How To Develop Great Relationships With Staff

Business TalkAugust 17, 202029 Comments01.1k

You’ve spent time, money and energy setting up the recruitment process in your business, selecting a range of candidates to be interviewed and then booked out your working day to go through the selection interview process. And you have appointed the right candidate for the right job role. Great!

The big challenge however, is just starting…

How you develop your new recruit, not just into their job role, but integrating them into a team and the business as a whole by building relations with customers, suppliers, partners, and so on?

Here is a list of some of the ways you can develop relationships with new recruits and also keep existing staff happy and focused…

Get to know new employees when they arrive by arranging a full day induction as part of their overall company induction in your ways of working, procedures, health and safety processes, expectations and performance development, and both internal and external relations, especial with your customers.
Involve other staff in induction programmes and get them to participate in topic discussions and icebreaker games.
Spend time with employees to show an interest in them personally by regularly speaking with them on a one-to-one basis using words to show your appreciation for jobs well done and thank them for the effort they’ve put in.
Catch employees doing things right and celebrate achievements quickly both privately and publicly by recognising their contribution to the project.
Don’t catch employees out doing things wrong. Instead, offer advice and assistance and help them improve their daily tasks and overall responsibilities that they’re struggling with by asking them if there is anything you can help them with or by telling them you have some extra time and you would like to give them a hand with a certain task. Then follow up by checking they can follow the procedure that you’ve worked with them on and ensure ongoing training and coaching on performance development is being correctly implemented.
Communicate clearly about opportunities and further experience that would be useful for their development in the business.
Hold regular one-on-one and team meetings to touch base, such as sitting down once a week to catch up on how things are going and discuss ways to improve and encourage new ideas.
Create an email newsletter and send out weekly round-ups. These could include welcoming new staff and thanking everyone in general and teams who worked on achieving specific projects. You can also get employees to contribute tips and answers to frequently asked questions from customers.
Set up a system to encourage employees to recognise one another for going above and beyond their job role to help someone else or a valued customer, or if they’ve come up with a great original idea or a new way of working.
Encourage activities that foster engagement such as a particular charity that everyone would like the business to be affiliated and to raise funds for.

By installing some, or all of these staff development activities in your business, you will start to create great relationships and bring new members of your team onboard with a good impression and the realisation that they have joined the right company for them and that they can look forward to getting first class experience, improving their learning and performance and creating new relationships at work.