By Daman Jeet Singh, co-founder of FunnelKit, a suite of sales tools that helps 18,000+ businesses streamline their checkout process.
Building a team from the ground up is far from easy. Most business owners want a strong team that works efficiently and can help the company grow, but actually forming your ideal team can seem nearly impossible.
I’m here to tell you that it isn’t. You can put in the work and create a system that cultivates positivity and productivity, which I believe are the foundation for building a high-performing team. I’ve implemented a few strategies across my company’s brands and have seen tremendous success when it comes to building the right team. Here are five important things you should remember on your team-building journey.
1. Hire passionate, qualified individuals.
Building a strong team starts with hiring the right people. While this might seem like an obvious first step, it’s important to consider what goes into hiring the right people for your company.
In my experience, one of the most important things a potential hire can have is a passion for the industry. Passionate people are more likely to innovate, ask questions and push us to do better, which makes them an asset.
But passion isn’t everything. It’s also important to test applicants so you can assess their skills and knowledge. Review their application, follow up with their references and ask targeted questions during the interview so you can make sure they are fit for your company.
2. Develop an effective onboarding process.
Now, it’s time to talk about how onboarding can have a tremendous impact on the success of individuals and your team as a whole. You probably know that onboarding involves getting new employees comfortable with the company and their role, but there’s more to it than that.
Onboarding is also a critical part of building a strong employee-employer relationship. It’s hard for someone to give it their all if they don’t understand what’s expected of them or have the resources to figure it out independently. I suggest compiling resources like standard operating manuals, training documents and online courses in one easy-to-navigate folder. In this material, I like to include a checklist for new hires to follow during the first two weeks so they get off on the right foot.
If you can do this and be there to answer questions as they arise, there’s an excellent chance your employees will have all the tools they need to perform well in their roles.
3. Establish clear goals and expectations.
Now that you’ve hired and onboarded the beginning of your team, it’s time to talk about establishing clear goals and expectations. This step is essential for a high-performing team. When everyone knows what they’re working toward and what you and other team members expect of them, they’re more likely to do their best work.
Here are a few quick tips you should remember when creating and monitoring goals and expectations:
• Set key performance indicators for your team and individuals.
• Create a KPI spreadsheet where employees can enter their progress each week.
• Track their metrics, and create a new page each quarter so you can better understand how everyone is doing and where to improve.
• If you make a promise, keep it. This is part of managing expectations and building trust with your team.
4. Make team-building a part of your culture.
Team-building exercises turn employees into high-level performers. When people feel comfortable and connected, they’re more likely to collaborate, brainstorm and work efficiently toward common goals.
There are plenty of ways you can help your team build rapport. I suggest having plenty of projects where teams are put in a position where they need to work together. For example, we often have our content marketers and social media marketers collaborate so they can keep their tone and messaging consistent.
You can also help team members get to know one another in other ways. One thing we like to do is encourage our employees to engage with each other in our family chat channel. People share their interests, hobbies and even just funny memes. There are also clubs within our family channel. We’ve seen a lot of team building in the fitness club and reading group.
All of these lead to a strong culture where people feel connected, which is vital to building a strong team.
5. Don’t overlook the importance of feedback.
Finally, we need to talk about how feedback is crucial for the growth and development of your team. When you want to improve things for your customers, you probably start by asking for feedback. The same rules apply to your team members.
To create an environment that encourages team members to do their best, you need to give them opportunities to deliver feedback while giving suggestions of your own on their performance. There are several things you can do to make feedback a regular part of the culture. I like to have quarterly reviews with my team where we discuss what they’ve accomplished, where they can improve and what I’d like to see next quarter.
I make sure to ask them to share their opinions on my leadership and our workflows. I want to do my best and expect the same from them. Setting high standards for myself and opening the door to being critiqued is crucial for establishing mutual respect.
You should also send out annual surveys so you can see how people feel about working for your company. Use their responses to shape your business and create a well-rounded experience for everyone.
As you can see, there’s a lot you can do when building a high-performing team. The tips I’ve outlined today will help you create a framework that you can use to take your business and your team to the next level.
