Entrepreneurial Management
Part 3 | Onboarding
When you first hire someone they are not going to know what to do. They will sit around and ask you questions. A proper onboarding process can eliminate a lot of this and in this module we dive into the specifics.
The people you hire are not entrepreneurs. They do not think like you. They are employees who want to be successful, but need to have clearly defined expectations and responsibilities as they start their work.
The best way to do this is by making a list of what everybody needs to know when they come into your organization. At The Life Coach School we created a simple company manual. We will share this in a later module. You want to make sure that when someone comes into your organization, they’re greeted as if they were coming into your home. You want to show them around. You want to give them some direction.
So what does every person who comes to work need to know? What do they need to have? For example, what kinds of access do they need to have? Do they need certain kinds of technology? Do they need to have links and passwords? Where are they going to be spending their time?
You want to spend a lot of time with them in the beginning so you don’t spend as much time with them in the end. You will be micromanaging in the beginning, asking and answering a lot of questions, getting up in their business, all of it. Build it all up on the front end and then slowly let them do their job without you.
Really think about their first full day and put yourself in their shoes. You can also think about what the onboarding will look like at 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days. What do they need to understand and achieve within the first 30 days?
At The Life Coach School we have new employees turn in their calendar every week. We teach our employees how to plan and then we look at their calendar. This is a benefit for them and you, because we get to see how they are planning their time and what they are prioritizing. This opens up communication and helps you to teach them how to think.
In the beginning you want to make sure that your employees are not just doing what you ask them to do, but are thinking the way you want them to think about what you’ve assigned them to do.
By creating an onboarding process that every employee goes through, you are helping everyone be on the same page and have the same base of knowledge. It will take some time to create it the first time, but then you can leverage the process every time after that.