Regardless of your role, i.e. sales, management, technician/installer, support or customer service, get started early — like really early — when you are bringing new AV hires into your company culture.
Being the classic “A” personality, a very high “D” DiSC profile style (in the assessment tool, D is for dominance, characterizing a person who places emphasis on bottom-line results), and a Marine, we start at ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ here at Matterhorn Consulting to prepare for our business missions and their success.
We just completed an extensive “how to” project, titled “Employer’s Complete Guide to Hiring,” that is now published and available to Security Industry Association (SIA) members. SIA CEO Don Erickson recognized the need for a resource to help association members attract, recruit, hire and retain the best talent to grow their businesses.
So here is a preview to wet your whistle:
Outline Agendas & Set Expectations Early
Thinking ahead of the curve means you need to be 15 minutes ahead on every part of on-boarding your new talent to effectively leverage recruiting, training and opportunity costs.
You are making a huge commitment when you hire someone, so be smart with your money. Remember, first impressions are lasting and can be a deciding factor if they will stay and be a productive member of your team. So how can you do this better, like really successful companies do?
You need to get moving ASAP with on-boarding talent, according to The Aberdeen Group. The market research and analysis group found that 53 percent of the best-in-class companies start their on-boarding process as early as even before new AV employees park their cars in the lot on their first day of work. Does your company do this?
Discuss company culture with your AV hires via videos and power points, and provide a written agenda of what new hires can expect the first day, first week, and first month, etc. Set the expectations for supervisors and then follow through with auditing their actions by checking and confirming their accountability.
The big challenge is time and work deadlines, especially when you run a lean company. We all get busy. I get it, but talent development and retention is expensive. Checklists can help you stay on track, as well as scheduling short “huddles” with your new hire the same time every week.
Why is this process so important? Because AV employees turnover bleeds profitability, productivity and competitive advantage from your company while tarnishing your industry reputation.
Social media will be happy to share this unhappy news. According to a survey by HR services provider G&A Partners and published by Forbes, the costs are significant (see table to the right).
Stay on Top of Communications, Accountability
You may have a great process that looks rock-solid on paper, but if your team is not implementing your on-boarding process with accountability, it’s like running a relay race with a blindfold.
Test, check and communicate (or TCC, for short) by asking your AV hires key questions at the right time. For instance:
- How was your first day or week?
- What did you learn and who did you meet?
- What would help you be productive, faster?
Catching disconnects early can save you enormous time, costs and headaches, and increases your awareness of the “stickiness” that holds your team together.
Communication is the glue that keeps people together in an organization. How do you make this process stick and gain traction? It’s what I call your EDF — AV employees development factor.
You provide your managers and supervisors resources (people) to get the work done. It should be their role and responsibility to fully develop and utilize those resources to meet or exceed organizational goals.
When you standardize your new AV hires processes with discipline and accountability by your managers/supervisors, their performance can be factored in with annual reviews and merit raises.
There is also an upside for your managers and supervisors for their efforts — time!
More proficient and efficient teams take delegation of tasks to the next level, which frees up managers’ time for more strategic leadership, establishing more aggressive goals and generally kicking butt and taking names … of people who want to come to work for such an awesome company!
