3 Steps To Set Up Your New Hire For Success

Think back to experiences you’ve had starting a new job.  How often did you have a fantastic first day and first week?  What made it great?  What do you remember being awkward, disappointing, or frustrating?  What kind of experience are your new hires having?  How clearly are they being shown the way to being successful in your company?

​There used to be a strong attitude toward new employees of “You’re so lucky we even hired you,” and little attention paid to the new hire experience.  But as our economy becomes more service-based, and as our employees have increasing expectations for delivering great customer service to internal and external clients, this attitude and poor new hire experiences just don’t work.

It’s increasingly important to provide new hires with positive starting experiences.  This speeds up their productivity, saves you money (you don’t have to undo so many mistakes or potentially replace them), and fosters positive relations within your company and with your customers.
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Here are three key strategies for giving new hires a positive start.

1. Get the tech in place – When she arrives on the first day, make sure that her computer and any other technology specific to her is ready to go.  Her e-mail downloads correctly. She has server access.  Her phone just needs for her to record her message.  Yes, this means that someone will need to devote some time to doing this in advance.  But having your new employee start without her key tools being ready is like having people over for dinner, but they show up and you’re still in your work-around-the-house clothes, the meal has hardly been started and the house is a mess.  Is that a disaster?  No.  Is it a really awkward and perhaps unrecoverable poor start to the night?  Yep.  When you do the equivalent to your new hire, it implies that you are unaware of the needs of others or that you don’t have your act together.  This diminishes confidence and enthusiasm on the part of the new hire.  By having the tech ready to go, you demonstrate that you are thoughtful, conscientious, organized, and eager for her to start contributing.
2. Assign a sherpa – When we start a job, often someone talks with us about the handbook, key policies, etc.  Rarely does someone talk to us in a healthy way about the “inside scoop” about our company and our people.  Are birthdays a big deal at your company?  Or distinctly not celebrated?  Does the boss always want to park in a certain place?  Is there a team member who takes an especially long time to warm up to new people?  This is the stuff that newbies don’t know, which leads to having diminished confidence and making stumbles that can be avoided.  A new hire’s boss has a lot of responsibility for teaching the core business information.  Supplement this knowledge transfer by assigning a sherpa to help the new hire learn the “inside scoop” about your company.  Now, this is not carte blanche for gossip!  This role of this guide is to help the new hire feel welcome, be an immediate “go to” person for the information that may not be comfortable to ask the boss about, and help the new hire norm to your company relatively quickly.
3. Establish success indicators – Have a short list of success indicators for 30 days and then 90 days and share these on day one, or even late in the interview process (“I want to show you what we’d focus on if you were to join us…”).  These success indicators complete the statement, “We know you’re on the right path when we see…” You know in your head what these are, or at least you know the disaster indicators, right?  “If a new sales hire isn’t reaching out to clients after the first week, I know we’re in trouble.”  That statement can easily be turned into a positive success indicator.  “Within the first 30 days, new hire has made contact with all clients in portfolio and established/completed introductory meetings with at least 1/3.”  Something like, “Is building client relationships,” is NOT specific enough.  My sample Prelim Success Indicators show this idea more specifically.

I hope this inspires you to take a little time to think through a new hire’s initial experiences with your company.  The payoff will be worth it, I promise.