Speaker: This is onboarding through the filter of culture. Once again, we’re talking about onboarding through the filter of fit. Making sure that we have a clear idea of what our core values are. And then as we go through the process of recruiting, of interviewing, of hiring, and onboarding people we’re taking them through the filter of our core values of the culture that we’re wanting to create. This is a very important thing that Clay Staires Leadership Tulsa, we work with business speaker Tulsa leaders across the country and in working with how they bring people on and how they bring them into their companies. business speaker Tulsa
Unfortunately, so many leaders find themselves just hiring in a hurry, Hiring under pressure, hire under fire, and it just stresses them out. They get people in, they hire and hope that they work out and unfortunately so many times they don’t. But now they’ve been in it long enough, they’re going to, “I don’t want to go through that whole process again.” And so they keep people that don’t fit around too long.
So this whole process that we’re talking about as far as using the filter of culture, the filter of fit, is to help you as a business speaker Tulsa owner to help you as a manager to develop a system that allows you to do those hires and hire in a hurry and hire under fire with, and feel very confident about the people that you are bringing in. Again I don’t know if it’s 100% foolproof but you will find that this system will help you feel much much more confident as you move forward.
So today we’re talking about onboarding at Clay Staires Leadership Tulsa and did you know, just want to give you a few statistics. This is out of a HR company called Bamboo HR. There talking about, do you really want to know what new hires want in their first week. Says that 76% of them want on the job training, 73% want to take a look at the policies in their first week, they want to see the policies, over half of them almost 60% of these new hires want to have some type of a buddy or mentor to help show them the ropes. Also, 60% of them want to know, they want to have a tour of the company, have a tour of the equipment, to have a tour of the building and what’s going on, how are things are set up, and what are their procedures?
So, taking this information we want to make sure that our onboarding process actually has these pieces in place. Also when you ask them who do new hires want to show them the ropes? They want their manager. Their key manager. They don’t want somebody else they don’t want the head of the HR department or some other colleague or some assigned mentor to show them the ropes. They are looking for their key manager to show them the ropes. These are a few pieces that we have put together in our onboarding system.
So, let’s talk about what this thing looks like. With my clients that we work with here at Clay Staires Leadership Tulsa, we put together the first 30 days onboarding system. It’s a set path that every new employee is going to go through. Now we can also expand this to the first three months and the first year or the first 18 months you can expand this out as long as you want. But the important thing is, number one, that you create this onboarding path with the lens or through the filter of your company culture, making sure that you are constantly nurturing the culture that you’re wanting to create in your daily life in the workforce. business speaker Tulsa
So, if we don’t do that then again what’s going to happen is, we’ve talked about in other podcasts, what’s going to happen is, the culture will develop itself. And if you let the culture grow wild and develop itself, I promise you, you will put together a culture that is the shortest distance between two spots, it’ll be the easiest way to do it. People will find themselves just it’s a natural thing for people to hide, for people to not produce, and then not be available for evaluation. That’s what you will get, so we want to be very deliberate as we’re bringing new employees on. business speaker Tulsa
So, this is why we’re talking about our onboarding path here with Clay Staires Leadership Tulsa. This onboarding begins, a lot of people think that when the people show up that’s when we start the onboarding but I’m going to go back even before that. Pre-day one, to get the homerun, we want to set this thing up. So pre-day one, I send out all of the paperwork all the forms and again I’m in this place where I’m asking them to do something for me before they even start their job. business speaker Tulsa So I send them the form,this is just the basic stuff that they’re going to do. Come on in, have this stuff filled out when you come in. I also pre-day one send them an email that is a big welcome and it’s usually a welcome from me the company owner. If you are a manager in a company I would encourage you to have an email from you personally welcoming them to the company but also go up as high as you can to find somebody if possible the owner of the company, that’s able to have a short email saying, “Man I’ve just heard that you’ve been hired. We are looking forward to you being here.”
And use the language of your company culture. I even do for me and I’d set up with each of the companies that I work with. I use a short video and we have created a pre-done video of company owners where they are in their cars because we want to get the feel that they have just heard that this person has been hired.
And so they’re so short little video we just used a phone camera to do this. It wasn’t a high studio quality and everything, it was just right off of their phone of them saying, “Oh man, I’m so glad that I’ve just heard you got hired. I’m so glad you’re coming on. I’m looking forward to meeting you. And be sure to come up and talk to me when you get here, great to have you with us, I’m looking forward to getting you started.” Bam. It’s all it is just a short 15 20 second video it’s nothing long, nothing extensive but it’s important for that person before they’ve even started to get that video.
I worked with a company, that one specific company here in the Tulsa area and they have 50 different branches across the country. But their problem was that they had a turnover rate, get this guy’s a turnover rate of new employees of 63% across the country. They had people that were coming in and going out. It’s like this revolving door. So we got together and we put together, I asked them about their onboarding path and they didn’t even know what I was talking about. Now guys catch this, this is a 2 billion dollar company and they did not have an onboarding system in place.
So we put this onboarding path in place for them and they the very first person they took through this has now been with him for three years and their comments coming out of that onboarding path was, “I’ve had several jobs but I’ve never been at a company that has done this well with their onboarding.” So this is great stuff for you as a business owner or manager. So pre-day one we’re sending them an e-mail, It’s got the forms there for them to fill out where it’s saying welcome, we’re giving them a video as well.
I also like to send them instructions for day one, “Hey, here’s what time you want to be here and here’s where you want to park.” I even include pictures. Here’s the parking lot, Here’s your parking space of where we want you to park. “Here’s what you want to wear.” And I send them a picture of what that looks like. I don’t just say it’s business casual because they may not fully understand, so I’d send them a picture of what business casual look like.
So these are the things that I want to give to them before they get here, because if you remember the first day that you started your job as you were driving in, it was like, “Okay is it okay for me to park here, where’s the door to– Do I go in the front door, is there another door?” There’s just all these little tiny innuendos that you don’t know because you haven’t been there.
So what I want to do as a manager, as a business owner is make sure they feel very confident as they’re coming in. They know exactly what time to be there, exactly what to wear, exactly what to expect, where to park, what door to come in, who they’re going to be seeing when they come in the door. I have that all in a pre-written e-mail to them. So this is all pre-day one. And then once they show up on day one, now we want to make sure we are ready.
Unfortunately, so many companies, when they get new hires they bring them in and people don’t even know that the person has been hired. They’re not even– “Oh, who are you? Oh, you’re a new person? Oh cool. Hi, Susie my name is Bob. Who are you looking for?” Because you might not even know who you’re looking for. now you’re standing there, It’s awkward because nobody even knows that you were coming.
So, we want to make sure that we are on day one, the main thing I’m looking for is, we want to make sure we hit that out of the park. We want it to be awesome for them. Make sure day one is awesome. It’s a grand slam. So usually to do that, I make it a short day for the new hire. They don’t come in for the full day, It’s a shorter day. And during that day my main focus is for them to feel comfortable. The first day I want them to feel comfortable. I’m introducing them to people. I’m taking a tour of the building and pointing out different places for them. I’m giving them a big picture of the company. I want them to see the history. I want to talk to them about the history of the company.
Also, I want to go back to the organizational chart and let them know where they fit in the big picture of the company and, very possibly, review the job description and the expectations and the procedures. Show them any of the tools and equipment that they’re going to be using. I want to introduce them to their desk, and I want to have their desk ready for them. If they’re going to be using a computer that I’m providing, I want the computer to be there. I’d even love having a note there from the business owner or from their manager or from somebody high up in the company. There’s a short card there saying, “Hey, it’s great to have you.” Introducing themselves.
One of the key things that we want to do in that short day is make sure that the manager for this person has lunch with the person. It’s very important that they have lunch with the manager on day one. At that lunch, you can have conversation with them, tell me about your why, let me tell you about the culture, let me tell you about the core values of our company during that luncheon.
Then usually after lunch, we have a short meeting with IT to make sure that they have their logins and their passwords. We get all their info and all that stuff. Before they leave that day, I want to make sure I give them plenty of swag. I want to make sure that they have the pins, the shirt, the uniform. Whatever that’s going to be that we give them plenty of things with the company name on it so they feel a part. They feel like they are now a member of a team, not just a number, but they’re actually a member of a team.
These are the first two days of the onboarding system. This is the first session that we’re doing here on onboarding through the filter of our culture. In our next session, we’ll be talking about the first week and the first 30 days of the onboarding session. That’s going to be of the onboarding season, and that’s going to be in our session number 15 of hiring and onboarding through the company culture. This is Clay Staires with Leadership Tulsa, with podcast number 14 of onboarding through the filter of culture.
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