As anyone in public relations or marketing knows, one of the most basic of communications tools is the personnel announcement—a new person joins your company so you take their photo, write a press release and send it out to various media for publication. Simple, right?
Yet, many companies fail to completely think through all of the dynamics related to how a new hire should be properly brought on board.
It is not uncommon for a business to wait 90-days before announcing a personnel addition, just as they would award full-time benefits. From there, it might be another several weeks before the individual is then added to the company’s website. At Tanner Friedman, we take a different view—we are proud of every individual that joins our firm and announce them (via media and the web) within days.
I recall hearing of one company that took the road most commonly traveled plus two steps back. When new full-timers were brought on board at a particular salary, they were often informed that they would be “hourly” for the first 90-days. It was semantics, really, yet, the primary owners, rather than demonstrating confidence to the new employee, chose instead to dangle the full time designation carrot; attempting, I suppose, to “motivate” by fear. Further, it might be many more months before they were, subsequently, formally announced to the outside world.
Rather, to motivate you need to celebrate a new individual, internally and externally. A happy, appreciated employee not only brings fresh, new ideas, perspectives and creativity to an organization, they are your best ambassadors; IF they, themselves, are greeted with open arms and open minds.