Growing your team as a small business owner can feel like a monumental step. You’ve gone from navigating business start-up as a solo entrepreneur to growing your business and expanding your team. It can feel like a reward for months, maybe even years, of hard work and dedication.
How do you hire someone? More importantly, how do you ensure they have what they need to make positive contributions early on.
Understand how they work best. Knowing your team members and how they work best will enable you to create an environment where everyone can thrive. Are they big on collaboration, or do they prefer solitary work? Do they need a closed office space, or are they flexible? What are their strengths. What do they bring to the team that is invaluable to your business operations?
Introduce processes that enable your new employee to manage the core work of their role. Every role has repeatable tasks that can be documented via a process. The power of the process is that it provides instructions that your team members can follow. They serve as training resources as your team members learn key aspects of their role. If you operate in a highly regulated industry, processes help provide documentation that you have certain steps in place necessary for compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
Be available to answer questions and guide the new team member as they learn the core elements of their role. Overcommunicate during the onboarding period to ensure they have what they need to perform competently.
Extend grace. Being new to any environment comes with a learning curve. Be patient as they onboard and learn their role.
Decide what success looks like in this role, and make sure the team member has a clear understanding.
Schedule a regular check-in to answer questions and provide guidance.
Get out of the way. Once you have communicated expectations, shared relevant processes, acclimated the team member to the environment and shared any other information central to performing the role, get out of the way. Let them get adjusted and begin to shape the role and add value.
Here’s to more business birthdays!