Making the New Hire a Top Performer

tommazzaconsulting — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:28:28 +0000

Does this sound familiar?

You hire a new person, “Marlene” and she reports for work. Your plan was to have “Betty” your top reservation/dispatch person, train Marlene her entire first week on the job.

Betty gets crazy busy with a last minute group and is only able to train about a half hour at a time. But since Betty is so critical,to everyone from clients to the owner, she is constantly interrupted. Three weeks later you look at Marlene and she is “okay” at her job but not great. Betty, whose work load you sought to reduce, is busier than ever and now has Marlene asking her questions all day.

You sit at your desk, look at your screen and say to yourself, “Man we need to hire better people.” No, in fact you do NOT need to hire “better people” you need to run a better company across the board.

Here are the changes in this company that need to happen:

Regardless of the time or expense, EVERYTHING that we do on a daily basis for our clients needs to be documented.
Implement repeatable processes from how to answer the phone to when we use a farmout company.
Hire a person BEFORE you really need them.
Put together a hiring process. From filling out the W-9 form to showing them where to park, make a plan.
Involve your entire team in the on boarding process.
Introduce your new hire to the entire company from the car wash guy to accounting.
If you cannot spare time or people to train, train them yourself and do it early morning, evening, or on weekends if necessary.
Train the new employee to do things YOUR WAY.
Test them, challenge them, communicate with the new hire on everything they are facing on the job.
After a month on the job, bring the new hire back and review in an hour or two all of the training. This reinforces everything you have taught them.

DO NOT put the new person in a position that they are forced to learn via osmosis.

Quality employees are the most valuable asset your company has. They are more important than shiny cars or killer IT systems.

Tom Mazza Consulting Blog

Making the New Hire a Top Performer