To be successful, we all know we need team members. Yes, that means hiring more, but it also means keeping more of our talented people on our team. We need to be thinking about retention and doing everything in our power to keep our team members with us. Everything we do as leaders needs to be about the people who keep our company running.

If we take good care of our people, they’ll take good care of our clients.

There are three steps companies can take this month to help them better support and retain team members.

Onboard with a timeline. For production team members, we need to get them up to speed quickly to save both our existing team and our new hires frustration. Nobody enjoys the feeling of not knowing what to do, where something is or how something should be done. By setting expectations and sharing knowledge early, we’re preparing our team for success. At Grunder Landscaping Co. (GLC), we spend a half-day orienting all new team members within a week of their start date, so they know where to find information, materials and any supplies they need.

Work with them. We must invest time and energy in our team members if we want them to succeed and enjoy their jobs. At GLC, our team has weekly in-house training and is also encouraged to pursue outside education, such as certifications and industry events. We take an interest in our team members’ personal goals, and we work hard to teach them the skills they need to reach them.

Check in weekly and monthly. Beyond skills training, sometimes our team needs help with more intangible things. Check in with them regularly to see if you can help make their jobs easier. These check-ins are a great opportunity to coach team members constructively or to call out jobs and tasks they’ve done particularly well. It’s also a great time for mentoring them or coaching them on skills they’ll need to reach the promotion they want.

Hire for attitude

Finding someone who joins our team “fully assembled” — with all the skills and mentality they need for success already in place — is a rarity in our industry now. Instead, we’re looking for team members who are willing to learn and have a positive attitude. This means we’re doing a lot more teaching than we used to, and it also means that we’re coaching team members through the right way to do a task more often than we did before.

We have to remember: If a team member is coachable, it’s better to teach than to start from scratch with someone new.

At GROW! 2022, we’ll cover how teams can set expectations, coach team members who aren’t meeting expectations or prevent issues from ever starting. We’ll also have sessions dedicated to addressing the big issues your business will face in 2022: making your company a great place to work, managing revenue growth without sacrificing profitability, using data to drive decision-making and refining your brand so that the right clients are calling in for work. You won’t want to miss this year’s event. Register now to hold your spot: www.growgroupinc.com/grow-2022.