I am going to blow my own trumpet for a moment. Well actually, no I’m not, I am just going to show why we practice what we preach. Because it works.
Below is an excerpt from one of our employees' 4-week feedback questionnaire. She was only asked one simple question. “How would you describe the first 4 weeks in your role at wattsnextpx?” Here is what she wrote:
Inspiring and overall better than I expected. I’ve never had a job where I really knew if I’d done a good job at the end of the day, so having an outcome profile and the DISC assessment was very valuable especially since we refer to both often. I also found the task list to be very useful and am glad I learned about that system on my third day (not my first) because it was after I felt like a lot was building up and I really saw the value of it at the point. Between the task list and the One-on-One Agenda I fill out every Friday, I’m feeling much more affective, and things aren’t slipping through the cracks like they used to in previous roles.
Some of the highlights so far have been:
- Seeing my Manager in action talking about how we can help businesses
- Reaching out to my personal network with something I so believe in (I’ve never been this excited to sell anything before)
- Identifying where our focus should be and our go to market strategy
- My Manager’s candor about who/what we shouldn’t waste our time on
- Seeing one of our clients life change through the Outcome Profile
- Producing Vlog 001
- Building My Managers personal brand up on social and my own — it’s never been so easy to book meetings as it is now that I’m more active on social; people are watching and responding!
- Developing our content plan
The reason I am sharing this with you is to highlight what is paramount to bringing on and keeping a new employee:
- Clear outcome profile that highlights exactly what outcomes they need to deliver;
- An extended DISC behavior profile so that the new person can understand themselves, their manager and their team members from day one;
- Customized success training that will ensure the new person is achieving in your workplace….for us that is the specific way we manage our tasks each day;
- One on one weekly meetings with review of what needs to be done, what has been done and what the roadblocks are;
- Taking the new employee on prospect and client meetings so they can see their manager in action
- Employing someone who really believes in your product or service;
- Explaining clearly what the vision and strategy is for the business…short, medium and long term;
- Seeing work in action and the impact it has on your customer, so they can see the true value of your mission;
- Involving them in marketing (even if their role has nothing to do with marketing), allowing them to be on social media to share their new job and what it is all about; and
- Getting them hands on and adding value from day one. If they can’t, maybe you shouldn’t have hired them.
Plus undertaking the four week check in discussion itself! As the Manager, I know what has worked in the first 4 weeks and can further develop this for the next 8 weeks and any new employees.
Asking one simple question gave me this incredibly valuable information for my business. Why wouldn’t every business owner be taking the short amount of time to do this?!
