September 2009 Management Minute
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
This has been a long, difficult, sometimes frustrating process: one of your good people left for a new opportunity or you had to let someone go; you struggled over how best to fill the void; written a detailed job description; interviewed some qualified (and not-so-qualified) people; and hired the best person for the job. You don’t want to go through this all again anytime soon. How do you ensure you get the new person started out right for long-term success?
First, make sure that the person to whom the new hire will report is integrally involved in setting job expectations, the interviews, and the hiring process. This will most likely be the person you rely on for feedback on the new hire’s progress: don’t sabotage this all-important feedback process by hiring someone whose eventual supervisor is against from the very beginning.
Communication is obviously important in all working relationships, but it certainly is even more so with new employees, because they come in with few or no preconceptions about the workplace. Whatever you fail to communicate effectively, the employee will have to “make up”. And it will very likely be wrong. More likely, they will come in with an understanding of how they “did it at my old job”, which may be entirely different from your procedures. Take time and be intentional about communicating EVERYTHING to your new hire. You may think something is obvious; it probably is not to a new employee. As a side note, make sure that everyone involved in providing this communication are those in your organization who you believe are really making every effort to do things properly. The less time the new hire spends with the “corner-cutters”, the better at this stage.
Training will begin on day one, but if your workplace involves dangerous equipment or procedures, or involves working with livestock or horses, safety should be the first place to start the training process. Safety is too important and the risks simply too great to ignore. Again, what may seem obvious to you or your existing employees may not be to the new person. Better to over-communicate from the very beginning than to deal with the consequences of ignorance later.
This is how creating a culture of safety begins.
For more information, contact Chris at 785-532-1672 or cdr3@ksu.edu.
