Why GOOD employees quit... 5 MISTAKES to avoid..

What is up? Today, what I want to talk about is what 1 in 3 companies do to retain their employees 50% longer than the 2 out of 3 companies that don't. If you didn't already guess this in your head, it is pretty similar to what you do to retain your customers 50% longer, which is onboarding. This is something that I think most companies, especially when they're just starting up, don't believe they have time for, and they don't focus on at all. And the reason that about 76% of new onboards feel like they don't have the proper tools is because they believe that their manager actually doesn't have the bandwidth. I actually believe that the managers haven't had the training and they haven't had the education on how to onboard. Because if you actually know how to onboard, it's not as complicated as it seems, and it really doesn't take much time. Because once you do it a couple of times, you can templatize it. I can tell you from my personal experience that almost every time somebody has not succeeded in one of my companies, especially in the very beginning, it's because they've had poor onboarding. Obviously, there's times when that's not the case and the person comes in, it's very obvious they were very different on the interviews than they are when they came in, and we made a mistake in hiring that person. But more often than not, it's an internal issue, right? If you've really vetted the person in the process and you've gone through a thorough hiring process, which I talk about in my other video, then you know that it is on you to onboard the person correctly. And I think that most people just lack the education to understand what the onboarding actually should look like. It's very similar to clients, which is I see a lot of people who say, oh yes, we do onboarding. And I'm like, what do you do for the onboarding? And they're like, we do an onboarding call. And I'm like, okay, cool. You do a call, but where's everything else around the call, right? There's so much more to it than that. And so that's what I want to break down today is the most common mistakes that I see and that I've made in terms of onboarding. And then what the 5 C's of onboarding actually are. And hopefully you can remember that and it can be something that you can share with your team so that everyone and everyone that is a manager in your company or a leader can implement this to make sure that you guys retain people 50% longer than everyone else. And so just so you know, if you fire somebody or you lose somebody before having 1 year of employment, they typically cost you between 100% and 300% of that annual salary. And so I've talked about this in my other videos, but it's a huge cost and a lot of companies don't focus on it. And so if you want to go from feeling like you're turning and burning and you can't find good employees to focusing on what can I do to create good employees, then you want to listen to this video. I'll tell you a story, which is I had a manager about 3.5, 4 years ago who who she onboarded a new employee and it was in like a finance operations department. I had interviewed this person. I was actually the last interview and I thought that she was fantastic. I was like, she's a skill match, she's a culture match. Like I feel like she has the same values as people on the team. I really feel like she's gonna elevate the team. So I was really excited for her to come in. And about a week in, I could tell that the manager wasn't very excited. And then 2 weeks in, I could tell she really wasn't excited. And 3 weeks in, she's coming to me saying, hey, I really need to fire this woman. And I was like, You need to fire her. Like, I felt like she was an absolute perfect fit. It's very rare that I have that much confidence in somebody. And so I said, okay, like, let's dive in and look at what's going on here. And the first thing I want to look at is how did you actually onboard that person? And so when I asked her to give me the onboarding documents or what she was doing to onboard that person, it was essentially nothing, right? It was like we had one call and then I had her shadow a bunch of stuff, read a bunch of stuff, and look at a bunch of stuff. And I was like, oh gosh, okay. And that was when I realized that for my own team, I really needed to put the processes in place that they knew how to onboard someone properly. And so I created a lot more resources and trainings on how to do that, uh, that we can use internally. And a lot of it was templates. And so, uh, that's something I'll encourage at the end of this video is just how to kind of create that. I think that the reason that a lot of people don't do this and they end up doing what she did, right, which I'll tell you that she actually— when I went in, I said we need to actually re-onboard her. Okay, and so I had her redo, do a proper onboarding using the resources I created, and then she re-onboarded her. And to this day, she's still in our company kicking ass. That's how much the onboarding makes a difference. If you're thinking about yourself and you're like, I can't really comprehend how much of a difference this would make, just think about when you start using a new software, right? Okay, well, if you don't have the onboarding to use the new software, you don't know what buttons to click, you don't know where to go, you don't know who to talk to, and so you're kind of left blind. And you, you could maybe use the software, but you're only using like a fourth of its capacity. And I see that as what happens with employees, except they're only able to express a fourth of their capacity because they don't know how to utilize the business and the people within it. The first 5 common mistakes that I see when it comes to onboarding an employee are these. The first one is the lack of pre-onboarding. Okay? So there's telling somebody and giving them a job offer and them accepting it. And then there's their first day. And a lot of people think, okay, well, onboarding starts on day 1. Onboarding does not start on day 1. Onboarding starts the moment that they sign the job offer. It's the communication between that and setting the expectations. I'll give you the example, which is something that we do, is we're going to send an email out after that occurs, and it's going to say all the things they should expect in the coming weeks and with a timeline. So when should you expect the next email? Um, what do you need to do on your end, which is often setting up systems, logins, etc.? Um, and then what to expect in your first day and when you're going to get the schedule, what your first week is going to look like. Okay, so just setting the expectations for them because someone enters a new job, they feel like there's a lot of uncertainty and there's no predictability. And humans really like predictability. So if you can tell them what's going to happen next and when it's going to happen, they're going to feel a lot more comfortable coming in. And they're actually going to be able to take a lot more action because they feel confident. With that, I would say that sending them a swag package, some, you know, team gear, some stuff like that, like a poster of the core tenets, like that's stuff that we like to do as well. And so, you know, do with that as you may. That's the first piece. The second piece is that once the person comes in, they have their day one, there's too little communication with the hiring manager. And so when I say hiring manager, I mean the person who is their supervisor, okay? So most of the time that is the person who hires them. Sometimes it's HR, but in most— the people who probably watch my videos, it's probably a hiring manager. It's like sales manager, that marketing manager, ops manager, that they're hiring a person, okay? So when they bring someone in, what I do— and I still do this with executives Okay, so I will talk to them twice a day every day for the first 2 weeks minimum. And so when I say talk to them, I don't mean like I'm slacking. I'm slacking them in between. I'm talking to them once in the morning for 30 minutes and then in the afternoon for 30 minutes. So at the beginning and the end of their day. And I can tell you, like, I've tried not doing that because it is a pain in the ass, right? You're like, this is a lot of time talking to this person. It works like a charm. It gets the person up to speed really quickly and it helps answer all their questions so they don't have constraints and roadblocks once they, when they're starting to, you know, get themselves educated and understand the company. This is something I still do to this day. I typically do 2 times per day for the first 2 weeks, and then you go down to 1 time per day for a couple weeks, and then you go down to twice per week, and then once per week onto a normal 1-on-1 cadence. And I let them dictate this, okay? If I feel like they're really excelling and they're doing well, then I'll say, hey, how are you feeling? Do you want to do less or more? And typically they'll say, hey, I think we can wind it down a little bit. If the person's not succeeding, then obviously I'm just going to stick to the plan. Okay, so that's the second thing is that most people don't do that much communication. What most people do is they do like once a week, once every other week. And I've seen managers do this and I've let them have that autonomy within my company before. Never works out. So that's the second thing is communication. The third thing is that there's too much, uh, there's not enough structure when they're onboarding somebody. Something that I like to do when I'm onboarding is I want to make sure I've laid out hour by hour their agenda for the first 1 to 2 weeks. What a lot of people do is they just say, I need you to consume all of these things and shadow all this stuff. But that leaves a few things, which is one, people like structure. And regardless of what the job's going to look like on the other side, you want the structure to facilitate the learning. And so yes, maybe they don't need that much structure once they get in, and in their role they won't have any provided after the onboarding. But if you make that clear to them, you say, this is here so that you can quickly get up to speed on the company. And so this is more than you will ever have any other time. Then that is okay. Within that structure, what I like to do is I like to tell them why they're doing everything they're doing. So if I'm going to have them shadow somebody, if I'm going to have them do a one-on-one with somebody, if I'm going to have them introduced to somebody, what's the outcome of the conversation I want them to have with that person? And what's the intention behind having them consume these things? What do I want them to look for? A lot of the times, if you really want somebody to consume and learn something, then you want them to take notes and give you feedback. Okay, so that's a huge way that you can get someone to learn faster when you're onboarding them, is you want them to give you feedback on the things they're consuming, learning, and the people they're talking to. So that's the third one, is that there's not enough structure. Now, the fourth one is that there's unclear expectations. So typical case scenario, and this is probably what happened for the first year that we had a business, was somebody would come in, would onboard them, and then about a month, 2 months into it, you can tell that they're a little hesitant. And every time we'd be on a one-on-one, they're just like, I just want to make sure I'm focusing on the right things. And the reason for that is because we didn't have, and I didn't set proper expectations off the gate. So I was used to waiting a little bit and then setting KPIs, but I didn't have anything in the short term for them to aim And so what we do now is we do 30, 60, and 90-day goals. Okay. And so if you're looking at that, you just want to, based on the role, decide what are the most important things that you want them to accomplish within that amount of time. And much of the time what I'll do is once that person's accepted a job offer, I'll review this with them prior and say, does this sound reasonable to you? Um, if it's a, you know, say lower level role or one that I understand, I might be able to set the expectations for them without having to get their input. But if it's a higher-level role and maybe I don't have expertise in it, I'm going to have to maybe even have them create it themselves, right? If I'm bringing an executive, I'm going to have them create their 30, 60, 90-day plan, give it to me, and then I will review it. If I'm hiring somebody who's a manager or an individual contributor, I'm going to make it and then have them review it. So it also depends on the expertise of the person. But having that gives you the goals to shoot for. And what you can do is just have check-ins at 30, 60, 90 that are specifically for reviewing those targets and to see were those reasonable. If so, what are the next ones? Do these ones make sense? Are they also reasonable, et cetera, et cetera, or have priorities changed? And then the last piece is that they don't have a feedback loop. And what I mean by this is a lot of the times when somebody's coming in, what we tend to do, and this is what I tended to do in the beginning, is you want to steer away from any conflict because there's usually not a huge amount of trust built. Um, and there's not a huge amount of camaraderie and they've come into the team and they're new and you don't want to hurt their feelings. You don't want to make them feel like they're less than, you don't want to discourage them. Here's the thing. Trust is built through adversity. And so when you can come to a person and say, "Hey, I love what you're doing, but this right here, it's not working." Or, "This that you did over here doesn't work with our team. This is how we do it instead." They then trust you to be transparent with them. And they know, "Hey, Layla will come to me when I'm doing something that isn't aligned with the company or with the role. And she'll let me know. She's not just going to like ghost fire me one day." And so the more friction that you can put in on the front end, the smoother the ride will be on the back end. It's kind of like if you're getting married, it's like go through talking about all the, you know, uncomfortable shit before you get married and you will have a good marriage. If you don't do that, then on the back end there's going to be way more friction and it's going to lead to, you know, all sorts of shit you don't want to deal with. And so it's the same with onboarding somebody. You want to get all that friction out in the beginning so the rest of the ride is smooth. Now, those are the 5 most common mistakes, right? We have lack of pre-onboarding, meaning you think that onboarding starts on day 1 rather than right after they accept the job. We have too little communication, which is you think that communicating once a week or twice a week is fine when someone's brand new, when in reality twice a day is pretty effective. There's lack of structure, so not having enough of a laid-out agenda and a cadence for them in the beginning. Then there's unclear expectations, not having the 30, 60, 90-day. And then there's not having a feedback loop. Okay, so you're not being able to quickly tell them where they are going right versus going wrong. And so what I want to move to is what do you want with your onboarding? Okay, so this is the framework that I think I got it from SHRM, which is a human resource resource, um, that by the way, they have tons of good resources. So I would go there and look at stuff if you have questions on people, onboarding, employment, compliance, all that stuff. Um, but they call it the 5 C's of compliance. And so my interpretation of it is this, okay, there's 5 C's and I'll just kind of tell you what it means to me. Because I don't necessarily follow exactly what they say, but it, you know, it all means the same thing one way or another. The first one is compliance. So when you're onboarding someone, you have to make sure, did I have them sign all their paperwork? Do they have an NDA? Do they have an employment agreement? Did they sign the employee handbook? Do they have training on compliance within the company? Some companies that's irrelevant, some companies it's relevant for most departments except for, say, finance, IT, or HR. And so that's the first piece that you want, is you want somebody— it might be you if your company's smaller, might be your HR manager— to make sure they're reviewing all the compliance with that person. They're making sure all the paperwork is signed, make sure all the legal pieces are taken care of, and that that person has training on any compliance needed to make sure that your business operates without risk. Okay. The second piece is clarity. This piece we already covered. That's having 30 and 60, 90-day goals. Okay. That's making sure that person has clarity on what they're there to do. Oftentimes I tell someone when I hire them is I'm like, I'm not hiring you to do work. I'm hiring you to solve problems. Here's the problems I want you to start solving. Okay? And this is going to measure your progress towards solving those problems. I don't expect you to solve problems in your first 30 days, but I do expect some to get solved in the first 60 or 90, right? Depending on the level of that problem. The third is culture. So this is where, when you're designing the onboarding, you want to think, how do I immerse them in the culture? What do— what should they watch? Maybe it's an event that you threw 2 years ago. Maybe it's a presentation or a webinar that you've given. Maybe it's your podcast or a book, right? Maybe it's books that you've read, podcasts that you've consumed. What do you want them to connect with, right? Do you want them to talk to your marketing manager? Who in the company embodies the culture to an extent where they should form a relationship with them and they will also understand these people represent the culture that you want? And so connecting them would be a great thing to do. And then it's, you know, what do you want them to read? And so like reading the employee handbook, reading any of the other— sometimes I'll send people old email threads even if If I, for example, I'm handing over a vendor to somebody, I'll just forward all the emails I've ever had with that vendor and just say, here's the background in that relationship. So it's being able to read the historical data. Okay, so that's the third one is culture. And then the fourth is connection. Okay, so that's where, um, there's a couple ways that you can do this. Obviously there's introducing them to peers. There's also connecting them to peers. So a lot of the times what you might want to do, especially if that person is coming in for a role where you as their boss may not be the best person to be a resource for them because maybe you're not really close to it, is that you want to assign them a buddy. And that person is the person that's going to be their first go-to if they have questions or things that they need to ask. And so oftentimes if I set it up like that, I will have that person be on the check-ins that we're doing each day or even run the check-ins if it's that close. The second piece of that is making sure that you facilitate cross-departmental communication. So You might ask them to sit in on meetings that are of departments that they are connecting with daily, but they don't actually run or manage. Okay, then they have a holistic perspective of how their department is going to affect these other departments because they're able to watch and see what they talk about and look at and measure on a day-to-day basis. And then the last piece is check back. Okay, so that is essentially what we've been talking about this whole time, which is making sure you have a good feedback loop, make sure that you're communicating clearly and often And so that's that 2 times a day check-ins that goes to the 1, to the, you know, twice a week, to the once a week, as well as being able to confront them and give them feedback and ask for feedback frequently. Something that I like to do is when someone first comes in, when I give them their welcome package, when I tell them what their onboarding is going to look like, I say, listen, something that's amazing is that you come in here and you've got fresh eyes. And so what I would love is if you're on all these meetings and you're talking to all these people, you know, you don't know that, you know, sometimes when you've been going in a company for so long, there's like an elephant in the room that people don't even notice. Because the elephant's been there so long. I would love if you could write down those elephants for me. And I would love if in a week you can compile those notes and send them to me in an email. And so you are encouraging them to give you feedback, and then you in return will also give them feedback. So you're fostering that relationship where you're creating that open candor in the beginning. And so the 5 C's of onboarding, okay, you've got compliance, you've got clarity, you've got culture, you've got connection, and you've got check back. And so if you are growing quickly and you are a small company, if you're a startup, you're probably not funded, you're probably not backed. I cannot express the importance of this because a lot of people say they don't have time to focus on this onboarding. They're like, "Layla, that sounds like a lot. I've got to put a ton of stuff together. I don't even know how I'm going to do this." The reality is that you don't have time not to do it because the amount of money it's going to cost you if you continue to lose and turnover employees like many companies do who don't have onboarding, You're going to— you can either take the time now or you can pay the price later. And so I would prefer to take the time now and also make sure I set those people up for success. And I love working in the company I'm working in, and it's a good culture and high morale rather than a culture of churn and burn where people don't feel like they're taken care of, don't feel like they're supported, and have no motivation. And so I hope that video is useful. Um, if you are also working on interviewing, I would refer back to my other video on how to successfully interview. And then that will help you understand, um, how to make sure that you have the right people in when you're onboarding them. So with that, I hope you have a great rest of your day, evening, morning, whatever, and I will talk to you soon.