Congratulations!
This is big news! Your business is a success and you are ready to take on your first team member. So how do you make sure you and your new hire get off to the best possible start? The key is to focus on employee engagement from day one!
Employee engagement is about employee happiness. It is how your team bring their best selves and their best work to your business. Getting employee engagement right, can improve performance, profit and productivity in a business.
Think of it like a bank account. The “balance” you have in your account, helps you buy great things for your business. It could be you would like more efficiency, creativity, innovation or great customer service. The more you focus on engagement, the higher your balance is and the more great outcomes you can enjoy.
Here’s 5 areas to think about to build engagement from day one.
Business Goals
The best place to start is at the beginning, you and your new team member have lots to achieve. Your journey to success is going to be so much easier if you both know where you are going and the best way to get there. Think about your business story,
- Where have you come from?
- What do you want to achieve in the future?
Spend some time setting clear goals and help your team, how ever small, see how they can contribute to them. This will pay dividends in the long run.
If you have business or personal values, share those with your new staff member. It will help them to understand how you work and what is important to you. The aim here is to sell them the dream so you can achieve it together.
Recognition
Budget for a great relationship and no, I don’t mean buying them champagne every week.
But don’t give them hand-me-down kit or second hand uniform. Your aim here is to create pride and show how much their work means to you and your business. You can recognise the contribution they are going to make to your business and set them up for success. Do not cut corners on the “flourishes”, make sure you create a great first impression with them.
Time for your team
Make sure you have time to spend with your new member of staff to ensure their success. This starts with a great introduction to your business when they first join. You will need to plan this out before they start. Think about some of these questions to create a plan for their early employment:
- What do they need to know on day one, week one, month one?
- What are the real essentials of the role that they need to learn fast?
- Who do they need to have met?
- What would you like them to have achieved by the end of their first few months with you?
Try setting some objectives or goals for them for their first few months, this will help to keep focused.
Are you a great leader?
This one feels a bit personal, but ask yourself, are you a good leader?
- Are you inspiring to work for?
- Are you trusting and trustworthy?
- Are you approachable, clear, fair?
If it has been a while since you’ve invested in your own personal development, “now” is always a great time to start this!
Often a bit of self-awareness is a great place to start when it comes to building up your leadership skills, start with an online assessment and see where your strengths and weakness might lie. Here’s two to get you started www.findmywhy.com and www.daretolead.brenebrown.com
Once you have identified areas you would like to work on, a quick search online will give you a lifetime of reading, or listening when it comes to your leadership skills. Get stuck in!
Make them feel safe, secure and supported.
Looking after your staff’s wellbeing is key to having a great relationship with them. Wellbeing is about physical and mental and sometimes financial wellbeing. It is difficult for employees to be engaged if they are worried about having a job next week, or concerned that they will not be supported if they need to take time off.
Making your team feel safe, secure and supported through the decisions you make and the relationships you build with them helps to build employee engagement and drive higher performance.
So let us revisit that bank account analogy again. All employers and businesses will make withdrawals from the employee engagement bank account. It is part of an employment relationship. Whether it is forgetting to sign off expenses, asking to work overtime or changing your mind last minute, it happens! As long as you are making more deposits than withdrawals, you will have great engagement and you and your team can reap the rewards. Go get that member of staff you need now.
