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Onboarding new event staff

Eventstaff
April 11, 2023

In the events industry, you're always bringing on new staff.

Bigger events call for larger teams. Students move on after graduation. Turnover can be high.

With new people joining your team regularly, how can you onboard them quickly and effectively?

Let’s look at some simple onboarding techniques you can implement to onboard new staff members within your event company.

Check the boxes

This one’s more work at the outset but you’ll be thanking yourself later!

When your event company was just starting out, it was probably easy to personally walk each new hire through procedures and expectations.

However, as your team grows, it can be hard to keep track of what you’ve covered with each person. That’s where a checklist comes in.

Create a master document for yourself or others to follow when onboarding new event employees. Your checklist can cover everything from ensuring that your new hire’s paperwork has been submitted to covering health and safety protocols.

With a checklist, your onboarding will be consistent and complete for each employee, and you can stop the guessing game of what you’ve covered with each team member.

Just the FAQs

Just like a checklist, a frequently asked questions document (or, an FAQ document) will ensure consistent information for your new team members.

When new employees join your company, provide them with a document with answers to common questions.

When they have questions about basic procedures, they’ll have this resource to turn to. And you’ll save yourself from extra emails answering the same question for multiple staff members.

Follow the leader

When we wrote about tactics for retaining the best employees, we mentioned how delegating increased responsibility will show experienced staff that they’re valued and trusted.

Here’s an instance where you can apply that tip!

Rather than explaining processes and demonstrating tasks yourself, task one of your more senior team members with this role.

The new employee can shadow the experienced team member for a couple shifts to learn the ropes. This gives them the opportunity to learn by doing and they may also feel more comfortable asking questions to a peer, rather than to a manager or business owner.

Check in with your new team members

While automating some onboarding processes with checklists and FAQ documents and delegating training can save you time and effort, it doesn’t remove you from onboarding processes!

Make sure to prioritize consistent check-ins with your new team members. Follow up to see how they’re finding the role, if it’s a good fit, if they have any questions, or if they have new ideas.

Maintaining an open dialogue with your team members will have them feeling comfortable and part of the team quickly. They’ll also know that you are approachable and they can come to you with feedback, ideas, and questions.

Reward great performance

Incentives aren’t only for longtime employees.

Show all team members that they’re valued by offering incentives, whether they be financial or otherwise. And most importantly, recognize great work!

If you see a new employee working hard and exceeding expectations, make sure you tell them!

Even better, recognize examples of great work in a team setting. Your team members can all learn from each other, whether it’s their first event or their hundredth.

Be on the same page

More than procedures, paperwork, and payroll, onboarding is an opportunity to ensure that all employees buy into the company’s vision and values.

Your company’s culture should be communicated from an employee’s first day with your event company – or even before, during the recruitment process!

Spend some time considering how you can best communicate your company’s vision and values to all new team members, and also how they can be top of mind for all of your staff at events.

What’s Next?

Here are a few articles that may be helpful after you've onboarded your new staff:

Let us help!

The easiest part of onboarding can be creating and communicating schedules, assigning tasks, and providing event specifics to your team!

Using an employee scheduling assistant like Quickstaff will save both you and your new employees time. Quickstaff is easy for you to implement and maintain, and simple for employees to learn and use.

Try it out and see for yourself with a free 14-day trial.

No cost and no credit card required. Cancel anytime.

Photo credit: Christina Morillo

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