If you’re struggling with your staff it might be because they’re not being on-boarded properly. Trust me, nothing is more important than that step. This week’s video explains why.

If you’re struggling with your staff it might be because they’re not being onboarded properly and nothing is more important than that step. You will never get get a second chance to make a first impression. Today, I am sharing with you 5 steps to onboarding your employees properly.

5 E’S to Onboarding Your Staff Properly

1. Examine – this is the interview process. Will this person fit into your culture and are they able to do the specific job that you need? Often I see people that don’t know if a person’s the right fit for the job, so their answer is to change the job for them. Wrong answer! Get clear on your job, what you need and find the person for that job. Get clear on your culture and who’s going to fit into it. We can at least teach the hard skills but it’s very hard to take an employee who’s got great hard skills but doesn’t fit into your culture.

2. Engage – make sure to introduce your new employee(s) to the rest of your staff and make them feel like they’re part of a team. If they feel like they’re alone, don’t know people, and they’re not friends with anyone they will leave for a little bit more money. On the opposite side, when we feel like we’re part of something we don’t ever want to leave. Think back to something in your life that you liked the partnership or teamwork…maybe a sports team or a job that you had where you really loved the people around you. Even if you weren’t that good at it maybe that love kept you coming back. So engage with your people and get them to be part of the team.

3. Excite – get your new employees excited about their future, and find out their dreams and goals. What can you do to help them on their career path. Not just yours and not just in the short term, but what can you do while they’re with you to help them achieve their goals? No person can get them excited better than the owner! One of the things that I hate seeing when we bring on new staff is “Here’s your apron, Bill’s going to be taking care of you now.” This is a big NO! The owner (or whoever is highest ranking) has to do the majority of the onboarding. Or whoever is the most excited or motivated…someone who can get that engagement and that excitement into and out of your staff.

4. Educate – this is training. I am not talking about just getting them up to speed on their job, but constant and never-ending improvement. If your staff doesn’t feel like they are growing every day they’ll leave, stop coming in, or stop performing. It’s not just enough to give them a paycheck. You may think your staff doesn’t care about growing and learning, but trust me they do. You just haven’t asked enough questions to find out what they need more of.

5. Empowerment – if they don’t feel comfortable in their job or if they don’t feel they’re able to make decisions, no matter how big or how small, they’re going to leave, not show up, or be problematic for you. You have to empower your staff with the knowledge, skills, and tools so they can make some decisions on their own – but within the square box/boundaries that you give them. One of the first videos I ever created for The Restaurant Boss was about train tracks and how we have to set the boundaries for our employees and then allow them to make their decisions within those train tracks, you can watch here.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s video and I look forward to bringing you another great video just like this next week. Have a wonderful day!

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