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With HR Tactics: Protect Your Recruitment Investment: The Onboarding Framework That Drives Retention, Performance and Growth · Sales Trajectory Podcast

• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Sales Trajectory Podcast, where innovation meets execution in sales.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jason Howes, your host, a 35-year sales veteran and lifelong student of the game.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is for leaders and sales professionals with a growth mindset.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'll hear real sales stories about new products, motivating teams to prospect, and boost productivity.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: We dive deep into sales process, cutting edge tech, and recruiting top sales performers.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get started.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm joined again by Jackie Strawn, HR Tactics.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Great to see you again, Jackie.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Jason, good to see you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: This episode is episode three of our series Aligning HR and Sales, which is critical to success and performance of sales professionals.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And today's episode is on onboarding retention and setting people up for success.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: To start with, in episode one, we discussed defining the role properly.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Episode two, we explored how to select the right person and reduce hiring risk.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're focusing on what happens after the offer is accepted because even the right person can fail if onboarding is poor.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, this is where many businesses lose the return on all the time, effort, and money they've invested in recruitment.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Jackie, I know you're passionate about this one.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've worked with hundreds of businesses.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with the risks.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when onboarding isn't done well?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jason, I am passionate about this one because as you said, there's so much investment, so much time, energy, money can just hemorrhage out of the business when this onboarding phase is not handled well.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And really, most leaders think of onboarding as quite an administrative process.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, it it's a risk management and performance process.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: When expectations aren't clear, people become uncertain, they disengage, they often l end up leaving before they've even had a chance to succeed.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Look, as you said in your book, Crystal Ball Recruiting, it's a critical area that is often quite underestimated and undervalued.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I am completely on the same page as you with that.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I actually found recently, your line that salespeople are not born, they're made.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a really, you know, we hear a leaders born or made, but I it really got me thinking this onboarding phase is the chance to set the new hire up for success.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's their chance to make the employee.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there are risks around onboarding, and it's, as I say, it's frequently regarded as quite administrative of a task, but in reality, it poses some really sizable business risks, especially in a market where replacing staff is so difficult at the moment and expensive.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: A disjointed onboarding process, gosh, it really can have a negative impact.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Things like eroding productivity, it really slows the time to get the person into the role and hitting their stride.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It lowers engagement.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: People just become less and less engaged.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: In cultural integration, which I'll I I'd like to speak a bit about later, it really hampers that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great opportunity.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect timing to really integrate the person culturally.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you can really uh impact that cultural integration negatively by with a poor onboarding process.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It obviously brings around a lot more legal and performance management risks if you don't have evidence of certain things throughout that onboarding process.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Our employer brand, gosh, nothing worse, especially with social media and how quickly information can get out there and how quickly bad information spreads can really damage your employer brand if you um are not making every post a winner with these new employees that can spread quite quickly.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Friction amongst teammates is another thing, another risk that you run.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Those other teammates who have to end up picking up the slack, the new employee starts, they're all the employees think great, should take a week, a month, three months, whatever to get the person onboarded properly.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's taking longer, but really the revolving door effect is the biggest risk.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: A poor onboarding process really does set that stage for early turnover.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the most immediate threat that's posed posed by a weak onboarding process.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And wow, how costly is that?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Terrible.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many key points you spoke about there, Jackie.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what one of the things I took out of our last episode, I talk to sales professionals every day, we talk to sales leaders every day.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: The one that you mentioned that really stuck with me was that onboarding actually starts when you have the first discussion with a candidate when they're applying for the job.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So many times we've seen a lot of people are really busy at the moment, they're juggling multiple hats, everyone's under the pump.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I I get that, right?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I think again, a candidate is really watching what you're doing as a hiring manager or as a sales leader business owner right from the very first message or email or discussion or interview or negotiation process of you actually getting this job.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the key part because if you're not going to do it in a good way, well then potentially, yeah, you're scaring off people wanting to work for your business because you're you're showing all your cards.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because if this is how you treat it or this is the behavior during that process, well, then that's probably what you're going to get when you arrive at the job.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's so what yeah, just talk to us a little bit about that one.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm glad you raised that actually, because I I didn't hadn't mentioned it just in those those risks initially.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I went through there.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because yes, HR people see the onboarding process, despite a lot of what you read on the internet about, you know, if you Google onboarding, it'll usually say it starts from like day one and goes through to the end of probation.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's much more opportunity to optimize onboarding if we treat it as starting from the very first time that that potential employee, the candidates, see the ad, for example, or become aware of the vacancy that they may consider applying for.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And because at that point you are psychologically having an impact on them.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're whether they think this is the right, you know, the wording of your ad, whether you've got spelling mistakes, how it's laid out.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many aspects to how you can be proving or showing your brand out there and showing that this is a professional business.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: If they want to work for this sort of business, this is how we we operate.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Every interaction through the recruitment process, every phone call, every email, every conversation, every interview, it's all onboarding to us.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the better we optimize all of those things to put our best foot forward as the employer, the more it's already building commitment and and loyalty and intention to stay longer, uh having the ongoing impact of lowering absenteeism and and things like presenteism, which maybe people haven't really heard about.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's a bit of a another HR sort of uh terminology, but presenteism is actually, you know, they're present, but there's not a lot of work getting done.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're sort of absent in terms of productivity, but they're present.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I like that one, uh presentism, because I when we're working with salespeople, we talk about uh being in the moment.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy for someone to turn up, walk in a door, see a client, and just basically be thinking only about yourself and what you're saying.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, yeah, if you're not in the moment and actually absorbing why you're in the business and and aren't really understanding your your clients and your prospects achieved, what the outcomes they're looking for the other day was or grabbed me, it's a joke, sorry.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh was your job hugging?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've seen that a lot at the moment.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, people are hanging into jobs because they're probably worried they're not going to get another one.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or or they're they know that they're not happy there, they know the culture's not good, they want to leave, but they effectively can't.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So what happens then is that unfortunately, yeah, the business owner or the sales leader's got someone in their team that's hanging in because they're comfy.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the the sales manager needs to grow because they've got targets, the business wants to grow, and then potentially the person that's on the job's like, hey, I'm not too worried about it, you know.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, yeah, I've got incentives, but I'm never gonna get them because they're they're unachievable.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not fired up, I'm just I'm just hanging in there.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So and again, I suppose that comes back to the culture as well, isn't it?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a high performance culture or a or a leader, and I double back to what you said before with the onboarding, is that in a business where you've got a HR manager, that's great, right?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of companies we deal with, they're doing it all themselves.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have that support.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: So they are traveling all the time and under the pump.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, and again, I think that decision of let's just get someone in the seat, and and where we find that what happens is that companies will hire someone and they think they're going to fix all their problems.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just gonna miraculously fix all their problems.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the onboarding part, and I I will openly say when I on when I was a sales manager, I think our onboarding program sucked.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: I could honestly say that we were like a lot of people, we were too busy and we had a lot going on and we didn't have that professional support.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a lot of data out there that really supports that uh the whole village raising the child idea of bringing a new employee on is really the way to go.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of data and research out there that really shows an optimized onboarding process phase should be handled.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if you want me to go through some of that research.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd I love research and we at HR Tactics we base everything we do on research.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a rhyme and a reason why everything is done.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's uh that's that's the area we're we're looking for your experts in this field.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think just before you kick off with that, yeah, for me, you know, I'd love to know uh how the research shows across that 30, 60, 90 day program that everybody talks about.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: But all the salespeople we recruit are on a six-month period or probation, it's critical for for our business because if we place someone into a company that doesn't do it well, well then if it doesn't work out, you know, we're left holding the can sometimes.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm I'm I really would love to see some data and research as well.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, well, as recruiters, you're uh yeah, you're left holding the can.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's in every recruiter's best interest to have the new employee stay and be product productive.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of research out there.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: The main stuff is around retention.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: It really this research shows that a structured onboarding experience is a very effective tool for improving employee retention.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: We put so much effort into the customer experience or the client experience and onboarding the client, but we fail to realize often that the employee is our internal customer.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have two customers.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have external customers and internal customers.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, particularly when it involves separate welcome initiatives from HR managers and co-workers, I mentioned before the village raising the child.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's it really can drive retention when we have a number of people involved in onboarding somebody.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But an unpleasant onboarding process can lead to uh you would have heard of buyer's remorse.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, often when somebody buys something, no matter how happy they were buying it, at in the moment, research, there's so much out there on buyer's remorse, and that very quickly, um, as I say, somebody who was even very happy buying it, buyer's remorse can come up.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's not quashed or got enough, there's one survey that found 22% of workers had actually left their role within 90 days.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that 30, 60, 90 day time frame that you would think you were talking about is so critical.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So for an SME, think about like the cost of losing a hire within that first six months.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a hit to their bottom line.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to the to the recruiters like yourselves, Jason, it can be a hit to your bottom line.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're losing the recruitment costs, you're losing the cost, the money that you've invested in, any training hours is that you've run with the new hire.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you've also got to continue to cover the role somehow with the once the person's gone and you're re-recruiting.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um high, high quality onboarding, it sort of acts as an insurance policy for an SME for that recruitment investment, ensuring that all that time and energy to keep delivering value.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I was talking about the the tight labor market in Australia at the moment.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's not many SMEs out there who can afford the cost of a bad hire.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's just money hemorrhaging out of the business for no good reason.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got soaring inflation.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've got, like you mentioned, the the movement towards job hugging.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's where talent is prioritizing security over movement to some to another role.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Small and medium-sized business owners, they're operating in this environment where every single recruitment decision is really high stakes, and recruiters out there would know.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: But some of these SMEs are really stumbling at this final hurdle.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a 2005 Australian Insights Workplace survey that was conducted by Employment Hero.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of that data was very interesting.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd I'd mention it here.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: One in four people who started a new job in 2025 were felt disillusioned by the onboarding process and going as far as to describe it, the experience of being onboarded as bad, which you described yourself earlier in this podcast in places that you've worked.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the trend was even greater among part-time workers, interestingly.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So these part-time workers often make up the backbone of SMEs, part-time as casuals, because they're not there every day.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: When a part-time or casual there is there less repetitively throughout the week.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It just the they're dropping, the ball is being dropped more and more on their onboarding processes.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: But there was, it said 35% reported a negative start to their new role.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine this is avoidable.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally avoidable by having, by implementing all the things that we're talking about today.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So another thing we apply to there's a there's a great theory out there, and I can't recall, Jason, whether I mentioned it in my previous podcast, but it was called the con it's called the control value theory.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we apply it at HR Tactics to our onboarding processes and our checklists that we design for businesses to help them, it helps them build a more resilient business, obviously.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the control value theory of achievement emotions.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna sound very nerdy here, as I said, basing everything we do on data and the research that's out there that shows something is is proven to work.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was developed by this German educational psychologist, first proposed back in the 80s, 1980s, and it argues that emotions, such as let's say enjoyment, anxiety, pride, or boredom, they're primarily driven by two main types of subjective appraisals in our in our minds.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: One is control and one is value.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So control, it's the it's the person, the employee, the new employees' belief about their ability to influence or successfully perform an activity and achieve the desired outcome.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the more somebody actually feels like confident and that they are in control, they have enough knowledge now to feel in control that they can learn what needs to be learned and then use it to achieve an outcome that the organization wants.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: The other one was value.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the personal importance that this new employee assigns to those learning activities and their outcome.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we had talked about purpose.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so value is very similar to purpose.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: The more that they feel they understand the value that they are bringing to the organization or to the process that they might have a small or a large piece role to play in, the better the outcome.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So based on that, we can understand that people are most engaged when these two things are present.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: They believe they can be successful and they see value in the task in front of them.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we build into the processes.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of you listening, optimizing your onboarding process is about creating a clear, structured process that you can follow.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's an onboarding checklist that's building those two things in.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Help them believe that they can be successful and help them understand the value of the tasks and the purpose of their role, how it fits into the overall organizational strategy.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, that was a bit of data that I I'll stop nerding out now.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But uh but yeah, this control value theory.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone wants to look it up, it's if you apply that in most of what you do in the HR sphere, you'll be ahead of most.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Always learn something new, Jackie.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I love about the fact that we've got the combination of HR and sales here, because it's really important uh to have both aligned, and if you don't, it's a huge cost for someone to turn up and to fail.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but again, as you mentioned, the personal effect on somebody's life, right?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, somebody has accepted a a job with your company, they've been looking forward to it, they've changed their whole life, and they turn up only to be disappointed and and shocked that they've made the wrong decision and put yourself in this person's shoes.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: They've got a mortgage family, they've got kids.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: It it's a confronting experience.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I I had a situation, uh or have a number of situations, unfortunately, you know, where people have done that, you know, someone to ramp up as quick as possible.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: But they need to understand your strategy, your market, your competitors, and what's expected from them.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you just want to throw someone in there and hope they're going to succeed, well then you're gonna fail.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and the hiring manager may not be too worried about it in some cases, because he's like, oh, well, I'm more important in this business because that person's failed, right?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the business owner, whoever's paying the bills, all of a sudden, yeah, they leave after three months.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're like 45k down, right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, you've got the impact on your business, plus you've got the impact on your customers because they're highly annoyed because you keep sending out people that are failing.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought this might be just a really good chance just to run through from a sales perspective of some key areas when we're onboarding, some some things that we work on, and you know, is to really make sure that your new hires, they know who your customers are, they know what they look like, you know how you help them, you know what makes your business stand out from the crowd.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And please don't do what I see quite often is someone that is given no sales data or no history of who they're servicing and what they buy.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the key areas for us, and that's why we build out the onboarding program is to understand, you know, how the company positions themselves in the market, what sort of questions should they be asking and what sort of objections they're going to get and how they can handle them.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: We have been doing some more onboarding, which is really good because it gives us a chance to get in from a sales perspective and actually make this person have more opportunity to succeed and also to enjoy their job.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you look at one of the other areas we work on, Jackie, is how they talk to customers and could what's important to the customer.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, a lot of people get on board and they're just throwing a product manual, maybe giving a bit of a talk around the warehouse, maybe some winscreen time with another salesperson.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And don't forget too, you know, it depends on who you end up with as a buddy in a job.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so good.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, I think, you know, one of the other ones for me is really having clear, a clear understanding of what good looks like for this person.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, when are the reports due?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's required for leading KPIs the activities?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, we've seen people.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: People, you know, had one guy in Sydney that was an absolute disaster.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: He he actually left in the first week.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, and I go back to what I spoke to in the other episodes, is that if someone's managing a salesperson, whether it's a sales manager or a business owner, if you're a business owner or a manager and you don't have a sales manager, well then you are the sales manager.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've never been taught or trained or skilled or you don't have the time to do it, well then you've got a big problem because that person is only going to learn as much as you tell them.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one area we find with onboarding is that unfortunately a lot of people have been taught on what's good practice.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they, because they've never been taught, they can't coach.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to throw in another risk here.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you're talking about, I'm just like, these bad I these bad experiences that you're talking about.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: We uh a couple of years ago, we have now have a new code of practice in the workplace health and safety area of ledger legislation.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's 14 psychosocial hazards in there, and some of the things you were saying there about bad experiences, my head is just jumping from a number, from one to another, to another of these 14.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Poorly handled onboarding process that leaves somebody like you were talking about, that guy, with such anxiety and lack of clarity.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about there's one called low job control that employee can, if they're feeling negatively impacted on their mental health because of that, they can put in a claim.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Poor support is another one that would have been ticked from what in those scenarios you're talking about.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Low role clarity, again, that's a massive one in what you talked about there.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Potentially low reward and recognition, they could claim.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: What else is there?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Poor organizational justice is possibly another one where they're they're speaking up saying, I need more training on this, I'm not getting this, can you arrange this, these other aspects of support for me?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not the the management or whatever aren't going ahead and doing that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Potentially poor workplace relationships.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And another one was uh that came to mind was remote or isolated work, and that that is negatively impacting them.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: So again, leaving them to their own devices, if they're out salespeople out on the road and stuff, like there's a number of big red flags that can come up that could be a potential work WHS claim from an employee a new hire uh against the employee in scenarios like Yeah, look, I mean, we've also seen some great onboarding, Jackie.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, we've got some clients that, you know, because it's it's such a good experience, is where the culture and the onboarding and the everything is so strong and it's inspiring to see.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought we might just walk through some practical tips for optimizing onboarding, Jackie.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I actually do just before you kick off, for me, uh I think the better you're prepared for when they turn up is really good.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to wait till day one.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can sort of work on a few little things moving into the new person arriving.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Just uh some quick tips on optimizing onboarding.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would love to.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that your listeners can implement themselves and creating the first one.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would say take the time to create a structured checklist.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: One that breaks the onboarding process down into three stages.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you are referring there, Jason, to don't just wait till day one.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's things you can do ahead of day one to be prepared for the person's first day.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we call pre-boarding.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a whole series of steps of tasks that you can do in that pre-boarding phase.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: The second phase is the onboarding phase, which um traditionally people will say from day one, the person's first day through to the end of probation, which brings us to the third stage in that structured checklist that should be the end of probation meeting, ideally run by the employee's manager.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll be in those three stages in your checklist, list off all the tasks that you you should be doing in that phase.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Next one I would say train them in every task and responsibility in their position description.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: That position description, we did our first first of these three podcast episodes, Jason, together on position descriptions and role clarity.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: You've if you've developed that, that is should be one of the bases of your onboarding process.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: If something is that important to have in the position description, describing what they need to do, they need to you need to be sure that they've been trained in it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So train them in every task and responsibility that you've listed in that position description.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that gives you an ideal way to structure that second phase of the three phases, the onboarding phase.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Another tip I would say is shadowing.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Shadowing opportunities are fabulous.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Give the new hire some opportunities to shadow their colleagues, but remember pick the ones that are good.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want them learning bad habits.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: But shadowing opportunities so they understand the bigger picture.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always about shadowing someone who is doing the role that they are going to do.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's also having them shadow other people, you know, the CEO or the uh the person who takes the call, the initial calls throughout the organization as much as possible.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let them step back and spend some time with those other roles so that they can see what they're doing.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: It'll help them work out how they into the processes in the business.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Time with the CEO is a big one.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Always recommend, doesn't have to be long, but ideally at least once, maybe twice at the minimum through that 90-day, through that onboarding process.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let them have some time with the CEO or the director.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be an unstructured chat, it can be going for a coffee.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But don't forget the importance of this new hire understanding and getting to absorb the passion, the plans, and the vision that will come from the CEO's mouth.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Discuss and let them see in action a couple of things.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: We call them organizational factors, things like career development opportunities, positive working conditions, supportive HR practices.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So don't forget to include those in their onboarding phase.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let them find out, let them be told what sort of supportive HR practices there are out there.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let them just read them on a notice board in the in the lunchroom or in an employee handbook.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to pull those out of the employee handbook and let them and actually discuss the you might have an EAP process, you might have a social club, you might have various things that can help the person feel supported, positive working conditions.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I I mentioned the interpersonal factors.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's the things like the support network that they have through managers, especially the direct supervisor.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Always really critical for them to build that relationship with their direct supervisor.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, attending meetings, observing other members in other areas of the business so that they can see those interpersonal factors happening before them.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: That will help them absorb sort of the unspoken.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: The last one I wanted to mention is the checklist.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of the first one I mentioned, building that structured process.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: But having an actual checklist on a piece of paper, on a on a document word document, however you want it, but have a checklist so that as your onboarding process, so that whoever might be running the onboarding in charge of the onboarding process, if they're sick on day one, somebody else can step in and follow the steps on that, on that are on the checklist.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Put tick boxes beside each of the steps that in your onboarding process, because the employee putting those ticks in is evidence that you can rely on, if it was ever called into question, whether this content was actually covered.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because we as HR consultants see it at the other end where the employee goes rogue and turns on for right or wrong reasons, but they're saying, nope, you never trained me in that.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, you never told me about that.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I never was taken and shown that.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's the tick and their signature as to who showed it to them, should have that signatory section at the end of the checklist with a date and signed off by the employee.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And ideally, in that last, that third phase of the onboarding checklist, the end of probation meeting, have that documented whether they passed probation, uh, whether it was extended or whether it wasn't passed.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because even if it, like, let's say it was extended, because the employee may not have been quite there on some aspects of the role.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the employer decided to extend it is often comes into play as evidence for us HR consultants down the track.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: A year later, the employee claims various things, or the employer is potentially maybe moving, wanting to manage the employee out or terminate them.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: That evidence that they the employee wasn't actually performing in those particular things way back at the end of probation, and therefore it was extended, can actually become a really important piece of evidence.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So documentation is really critical in the onboarding process.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, they'd be my really practical tips, and every single one of those employers can go ahead and and put in very easily into that checklist themselves.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of gold there, Jackie.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think again, it's a the combination of strong HR practice and strong sales leadership is critical.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Exciting news is we're currently building out our new system that includes an onboarding program and software that the salesperson can move through a structured onboarding process built in within sales technology.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's really exciting.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we're working on that at the moment, and I think you're right, it needs to be able to be done by anybody within the business.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: If someone is away or not around, again, you can then double back.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, as a new person, if you are new in the job, it's easy to forget stuff.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: The person training you is thinking that you learn the same as them, but we all learn differently, right?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's easy to say, and why didn't they understand that?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're in a new industry or in a new business in a new role, it's it's it's not that easy.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it can be quite confronting for people.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, you know, moves on to the next area here we're talking about is that leadership owns the outcome.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be clear.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Onboarding isn't just HR's responsibility, it belongs to leadership.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: The discussion and the importance of coaching and and feedback and having those difficult discussions if they are struggling.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and one of the areas that I think back to us uh when I was a sales manager, and I put my hand up saying I'm guilty as charge, right?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is being in the moment.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have put time aside to be with your new employee and be in the moment.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Understand what they're going through.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be sitting there just thinking about what you're saying or what else is happening in your life or that you've got a contract due.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be able to be in the moment.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And look, if that takes going and having a coffee, turning your phone on silent, being there for them, support performance early on and correct issues quickly if they arise.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, if you don't do that, well then when what I've seen over time too, Jackie, is somebody starts in a business, they're not doing fantastic.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Look, they could be doing better, because some again, it's got to be the ownership of were they given a clear path to success.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I've seen companies throw someone out the door, literally, only to then realize that, oh, hang on a sec, maybe that person actually wasn't as bad as I thought.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't really provide them with a good opportunity to succeed.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think that's the discussion that needs to be had is that if you are turning over your team, if there are problems, stand up and own the moment.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Stop making excuses for why it's not working.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a I know that might sound a little bit aggressive, but it's true.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Own it and think about why it's not working.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just keep blaming the salesperson that left as to why they didn't succeed, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Lift the bonnet and ask someone else because your company may not be as good as you think it is.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Exit interviews are an interesting way to to find things like that out as well.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure a a new hire that didn't work out is probably going to, especially if they're disgruntled, they're probably gonna be very happy to inform you of what why it didn't work out for them.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Might be hard to listen to, but give them the opportunity to tell you, and there might be some gold in there that you can actually alter your onboarding process because we often see far too short onboarding phase.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you say, they've thrown them out, they've they've put them out there to work, and they don't have clarity, they don't have everything they need to know to perform well in the role.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: They need to see the onboarding phase as really continuing up until the end of probation.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, common mistake made by Time Poor SME owners is losing that momentum once the new employee has been set up.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you'll set them up with logins and their system access and go, ooh, great, excellent.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: They should be able to hit the ground running.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll introduce them to a few people and and let them know where to go if they have questions.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's sometimes pretty much all that happens.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the length of the onboarding phase with a new hire, it's got to depend on the position, the level of complexity in the role, the level of accountability that the person has, the level of autonomy in decision making, the level of risk that might be involved in their role.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as I say, it generally ends around the end of probation.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you can have it go beyond that.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: But uh another poor practice that we see, we harp on about lack of clarity for employees, but you've gotta we see it so often.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: The onboarding process is not focused on creating enough clarity and not focused on integrating the employee.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned integration.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: True onboarding, it's gonna extend into role clarity, but also this cultural integration.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, insufficient role clarity is is a source of frustration for this for the new staff.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said before, it can be recognized as a psychosocial hazard now and really come back to bite you.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: But effective integration means moving beyond the paperwork to provide that ongoing role support, ensuring that the new hire understands not just what they are doing, but why it matters to the business, and that they get your culture, they understand the culture.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ideally, in the recruitment process, they've gotten a feel for what the culture is like.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've run a trial or let them go in and meet some of the team members, but getting them integrated into the sort of social fabric of the of the business.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we we just see so often that that is not done at all.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: The lack of involvement of the new manager.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've heard that the biggest reason often people leave is because of the relationship with their manager.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the new employee and the their manager, that relationship really has to be built from the start.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And onboarding often fails when the employee's manager doesn't have much or any involvement in their onboarding.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: They delegate it to somebody else.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get a new new employees' engagement, it's just gonna be shot to pieces, their confidence is gonna nosedive, productivity.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the most successful SMEs avoid this by involving that direct manager from day one.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I I think if you want to take that a little bit further, Jackie, without being disrespectful, most people are never taught how to hire, never taught how to recruit.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most of us are good at our craft, we ended up in management, all of a sudden we're expected to to hire.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then so again, if you're picking the wrong person or if you're bringing them into an environment where they won't succeed or can't succeed, you get a big problem.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think again, I always go back to taking ownership of your data.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: So many companies still don't have ownership of their data.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: The data is in their salespeople's heads that walk out the door or their managers' heads that walk out the door.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Again, if you've got ownership of your data, if you've got good systems and processes, if you're able to onboard effectively, but you need the right person, you need the right onboarding process.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: As you said, you need the right leadership support.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the culture has to be strong.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I wrote Crystal Ball Recruiting.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's about attracting, recruiting, and retaining.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the retain part quickly because that is critical.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's a huge cost to get good people.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of companies are out there continually searching for new people because they're not retaining top performers.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in a lot of cases, top performers are they're shooting from the hit, and I get it all the time, every day.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're leaving because they're not happy.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: The culture's not right, it's not a good fit for them, it's not good for their health, and they're walking out the door.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think just on closing here, you know, if there's one message we'd like listeners to take away from this three-part series, it is this hiring the right person matters, but creating the environment for them to succeed matters just as much.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: And when recruitment, HR leadership, onboarding, and culture are aligned, performance becomes far more predictable.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where culture becomes a genuine competitive advantage.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we've spoken about this genuine competitive advantage in having really good people in your business because that makes a huge difference.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we love about being involved with HR tactics.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really nice fit for both businesses because we understand from both sides what's happening, and we're both learning and continuing to involve how we work as leaders to be able to help our clients.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want salespeople turning over every 17 months and dropping.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's the average tenure, and it's continuing to get worse.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you can't just blame the salesperson.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has to take responsibility, and I think that's the thing.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's blaming each other.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to the podcast, we're both here to help.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got any questions or if something resonated from this episode, please reach out to Jackie or myself.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: We want to see a return on investment for people that you hire.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's really important.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can't keep looking at it as a cost of the business.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: The final point that I would like to, I want to go back to you said about the genuine competitive advantage, Jason.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Businesses that get this onboarding right can definitely obtain a genuine competitive advantage on their competitors.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to help them build a stable team, engaged team, can turn positive first impression into longer-term productivity.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: So all your listeners go forth and start prioritizing, really effectively onboarding your new highs.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jackie, nothing better for me to hear about one of our clients who's grown 20 to 30% per year because they've got great people in their business and they've got that strong culture for performance than talking to other companies that struggle to achieve last year's sales results, or they're maybe in a single-digit growth, which potentially is fueled by price increases or inflation.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think the competitive advantage part you mentioned is huge, but you have to invest to get all those results.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we do appreciate uh your time.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Jackie, always great to have you on this sales trajectory podcast.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone has any questions yet, please reach out to either Jackie or myself.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jackie.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jason.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Got a product that's struggling or launching something new?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Reach out.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're inviting guests who want to make a real impact.