Hey there, Dan Martell here.
A serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of Sas Academy.
In this video, I'm going to teach you
the five ways to successfully onboard new hires so that you
can get the most out of them, because you already
spent the money.
They start with you on day one.
You want to get them productive as fast as possible.
And the worst thing is you don't want
them to come in, feel like they're not in the right place,
and quit on you.
That sucks.
Be sure to say the n word when I tell you how to get access
to my business playbooks.
These are the templates that you can
use to actually systematized the processes I'm going
to go through in this video.
Let's get it started.
So recently I had one of my really good friends
hire a new person, and they were all excited.
And the person came in.
They really needed to fill this role.
And after the first week, the person didn't work out.
And I was really bummed.
I was like, what happened?
He's like man, it was really weird.
Like I brought them in.
I thought we were good and I wanted
to like give them independence and like have them
do their thing, but I just-- and then
I think I pushed them out the door.
And I was like, what do you mean?
He's like, well, you know--
I was like is this a fit for you or whatever?
Like he was literally not really sure
how to onboard the new person and inadvertently had
the person leave.
And the funny part is the person,
I know them really well, they're incredible.
If you would have kept them, they
would have been rock stars for my friend, but they lost them.
And what I've discovered, because I shared with him.
I was like, well what's your onboarding process look like?
And I went through my steps that I'm
going to share with you guys.
He was like, oh man, I'm not doing any of that.
Here's what I've discovered, OK.
There's two parts to it at a high level.
When somebody is outside the world and they're applying,
you want to filter, you want to qualify.
And then towards the bottom of the funnel, you want to sell.
Once they join your team and they're coming in,
there is no more filtering or qualifying.
It is a enrollment engagement job.
It is getting them indoctrinated.
Getting them part of the culture.
Connecting them with the team.
Because if you don't do that, you will lose people
or you won't get the most out of them fast enough.
You probably need to solve the problem and the reason
why you hire them in the first place.
So these are the five steps to successfully and quickly
onboard new hires.
Number one, orientation session.
So I've been involved in many different ones
when my company Flow Town got acquired.
The company acquired us, Demandforce,
had a very structured two day training.
And I remember like the first day,
they're like oh, you need to go to new orientation.
And I was like, whoa what when is it?
They're like, well it's every week on Thursday and Friday.
And I'm like, well it's Monday.
They're like yea, Thursday, Friday you got to go.
And I was just like not wanting to go.
I do it a little different, but the big idea
is you have to have that, OK.
So every new person that joins my team
goes through essentially a ramp up period with an individual,
ideally the person they're reporting to,
and they go through an orientation.
A conversation about here's the expectations.
Here's where things are.
Here's the process.
There is a checklist.
Go through the checklist.
There's other things that I to talk about in a second that
is part of that.
But the big thing for me is in orientation
is you need to sell them on the vision, the values, why
you started the company.
It's more the high level things that they may not be aware of.
The accountability chart for your team.
So to me, the orientation is you're here--
and it's kind of like on a map, right.
You're going to hike in some nature park
and you stop and there's a map.
And it says you are here, and this is the rest of the map.
If you don't orientate your new team members then
they're going to feel lost, OK.
So what you want to do is think about OK,
I want to give them a high level picture.
This is where we're going over the next 25 years.
Here's our mission.
Here are valleys.
These are the things that we reward.
This is the team structure.
Here are the people.
This is where you're at on the team, right.
These are the ways we communicate,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So like to me, that orientation is really
your opportunity to help them feel
situated in the organization.
So that's number one.
Number two, training system.
So the way I like to do it is every department
in your business, in software, the world
I spend all my time in.
You know, there's product, there's engineering,
there's marketing, there's sales,
there's customer success, and there's ops and admin.
Those are the six big core areas of a Sas business.
And each one of them should have, what I call,
a program document, OK.
So sometimes you'll hear me use the word business
playbook, which I'm going to tell you
how to get copy at the end.
But the program document is one place
where all of the information, somebody new joining that team
would be able to go to learn about that role,
learn about the history.
See any additional training.
Understand the playbooks.
Understand the process, the systems, the best practices.
The FAQ, it's all in one spot.
Because the cool part is you can hire somebody,
give them that, say open up every link in this document
and just consume it.
And if that takes you three days, great.
But at the end of that, they'll have the social awareness
for that area of the business on a level
that they otherwise wouldn't trying
to learn these things through osmosis,
which is what most of you are doing with new hires.
You're dropping it in the deep end and you're saying swim.
And if you're lucky, the person figures it out.
And if you're not, they get overwhelmed
and they bounce in six months cause
they don't feel like they're in the right place.
So you want to have a training system for new hires
specifically to that role.
Number three, 90 day goals.
I think it's really important for somebody new
to have a clear vision and picture of what success looks
like in the next three months.
90 days from my experience, and my buddy
Todd Herman has an incredible program called the 90 day year.
His argument, I believe it.
That's why we do all of our sprints
and our planning in 90 day sequence.
Is that truly humans can't accurately
predict past three months.
So what you want to do is help your new hire
set a vision for their role in the specific goals
that you would love for them to achieve so that they can
feel like they're winning, OK.
People join companies and will stay
because they feel like they're succeeding,
they're being challenged, and they're being supported.
And if you don't take the time to do that,
they're going to go, right.
Or they're not going to be as productive
as you need them because they don't have a clear direction.
So 90 day goals need to be set in the upfront.
Number four, assign a buddy.
OK, now maybe your companies 12 people
and you don't have the need for a buddy
because they have a direct report
and technically that person will be their buddy.
But what I like to do, especially at scale.
If all of a sudden you have 100 people in your organization,
is I want to assign somebody a buddy that
would be maybe a similar role in another department,
or appear in their team or whatever it is.
But not typically their direct report,
because you want somebody that can invest the time
on the softer side of things.
So somebody joins, I just want you
to know the question they're asking themselves
is am I in the right place?
Because here's what's crazy, if they applied for your job
and you hired them, they probably
had other people that they were already talking to.
And if something doesn't feel good in your team,
they're going to bounce and they're
going to go join one of those other companies
and that's just the truth.
And what I've discovered, this is some data
that backs this, is that if somebody doesn't make
a new friend within the first two weeks of joining a company,
they have like an 80% chance--
I'm making up that stat, I don't know,
but it's a high probability that in six months,
they're going to not be with the organization.
So what I like to do is say, hey Jane, it is your responsibility
to be the buddy for Mark.
You just joined.
Can you please be his buddy and have some clear understanding
of what that means.
It might mean that you take them out for lunch once a week.
It might mean that you try to incorporate them
in some kind of employee outings.
Maybe it's you send them an email, check in with them
every other day.
I don't know what it is, but you need to define the buddy system
and assign it to them because that will help them
stay and be more productive.
Number five, schedule one on ones.
So one of the most important things that I think out
of all of this is that you create a heartbeat, a sequence,
a cadence where you're connecting with the new person
and just checking in.
And in early days, it might be more frequent.
Even if they don't report to you directly.
Maybe you're the CEO and you just hired somebody
to work on the marketing team, I think it's important for you
to know that person is just like maybe not feeling 100%
and they just want to know they have direct line to you
to support them.
So what I like to do in the early days is I might call in
on the first day and just say hey Jane,
I know you started with us today.
I just want to check and see how things are going.
Or maybe after the first week, you know, on Friday hey,
I know it's been your first week.
What's been the most interesting thing you've discovered so far?
Is there anything you've seen as opportunity
that we can make better?
I love getting feedback from new hires on what we
can make better, because it teaches them
that we as an organization are open to feedback,
and we want to learn.
So scheduling that in, you as the leader into your calendar
to not forget.
And over time, maybe you go every two weeks,
then every month.
And usually within the first 90 days.
So if you go like the first day, first week, two weeks,
monthly after that, another month after that.
That's usually enough to make sure that you really
build a connection for them to know that you're listening,
that you care.
And it just goes a long way.
It's the subtle things, 3 minute conversations that
will change the game in regards to their performance the way
they show up for you and your team.
So quick recap on the five easy ways
to successfully onboard new hires.
Number one, orientation sessions so they
know the vision that you have and where they sit on that map.
Number two, the training system to bring them up
to speed quickly.
Three, 90 day goals.
Number four, assign a buddy.
And number five, schedule your one on ones.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this show,
I want to share with you my business playbook templates.
Essentially, if you're curious what the training system looks
like, what the communication guideline looks like,
the accountability chart, all those things
are available in the business templates.
Click the link below to get access for yourself.
You can literally make a copy into your world
and then edit them to make it really easy for you,
but I want to get you going.
So you click the link, download your copy
of my business playbooks to help you onboard new hires quickly.
And as per usual, if you like this video,
smash the like button.
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As per usual, I won't challenge you
to live a better life and a bigger business,
and I'll see you next Monday.
Best friends, best friends.
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