The human side of the role of managers in onboarding is an important step that’s often overlooked is in the onboarding process of their new hires. Most managers forget about the early days of a new hire and many get lost.
The way to overcome this problem is to start by sending your managers reports and updates on the progress of their team members. They’ll appreciate it. Encourage and expect your managers to review the pitches, training work, and presentations when they’re completed by their new hires in bootcamp and onboarding paths. Have your managers share notes of support and encouragement along the way. Ghost write them if that helps to ensure they get it done. Hold your managers accountable for coaching and supporting their own team members during their onboarding path. It’s their job to develop and coach their teams and it starts on day one.
Managers and teams will see huge benefits if they follow these onboarding best practices and we clarify the role of managers in onboarding.
Give Context
Managers are the perfect person to give their new hire context. Managers should simultaneously be taking their teams through the onboarding journey alongside the coaches and enablement professionals. They will accelerate results and drive up productivity by sharing their lessons during their own personal onboarding. They are the most qualified to put emphasis on key topics as they know what the works and they also know the personality and skills of the new hire.
Prioritize and Focus
Managers are great at helping provide additional prioritization help to avoid getting overwhelmed. While the new hire starts consuming content and meeting people, everyone has what seems like great advice. A manager will help their new hires not get overwhelmed and forget what is most important to their new hire’s success path. The manager’s job is to remind the new hire why they were hired, over and over again. Confidence building is critical in this learning phase. That’s the role of the manager.
Schedule Daily One-On-Ones
Managers with experience hiring and retaining new hires will also proactively schedule time with their new hires. The human touch is critical here especially for building trust and a relationship with a new manager. A daily check-in in person by phone is a great best practice. When you look at the calendar of a manager with a new hire, you should suggest to the manager that they schedule a 15 minute call every day for the new hire’s first four weeks on the job. From a new hire’s perspective they are seeing how much their manager cares about their success. From a manager’s perspective, they get the chance to always be at the pulse of what their new team member is doing and thinking.
Find Early Wins
Another tip for managers that you can share is to remind the manager how important early wins are. Have the manager plan a project or assignment or task that becomes an early win. The manager should help the new hire along the way of building their confidence and putting these early points on the board. Once they are successfully completely, the manager should celebrate them broadly. The more the merrier when it comes to early wins and celebrating successes.
Managers are busy running their business and helping their team be successful. Bringing on a new hire takes time. Remind managers of their role in the success of their new hires.
Let’s help our managers develop and coach their teams.
You can learn more about sales coaching tips and best practices by reading Sales Coaching Guide for Managers.
