consistency for each new hire, regardless of their job title. While this article is merely a cliffnotes overview of the past three articles, you can access the full details of the SQR1 Six Month Onboarding Program by clicking on the links provided here. (part-1, part-2, part -3) The SQR1 Six Month Onboarding Program: Step 1: Candidate Identification Step 2: Interview Process Step-3: Offer Step-4: Physical Onboarding Step-5: The 3 Month Experience Step 6: The 4-6 Month Finale “The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel.”– Sybil F. Stershic
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The world of business can often times can be a tricky place to maneuver. Whether you are climbing the corporate ladder or starting your own business both come with a laundry list of challenges and hurdles you’ll meet along the way.
Let’s imagine you’re thinking of starting your own business in the near future. With all the help out there in the world to get you up and running it’s easier now than ever to start a business. Starting a business and actually being successful at it are two different things. No one ever said, “I’m starting this business to be average.” In my experience most people start a business to follow a dream or a passion which helps them accomplish their goals and not someone else’s, with the hope that financial freedom comes down the road. While this may be the story of the American dream, there’s an alarming statistic to entrepreneurship which can let the wind out of anyone’s sails… 80% of businesses fail within the first five years! With potential defeat looming on the horizon of that magnitude it’s incredible that anyone goes into business for themselves in the first place. However there are those who seem to be able to find success no matter what they do. They’ve got the gift, the Midas Touch. It doesn’t matter if they’re chasing that next big promotion, running a large enterprise or starting a business, everyone around them knows they’ll be successful. So how do these mythical wonders of professional amazement do it? They create an experience that is memorable for both clients and internal employees. This my friends is the secret to wild success in the world of business! When you create an ‘experience’ which is larger than you and the product/ service you offer people around you almost forget what it is you do. The reality is the people who are successful know this firsthand. It’s not about what your service or product is necessarily, it’s about how people feel about it. This is true for both consumers (the people who purchase or use the product/ service) as well as the internal employees within the company. Let’s examine how an ‘experience’ impacts both groups: consumers and employees. CONSUMERS: For the most part consumers now a days are smart cookies. They spend more time than ever before researching companies and collecting information on products and services. They seek information through consumer reports, social media, the news, industry events, graffiti in bathroom stalls, etc. All of these avenues provide information and perspective to consumers on whether or not the decision to purchase said service or product is right for them. There’s one avenue though that’s not included in the list above which has a far bigger impact than all of them combined: The power of word of mouth. Companies like Amazon, Lexus, Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Disney and Apple (much to my chagrin as I’m a PC user till the death), to name a few, have all managed to figure out a way to give the consumer an experience which dives deeper than just the product or service offered. Simon Sinek refers to this as their WHY. As a result, consumers promote these companies online via blogs and other feedback mediums, to their friends and family or shout it from the mountain tops. The consumers turn into the best-selling mechanisms these companies have, providing far more value than any internal sales person ever could. Lexus is a great example of this. Not only does Lexus make incredibly well built, safe vehicles with standards at the top of the industry, they also provide a level of service that is almost unmatched in my experience. Their dealerships go above and beyond to ensure the experience you have with them is nothing short of spectacular by offering free car washes, standard service checks for free, shuttle and loaner car services, technology experts onsite and the list goes on. Frankly, I’ve been so impressed with Lexus over the years that I’m happy to pay more for their vehicles because I know the value I’m getting from both the car and the company is worth it. They leave me wanting more. (don’t tell my wife this because I like to keep up a front of being financial frugal) The flip side is if you compare the experience you get with Lexus versus the experience you get with Jeep Dodge Chrysler. I happen to be a Jeep owner and while I love my SUV I always find myself disappointed when I have to deal with the company or their dealerships. Simple things like offering loaner car services while your vehicle is being worked on, which is standard for Lexus and many other companies, is a service that is overlooked and not offered with Jeep. Their nickel and dime approach that often leaves me with a less than favorable taste in my mouth with Jeep may just cause me not to be a repeat customer in the future regardless of how much I love my SUV. The last big difference is that when I walk into a Jeep dealership I feel like the life has been sucked out of the employees. They seem overworked and undervalued. At Lexus it feels like the employees just got done bathing in gold coins as they are happy as clams, cheerful and smiling. From my experience with both these companies my take away has been that Lexus has developed an 'experience' which goes beyond the act of selling cars while Jeep is still trying to figure out how to compete in an increasingly changing and fast pace industry. Let’s move on and examine how an ‘experience’ impacts the other group. EMPLOYEES: For starters, job tenure for all generations in the workplace is in decline. (Baby Boomers @ 7 years, Gen-X @ 5 years and Millennials @ 2 years) What this means is that more and more people are leaving their jobs on a consistent basis, often times because they have found greener pastures elsewhere. However, there are many companies which buck this trend as their job tenure far exceeds the industry average, for example Eastman Kodak, United Airlines, General Motors and Disney. Each of these companies has average job tenure for their employees of more than 10 years. This information tells us something – either the people who work for these companies are chained to their desk (unlikely but interesting to think about) or the employees have bought into an experience which keeps them coming back for more. How do these companies do it? They know firsthand that the most important part of their business is not their product/ service, it’s not their vision or mission statement, it’s not even their customers. (even though they many pretend it is) The most important part of a company is the PEOPLE who are responsible for running it at all levels of the organization – entry level to senior management. While the term ‘experience’ can mean a lot of different things what it really boils down to is an appreciation for the employees that goes beyond ice cream Friday’s once a month during the summer. These companies give their employees autonomy to do their jobs, allow for open communication, feedback, challenge their people to be great without running them into the ground like workhorses AND create an environment where people can learn and feel appreciated for the work being performed. Companies like Disney, who made both of our lists, have focused on providing the best experience possible and as a result they have people dying to get in, rather than hoping they die so they can leave. When people feel good about where they work and what that company is all about you don’t have to tell them to do great things, they do it on their own, willingly. If you are in a leadership position within a company or are starting a new venture remember these words – you may find success by doing the basics and that may work for a time. However if you want to really knock the socks off of people and build something that is sustainable for your lifetime and the next spend your time focusing on the experience you offer to your consumers and employees. Our ability to marry our passions with an experience that leaves people wanting more is the true determination for obtaining wild success in business. ‘It’ can be an exhilarating experience causing you to forget about the present time or one where you’re looking for the exit door in a panic as every minute passes by. You may think to yourself ‘where has this person been all my life’ or ‘as soon as I can end this politely we both know we’ll never talk again.’ You’re pitting out your button up shirt, not because it’s hot, because you’re nervous and trying to make a good impression. You’ve got butterflies in your stomach, but are those butterflies of excitement or butterflies leading to vomit?
Which experience am I describing here, a first date or a job interview? What if I told you I was describing both, a first date AND a job interview! We don’t often associate first dates and job interviews as one in the same however the more we look into each experience and how we act during them we come to find that both of these human interactions are eerily similar. How does knowing this information help me with dating and interviewing? Read on to find out… Let’s take a look at why first dates and job interviews share so much in common. - First Impressions: This is the holy grail of decision making when it comes to whether or not we like someone initially. Failure to have a good first impression will more often than not result in a second interaction never making the calendar. Psychologists call it "thin slicing." Within moments of meeting someone, we’re deciding and making assumptions on all sorts of things about the other person, from status, intelligence, career success and even promiscuity. This can be as quick as 7 seconds! What that means is that everyone is trying to put their best foot forward, which can make things tricky because often times both parties are wondering if the person they’re talking too is the ‘real’ John Doe or the in-character John Doe. - Chemistry: You know it when it exists. Things just seem easy. You laugh more, you tend to lean in closer to the other person more often and you even overlook potential red flags because your gut is already invested in the other person long before your brain has had a chance to catch up. On the other hand, when chemistry is lacking you feel like you’re on a date with your sister. It’s awkward and feel it from your fingers to your toes. - Communication: Communication is much more than just verbal, it also includes nonverbal cues like the unspoken word and body language. Ever been in an interview and eye contact communicated more in 4 seconds what a 10 minute conversation could accomplish? I’ve been there and it’s a powerful experience. When our verbal communication is locked in sync it can feel like we’ve been friends for years. When communication struggles it feels like pulling teeth to have an average conversation. Both people may be speaking English but it seems as if one person is speaking Russian while the other is a Mandarin linguist. We become bewildered and confused, not exactly a great start towards building a solid relationship. - Commonalities: “Wow, went to USC as well. Fight On!” “You’re from Handsome Eddy, New York also? What a small world.” Finding common ground during a first date or a job interview can immediately disarm both parties allowing more casual conversation to occur. Bonding takes place over the things we find out we have in common such as our love for golf, knitting that fabulous turtle neck sweater for the holidays or volunteering for a similar cause. It doesn’t really matter what it is so long as we have something in common. Most of us don’t realize that when we’re in the moment what we’re looking for is something we already know and like – ourselves. When we struggle to find something in common it has a direct negative impact to that chemistry we’re trying to build on. - Perception vs. Reality As the date and or job interview continues we inevitably begin to ask question to get to know the person in hopes of better understanding them and what they bring to the table. Many times what happens during these exchanges is that we get a glimpse into a person that isn’t very real at all. I don’t believe people do this on purpose, at least most people, however the fact of the matter is in a first date and job interview we are doing our darndest to put our best foot forward. As a result people can often times misrepresent themselves for who they are and what they’re all about. This is similar to the honeymoon stage where only after a period of time we’ll be able to know if the person today is the same tomorrow. - Emotion Love at first sight! Let’s face it, emotion is a part of every first date and job interview, but it can also help us or hurt us in our decisions. Help us in that if we become emotionally invested in the other person it allows us to overlook small red flags that otherwise might get in the way of us making a decision that could be good for both parties. Emotions can also hurt us because if we experience something which causes our ego or pride to be damaged we then make decisions that aren’t in the best interest of the interview or date but in protecting ourselves. - The Angle “What’s he really all about?” This is a very logical and typical thought for people to think during a job interview or first date. It signals that we’re trying to look behind the veil and see if we can uncover anything that isn’t necessarily being presented upfront. In the dating world ‘the angle’ often can be described as the feeling that the person is just hoping to go home with you for a nightcap to your first date. Job interviews can have the same outcome. Candidates are angling to get a job, sometimes presenting themselves in a light which makes them appear more qualified than they really are. Employers also do the same by up-selling the career opportunity to entice candidates to consider the role even though the actual work might not be nearly as glamorous as how it was made out to be. What does all of this mean? It means that people by their very nature go about experiences, such as first dates and interviewing for jobs, in a fairly predictable way. While the outcome might be out of our control, the way we go into the experience and how we handle ourselves during the experience greatly influences the outcome. Knowing this information, that first dates and job interviews are similar, can help you go through each experience with a broader perspective allowing you to make better decisions for yourself and potential career or company. Next time you find yourself on a first date or job interview remember that these human experiences are designed to see if it is worth it or not to have a second go around. The best approach is to just be yourself, as a result you’ll find that your interactions with others are far more valuable to you and the person on the other side of the table. Thanks to the cult classic movie, Office Space, many of us now have a name to apply to that feeling of waking up on a Monday morning overwhelmed about what lies in front of us – a whole new work week.
Having a “case of the Mondays” can be a real mood killer and certainly doesn’t lead to starting a day or a week off on the right foot. In 2014 the online career company Monster produced some staggering numbers on this subject as a result of a survey they did with their millions of job applicants and employers. The facts – upwards of 78% of people suffer from some form of the “case of the Mondays” aka ‘Sunday Fear Syndrome’. Like many Americans I also dealt with it for years. I woke up, not just on Monday mornings but on most mornings, dreading the responsibilities that waited for me in my 7AM – 6PM job. (I didn’t even know what 8-5 meant and still don’t but that’s another story altogether) As my “case of the Mondays” continued I started paying more attention to what was causing it and how it affected my attitude and outlook on the day. I wasn’t doing anything for myself to start the week or morning off on the right foot. Like the saying goes, “you woke up on the wrong side of the bed”, when we start the day with negative energies we allow that to carry us through the rest of the day. Starting a day in this fashion produces all sorts of unfortunate outcomes, many of which we aren’t even aware of but all of which negatively impact our experience in that day and week. Then I discovered the cause of my morning blues! Most people blame their job as being the culprit for the “case of the Mondays”. As it turns out I was it wasn’t my job after all, the reality was that I liked my job very much. My discovery led me to realize that it was my mindset that was negatively impacting my mornings. I was struggling to stay focused on being positive and doing things that aided me in keeping a positive outlook with the start of the day. As a result, I embarked on a mission to see if I could proactively change the way I greeted the world each morning. The result of my little mission to fix my morning funk produced some amazing results. After making some minor changes I began to wake up eager to greet the day with lots of natural energy and optimism. I also found that my general outlook on things that were work related was much more positive which allowed me to deal with tough situations better. The best part was I started sleeping better because I didn’t have the stress of the coming day weighing on my mind. Here’s how I did it with four easy to implement steps:
Give these four steps a try for five days to boost your morning mindset and be sure let me know how it worked. When we choose to be in control of our life experiences, rather than allowing them to control us, we begin to experience life in a whole new way…the way it was meant to be. Graduating from college is a great life accomplishment. You’ve worked hard for years and now have the chance to finally put your knowledge to the test along with your wonderful self out there for the professional world to enjoy.
As the college parties and farewells subside new college grads inevitably come face to face with a sobering reality... ...the fact that finding their first career job isn’t easy!Ideally, students should start focusing on their careers and entrance into their industry of choosing in their junior year of college, but more than likely you’ve waited till the very last day of school to think about it. Regardless of the situation you are in as you start to look for work it’s important to head into the process of finding a job armed with the right mental attitude and a winning game plan. Before you start looking for a new job it’s important to understand how these common new grad thought processes below can hurt your chances of landing a job:
Now that you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and understand a bit more of how the professional workplace functions you’ll need to do the following:
Why Patience Pays Off, Literally5/20/2016 Patience is a skill I’ve struggled with my whole life. Many years ago my then boss brought to my attention that in order to get ahead in my career I would have to face my shortcomings with patience head on and make some significant changes to the way I went about things at work and at home. This is where I learned the valuable saying, ‘seek to understand before being understood’.
Improve my patience? This definitely wasn’t going to be easy. The more time I spent building awareness around why I struggled with patience the more I began to realize that my issues with patience were rooted in a way of thinking which I had developed over a life time. My thought process was an unyielding focus on things always being perfect and when they were anything but perfect my issues with patience would soon coming roaring center stage. Naturally, I applied this thought process to myself constantly along with the people I worked with and who worked for me. As in life, there are always moments of challenge, let down and dealing with the unknown so my thought process on a utopian way of life where nothing ever goes wrong, everything is perfect and everyone performs to expectation and beyond, was quite absurd. My lack of patience played a key role in this thought process because I wasn’t comfortable living in the ‘gray’ and dealing with ambiguity, my thought process was always black and white. When you lack the skill of patience you seek immediate resolve, regardless if that’s the right answer or not for the given moment. Many times it isn’t. As time went on I came to realize that one of the best ways to improve patience was to simply do nothing. When I would be faced with a challenge, a tough conversation, a moment of “what the hell were you thinking”, rather than act I would simply do nothing and observe. I credit this lesson to an incredibly powerful book on the subject of patience called 4 Seconds by Peter Bregman. As you may have guessed from the title of the book, four seconds is all it takes according to Bregman to quell the need for immediate responses while giving yourself a chance to breathe and think things through. Four seconds doesn’t seem like a lot of time but when you put it into practice it’s amazing how effective it can be. In fact, this book was so impactful I consider it one of my top 10 reads! Recently I had a personal experience which served as a keen reminder on how patience is vital to a balanced lifestyle; in fact it can also lead to you making more money. Our family made a decision to sell a car with the idea of getting a bigger one to accommodate the volume of stuff we tote around thanks to our little daughter. I’m continually amazed at how much crap one little kid can have, which is probably my fault, but that’s another article in itself. So we’re upgrading vehicles for the sake of making our lives easier. I’ve sold many cars in the past so this certainly wasn’t my first rodeo however I would soon find out that the experience and results would be very new to me. As my wife and I made the decision to sell our car the easy solution was to just go trade the car in at the dealership where we were going to buy the new car. As we were meeting with the dealership coming close to finalizing the deal all of a sudden I thought to myself, “wait, why sell the car now just because we can, we don’t need to sell it immediately and perhaps waiting (welcome to the stage our friend ‘patience’) will bring about a better option that pays us more of what the car is worth”. Well, let’s be honest here, my wife said that and I was sitting there saying, “why didn’t I think of that”. Here’s how things went down… Our car’s private party and Kelley Blue Book (KBB) value was about $24,500. While KBB is a useful tool it isn’t always accurate but does provide a good benchmark. As we spent more time searching our options here’s what we came across: - Dealership Trade-In: $19,600 ($4,900 below value) - CarMax: $21,000 ($3,500 below value) - Beepi (online version of CarMax, just better): $23,500 ($1,000 below value) After we carefully reviewed our options it was apparent that going with Beepi was the easy decision. We were impressed with their customer service, straightforward approach on how they value cars and business model, with the best part being they came to us. We never left our home and the car sold for a price that we were happy with. We’re all confronted with opportunities to practice patience on a daily basis. From this experience I’ve learned that when I'm considering to make a decision which could be hasty or impatient I now think of this experience selling our car and think to myself how much money could I be leaving on the table by acting now? Do you struggle with patience sometimes? If so, test it out. Go through this week and take four seconds before you respond or make up your mind on something. What you may find out is that the four seconds you take to think something through could result in you making more money down the road, or just simply being happier with the outcome of whatever it is you’re faced with. “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” ― Aristotle 5 Steps to Dealing with a Bully Customer5/20/2016 Let’s face it, customers (or clients) are what keep us in business. Without the customer there would be no business, no management, no worker bee, no complimentary coffee that tastes like gym socks in the office kitchen and certainly no revenue.
Customers at the end of the day are the end all be all. Without a willing customer to buy your product or service you will simply cease to exist. The customer and the business are not mutually exclusive, they rely on one another to exist, yet the reality is that often times the one who holds the most influence in the relationship is the customer. Influence, or power for that matter, has a strange way of changing how people act at times, creating monsters out of women and men. When customers become tough to deal with many times what we see on the outside isn’t the full picture, to get to the bottom of it we need to dive deeper into the issue to truly understand that persons irritation or frustrations. Which reminds me of an old story from another lifetime back when I was in high school. I was a server at a small pizza restaurant in the town I grew up in. I loved the job because I got to eat pizza all day long and interact with some really cool people, our customers. Let’s call it like it is, everyone’s happy when they’re getting pizza, so needless to say I really loved this job. One day a customer came in to pick up a pizza to-go. I had served this customer many times before and what happened that day was the same as every other time we would interacted with this gentleman. He came in and immediately started frothing at the mouth about how his last purchase with our restaurant was awful as he yelled about how it was never on time and ‘the pizza sauce sucked’. "There are never enough pepperoni's on the pizza", he would say. In typical fashion he would then ask to speak with the manager and demand a discount, which most of the time we gave him. It was like groundhogs day, same thing every time with little deviation. I always laughed to myself because he just kept coming back for more like some evil self-inflicted punishment. I remember thinking to myself, "If our service and food was really that bad, why did he keep coming back?" One day our manager finally had enough and confronted the man. I’d love to say it was me but I was a pimply faced 16 year old and certainly not gutsy enough to speak back to a customer and risk losing my pizza privileges, or job for that matter. The restaurant manager interrupted the man’s banter, took him a side and asked, “Sir, why do you continue to give us your business if you dislike our food so much. You seem awfully upset and often treat my employees rather poor. Is everything okay?” As I ease dropped in on the conversation I was shocked at the response from the customer. “I’m sorry Tim. (our manager’s name) I was fired from my job a couple months ago, as a result I lost my house so I’m living out of my car and pizza is the cheapest, easiest thing for me to eat. Please let your staff know how much I appreciate them as they are always nice to me, even though I’m not a very pleasant person myself.” WOW! My mouth dropped to the floor. None of us knew why this person was always such an irritable grump, we just knew that when he came in the door he was always angry and seemed to enjoy taking it out on the servers. Our manager decided to give him the pizza he ordered for free and invited him back the following day so that the man could watch our team go through the process of making pizzas. The manager wanted him to see that the food was good quality and we cared about our customers. He also threw in a free lunch for the guy, more than I would of done, certainly. Best part of the story was after the customers ‘field trip’ to our restaurant ended that following day our manager offered him a job delivering pizzas so he could earn some money until he was able to get back on his feet. I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that day which taught me to take the time to confront tough situations rather than let those situations own me in the process. As a result I’m a firm believer that you attract more bees with honey than you do with sledgehammers. Once we understand what is driving a customer to act in a certain way we can then respond with a solution that hopefully changes the course of the relationship moving forward. These 5 steps are a great way to get to the bottom of your customers frustrations so you can then start focusing on turning around the relationship:
“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” - Wayne Dyer Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes in the workplace. No matter how hard you may try it is darn near impossible to escape adversity in the workplace as it’s not ‘if’ but ‘when’. Adversity comes in the form of dealing with a bad boss, company politics, a negative coworker, challenging deadlines or having a work load on your plate enough for three people. While these are only but a few of the typical challenges we face at work they all have tendency to lead to one area
employees being unhappy at work.Apparently there’s a lot of unhappy people at work because recent stats show that employees average job tenure is 4.4 years, with Millennials being half that. With people jumping ship so quickly in their career it makes you wonder if they ever really think about their decisions before they make them and what the impact will be down the road. Which reminds me of my own story dealing with this exact issue. Three years into my career I managed to hit a major roadblock. The company I worked for had hired me before I even graduated college and trained me from the ground up. As a result I was fortunate enough to get promoted and find myself in a management role very early in my career, which above everything, taught me a lot about myself and working with others. As time went on I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated at work as expectations seemed to be mounting by the minute and my performance was beginning to suffer. Sunday evenings were the worst as I would slip into a mild depression about the thought of having to start a whole week of work all over again. After several months of feeling bad for myself I decided to peek my head out into the job market and see what else was out there – perhaps a greener pasture was waiting for me. I interviewed with several companies over the course of a month or two but in the end decided to stay with my current employer to ‘stick it out’. The reason I decided to stay was because I felt like if I were to leave at that point I wouldn’t be able to say “I gave it everything I could, it just wasn’t the right opportunity for me.” The reality of my situation was that I was spending more time focused on my frustrations rather than focusing on how I could kick ass and take names, figuratively speaking. What I didn’t know then but certainly know now is that the decision to ‘stick it out’ with my then current employer would prove to be a crucial decision in my career and personal life moving forward. What I learned from this decision:
As we deal with adversity and challenge in the work place how often are we really doing our best to improve the situation before we decide to move on from it. Just as important, do we take into consideration the things we’re missing out on by making a decision, especially one as important as a new career. While not all challenges and work place adversities can be bested it’s important we’re honest with ourselves on where the source of our frustration comes from so that we can truly understand how to combat it. If we don’t, we run the risk of having those same issues at our next place of employment which could then begin a nasty habit that follows us for a life time. “Life is a storm…You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout 'Do your worst, for I will do mine!' " – Alexandre Dumas 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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