Well, my last few weeks have felt like a real rollercoaster ride.  Eight weeks ago I was happily leading a successful team of sales managers, delivering financial solutions to the mass affluent market in Yorkshire.  Today, I’m sat in my new London office with my new colleagues enjoying excitement and challenge in equal measure and looking forward to a new chapter in my life, returning to a dedicated role in people development.  When asked if I’d like to contribute something to the blog my thoughts went back to a previous role – that of Induction Delivery Manager looking after the needs of around 3000 new hires for a large corporate. In particular my thoughts turn to two key areas.

Firstly, close attention to the emotional journey any new-hire is likely to go through is crucial to their success.  The on-boarding process needs to recognise that journey and help the new-hire celebrate and retain the emotional and motivational ‘highs’.  It also needs to anticipate and recognise the potential lows and help the new-hire deal with the associated emotional impact.  Having now been both recruiter and ‘recruited’ the experiences have, once again, put the different perspectives into sharp focus.  One thing is undoubted, both the hiring manager and the new starter have a common interest at the outset – success.  The question is what does ’success’ look like for both and are they similar?

The challenge this throws squarely in front of the hiring manager – ‘how do you have a generic on-boarding process that caters for the needs of individuals?’.  It boils down to one thing – know your people.  Not just your new-hire but those people you already have that are likely to be the key influencers in the individual’s early development.  Checking in regularly with you new-hire is crucial.  You need to pulse check motivation.  As managers we often correlate motivation with productivity.  What’s missed is the link – development.  In order to be more productive I need to develop.  A strong belief I have brought with me to Phoenix is that, in order to develop, individuals have to have to want to learn.  For new hires or ‘old hands’ or indeed anywhere in between, the effective manager will know how to motivate the individual.

This brings me to the second part of successful on-boarding of the ‘new-hire’.  That of being aligned with the company vision, goals and values.  I spent my first day in the training room with Bill (MD and trainer) observing Phoenix’s Essential Management open course here in London.  It re-affirmed the pre-hire belief that my own values and beliefs were aligned with that of my new employer.  Imagine if they weren’t!  And it’s not just being ‘told’ the company values – as a new hire it’s vital to see those values coming through in the behaviour of leaders, managers, peers and teams.  Again this confers a responsibility on the manager to explore the individual’s values and ensuring that those of the company are communicated in a way that demonstrates that ‘you’ve made the right choice’.

Having had my confirmations that I’ve made the right choice I’m now on the lookout for lots of work – ah, the power of motivation!

Clearly during a recession, many training budgets are cut and any money spent has to be carefully considered.  It appears that the general trend is to invest in one’s managers.  To me it makes absolute sense.  It is the managers that will influence higher levels of performance within a team.  Too often money is spent on a sales team for example, in an attempt to increase performance, however if unsupported by the management team, much of this investment can be wasted.  We have found that by combining sales training with a really strong management development programme, results are much, much better.

Managing a team in an economic downturn is extremely challenging.  Motivation is generally lower, there is negativity everywhere and managers are really tested.  I am delighted to see this trend towards investing in managers and training them to ensure that they can deal with the problems and situations they are confronted by.  The response I have had from recent management groups, is that they are excited by what they are learning and recognising that, even though general levels of motivation are lower than they’d like, they can see ideas, techniques and skills that will help them.  Middle managers are often expected to be motivated and expected therefore to motivate their team members.  They need support as well!  Training helps to motivate managers and therefore have a positive effect on their teams which of course effects the level of its achievement.  I am pleased that management training now appears to be regarded as very much “results focused” and not something a bit “touchy feely”.