Are You Making These Costly Mistakes When Onboarding Employees?

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Have you ever hired a new employee, had great hopes for how they would turn out, then a few short weeks later, be very disappointed in that employee’s performance?

It’s possible you made a hiring mistake. It’s also possible you made some critical mistakes in onboarding the employee. Perhaps you got busy, the employee’s manager was busy, no one trained the manager in how to onboard employees…And, well let’s face it, some important training and orientation to your business culture slipped through the cracks—all in an effort just to keep things moving and take care of customers. 

This happens all too often in small businesses. Overworked small business owners hire a good employee, but unwittingly set that employee up to become warm bodies collecting paychecks.

Payroll is one of the biggest expenses in small business. Taking steps to optimize employee performance directly impacts your profit. 

Here are 3 simple steps you can take right away to set your new employees up for success:

  • Define clear, measurable results you are expecting from this role.
  • Define 30, 60 and 90-day goals for training. Be very specific in terms of the skills you expect the employee to demonstrate at each of these benchmarks.
  • Implement Weekly 1:1s. Schedule brief meetings each week with your new employee. Check in with respect to the employee’s progress toward the training goals. Identify wins and successes for the employee. Tell the employee what he or she is doing right and what you want to see more of! Ask about any challenges the employee is having. Identify aspects of the role the employee is struggling with. Ask the employee what support he or she needs from you to be successful. 

Setting clear expectations and following up with regular communication and feedback dramatically increases a good employees potential for long-term success with you. 

 SabrinaDr. Sabrina Schleicher recognizes that employee  problems can be one of the biggest stumbling  blocks for any business owner.   With her background in psychology, and years of driving profit in small businesses, Dr. Schleicher knows what it takes to find, keep and get exceptional performance out of your biggest investment-your employees. Access her comprehensive video training 5 Secrets to Exceptional Employee Performance (her gift to you!) at www.tapthepotential.com

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About The Author

Dr. Sabrina Starling, The Business Psychologist and international best-selling author of the How to Hire the Best series and The 4 Week Vacation™, is the founder of Tap the Potential and host of the Profit by Design podcast. At Tap the Potential, we work to free business owners from the constant demands of a growing business.

We believe work supports life, not the other way around. Clients in our Better Business, Better Life coaching program have more time for what matters most and more money in their bank account than they’ve ever had. Next, we send them off on a 4 Week Vacation™ to celebrate their hard-earned journey to take their life back!

Dr. Sabrina and her team at Tap the Potential are on a mission to change the story of entrepreneurship from one of long hours, grinding it out, to one of sustainably profitable businesses that support and enhance life. The Tap the Potential Solution™ and our Tap the Potential Family of Business Owners are disrupting small business as usual. We are on our way to making the Tap the Potential Solution™ the mainstream model for growing business.

By 2023, 150 Tap the Potential clients will have taken 4 Week Vacations. These are the trailblazers, role modeling what’s possible for entrepreneurs. In many entrepreneurial circles, it is becoming more and more common for one entrepreneur to ask another, “Have you taken a 4 Week Vacation™?” (as opposed to asking “How many employees do you have?” or “What is your annual revenue?”). Taking a fully unplugged 4 Week Vacation is rapidly becoming the recognized symbol of entrepreneurial success.

Never one to accept the status quo or back down from a challenge, Dr. Sabrina’s How to Hire the Best series grew from her desire to solve the toughest hiring challenges interfering with her clients’ growth and profitability. What sprang from her experience working with entrepreneurs in rural areas catapulted her into becoming the world’s leading expert in attracting top talent in small businesses—no matter what hiring challenges those businesses are facing—and earned Tap the Potential’s reputation as the go-to resource for entrepreneurs committed to creating Great Places to Work with thriving coaching cultures and highly engaged team members working from strengths.

As The Business Psychologist, and with her years of driving profit in small businesses, Dr. Sabrina knows what it takes to find, keep, and motivate exceptional performance out of your biggest investment—team members.