New Employee On-boarding Tips

Hiring a new employee is a time-consuming process. You need to define the position, promote the job, evaluate candidates and decide on the right hire. You must think through your hiring plan carefully and then act fast, as other businesses may be interested in hiring your top candidates, too. This process doesn’t end when you offer someone a job and he/she says yes. Now you need to prepare for your new employee’s first day.

The first 90 days on the job are critical for an employee’s success. You want the new person to feel welcomed, engaged and ultimately be happy in the role and committed to your business for the long term.

Here are some tips to consider when you hire a new employee.

Create an on-boarding plan

Map out how you will orient the new employee to the new job and the business.

What will his/her first day, week and month look like?
What information about the responsibilities and internal systems will you share when?
How will you introduce the new person to key contacts?
How will you communicate the business culture and key values?
What will be the new employee’s first assignments?

One approach is to create a calendar and/or checklist with key tasks to be learned and/or completed during the first week, month and quarter. This will give both you and the new employee a roadmap to follow so that expectations are clear.

Have the work environment ready

The new hire’s desk or physical area must be ready, with computer set up and e-mail configured. Have payroll figured out and any related new employee paperwork prepared. A welcome packet can include the employee’s job description, a schedule for the first 2 weeks, important contact information, and your business policies and procedures. (Consider creating an employee handbook that explains the company culture, benefits packages and the “rules and regs” of the business.)

Make the first day special

The new employee will probably show up excited but also a bit nervous on the first day. You want him/her to have a positive feeling about the business and co-workers right away. Set a welcoming mood and show the new hire that you are ready. Call employees together to introduce the new hire, or introduce to others one-on-one. Have a lunch plan for the new employee on the first day to help him/her feel welcome.

Train in small modules

There is so much to learn when starting a new job. To be effective, training sessions shouldn’t feel like marathons. Take breaks. Segment the orientation into manageable blocks no longer than 90 minutes. Use time between training sessions for the new employee to meet more staff, tour a particular area, and get started on meaningful but simple or straightforward work.

Check back on a regular basis

Make time for check-ins with the new employee — both during the training process and beyond. This can take the form of a regularly scheduled meeting, a weekly meal, or an informal chat. Discuss concerns, answer questions, share your feedback and address any negative issues before they fester.

Your good planning and continued support will create a lasting, positive environment for this new employee. Remember, you are making a long-term investment in this most important business asset!

Paul Terry & Associates helps clients hire new staff. We can advise on the best hiring steps or completely manage the hiring process from outreach to on-boarding. Are you thinking about hiring someone? We are here to help you hire and train the best person for the job.

Ready to Hire? Create a plan.

There are many ways to manage expected business growth. You can improve or streamline your systems, sub out work to independent contractors, or take on more work yourself. Yet at some point, sustained business growth may mean hiring full-time or part-time employees.

When you decide to hire a new employee, it’s tempting to get someone (anyone!) into the job as soon as possible. We recommend that you FIRST think through what you need, who you want, and what you can afford. Then, create a hiring plan. Proceeding carefully can make the difference between finding a temporary fix or hiring the right person for the job.

Before you hire, think carefully about:

Budget

How much will a hiring process cost you?
How will hiring a new employee add value to your business?
What are you able to offer in terms of salary and other benefits?

Job description

What are the specific tasks that need to be handled by this position?
What are the basics of the position (full/part-time, on-site/remote, etc.)?
What skills and experience are necessary to do this job well?

Be clear about the “must-have” v.s. the “would-be-nice-to-have” qualifications for this new hire.

Outreach

Where are potential candidates looking for jobs?
Who might know someone great for this job?

Diversifying your outreach will help you find the most qualified candidates. Online job sites may be the best way to promote the job but be sure to do your research. Some sites are industry-specific, some are free and some are pricey. Let colleagues, friends and customers know exactly who you seek. Word-of-mouth can be powerful! Social media, your website and e-newsletters are great ways to spread the word.

Screening candidates

How will you communicate with applicants?
What are the steps in your screening process?
What interview questions will help you identify the best applicants?

Consider asking applicants to answer questions by email first, and then interview select candidates by phone. Only bring the best candidates in for face-to-face interviews. Adding these screening steps may save you time in the long run. Choose your interview questions carefully. You want to explore the candidate’s range of experience and skills, how they will handle challenging situations or conflict on the job, and how they will fit into your business culture.

Evaluating candidates

How do you decide which applicant is best for the job?
How does your hiring team agree on who to hire?

Often the “right” hire isn’t completely clear. A candidate may have great qualities/skills in one area but deficiencies in another area. (We use evaluation tools with our clients to assess the pros and cons of each candidate.) Be sure to request at least three professional references and then call to confirm that your impressions match others’ experiences. When you finally come to a decision, be sure to act fast. If you love this candidate then chances are other employers do, too! Call or email to offer the job and then follow up with an offer letter.

Once you complete the hire, it’s time to create a plan to on-board this new employee!

Are you thinking about hiring someone? We help small businesses hire new staff. We develop job descriptions and interview questions, and help design the right hiring process. We can help manage the hiring process from outreach to interviews to selection.

How to Handle Business Complexity

A common issue for small business owners is the relationship between business skills or management capacity and the complexity of the business.

If you start a business slowly, you may be able to handle everything yourself. If you only have one or two products or a limited customer/client base, your systems can be quite simple. But…

Are you financially sustainable?
Can you generate enough capital or cash flow to reach break-even?
Is the business profitable?

To create a self-sufficient business, you may have to scale up or increase your business’ complexity. And as you do so, your business skills and management capacity must keep pace. Getting this balance right is an on-going issue. To grow the small business, things get complicated… perhaps more than you can manage well.

Is it better to wait until you have all the skills to handle the increased complexity?
Do you go ahead and grow now and hope that you will develop the skills “on the fly” to be successful and sustainable?
Should you hire someone with more expertise to help you?

To manage your business’ increasing complexity, it is essential to focus on these six key areas:

1. Pay attention to the your weak links.

Your lack of skills as a small business owner in any key area of your business (management, operations, finances or marketing) can limit your success. There is a good chance you already know your areas of weakness. Cash flow management? Operational systems? Managing others? Take the time to identify a key weakness and make it a strength. (Think about a simple SWOT analysis.)

2. Improve your own business skills now.

Find the help you need NOW before your current knowledge limits your business. This may mean taking a class, reading a book, following relevant blogs, finding a peer mentor, or working with a business adviser or coach. The key is to put aside some regular time (every day, week or month) for your personal education.

3. Bring in others with the skills you need.

Being a small business owner does not mean that you have to know how to do everything yourself or that you have to do it all alone. Often the smartest approach is to hire someone who can do a particular business task better than you. This could be an outside professional or an employee with skills in the specific area of need, such as a bookkeeper to help you manage cash flow, or an employee good at sales. (It may only be a short-term need until your internal systems improve.)

4. Take a leadership role.

You may have started your business because you love making your product. But to create a successful business you may need to hire someone else who can make the product at a cheaper price. This could be an employee that works directly under your supervision, or an outside manufacturer or co-packer. (See these six tips when planning to hire employees and step into a leadership position.)

5. Put good systems in place.

It is challenging to take on larger projects, additional clients or more employees if you don’t have clear (and documented) systems. It is hard to hire someone else to help you if you need to take a lot of time to show them how to do the work because it is all in your head instead of written down. Without good systems, it is also harder to take a break!

6. Don’t stop planning.

Growing a business can sometimes feel like a set of spiral movements around and around—seemingly sending you one place and then another. Yet your business challenges and your careful responses to those challenges can create a great foundation for growth. A solid business plan can also help you predict and prepare for the complexities ahead. Remember, planning isn’t a one-time thing. It helps you to take the pulse of your business—over and over again. So, take the time to identify your weaknesses, challenges and opportunities and create a plan to take your business to the next level.

At Paul Terry & Associates, we work with many small businesses that are confronting the tension between management capacity and business complexity. Some clients are eager to grow their businesses but feel stuck, unsure how to reach the next level or increase sales given current skills or resources. Some clients are struggling to keep up with the demand for their products/services. Using an action planning approach, we work with small business owners to assess the current situation and create a road map to reach their goals. Our goal is to help clients prepare for the road ahead, manage the increasing complexities, and build businesses that are profitable and sustainable for the long term.

Motivating Others

If you are like most small business owners, you are self-motivated. You are passionate about your service or product and you are always focused on your business – attending to your customers or clients, fixing problems, thinking about how to grow your business, etc. You always want to provide impeccable service and impress clients and customers with your work.

But if you have employees, how do you motivate them to feel as passionately about the business as you do? How can you encourage them to “act like owners”, too?

Eight Tips on Motivating Your Team:

Create a culture of trust. People want to work hard for people they respect and trust. If they feel confident in their relationship with you (and with other employees) it will free them to focus on the work, instead of worrying about inter-personal work-place dynamics.
Share praise. When your employees are doing a great job, let them know. And let others know, too! It can be highly motivating to have one’s work acknowledged and appreciated publicly. Also, giving employees opportunities to take on more responsibility can be a great form of recognition, too.
Be more transparent. Openness is essential for any small business. Your employees need to know what is going on in the business so that they have the information they need to do their jobs well. They should also be getting regular feedback on how they are doing their job. It is particularly important to be transparent if there is going to be a change in the business that will affect your employees. People need to know how the change will affect them personally. Once that is understood, they may be much more likely to work with you through the challenge or transition.
Share decision-making. It is both respectful and practical to involve your employees in key decisions, especially decisions that directly impact their jobs. Often it is the people closest to the problem that have the best insight into possible solutions.
Give people space. It is important to let people accomplish tasks and make decisions independently within their area of the business. No one likes to be micro-managed. Focus on results instead of how the work gets done. (Your way may not be the only way… or the best way.)
Take time to talk and to listen. People feel more confident and energized to do their work when they fully understand what is expected of them, and know that you are available if a problem arises. If you give someone authority over a task, take time for training, communicate the constraints and boundaries of his or her responsibility, and the process for asking questions and getting assistance.
Take the long view — delegate. In the moment when something needs doing, it might seem easier (and faster) to just do it yourself. It can take a lot of up-front effort to explain the task and then that person might work slowly or make mistakes. But giving employees opportunities to take on new and challenging tasks will help them reach their full potential and will ultimately create a much stronger team for your business.
Keep things interesting! No one wants to do the same thing over and over. Every job has repetitive tasks but a part of everyone’s job should involve something interesting. Think about how employees’ tasks align with their experience, knowledge and skill-level, as well as their long-term goals and interests.

If you have employees, they are an essential part of your business – you cannot be a success without them. By creating a more transparent enterprise, sharing praise and decision making, and taking the time to listen and to delegate, you will create a positive business culture that will help both you and your business thrive. When you encourage employees to develop skills and stay engaged with the business, you will be making the best use of your time and skill level, too!

Step in, step up, step out: learning to lead

May 5, 2014
Management
PTA
No Comments

In the first years of life we learn to roll over and then crawl, we learn to toddle and then walk, and we learn to mumble, repeat sounds and then talk. We develop new skills by watching, listening and practicing, by falling down and getting up… over and over. As we grow, we build our strength, self-confidence, skills and understanding about other people and ourselves.

Becoming the leader of a business can be a similar process. We step into the role (sometimes before we are ready) and we step up to the opportunity (even if we stumble along the way). Finally, we learn to step out of day-to-day management and into a leadership role. We develop the personal perspective and skills to take our businesses to the next level.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Your business will have different needs at different times. As a new start-up or a home-based business, you need to figure out what you are doing, convince others to buy from you, and close the sale. As you expand, you can go after more clients and customers and adjust your services and products to fit the market. As your businesses matures, you as the owner need to mature as well. You need to know when it is time to step away from the day-to-day running of the business and bring in additional support. This becomes a leadership opportunity.

LETTING GO
Giving up control over certain aspects of your business is one of the hardest things to do as a business owner. Yet it is essential if you want to grow your business. To be successful, your time needs to be spent on the future of your business, not just the day-to-day needs.

GETTING READY
But how do you recognize the gaps that you need to fill? How to define the complexity of your business and bring your business skills into alignment? How do you know you are ready to hire people and train them to operate the business the way that you have proven is successful?

As a small businesses owner, you may be forced to make quick decisions, reacting to opportunities as they appear instead of strategically setting your course. And, you may have to make things up as you go along, essentially “building the plane as you fly it”. Yet when it comes to hiring people, good preparation is key. It is critical to to first ask yourself why you need help, what type of person or skill set is best suited for the job, and how you will train, direct and assess new hires so that you can incorporate them smoothly into your business.

JUMPING IN
Here are six important tips to consider when planning to hire employees and step into a position of leadership.

1. Understand the financial impact
Before jumping into a hiring process, you need to be able to afford it. Financial costs and revenues forecasting comes first. Hiring the right person comes second.

2. Look for people who complement your skill sets
It is important to hire people who can do the type of work that is important to the business but that you don’t do well. Do you struggle to track your expenditures or manage your budget? Bring in someone with strong money management skills. Do you love making the product but shy away from reaching out to potential customers? Hire someone with great people skills and a sales or marketing background.

3. Spend time on training and then get out of the way
You might be eager to get a new person working as soon as possible but it’s important to put energy into training so the new hire not only understands how to do things the right way but also understands why it’s important to do them that way. Once a new person is trained, it’s time to get out of the way. The business is your “baby” and you may have been responsible for all tasks until now. But the only way a new hire can be motivated, loyal to the business and successful, is if you let him or her own some of the work, too.

4. Set the right tone and others will follow
You, as the owner, set the business culture. If you are motivated and happy in your role, if you are transparent, open, consistent and fair, then others will follow your lead. As the owner, you must be a good communicator and in particular, you must communicate your vision and goals with the people who work for you. Without clear business goals, it’s easy for everyone to get lost in the details and lose sight of the big picture. You all need to be on the same page.

5. Continually take the pulse of your team
A good leader takes time to give clear directions, solicit feedback and listen to suggestions. By scheduling regular check-ins, team meetings and performance reviews with your employees, you create a productive space for communicating goals, addressing concerns and answering questions. Your employees can then feel confident that they know what is expected of them, and you can feel free to give them the space they need to do their jobs well. How you communicate with your employees (and how your employees communicate with each other) makes all the difference!

6. Get help through the process
You don’t have to figure it all out on your own. We help small business clients all the time to assess their needs, make the right hires, create training programs to build strong teams, and implement better management systems. Your support network of advisers and other small business owners can be a guide or sounding board as you develop leadership skills and systems for better management.

It is important to invest time, money and attention in your people. They are key to your business success!

Resolve Conflict

Being in business is challenging. You can’t be in business without running into conflict at some point… your landlord raises the rent, your largest client reduces your hours, your reliable vendor is three weeks late with inventory, your wait staff calls in sick at 5:00pm and/or your key employee gives notice. Wow! What to do?

Winged Wisdom, part of Presidio Habitats, a site-based exhibition created for the Presidio of San Francisco

Perhaps the answer is to quit…start a new business or…as we all say to ourselves at one time or another, “I need to get a job!” Most of us don’t go and get a job. Sometimes we try and go through the motions of an interview and think this will resolve all the conflicts…but then realize that’s really not what we want. Working for someone else does not resolve or eliminate conflict. It is still there and now we don’t have the “power” to implement a change!

The idea is not to instigate conflict or prolong it, or try to win the argument. The process of running a business is to minimize conflicts and if a conflict arises, to face it and try to resolve it. The owner has to build the business, take care of the employees, satisfy the clients or customers, and create a balanced life for themselves.

There are solutions to the conflicts. Sometimes it is a genuine transparent management style; at other times, it is direct conversations with key employees; or it could be recognizing the error before the client or vendor sees it and suggesting a solution before there even is a conflict. (When I ran a gourmet food business, I noted right after the holidays that we did not sell all the extra inventory that we had bought. I called the vendors immediately and negotiated a 6 month payout plan…before they noticed we were late with payment and got upset with us.)

To find the right solutions we can look to supportive mentors or professionals who can listen and advise, talk things through with key employees, meditate on the right action, and then forge ahead and explore new approaches. If you run your business with integrity, honesty and transparency and confront your stumbling blocks head on, you can make it through. But if you don’t resolve a conflict…guess what comes back for you another day? So, resolve conflict!

In the Company of Others

A common assumption is that word-of-mouth promotion for small business means encouraging customers or clients to tell other people about your business, either directly or through online review tools like Yelp. This is important but another key part of word-of-mouth promotion involves your own word-of-mouth efforts—attending events, meeting new contacts, talking with others and sharing who you are and what you do.

It’s great to attend events that directly relate to your business or industry and it’s also incredibly valuable to just get out there and make contact with people. We need to be out in the public—be it a street fair, holiday event or home-based party—and connect with others.

Even at gatherings that aren’t “officially” networking events, try to put yourself into the mix and in your own way, “work the room”. It’s okay to have an agenda in mind. You can be ready with a critical question to ask or some simple information to share about you and your own business. Travel with a business success story or a lesson learned, and always be on the lookout for good resources and leads for other business owners you know.

In conversation with PTA Associate Andrea Baker, Owner of Baker Consulting

The key to building a good reputation may simply mean being a person ready with a story to tell, good resources to share, and the ability to listen and ask questions in all conversations. Every encounter is a potential business opportunity—even if you don’t know what the benefit will be to you and your business in the moment! It is in the company of others that magic can happen.

Great Customer Service: 7 Tips

When we think of the most important issue in business, we always come back to customer service. In every consultation, workshop or class, we ask two questions and get amazingly similar results:

• What small businesses do you like to do business with?

• What small businesses do you NOT like to business with?

What is the common answer: It is good (or bad) customer service. Customers, clients, vendors and professionals all want to do business with businesses and business owners they like – that treat them well, give excellent service and follow-up and have consistent and fair policies for exchange.

Now, it is ALSO important that businesses offer excellent and effective products or the services the customer really wants, that the price is fair, that the location (retail or on-line) is convenient and the information is clear and consistent. The people providing the service must be qualified and come well recommended. BUT, to get repeat business and referrals – the business owner and staff MUST pay attention to customer service!

As business owners, we do NOT want any of the following to happen:

• A client or customer calling about a “late” delivery before you get a chance to call first

• Finding out that the “wrong” information was provided without correction for the client

• That you failed to follow-up on a request for additional information as promised

• That a client was left on hold without appropriate information of what to do or where to go next

• That the client finds that the service does not work as promised and cannot reach someone to complain or get help and support

A negative buying experience (and the results from thousands of students in classes and workshops) is almost always linked to “lousy and shoddy” customer service. Good customer service is essential for all businesses to exist for the long-term! Being able to provide it with all transactions and on a consistent basis is not just possible but must be essential for small business owners.

Here is some basic behavior we need to have as small businesses. This is directed by the owner and needs to be followed consistently if there is really going to be a commitment (by owners and managers) to customer service.

1. Commitment to quality service.

Everyone in the business is committed to creating a positive experience for the customer. The goal should always be “exceed customer’s expectations”. This should happen on every encounter – from the first point of contact and throughout the period of service. It should be included in the follow-up reminder in person, by phone or on-line.

2. Know your products and your policies.

You and everyone who works for you must know what they are doing – know about your product line or your service offerings – in order to gain and keep a customer’s trust and confidence. There should be complete clarity on what you offer, what guarantees you give and what would be done if there was any error or mistake made in the process!

3. Know your customers.

The objective of every small business is to “get and keep customers.” To do this, you need to know everything you can about your customers. Talk to people and listen to what they say so you can prepare in advance for any key issues. If there ever is a problem, get to the core of customer dissatisfaction BEFORE it happens.

4. Treat people with courtesy and respect.

Every contact with a customer — by email, phone, and letter, casual contact or face-to-face meeting — leaves an impression. The impression is often stronger than the service being offered. If you can “manage the impression”, you can affect the customer’s behavior! Always focus on how to fix any issue that “went wrong” Most customers will do business with you again if you resolve a complaint in their favor. They often become your advocate!

Customers want immediate resolution, and if you can give it to them, you’ll probably win their repeat business. Research shows that 95 percent of dissatisfied customers will do business with a company again if their complaint is resolved on the spot.

5. Always provide what you promise.

Fail to do this and you’ll lose credibility — and customers. If you guarantee a quote within 24 hours, get the quote out in a day or less. If you can’t make good on your promise, apologize to the customer and offer some type of compensation or restitution. Stay in touch and “get back to them.”

6. Focus on making customers, not making sales

Remember that keeping a customer’s business is more important than closing a sale. Research shows that it costs six times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. You need to keep the client – and not always make the sale. Referrals work too!

7. Make it easy to buy.

The buying experience in your store, on your website or through your catalog should be as easy as possible. Eliminate unnecessary paperwork, help people find what they need, explain how products work, and do whatever you can to facilitate transactions. Make it an effortless and pleasant experience so that people will tell others, and will come back.

To be competitive and stay in business within these economic times, we need to treat our clients, customers and vendors with respect. They are our stakeholders and we need their loyalty, referrals and repeat business to stay and thrive in business. “At your service” is a practice without question.