How to build your team
Progressing from middleweight to manager
Firstly, training a successor helps the company you work for. It ensures there are no gaps in the organisation when someone moves on, particularly when the role is a critical one.
Organisations that do not plan for succession well are often left feeling the effects of turnover and staffing changes for quite some time.
More importantly in this instance, why succession planning is important is to help you transition into a new role when the time comes.
If a new opportunity comes your way and there is no one immediately ready to step-in, your transition to the new role will always be held back. You’ll find yourself doing double-duty indefinitely, which will impact your success in the new role.
Don't forget, your management team is an important ally in the training of your successor, and they should be on board with this too.
Communicate your intentions, and ask for their help to prepare measurable milestones that will demonstrate an increasing level of readiness in your successor. You might be surprised by the buy-in they get from your management teams!
Setting expectations is a great first step when training a new employee. This not only means setting expectations about what the training and onboarding process will look like, but expectations around what you expect from your new employee.
You can do this with a:
Clearly-defined job description
Formal training process
0-60-90-day plan
Each new hire will be different in terms of their background, experience, and skill gaps. They may have preferences to their ways of working, how they like to receive tasks, and work with others. So it’s important to get a true sense of their needs when they start. This can be done in a few different ways, including an informal conversation and encouraging questions.
You can then use this to tailor your training to your new hire’s needs, you can keep them engaged and excited rather than bored by areas of expertise they’ve already mastered.
Partner your new hires with willing existing employees to learn the ropes. This helps them foster new connections and improve their experience - leading to retention. One study found that 86% of new employees who had a mentor during the onboarding phase were more likely to stay with their company long-term.
The training and onboarding process can be tedious and overwhelming. In payroll, there’s so much to learn. And with remote employees, it may be even more difficult to keep them engaged—or gauge how they’re feeling.
Build in different types of learning throughout your training program to cater to the different ways people learn.
Once your new employee is fully trained, schedule time to check in so they can ask questions, share what they’ve learned, or follow up on an area they were hoping to improve.
This is also a great time to talk with your new employee about career goals and growth. Once they’ve had a little experience and time working with your agency, they may have an idea of the paths for growth. By giving them space to share these goals and provide feedback, you can focus on retaining them long-term.
Jennifer Morrell has been training our new payroll recruits to bring more expertise onto our Managed Payroll Team.
These are her top tips from this project.
Meet wider business teams
Have regular team check-ins and 1-2-1s
Create the right work environment
Ensure support is available
Ask for feedback
Even better, ask for ideas!
When it comes to building your team, focus on progress, not perfection.
Listen to Jenn's full point of view from our webinar!
WATCH HERE
