“Coming together is beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – Henry Ford.

Coming together is beginning

As a manager, it can be challenging finding a candidate that best fits the role of the position in a sea of applications. Interviewing is a two-way street. You are not just interviewing the candidate, but they should be interviewing you to determine if your business model fits their personal needs.

Do you offer pay that is competitive? Do you offer a shift that meets their needs? Do you offer attractive benefits? Do you offer room for growth/promotion? These are all important factors to consider, and you must act fast with the assumption that you were just one of a dozen other interviews they have completed that same month.

Even after extending an offer to the candidate, how well do you really know them? That first round of interviewing usually involves a poker face, either from you as the interviewer, or from the interested candidate. Be prepared to learn new things, both the good and the bad, after the first week on the job. Heck, I learn something new about my employees every day, even months after they have been hired.

Make memories together starting on day one. Again, they chose to accept your offer. Be sure to show them how much you appreciate their interest in the position. One way to do that is to better understand who they are as an individual. Take the time to better understand their interests and what motivates them.

Staying together is progress

When was the last time you checked in on your team members? For the record, I am not referring to casual hallway conversation that involves a discussion about weekend plans or summer vacation. It’s vital that you invest time specifically to pull team members aside and allow them the opportunity to provide feedback.

Don’t panic—this doesn’t have to take a full hour. Simply carve out 15-30 minutes to check in each week, or every other week until you get into a good routine. This allows you to develop an open line of communication and hear firsthand how things are going in their new role.

These meetings don’t need to follow a strict agenda. In fact, keeping it loosely structured is encouraged because it will allow your team member a chance to relax their shoulders and speak from their heart instead of saying what they believe they are expected to say. The last thing you want is to spend 30 minutes discussing the weather or other such idle small talk.

My recommendation is to skip the agenda and just use the time to have a conversation. The idea is that your team should do most of the talking while you actively listen. Give yourself permission to ignore your inbox, forward calls to voicemail, and just focus on what your employee has to say about the environment you have created for them.

Need help with conversation starters? Try these:

• How are you settling into the new role so far?
• What’s your primary focus this week?
• Do you find the role to be rewarding?
• What motivates you?
• Describe which parts of the training plan best prepared you for what the job entails.
• What would you have liked to have been trained more on?
• Which parts of the job do you find most challenging, and why?
• How is your relationship with your mentor?
• What are you looking forward to in the next three months?
• Anything I can do to help you settle in?

These conversation starters are intended for first-time meetings where your team member might not be comfortable enough sharing yet. It will take time for staff to open up to you, so don’t be surprised if the first couple of sessions require you to do most of the talking, but with each meeting, your goal should be to talk less and less—allowing them to determine the flow.

Working together is success

These conversations shouldn’t stop after their first 90 days on the job. I strongly encourage you to continue the discussions even beyond their first anniversary on the team. If necessary, at each anniversary bump the recurring frequency out by one week.

Eventually, your most seasoned staff won’t require as much face-to-face time, but it’s still important to connect, so I wouldn’t recommend stopping them simply because you ran out of things to discuss. That could be a sign that they are no longer being challenged which is why some begin to look for a different position.

Think of it this way: These discussions can help you proactively identify work-related conflicts that require your attention. While time investment is required, focus on the benefits:

• Immediate feedback on your Onboarding Plan, allowing you to adjust, as needed.
• Identify department needs by requesting feedback from staff often.
• Develop healthy relationships with your staff.
• Ensure an open line of communication is established earlier on.
• Earning respect and trust from your staff.
• Increased employee engagement.
• Lowered turnover rate.

As time goes on, you can even use these sessions to identify which team member would best pair with a project/task that needs to be completed. Try to have them share with you what they most enjoy working on. In my opinion, the quality of work is likely to be higher when someone is passionate about what they are doing rather than being forced to do something that they are not particularly interested in.

Now and into the future

In summary, these discussions can provide valuable insight for those who trust the process and choose to invest their time in their staff. Do yourself a favor and schedule recurring check-ins with staff before the end of the month. Trust me, you won’t regret it.