Season of Thanksgiving...Onboarding or Waterboarding?...& Measure What Matters!

November 2021 Newsletter

It’s the Season of Thanksgiving

This time of year, I am prone to reflect on the gifts of life for which I am most thankful. I hope that sharing my list might prompt you to share your own list with those you care about the most.

I am thankful for the clients I work with that challenge me in ways they may never realize and in return provide me with rewards beyond belief.

I am thankful for the chill of fall, the warmth of spring, and the brilliant colors of both seasons.

I am thankful for low-interest rates, relatively high employment, and an economics degree that helps me make some sense of both.

I am thankful for the opportunity to spend a month walking the 400 mile El Camino Santiago in Portugal and Spain this past year.

I am thankful to have had my mom (who passed away three years ago) who inspired me with her tremendous spirit and passion for life and a dad that left this world way before his time, but who lives within me each moment of the day.

I am thankful that almost every day my computer turns on and works flawlessly despite the bombardment of spam, spyware, and nasty viruses.

I am thankful that I live in a country where my religious faith is used less like a sword and more like a shield.

I am thankful for the great entrepreneurs of our time, such as Ray Kroc, Bill Gates, and Herb Kelleher, who have, through their own classic examples, set magnificent examples for the entrepreneurs of the future.

I am thankful for having relatively good health that allows me to walk, swim, play tennis, and barely keep up with two rambunctious sons.

I am thankful that despite all the complexities of business today, despite the overwhelming assortment of technologies that plague us, despite the ever-increasing number of adverse events we as business owners face each day; the basic principles of business have stayed steadfast. It’s still all about solving customers’ problems profitably.

I am thankful that at 18 I followed my instincts and traveled a great distance to pursue my post-secondary education which resulted in a great academic experience, a band of lifetime friends, and the opportunity to meet the girl of my dreams and life partner for 39 years.

Lastly, I am quite thankful that Small Business still Matters.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving,

Tim

FEATURED ARTICLE

Are You Onboarding or Waterboarding Your New Employees?

by Tim Fulton

I can’t imagine there has ever been a tougher time for small businesses to find and keep top talent than today. Over 15 million workers have left their jobs in the past six months. The media calls it “The Great Resignation”. How can you improve your chances of retaining your best workers? I think it starts at the beginning of their employment. I wrote the following article over five years ago and it is one of my favorites. I think it is even more relevant today than it was in 2016. Enjoy!

From Webster’s dictionary:

Onboarding: “The process by which a new employee learns the ropes and gets settled.”

Waterboarding: “An interrogation technique in which water is forced into a detainee’s mouth and nose so as to induce the sensation of drowning.”

Finding and retaining top talent has never been harder for small businesses. Research shows that if an employee is going to leave your company, the majority of the time it will be in the first 30 days and it is due to a misconnection between what the employee expected in the new job and what actually occurred.

As a result, more companies seem to focus on employee orientation and making the first 30 days for a new employee as positive of an experience as possible. The term most commonly used for this process is “onboarding”.

In my experience, while these companies’ intentions are good, the resulting experience for the new employee is less onboarding and more like waterboarding. The new hire is practically tortured starting on their first day, and it just gets worse as time passes.

Let’s look a little closer at both of these experiences for two new employees: Bill with Exceptional, Inc., and Sally with Torture Corp.

SMALL BUSINESS MATTERS - THE PODCAST

Shaun Bradley has lived the American dream. He went from selling peanuts at Green Bay Packer games as a boy, to Naval Academy graduation and service in the U.S. Navy as a young man. He then co-founded and served as CEO of Bradley-Morris, Inc. (BMI). Shaun is known as a Founding Father of the modern military recruiting industry, which in its various forms has now placed tens of thousands of veterans into positions in American industry — at no cost to them.

BMI was honored at the White House as one of the top small businesses in the country. The company opened in 1991 in a 250 square foot executive suite in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew to become a multi-location, multi-state operation, placing over 15,000 veterans with annual sales eclipsing $15M. It became one of the largest non-franchise staffing firms in the United States.

After retiring from BMI in 2007, Shaun added book author to his list of accomplishments when he published Small Business Veteran: My Journey from Lambeau Field to the White House. Today, Shaun serves as a Vistage CEO Peer Advisory Board Chair, where he facilitates the important discussions and learning necessary for sustained success among a larger network of CEOs, executives, and business owners. His Vistage role provides Shaun with the opportunity to do what he loves most—building and maintaining valuable and rewarding relationships.

LISTEN TO PODCAST >>

BOOK OF THE MONTH

Measure What Matters by John Doerr

I spend a lot of my time helping small business owners and CEOs set goals and create business plans. Many of my clients struggle to create their goals. They are too broad or too specific. Too long-term or too short-term. Too relevant or not realistic enough.

There are lots of books written on goal-setting and many of them are helpful. I recently read what might be the best book on establishing and achieving strategic goals: Measure What Matters written by John Doerr.