We work with some of the most successful financial advisory offices in America and we’ve had the good fortune to watch them grow their staffs. For most, it’s been a completely enriching experience for all involved, but for some, it’s a frustrating revolving door of staff members. If you’re on a hiring hamster wheel you might be able to say, “It’s not you, it’s me”.
It’s our job to make everyone feel excited about coming to work, and it starts from day one:
Have a clear-cut job description. Without one, you alert the high-quality candidates you’re looking for that you don’t know what you want from them and may not know how to properly maximize their value. This puts them, and your business, in an untenable situation, limiting them from providing the most value to your company.
Give them a syllabus for the first 30-days. This doesn’t mean that their time needs to be dedicated every minute of every day, but they should have at least 8-10 hours of training per week with staff members or strategic partners for the first 30-days. All too often we see people come into a business with no syllabus. Humans need structure to feel safe.
Make it clear that their talents are unique and that their value isn’t indefinitely tethered to a document. Let their skills and your needs dictate how their role can and will change over time. This will benefit them and you. We tell all staff members that we will have a ninja-grip on 70% of their roles and the rest will be a collaborative work in progress. It makes the changes that we all know are inevitable that much easier to manage, not to mention allows staff members to organically evolve.
Share your company’s goals and culture. Who knows, they might be your successor one day and should have the opportunity to feel like their aspirations can be achieved at your organization alongside and because of the hard work they put in. In short, show them that growth is accessible.
Hand them a notebook (I know, old school) and have them take notes in each of their meetings. In addition to the notes, have them jot all questions down as they come up and get the answers “in bulk” when they meet with you or their direct supervisor.
Make training videos. You’ll be hiring more people in the future, so record as many universal training sessions as you can. This way they can be used for each person that walks in your doors in a scalable way and can be used as refreshers and virtual, flexible-schedule training.
Have check-ins with your new hires several times per week, even if it’s just for 15-30 minutes. This allows you to get a better sense of who they are, how they work, and may even lead to intaking their fresh-eyed observations about your business.
Be realistic about the real outcome. People are hired to do jobs, so as long as they find a way to complete their key responsibilities at hand, it shouldn’t matter whether someone wants to captain the company one day, or if they stay satisfied and engaged with the job over the next 10 years. Everybody is different, and the important thing is that they know they are empowered to manage their own path within your company if they commit to adding value to your organization.
