High performance teams are important for an organization’s success, but building these teams can sometimes take time, and mistakes can prove costly. Leaders can avoid mistakes and build effective teams by focusing on proven hiring and team building trends as well as comprehensive systems that offer 360 team development tracking.

The following articles offer tips for hiring, training and on-boarding new team members:

• 5 Ways to Turn Your Company into a Magnet for Great Candidates,
• 8 Ways to Start Your New Hire Off On the Right Foot; and,
• 8 Ways to Recover From a Bad Hire.

By creating and following a hiring plan and implementing team building strategies into the on-boarding process, leaders can hire better candidates that are compatible with the company culture and prove to be valuable assets.

Attract top talent. Creating an employer brand is an important part of attracting top talent, says 5 Ways to Turn Your Company into a Magnet for Great Candidates. Candidates are paying careful attention during their job searches, and they are doing background research on companies to determine compatibility. Hiring managers should focus on building their employer brand to attract this talent:

• Use social media. Most companies are utilizing social media, and many candidates expect some sort of web presence from companies. Create accounts and remain active by posting high-value content on a regular basis.
• Keep ads simple. Potential employees typically view many job postings in a sitting, and they are looking for simple ads in plain language that concisely list the job requirements and benefits.
• Enlist your employees. Your current employees are a great resource for finding new talent, especially if they understand the company’s brand and hiring expectations.

Start the on-boarding process. Once your new hire starts, focus on bringing the new hire up to speed and becoming part of the team, says 8 Ways to Start Your New Hire Off On the Right Foot. Some ways to incorporate the new employee into the team include:

• Facilitating introductions. New team members need to not only meet others in their own department, but they need to meet other leaders and key members from other departments as well. This allows the new team members to understand how they are part of the bigger picture.
• Create a training schedule for your new team members to ensure they understand their role and are able to meet expectations.
• Following up. After the new employees have had some time to settle in, follow up, offer feedback and give them the opportunity to share their experiences and ask questions.

Learn how to build productive teams. Just putting people together and calling them a team probably will not produce your desired outcomes. In order to build high performing and effective teams, leaders must understand how the six principles of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success affect the creation and effectiveness of the team. With a leadership clinic like the 6 Principles that Build High Performance Problem Solving Teams, leaders learn how to optimize team commitment and engagement, leverage team decisions and eliminate stress and frustrations on teams. Leaders are then able to properly train and incorporate new team members into the existing teams with ease.

Move on from bad hires. The hiring process can be fickle, and sometimes the wrong people are hired and need to be let go. According to 8 Ways to Recover From a Bad Hire, there are a few strategies that leaders can implement to get over and learn from their mistakes:

• Own the mistake. Once leaders recognize that the team member is not going to work out, they need to admit that they made a mistake and create an immediate plan of action for finding a replacement and letting the current employee go.
• Understand where you went wrong. By understanding how you made the mistake in the first place, you can avoid making the same mistake with the next hire.
• Consider reassigning employees. If you feel that the employee could be an asset somewhere else but is not valuable in their current position, consider reassigning their duties or position rather than letting the employee go completely.

Hiring, training, on-boarding and team building are all important aspects to incorporating new team members into the group and reducing friction among team members. By focusing on these important areas, leaders can reduce turnover rates while enjoying more effective and productive teams.

Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc. by Dianne Crampton

About TIGERS Success Series, Inc.

TIGERS Success Series is an Oregon Team Building Consultant headquartered in Bend, Oregon. As a Bend, Oregon team building consultant, TIGERS helps leaders build teams of employees who enjoy returning to work after a couple of days off and who are loyal and accountable for organizational success.

Based on a cooperative and collaborative team based system, TIGERS licenses HRD professionals and other consultants in the use of TIGERS proprietary team and leadership development resources. These resources include catalytic team building activities, team building facilitation methods, strategic problem solving methods and a 360 Team Climate Survey that measures the quality of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success on teams for workforce development and change management purposes. For more information Contact Us.

 The 15 HRCI recertification credits awarded for the 6 Principles Leadership Clinic is not an HRCI endorsement of the program but qualifies for 2015 recertification credit.