One of the most exciting and stressful events for any startup is hiring a new team member. Many times, the reason for the hire is to free up time for another team member or entrepreneur, but ironically, hiring and onboarding new employees take a lot of time if done correctly.
This can be even more complicated when hiring a more junior resource. Recently we wrote about some of the challenges on hiring a startup salesperson, but what about onboarding?
One of the best sources for free startup information is MaRS, and they have some great content on hiring and developing employees. One of the worst things you can do with a new employee is have them be lost over the first few weeks. This is a tremendous loss of productivity for your organization and a horrible first experience for your new employee. Here are 5 tips on how to onboard new employees at your startup so that they can contribute quickly.
1. Create a Schedule
Set up a schedule for their first couple of weeks. Not only can this ease your new team member’s transition, but this will ensure that the right team members have time in their schedule to provide help when it’s needed.
2. Include Other Team Members
Having different team members help out with onboarding is a great way for the new employee to meet the team and get up to speed quickly on what they’ll be working on.
3. Active Learning
In my experience, the best way to learn is by doing. Provide some guidance, but have the new employee try things themselves and then give them feedback on what they’ll need to do differently to be successful.
4. Introduce New Tasks Slowly Over Time
A new employee at a startup will naturally have many different tasks. It can be overwhelming to introduce them to everything at once. Roll out their responsibilities out over time as they become proficient with previous tasks.
5. Two Way Feedback
Ensure that the new employee has the opportunity to provide feedback and ask a lot of questions. Particularly for a startup, this is key. This does means making the time in your schedule, but will make your new employee feel that the atmosphere allows them to share their comments.
Hopefully these points helps you with your new employees. For more information on starting a sales team check out our Building a Startup Sales Team white paper.
