Dan Martell - January 13, 2020


5 Ways to Successfully Onboard New Hires


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

206.84206

Word Count

2,225

Sentence Count

120


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here, Serial Entrepreneur,
00:00:01.680 Investor, and Creator of SaaS Academy.
00:00:03.120 In this video, I'm going to teach you
00:00:04.920 the five ways to successfully onboard new hires
00:00:09.200 so that you can get the most out of them,
00:00:11.320 because you already spent the money.
00:00:12.480 They start with you on day one.
00:00:14.080 You want to get them productive as fast as possible.
00:00:16.120 And the worst thing is you don't want them to come in,
00:00:18.560 feel like they're not in the right place, and quit on you.
00:00:21.000 That sucks.
00:00:22.000 Be sure to stay at the end.
00:00:23.120 We're going to tell you how to get access to my business
00:00:24.960 playbooks.
00:00:25.800 These are the templates that you can
00:00:27.240 use to actually systematize the processes
00:00:29.920 I'm going to go through in this video.
00:00:31.840 Let's get it started.
00:00:45.540 So recently, I had one of my really good friends
00:00:47.860 hire a new person.
00:00:49.260 And they were all excited.
00:00:50.300 And the person came in.
00:00:51.300 They really needed to fill this role.
00:00:53.620 And after the first week, the person didn't work out.
00:00:57.200 And I was really bummed.
00:00:58.440 I was like, what happened?
00:00:59.280 He's like, man, it was really weird.
00:01:00.980 I brought them in, I thought we were good,
00:01:04.720 and I wanted to give them independence
00:01:07.380 and have them do their thing,
00:01:09.440 but I just, and then I think I pushed them out the door.
00:01:11.920 And I was like, what do you mean?
00:01:13.140 He's like, well, you know, I was like,
00:01:15.340 is this a fit for you or whatever?
00:01:17.560 And he was literally not really sure
00:01:20.000 how to onboard the new person
00:01:22.720 and inadvertently had the person leave.
00:01:26.000 And the funny part is the person, I know them really well.
00:01:28.800 They're incredible.
00:01:30.980 If you would have kept them,
00:01:32.080 they would have been rock stars for my friend,
00:01:35.400 but they lost them.
00:01:36.500 And what I've discovered, because I shared with him,
00:01:38.640 I was like, well, what's your onboarding process look like?
00:01:40.620 And I went through my steps
00:01:41.680 that I'm gonna share with you guys.
00:01:42.800 He's like, oh man, I'm not doing any of that.
00:01:45.200 Here's what I've discovered, okay?
00:01:46.900 There's two parts to it at a high level.
00:01:48.920 When somebody is outside the world and they're applying,
00:01:52.400 you wanna filter, you wanna qualify,
00:01:53.800 and then towards the bottom of the funnel, you wanna sell.
00:01:56.000 Once they've joined your team and they're coming in,
00:01:59.280 there's no more filtering or qualifying.
00:02:01.480 It is a enrollment engagement job.
00:02:05.160 It is getting them indoctrinated,
00:02:07.220 getting them part of the culture,
00:02:08.360 connecting them with the team.
00:02:09.160 Because if you don't do that, you will lose people
00:02:12.040 or you won't get the most out of them fast enough
00:02:14.740 that you probably need to solve the problem
00:02:16.800 and is the reason why you hired them in the first place.
00:02:18.340 So these are the five steps to successfully
00:02:21.880 and quickly onboard new hires.
00:02:24.960 Number one, orientation session.
00:02:26.920 So I've been involved in many different ones.
00:02:29.480 When my company, Flowtown, got acquired,
00:02:32.160 the company acquired was Demandforce,
00:02:33.960 had a very structured two-day training.
00:02:36.600 And I remember the first day, they're like,
00:02:38.180 oh, you need to go to new orientation.
00:02:39.780 And I was like, whoa, when is it?
00:02:41.360 And they're like, well, it's every week on Thursday and Friday.
00:02:43.440 And I'm like, well, it's Monday.
00:02:44.540 They're like, yeah, Thursday, Friday, you got to go.
00:02:46.160 And I was just like not wanting to go.
00:02:48.280 I do it a little different,
00:02:49.660 but the big idea is you have to have that, okay?
00:02:52.580 So every new person that joins my team
00:02:54.520 goes through essentially a ramp-up period
00:02:57.780 with an individual,
00:02:59.020 ideally the person they're reporting to,
00:03:00.560 and they go through an orientation,
00:03:02.360 a conversation about here's the expectations,
00:03:04.900 here's where things are, here's the process,
00:03:07.280 there's a checklist, go through the checklist,
00:03:09.240 there's other things that I'm gonna talk about in a second
00:03:11.200 that is part of that.
00:03:13.840 But the big thing for me is in orientation
00:03:16.740 is you need to sell them on the vision,
00:03:19.280 the values, why you started the company.
00:03:21.660 It's more the high-level things that they may not be aware of,
00:03:26.280 the accountability chart for your team.
00:03:28.840 So to me, the orientation is you're here,
00:03:32.340 and it's kind of like on a map, right?
00:03:34.240 You go and you're going to hike in some nature park.
00:03:37.740 And you stop, and there's a map.
00:03:39.180 And it says, you are here, and this is the rest of the map.
00:03:42.040 If you don't orientate your new team members,
00:03:45.420 then they're going to feel lost, OK?
00:03:47.600 So what you want to do is think about, OK,
00:03:49.840 I want to give them a high-level picture.
00:03:51.740 This is where we're going over the next 25 years.
00:03:53.800 Here's our mission.
00:03:54.460 Here are our values.
00:03:55.300 These are the things that we reward.
00:03:57.400 This is the team structure.
00:03:59.000 Here are the people.
00:03:59.900 This is where you're at on the team.
00:04:02.960 These are the ways we communicate, et cetera,
00:04:05.080 et cetera, et cetera.
00:04:05.920 So to me, that orientation is really
00:04:08.860 your opportunity to help them feel situated
00:04:13.440 in the organization.
00:04:14.840 So that's number one.
00:04:15.640 Number two, training system.
00:04:17.840 So the way I like to do it is every department
00:04:20.960 in your business, OK?
00:04:22.140 In software, the world I spend all my time in,
00:04:25.040 you know, there's product, there's engineering,
00:04:26.680 there's marketing, there's sales, there's customer success,
00:04:28.740 and there's ops and admin.
00:04:29.580 Those are the six big core areas of a SaaS business.
00:04:32.720 And each one of them should have what
00:04:34.700 I call a program document, OK?
00:04:36.480 So sometimes you'll hear me use the word business playbook,
00:04:39.080 which I'm going to tell you how to get a copy at the end.
00:04:41.700 But the program document is one place
00:04:45.060 where all of the information somebody
00:04:47.300 knew joining that team would be able to go to learn
00:04:51.240 about that role, learn about the history,
00:04:53.140 see any additional training, understand the playbooks,
00:04:56.160 understand the process, the systems, the best practices,
00:04:58.540 the FAQ, it's all in one spot.
00:05:00.960 Because the cool part is you can hire somebody,
00:05:03.600 give them that, say, open up every link in this document,
00:05:07.440 and just consume it.
00:05:09.320 And if that takes you three days, great.
00:05:11.280 But at the end of that, they'll have the social awareness
00:05:14.760 for that area of the business on a level
00:05:17.200 that they otherwise wouldn't trying to learn these things
00:05:19.560 through is osmosis, which is what most of you
00:05:21.940 are doing with new hires.
00:05:23.740 You're dropping them in the deep end and you're saying,
00:05:26.700 swim, and if you're lucky, the person figures it out,
00:05:29.620 and if you're not, they get overwhelmed
00:05:31.480 and they bounce in six months
00:05:32.640 because they don't feel like they're in the right place.
00:05:34.360 So you want to have a training system for new hires
00:05:36.280 specifically to that role.
00:05:37.880 Number three, 90-day goals.
00:05:40.040 I think it's really important for somebody new
00:05:42.200 to have a clear vision and picture
00:05:44.760 of what success looks like in the next three months.
00:05:47.760 90 days, from my experience, and my buddy, Todd Herman,
00:05:50.300 has an incredible program called The 90 Day Year.
00:05:53.080 His argument, and I believe it, that's
00:05:54.500 why we do all of our sprints and our planning 90 day sequence,
00:05:57.020 is that truly humans can't accurately predict
00:06:00.080 past three months.
00:06:01.440 So what you want to do is help your new hire
00:06:03.560 set a vision for their role in the specific goals
00:06:06.440 that you would love for them to achieve
00:06:08.160 so that they can feel like they're winning, OK?
00:06:10.520 People join companies and will stay
00:06:13.040 because they feel like they're succeeding,
00:06:14.840 they're being challenged, and they're being supported.
00:06:17.520 And if you don't take the time to do that,
00:06:19.880 they're going to go, right?
00:06:21.000 Or they're not going to be as productive as you need them
00:06:22.980 because they don't have a clear direction.
00:06:24.580 So 90-day goals need to be set in the upfront.
00:06:28.160 Number four, assign a buddy.
00:06:30.240 OK, now maybe your company's 12 people
00:06:32.840 and you don't have the need for a buddy
00:06:34.700 because they have a direct report and technically that person
00:06:37.000 will be their buddy.
00:06:38.000 What I like to do, especially at scale,
00:06:40.580 if all of a sudden you have 100 people in the organization,
00:06:43.160 is I want to assign somebody a buddy that
00:06:46.200 would be maybe a similar role in another department
00:06:49.580 or a peer in their team or whatever it is,
00:06:52.040 but not typically their direct report,
00:06:54.140 because you want somebody that can invest the time
00:06:57.120 on the softer side of things.
00:06:58.500 So if somebody joins, I just want you to know
00:07:00.560 that the question they're asking themselves
00:07:02.020 is, am I in the right place?
00:07:03.340 Because here's what's crazy.
00:07:04.340 If they applied for your job and you hired them,
00:07:06.580 They probably had other people that they were already
00:07:09.340 talking to.
00:07:10.520 And if something doesn't feel good in your team,
00:07:13.380 they're going to bounce and they're
00:07:14.540 going to go join one of those other companies.
00:07:16.580 And that's just the truth.
00:07:17.640 And what I've discovered, and this is some data that backs
00:07:19.780 this, is that if somebody doesn't make a new friend
00:07:22.340 within the first two weeks of joining a company,
00:07:25.140 they have like an 80% chance of making up that stat.
00:07:27.900 I don't know.
00:07:28.460 But it's a high probability that in six months they're
00:07:31.360 going to not be with the organization.
00:07:33.180 So what I like to do is say, hey, Jane,
00:07:35.880 It is your responsibility to be the buddy for Mark.
00:07:39.440 You just joined.
00:07:40.220 Can you please be his buddy?
00:07:41.900 And have some clear understanding of what that means.
00:07:43.660 It might mean that you take them out for lunch once a week.
00:07:45.700 It might mean that you try to incorporate them
00:07:48.120 in some kind of employee outings.
00:07:51.460 Maybe it's you send them an email,
00:07:53.540 check in with them every other day.
00:07:54.880 I don't know what it is.
00:07:55.880 But you need to define the buddy system
00:07:58.040 and assign it to them because that will help them stay
00:08:00.600 and be more productive.
00:08:01.720 Number five, schedule one-on-ones.
00:08:04.400 So one of the most important things
00:08:07.980 that I think out of all of this
00:08:09.640 is that you create a heartbeat, a sequence, a cadence,
00:08:14.060 where you're connecting with the new person
00:08:16.220 and just checking in.
00:08:17.180 And in the early days, it might be more frequent, okay?
00:08:19.700 Even if they don't report to you directly,
00:08:21.540 maybe you're the CEO and you just hired somebody
00:08:23.980 to work on the marketing team.
00:08:25.680 I think it's important for you to know
00:08:27.580 that person is just like maybe not feeling 100%
00:08:32.580 and they just wanna know they have direct line to you
00:08:35.340 to support them.
00:08:36.820 So what I like to do in the early days
00:08:38.280 is I might call in on the first day
00:08:40.600 and just say, hey, Jane, I know you started with us today.
00:08:43.200 I just wanted to check and see how things are going.
00:08:45.120 Or maybe after the first week, you know, on Friday,
00:08:47.960 hey, I know it's been your first week.
00:08:49.600 You know, what's been the most interesting thing
00:08:51.460 you've discovered so far?
00:08:52.920 You know, is there anything you've seen
00:08:54.060 as opportunities that we can make better?
00:08:55.300 Like, I love getting feedback from new hires
00:08:58.020 on what we can make better
00:08:59.440 because it teaches them that we as an organization
00:09:02.020 are open to feedback and we want to learn.
00:09:05.040 So scheduling that in, you as the leader,
00:09:08.060 into your calendar to not forget.
00:09:10.320 And over time, maybe you go every two weeks,
00:09:12.020 then every month.
00:09:13.080 And usually within the first 90 days,
00:09:14.960 so if you go like the first day, first week,
00:09:18.000 two weeks, monthly after that, another month after that,
00:09:20.800 that's usually enough to make sure
00:09:22.240 that you really build the connection
00:09:23.400 for them to know that you're listening, that you care.
00:09:25.880 And it just goes a long way.
00:09:27.420 It's the subtle things, three-minute conversations
00:09:30.340 that will change the game in regards to their performance,
00:09:33.380 the way they show up for you and your team.
00:09:35.200 So quick recap on five easy ways
00:09:37.360 to successfully onboard new hires.
00:09:38.960 Number one, orientation session,
00:09:40.820 so they know the vision that you have
00:09:42.980 and where they sit on that map.
00:09:44.520 Number two, the training system
00:09:45.960 to bring them up to speed quickly.
00:09:47.400 Three, 90-day goals.
00:09:49.680 Number four, assign a buddy.
00:09:51.800 And number five, schedule your one-on-ones.
00:09:54.680 As I mentioned at the beginning of this show,
00:09:56.980 I wanna share with you my business playbook templates.
00:09:59.640 Essentially, if you're curious what the training system
00:10:03.400 looks like, what the communication guideline looks
00:10:06.360 like, the accountability chart, all those things
00:10:08.740 are available in the business templates.
00:10:10.200 Click the link below to get access for yourself.
00:10:12.640 You can literally make a copy into your world
00:10:15.560 and then edit them to make it really easy for you.
00:10:17.760 But I want to get you going, so you click the link,
00:10:19.700 download your copy of my business playbooks
00:10:22.620 to help you onboard new hires quickly.
00:10:25.400 And as for usual, if you like this video,
00:10:26.980 smash the like button, leave a comment,
00:10:29.000 Let me know what you like the most.
00:10:30.720 And if you feel like there's somebody
00:10:31.720 that you care about that can be served by this video,
00:10:34.460 feel free to share with them directly.
00:10:36.140 As per usual, I want to challenge you
00:10:37.860 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,
00:10:40.060 and I'll see you next Monday.
00:10:40.840 Best friends, best friends.
00:10:43.440 Subscribe to my Playbooks.