Often I am told, “Wow! You have an amazing team of young adults who work for you.” When I decided to leap into entrepreneurship, my goal was to attract a team that loved kids and had a passion for delivering memorable experiences to our guests. Your employees today could very well be the next leaders in your center. As leaders, we need to hire and train the right people from the get-go. Over the past 12 years, I have had the honor of coaching, mentoring, and employing hundreds of young adults who wanted a chance to prove they could make a difference.
Mold Them Into Great Employees
Too often we hear, “Oh, these teens! All they do is stay on their phones when they should be working.” Or “They just don’t have the work ethic we had.” What we need to do as leaders is make sure we hire and train the right people from the get-go and then mold them into great employees, helping them begin their journey into the workforce.
Start with Hiring
It’s a busy Saturday, and three of your party hosts didn’t show up. The snack bar staff has been plagued by the flu, and your best all-around employee just quit for a bigger and better opportunity. You’re in a panic and ready to hire the next person who walks in the door.
Does this sound like something that has happened to you?
Whether you are an existing center or opening up your first center, hosting a job fair and audition process will help you weed out candidates who may not be a good fit for your center.
Job Fair
As business owners, we should always be looking for the best candidates for our team. Hosting a job fair is a great way to get access to a vast pool of candidates. A job fair allows us to meet them in person to see if the candidate is the right person for your center. Hold more than one job fair and hold them on a consistent basis so you have fresh talent, and also so your staff becomes part of this consistent process.
Group Auditions
Why group auditions? The reality is traditional interviews don’t work as you will hear what you want – you’re desperate, they have the right answers, the candidate may be very good one-on-one but not with a group. Auditions are a great way to see your candidate’s personality. The audition should ignite their passion and enthusiasm and allow their talent and skill to show.
Providing Training
Statistics show if you provide training, your employees are more likely to be high performers and stay longer. Providing employee training is not only beneficial to the individual but also helps your business run efficiently. When you train, your employees have a better understanding of how they are expected to perform. However, it’s only one step in a long-term process.
Ongoing coaching and training are keys to performance management. Training allows us to see weaknesses and skill gaps, helps employees advance their skills, gives employees more incentive to learn and participate, and increases job satisfaction.
Recognition and Feedback
It’s human nature to want to receive recognition for contributions. As leaders, we should be giving feedback not just for recognition but also to help improve our team’s performance. Making sure we are giving regular performance assessments important in managing expectations as well as making sure our employees know how they are performing. We don’t want to forget to recognize a job well done. A fun way to give feedback is a recognition program that enables leaders, peers, and clients to acknowledge when someone has done a job well and allows everyone in your center to be involved with the growth of your business.
The Leaders of Tomorrow are the Employees of Today
Looking back over the years, I am proud of the foundation we have provided our team members. I receive text messages from past employees telling me they have landed an amazing position at Google or that they passed the bar exam and are now serving as a Summit Prosecutor protecting the children in the community. Others are moms and dads bringing their children in to play.
My passion is to mentor, train, and instill leadership skills into young adults. It is our responsibility as entrepreneurs to pass on the torch to the upcoming generation of tomorrow’s leaders!
If you want to grow your people and grow your business, start with the right people and give them a training program that works. Call us. We are here to help!
