First Impressions Mean a Lot to New Team Members

RCS Influencer Mike Pickel says that it’s important to make new hires feel welcome and wanted.

When a person joins the Texas Traditions Roofing family, we make sure that they feel like they are a part of our family. We welcome them warmly and make sure that we have their workspace set up and ready to go. Their computer is ready, their email has been set up and there is a desk waiting for them. It is really important to have everything waiting for them as that sends the message that you are excited for them to be joining your team.

Once we have shown them around and introduced them to everyone on the team, we tackle the HR component, completing paperwork to ensure that they will be paid. Then we spend a little time talking about our values, our processes and our commitment to customer service.

Over their next few days, we will focus on their roofing training, depending on the level of knowledge that they do or don’t have. We rely on educational information from the National Roofing Contractors Association, the Roofing Contractors Association of Texas as well as training resources from our roofing manufacturers.

After training, we don’t just send them out on their own. We pair them up with a more seasoned member of our team so they can shadow that person for a few days. That not only helps build a relationship among team members, it provides additional opportunity for them to learn our processes and how we like to do business. If someone is joining our team in a sales capacity, we send them out on appointments with another roof advisor so they can learn from how we handle customer meetings.

Once they are comfortable and we think they are ready, we let them handle their responsibilities on their own, with the message that if they need support, we are here for them.

Mike Pickel is co-founder of Texas Traditions Roofing. See his full bio here.