Just for a moment think about your life, do you do things better when you are happy or grumpy/sad? Now think about business, do you prefer to deal with people who are grumpy/sad or happy?
It’s a no brainer really, however there are many people looking to change jobs, move on, move up, move out! Why generally because they are unhappy. As an employer it’s part of your unwritten “duty of care” to provide an environment where staff are happy.
A small family business might seem like a great thing and how you treat family can be quite different from general staff. You might be happy to work at an old desk loaded with irrelevant papers and bits and pieces, but an employee probably will be put off by that.
I guess the moral of this is think about it. Take time to evaluate, if a new employee is due to start next week, make it a major priority to make their starting off in your business fantastic.
Here’s a few reasons why:
- Change can be difficult for people, new surrounds new names, new everything! It can take a while to get used to.
- Moving jobs means altering routines, wake up times, transport changes, family routines alter.
- A new job with different systems can take quite a while to adapt to.
- A new role may mean there are changes to who is leading who, this can cause challenges.
- Start them with half a day’s work, late in a week, so there is little monday rush and weekend panic.
- Be their “work buddy” show them where everything is and how things are done.
- Check in with them regularly to see what stands out as issue, then aim to resolve them fast.
- Make sure all the “paperwork” is sorted for their superannuation and so on, early…
- Advise all other staff to wear their name tags more often in that start up phase so the new person does not stress about things like names.
