Episode 2: Onboarding...Hope you brought a helmet.

 Okay, here we go. Episode two.It is event season.It is July. And everyone is in the weeds getting in the thick of it. So today we wanna talk about onboarding. Yeah. Did you do it? Well? Sometimes! Those are the questions we’re gonna talk about today.

Episode two. Let's do it.

 Entry song. Welcome to, it's Just My Face with Adrienne and Leorah. It's just my face is the after party where event pros get real about the work, the wins, and the what the fuck moments We're gonna be mixing stories, strategies, and yes, some rants, but we're here to help you grow your business, lead your team. And keep your sanity in this chaotic world we call the event industry. 

So as we said, everyone is in the thick of event season right? We’re going… and I can't help but wonder, how many of you, as you were hiring your assistants and your seconds and your cooks and your servers for the season, took the time to properly onboard your team. Or if they just threw a manual at them or they had like one day of shadowing and they're like, yeah, you got this, bro. Yeah. They said, done this before. Right? You've got this. Good luck! You got this. Thank you! I have all the faith in the world in you. Bye! I wonder how they felt when they got those things thrown at them. Yeah, t's tough because onboarding a new employee, everyone knows it takes a lot of time. Yeah, right. It takes a lot of energy. You gotta carve out the time. But when you don't Right. It could work out. Maybe you hired a rockstar and they don't need it. I think that's fairly rare. Yeah, everybody needs some sort of training. Even if they know what they're doing, they still don't know how you want it done. Right. So everybody needs something. Yeah, so you have that end or you have people that, you know, get thrown into it and then they end up compromising your brand and you get complaints.

Well that’s my biggest question, Adrienne, you owned your event planning company for a few years. You know what you're doing. You built up that brand. You built up your reputation. How do you build that trust and how do you take the action to make sure that the people that you are bringing onto your team are able to. Live up to that reputation and are to represent your brand the way that you intend that brand to be represented. Sure. In my onboarding when I had that business, there was, a little trial and error I guess you would say. I think initially I didn't do a great job. I got lucky with a few really great hires, and I know they listen to this, so they probably know I'm talking to them. I was blessed with a few amazing ladies who great from the jump. They prioritized the brand, they took feedback. Well, I mean, they're, it was amazing, right? Yeah. And then as I grew, like a lot of you guys, you gotta hire more people. , And you just think that like, oh, everyone's gonna be like this, right? Not the case, so then I brought on a few people and kind of treated them the way I did my initial group. And I got some complaints. I had vendors tell me that my product was inconsistent. I had a few cranky customers, those things can sometimes be found on Google, buried deep down, which are never fun. At least you buried them. I, tried. But, those things are never, never fun. And then I think it just took, unfortunately for me, learning the hard way that if you fail to prioritize that, then you end up in a bad spot. And then also I burned a really good employee by not onboarding them correctly by taking advantage of them and just kind of throwing them in there and getting them out there. I burned 'em out. That’s a shame. Yeah, it was awful. And, I think she would've stayed with me a lot longer if I hadn't have done that. We would've had a much better relationship.

That brings up a good point, you know we see in the hospitality world that our retention rate is piss poor. sucks. Turnover is what? Did you read something like, oh yeah, I found some, yeah, I found some stats from the robot. It's like 70%. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Yeah, that's no good. But I think we, we see it everywhere. It's not just in, these small companies like yours with, you know, entrepreneurial small businesses., we see it across the board. I mean, I've been working in more corporate environments, larger companies for my career, and it's always been a challenge everywhere I go. Even in my last position, it was like, great, you know how to do your job, so go for it! Good luck! I was like, cool, well, um, can someone show me where the bathroom is? And then, trying to figure out how to do my job in this place, the way that this place does the work that we're trying to do, and trying to seek out files on my own or trying to. Seek out process by chasing people down. And that's super unproductive for sure. You know, because the expectations obviously started the moment I walked in the door without any ramp up time. And then I was chasing after information maybe that was good because it made me resourceful and it made me develop some relationships with people. But at the same time, my productivity was way down. I probably went into two years being there not knowing fully. How to do some things or that, that was the way that things were done here, because no one ever told me. Yeah. And I think that goes into, you know, this industry like yourself is full of a lot of peak performers. Right? If you don't create proper expectations, and goals and things for those sorts of people, they tend to, struggle actually a little bit in my opinion. They need, okay, this is what I need you to go do. This is how I'm gonna set you up for success now. Now go be free.

Right. But you, you know, but you give them those tools and that backbone to, to go do that. Yeah. Um, but then if that's not there, I kind of feel like they kind of float around a little bit and they get a little lost. Yeah, and also those who are those A type performers - I would love to say, I'm good at asking questions, but I'm also a perfectionist. And I also want people to think that I know what the fuck I'm doing all the time. So admitting sometimes that I don't know something, and asking for help is really hard. So it's being set up to not being enabled to feel like I'm in an environment where I can ask those questions. Sure. You know, and that's the struggle. Well, I think you're also, you're setting up a strong foundation too, of trust with your manager in the onboarding process, right. Hopefully hopefully you do feel like you can come to them with questions or concerns. And then hopefully those sorts of things are maintained for the relationship through one-on-ones and additional training. But I think obviously those first couple weeks are so crucial, I think to building that foundation of trust and confidence, if the time commitment isn't there, then I don't think we can be shocked when people vacate a position when we have done a crappy job of that. I think we all have to kind of look at that and unfortunately, yeah, to me, like me, learn some hard lessons and, and then honestly see some good onboarding, like I've seen the reverse of that. I've seen companies do a killer job and it changed everything the way I've done, that going forward. When you're like, oh, wow, that's what this is supposed to be like. So, you know, the questions today are, what is that? What does onboarding look like? How do we avoid having a team of employees that don't have the tools that they need to be successful? How do we have employees that have trust in you and have buy-in and commitment to you, to stay, they feel well taken care of, they were given the tools that they need to succeed. How do we keep and retain year after year. That's the goal, right?

Because also new hires, they cost a lot of money. Oh, yes. Yes. I think that's such a great point of if anybody has not taken the time to analyze how much money they lose in the turnover of, a salesperson, in the downtime of lead follow up. Honestly, if you're a manager and you jump in and you have to work leads instead of prioritizing your people, like the loss of that time is massive. You don’t get it back. You don't get it back. It’s money out the door. In so many different ways. So I obviously would encourage people to, analyze that number and probably lose a little sleep over it after they've done that. Probably. Okay, so how do we do all these things? You have a new hire starting, you need to carve out time to get them onboarded. Tip one. And that time first comes individually for you, the onboarder. Right. make sure that you have a plan and that you have a plan for them and a goal of how long they're gonna be training for and then when they're going to start entering into the role. Yes, absolutely. It's an on-ramp and it should not be a steep one, right? It shouldn’t be a cliff. No. I mean, it can have varying degrees, but you wanna make sure that you, know when your goal for having them at certain stages. Yes. But don't throw them in the first day. Definitely. Or even like the first week for sure. So that takes timing and planning on your part. Definitely, definitely. And I think it even backs up farther than that. Right? So you know you're hiring somebody, they accept you got an offer letter, you got a start date. It's in two weeks, let’s say they have to quit their other job and then they're gonna join you. Awesome. Okay. So you have to start planning immediately if you don't already have a plan, right? I mean, you knew you were hiring. Yeah, you knew you were hiring. So technically you had a little bit more time than just those two weeks. That's that's fair weeks. Because for me, in my previous, roles, it would start with, technology, so I need X equipment by X date. I need all these logins. One of the worst experiences I personally ever had with a new hire was that I was supposed to have their computer. I submitted my request. I probably could have followed up a few more times, knocked on the IT guys' door but there were complications that the computer got sent somewhere else. Oh god! Yeah. So this girl shows up. I got no computer. Not great, but none of her logins work 'cause it's not set up configured right and her first week was totally upended because of this and I was very embarrassed. I felt like that's her first representation of me in this organization is that we just don't have our shit together.

Well, I think it's funny that you say that you say that again, working for a large company, there's certain credentials that you need to get and then accesses to certain programs. And, It is consistent. Every new hire for years and years and years, you can't get them their credentials 'cause it comes through the corporate system. Take weeks to get it. So even if you get it, as soon as they get hired and they accept their offer letter, they can still show up. Day one, we're still waiting for approval. And then once that happens, then we need to request the access to the systems. And that can take another couple of weeks. So we're waiting. And sometimes they need to have training on those systems. So, all of that puts us behind because we just can't get the basic access into the proprietary systems that we need. And it's just, I mean, it's inevitable. I guess we just have to accept it, but good god! Yeah, agreed. Unbelievably frustrating and, number one, you're embarrassed. Number two, you're behind schedule. Number three, you just look like a fucking punk to your new hire. And you know, but you also don't wanna throw your boss under the bus because like, you're trying to be a part of the team, right? And you're like, yeah, so this is so sorry. This is just kind of a thing. I'm sure it'll be fine, but at the same time, if you're an owner or you are in a position of power when it comes to this, you guys got to prioritize the technology of the new hires. I can't tell you how bad that is. Just put yourself in their seats. If you show up and your, tech's not ready, somebody's old shit in your desk, stuff is dirty, I mean, come on. To my point. I kind of got into this groove where it's like, I want that laptop in my hands. If they're starting on a Monday, I want it on Thursday. Yes. Because I am going to test all this shit out and make sure it works. 'cause I am not gonna, I'm, no!



That to me, brings up an even bigger piece of the pie here, which is making sure that you have a welcoming environment for your new hire, the moment they walk in the door. Because, again, work for places is just, you show up and you don't have your tech, you don't have your desk, you don't have things set up for them. But I remember when I started a job, years ago, I came in and my desk was set up, there was a plant and a welcome cart on it, and I felt so welcome. And there was a training plan printed out on my desk, that was for my first week every day, hour by hour. If I had desk time, that's fine. But I had meetings with the stakeholders in the company that I needed to meet with. Lunch was scheduled for me, always every day with someone. So I didn't have to figure out, what do I do to this time? Right. I was connecting with people. Nice. And it was just like I knew what I was doing my first week and I didn't have to worry about it. And I have taken that plan to my subsequent jobs and giving it to my new hires, because it worked so well. And I've seen the opposite. And when I walked into my next job and I saw that people were just thrown to the wind. When I finally got to hire my own people, it was like, oh no, this is the plan. That's awesome. They're going to feel welcome. They're going to know that I have a plan for them, and that's gonna fill them with so much trust and excitement and comfort. That's the environment we need to welcome them into. A hundred percent. Well that's the power of a, a nice, positive experience that you had too. Right? So it's like, you know, if you guys are doing those sort of things, you're only grooming, you're only making this problem less, or you're helping improve it, right. If you are doing this on your own, 'cause where, who knows where that person might take that experience. Yeah. Right? Or they take a negative one and go, I'm never gonna be. Do that. So I guess it can kind of go, both ways. Yeah, so I think I love the, the full plan of attack for like the full week and the scheduled lunches and all of that. Similar experiences where I've done that and that's so much better. And then you have meetings with key people.

I also loved when, the entire organization knew a new hire was coming. When like, you showed up somewhere and they were like, oh, you're so and so, so nice to meet you. Oh, you're in this department, right? Yeah. Like that's. Awesome. Versus somebody going, who the fuck are you? Right? Who’s this new guy? Or this, the, the person at the front desk being like, oh, sorry, I didn't know you were starting today. Hold on just one second. And they're super nice. Right? But, you feel like an outsider. Yeah, it’s like High school, flash backs all over again. You're like, what am I supposed to do? Yes. Yeah. Cause no one wants to feel that they’re back in high school, right? I believe people want their organizations to feel like a community. Yeah. Right. I know some people don't like to use the word family. 'Cause families can't hold each other accountable. You know, they have unconditional love, but you know, they want them to feel like a community. So honestly, some of these really small things, like just making sure people in the building know a new person is coming. Yeah it’s huge. Can make such a huge difference. And yeah, to your point, having that nice blueprint for week, two weeks, however long that makes sense. Yeah. And then to sit down and review it with them, like, this is our plan for the week. Yeah. I wanna make sure you feel good about everything, but this is, this is what we're gonna accomplish. This is what we're gonna do. And it's subject to change. Because we do need to have flexibility. Like what? Well, if something really cool pops up that we're gonna , have to get into. Oh yeah. Yeah. Or like, or here's the other thing. If something has to come off that plan because some shit went down or whatever, you know, it happens. We know that's the basis of what we do every day is fixing shit that went wrong. That changes. Right? Definitely. But rescheduling it and making sure that that. Gets picked back up after it gets dropped. Yeah, follow through that's a very good point. That's a very good point. Time management, right? And protecting the time and making sure. That that time is there. I think one of the things that I had struggled with at one point was just like I, I would say, Hey, I got a new hire coming in, you know, gonna be clearing some stuff off of my schedule. Sometimes I was met with resistance of this. Right. Which I felt was unbelievably counterproductive from peers and fellow leaders when it's just like, oh no, like I can't do this that week 'cause I have a new hire, I gotta prioritize that. And then like sometimes I got shit for that. And I was like, I sometimes I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. It was like, I don't, I don't get it. And then I felt sometimes pulled in multiple directions. Sure. that, hey, like I can't do my core functions just 'cause I have a new hire. Right? But I need to prioritize this new hire, but I don't feel supported in prioritizing my new hire. So what the fuck do I do?

Here's the rub we talked about how expensive it is to have a new hire, and the expense of turnover It's also a time expense. You know, that time is money, right? Yeah. But also you're spending that time. The thing is if you don't spend and carve out that time at the beginning to properly train your employee. You're gonna spend that time down the road anyway. You're gonna pay for it. You're gonna pay for it with time, and it's gonna be more frustrating. It may not be a positive experience for either one of you. You know, maybe because something went wrong or went bad. It's gonna be harder to get that time back because you didn't have a chance to plan for it. . But you're gonna pay that time. Right. In blood and sweat and tears. Lots of tears. Tears. Lots of tears. 'Cause when that, you know, person bails on you and all of a sudden you're working 65 hours a week and you know, you have 225 emails in your inbox and you're freaking out and now you gotta pay for a new hire again. Now you gotta do it all over again.

So to recap a few things. Yeah, let’s recap. So number one. You gotta carve out the time. You gotta work backwards. Right? You have a new hire starting, or you're hiring, so you need to start planning then. Yeah. You gotta start planning for their gear, their equipment, create that nice welcoming environment. I think about that plant, like that plant was probably so not a big deal to the person who just stopped and picked it up on their way in. But I'm sure it was a big deal to you. She does it for every new hire. That's amazing. Oh dude, that's sweet. That's awesome. Still to this day. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So get a plant. Get a plant or I dunno. A cookie. Then, have a plan. Review the plan, and then if something gets dropped in the plan, don't leave it, pick it back up. Totally. So, here’s the other piece, when you're putting that plan together, who are you involving in creating that plan? Is it just you, who thinks that you know everything that they need to know, or are you asking your other employees? What does this person need to know? What do you wish you knew when you started here? Is this collaborative? You know, how do we build that team mentality straight from the get go? Yeah. Tthat everyone has a say, everyone has a stake in it because also the on your team who've been through it, they're the experts. They know what they need to know.. They know what they didn't know. So engage them and ask them to be a part of it. Take on a lot of the training burden too, because then you can also a lot of that time back. Definitely. I think one thing that an organization I worked for, we did pretty well, was, different departments, train different departments, so, sales team would hang out with ops.They would hang out with, warehouse. They would take shifts in, other departments. Yeah. To learn about the product and the process, and how their role kind of plays in it. I love that.and.it was great. It was of course a part of community building, right? People got to know each other, right? That wouldn't, normally work together they might see each other and High Five or say hi, but they wouldn't. Work on a project together technically. So, you know, number one, it, it did that. But then number two, I think it gave great context as well to, other people's positions, and I think it also gave good understanding to that. So this is my role and that's their role. And how do, how does that all integrate and support. The the entire organism that is this, this company? Yeah, and when they intersect, how does that affect everybody? Yes. And, and how and when they break.. How does that affect everybody? Cause a drop in the sales department, a drop in warehouse, a drop in operations, all those things impact each other. Right. So, so we did that and I thought that was really helpful. And then also from a personal standpoint, it gave me a slight break too in the training schedule. So this person's gonna be here for a couple hours, I can catch up on a few of these things. Yeah. And then I was right back into it. Totally, I think so too. You know, going back to the brand conversation and some of the people who are listening to us today, they aren't coming from those office and corporate backgrounds and they still have teams that they move to onboarding. But they have amazing portfolios of their work. Just giving them time to just sit through. And take a look at what your aesthetic is, what your design approach is. Just do some studying and quiet time. So that they get a break. And they're also learning and you are getting a break. And they're getting some time back is so important.

I also wanna go back and say that I loved what you were saying about the cross-department stuff and coming from operations and food and beverage and events and landed in sales, I've always said that the best salespeople. Need to understand what the operation is like. A hundred percent. Right. Salespeople, you know, we have the reputation of selling the dream and not really understanding, but we also can't properly answer questions from our clients on how things are going to be when they need to have a vision of their event is gonna look like. Yeah. And having that background is so, so fundamental, I think, of being, successful. And good. A good salesperson. And just because if you have that background, you should still, when you go somewhere new. To your point, be connecting with that event ops team, with that banquet team. With those event managers, with that culinary department to see like, well, what does it look like? Shadow the events, be there. You don't have to be there every time, but you gotta learn. You gotta see how that rubber actually meets the road. A hundred percent. Yeah. So it makes you a better sales person. Gives you, again, context, it gives you understanding. You brought up what I think I wanted to circle back to Leorah, you brought up the working with like, the feedback mechanism, right? Who's a new hire for you that's maybe six months in, what was their feedback to your onboarding? What did they feel like they didn't learn or they missed out on? I still remember one of the feedbacks that I got when I was kind of doing some new onboarding and this girl roasted me. Oh no. Just kind of felt like I missed the mark on a couple key things for her. And then she was kind of tossed into the position and, I was like, dang, you know, another eye-opening experience of, of things I could do better. But if I hadn't asked for that feedback, I wouldn't have gotten it right. I just would've been like, oh, she's good. Right? Um, but then I adapted. Good for her for feeling comfortable enough to be able to share that with you. Yeah. So I guess I created a comfortable environment. I just did shitty onboarding. But, you know, can't win 'em all. Right. But, but anyways, if I hadn't asked for that, she wouldn't have told me and then I wouldn't have prioritized that going forward. Right. So, but yeah, to your point, you know, getting that feedback from your current team and then also utilizing them.

I know I think earlier in this session, I talked a little bit of shit about shadowing. I do like a good shadow session with a top performer, like if somebody's really crushing it and they're working on a cool project and you wanna sit that person with them for a little bit, I think that's good. Here's the key, you need to know who's a good person to shadow, because some people, sure, like they may be a star performer, but if they got someone under their wing , they’d be like, uh, I don't know. I just sit here and I just do. Doo doo doo do doo. And the person shadowing them is like, I got nothing out of that. That's fair. There's like a little bit of an art to knowing how to have a shadow. A very good point. Yeah. 'cause just because they're a rockstar at their job doesn't mean they're a good shadow or, or a good trainer. Yeah. Very good point.

So we've onboarded, we've taken the time, we've gotten input. We've introduced, different departments. They're up and running. We've checked in with them to see what else they need. So that's it. No. Fuck no. Fuck. No. How did I know you were going to say that? Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, again, another thing that I feel like I've, I've done well and I've also done poorly in my career, is, know, prioritizing one-on-ones, touch bases, whatever you wanna call them with, you know. Raps. I hate when they call them Raps. TB’s. I used to call 'em TB’s - touch bases. I know it's kind of creepy, right? I know. But I feel like one-on-ones is fairly popular, but, you know, not waiting till quarterly reviews Yeah. To spend time with them. I think again, in that time investment, you're gonna get so much more out of that and you're gonna get ahead of so many more problems. Basically, if you’re not doing them, you're doing something wrong, like, what the fuck are you doing? Right. Because your team members may not feel that they can come to you outside of those times, which is a whole other issue. Yeah. There are all these things that come up every day. And yes, you can have an open-door policy and say, come talk to me. But that gets filled with all the little things, right? Like the question Yeah. Leads or the event executions or, or whatever it is. But the bigger picture stuff that we can sit down and pull the curtain back and get ahead of things. So that we're. Moving things along is so important. And then if you're having those regular meetings too, like you can track that, right? So if like, you know, they brought up this and this was maybe an action item for you. Like, I am struggling with my relationship with my cubicle mate. She talks too much and she bothers me. Right. So you're like, okay, cool. That's on my list to work on that for you. Yeah. So it's always important that if you're having those one-on-ones that obviously you have, you have things to work on for your staff. I think just because again, we're talking about it in this very corporate environment, I still opportunity to do these check-ins and these feedback sessions when you are operationally on the floor. Are you doing post event recaps with your team? Every event. Individually. Like if things went great or if things went wrong, or just because it's part of your process after the day, after the event, the Monday after the event, whatever it is. Are you sitting down and being like, Hey, how'd that go? What were your challenges? What worked well? What could we work on for the future? There's opportunity for continuous feedback no matter what area of the business they're getting. Yeah. Continuous feedback and continuous training. I think that's something that also kind of gets lost after we onboard it and we hire and we train somebody. Right. And then they're good at their job and then what? Right? It's like, you know, obviously people want promotions and they want all of those sort of things, but some of my favorite organizations always make an investment in the continuous education and training of their staff. And, and I'm not just paying for somebody to go to Vegas and get drunk for three days at a conference is not what I'm talking about. I’m talking about, you know, what can you do to help them like further along in their actual career? I had somebody who had a LinkedIn learning credit for their team, so, they incentivized them to, in their spare time to go on there and learn and up a skill. And then they made a big deal after somebody got a certificate. Like it was just something like that that doesn't cost an organization a lot of money, but they continued to invest in the education and the growth of that person. You have people in their sixties and their seventies who stayed with an organization for 30 years. Leorah, that's not a thing for our generation and even the group following us, that's not a thing. Right? It's very common to quote unquote job hop. So it's more, it's more up to these organizations of how. Do they keep people that are great at their jobs that are in the right role. How do they keep them for longer? That's the goal. And one of those things is, you know, you have to. They're not getting bored and they're not getting burnt out you know. Additional education, training, advancement, challenges, all of those things. So if you're just slow on the gun and you're neglectful, then they're just gonna go find something else to do. Like that's just, I think a, that's a company's failure to adapt.

And then, you know what you gotta do? What's that? Spend more money. And more time onboarding then we go back to the full circle of why if you don't onboard, you're just shooting yourself in the foot, you're wasting money. They're gonna leave you for your competitor. Take all your secrets. Take all your secrets. And then you're gonna be all pissy. You're gonna see them at a networking event and you're gonna pretend like everything's fine. When it's not, When it's not. And it's awkward. It's weird. Probably just, just for me.

I think we covered it. I think we covered a lot. So we just need to wrap. Let's wrap it up. Let's wrap it up. Yeah. Well, that is it for our episode on onboarding. As always, we would love, love, love to hear your feedback. If you have more stories that you'd like to share about it, please do you know how to reach us Instagram. Facebook. Yes, because we're old, we're still on there too and through our website, follow, tell all your friends, we want to hear your feedback too about other things that you wanna talk about. We're really excited to get things going. This was episode two. I'm Leorah. This is Adrienne. This is It’s Just My Face. Bye bye.