Onboarding – the key to a successful business engagement

Talent acquisition is a daily effort in most businesses these days. Finding and identifying the best available talent to bring into your business requires a lot of energy, time, and brain power. We take lots of time at the front end of the acquisition process of running ads, interviewing etc. only to hurry up the process at the most critical juncture of a relationship – the initial days of the engagement.

We recently worked with a business owner who was in the process of hiring a member to their leadership team.  As a growing business the leader was being pulled in so many directions that important work was not being given the proper time and focus.  It was not because the owner did not want to do it right but with only 24 hours in the day, the bandwidth of the owner had basically been completely used up.  Some might say this is a good problem to have in that their growth was such that demand was driving the expansion of the leadership team.  I would tend to agree that growth and the addition of leadership and additional team members as a result of revenue producing business is a good sign of success. It is important to grow at the right time, under the right circumstances and when doing it – the right way.

As the decision was narrowed in on the best candidate for the role, the owner began to ready themselves to hand off all the work activities which would be part of the new hire’s role and remove them from their plate. They were excited to move on to other things they like to do and needed to do to continue the business growth. The challenge was that the new person needed to be properly welcomed into the organization and to the role they were about to be held accountable for.  The owner’s mind was already moving away from this critical point in the hopefully longterm relationship with the new member of the team being part of the company. The owner was going to do the customary paperwork and introductions but then they were already mentally off to the races on all the other things still on their plate which had been neglected prior to this new team member joining the effort.

To bring this resource onboard correctly, prior to the first day of the new member of the team starting their career with the company, the time was taken to lay out a plan of not just paperwork and introductions but quality time of authentic human interaction on the organization’s framework – Purpose, Vision, Core Values, Philosophies etc. Additionally, the role contributions and expectations were not just breezed over, but time was structured to delve deeper into what, why, how of the effort so each person had a solid understanding and appreciation for the outcomes. As part of that relationship building process, there were checkpoint scheduled so both parties could pause and assess progress and make adjustments early rather than hope they were done correctly.

This initial investment into the onboarding of any and all resources is critical to the relationship and the ability for that relationship to build and deliver great results. As leaders, when you shortchange the first steps of a relationship it will generally come back to cause you much more time, energy and resources to correct it than if you invested time correctly at the onset of the relationship.

This week, take a look at how your organization executes those first critical moments of new team members joining your team.  Do you have standards and expectations for what, how, who, when etc. needs to be done to ensure a best outcome for all parties?

Need an independent third party to look in on your onboarding process to give you an unbiased opinion on way to bring it up to today’s needs?  Give JKL Associates a call at MI (313) 527-7945 or FL (407) 984-7246.

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