When it comes to bringing in new staff or keeping the staff you already have there are so many ways to branch out here. What I have noticed both being the new employee and accepting a new co-worker is they are working hard to bring their best. Often not many take the time to note their efforts and don’t appreciate this effort therefore as time marches on, they tend to settle for what you expect or what you communicate. Did you say thank you for joining our team?

I love the thought of an On-boarding coach. I don’t know of any company that does this, however if there was a trusted employee that has already been with the company and shown loyalty to the company and was appointed as a coach, then you know that the new addition is in good hands. Any environment for a business should be a growth environment. A place where everyone can share ideas and past experiences to be able to grow.

When we think of the Hiring pool, let’s look at some statics

• How many are foster kids? 6% of all US children have found themselves in foster care by the time they are adults.
• How many come from domestic home issues? 6 out of 10 men and 5 out of 10 women have experienced a severe traumatic event.
• 38 million people are under the poverty line
• 40 to 50% of people have experienced divorce.
• 5.4 million adults are on the autism spectrum.

More than 50% of people will deal with anxiety or a major depressive mental health challenge.

Adversity breeds resilience. They may not be the cream of the crop but let’s remember cream rises to the top. All the adversity that they have been through equals how their experiences have made them resilient and has brought them to the place where they want to learn and they want to be empowered. So take a chance and hire them. What is the worst that could happen, they will bond with you and become loyal. Everyone dreams about being larger than life. Imagine running a business where every worker loves the place they work as much as they love home. Maybe even more, especially if home is hard. When work feels like home, and you love what you do, then it’s not hard to do it.

Before training someone, we must be ready to train them for success. Not just for ours but for theirs. If they are successful, then we are too. I have seen so many companies train from the perspective of throwing information at them and expecting them to bring it back out effectively. While some people can do this, it would be the minority. Training should happen at a pace that the employee can manage. It’s ok if it is a little slower. You know it takes seven times for a person to hear the information to reach the point of where they have mastered it.
Making sure that we prepare our workers before they hit the front lines is critical. We don’t put a soldier on the front lines of the battlefield before they are trained to take on what is there. They start in the back of the war before they move forward. Making sure they know how to use the tools and weapons they have to defend themselves and the other lives they are protecting.

Customer service is a battlefield of a different kind. Not only do they affect you within the company, they are the ones coming at your employees. Are they ready to meet those challenges? More than often customer service workers are like therapists. They deal with the problems in the customer’s world along with the issue at hand.

Which leads us to communicating with the customer. In today’s world we must be aware of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). We need to support the different groups of individuals, including people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders etc. This list can go on for a long time. Companies that are DEI are better able to respond to challenges and meet the needs of different customer bases and employees.