When it comes to hiring an new administrative assistant, getting them on-board and up and running is just as important as finding a good fit. You know you need an assistant and you know what qualities to be looking for in that person, so now you need to know what the process of actually bringing them on the team looks like. These 5 steps will insure that you get your new hire on the team and as productive as possible sooner rather than later. Put this process in place and take back control of your time!
HOW TO ON-BOARD A NEW ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
When it comes to hiring an administrative assistant, you need to have a thorough process of how you on-board your new hire. It needs to cover everything from how you get them on to the team to getting them ready to go and productive as quickly as possible. What we’re going to be covering is five steps to do just that, plus a little pro tip at the end to make sure that you get your admin up and running as quickly as possible.
THE 90 DAY ROAD MAP
Specifically, what do you want your admin to be able to accomplish and take over from you in that first 90 days? What are the different activities you want to let go of? In those 90 days, what do you want him or her to be responsible for, to be proficient in, or ultra-proficient in, and actually do better than you were doing in? Plan it out step by step. In the first 30 days, what should they be able to do? In the first 60 days, what should they be able to do? Make sure you tell them exactly what you expect of them so that they know because they want to be able to succeed, as well. You’ve got to create that 90 day road map.
LIST OF ACTIVITIES
Create a list of activities that you want to get off of your plate. This is different than the roadmap. This is something that is everything you eventually want to get off of your plate. Sometimes they aren’t going to be able to do it all in the first 90 days, and that’s okay. Create a full list so that you know eventually everything that you want this person responsible for.
IDENTIFY YOUR TIME SUCKS
What is that one activity that is taking the most amount of your time? For the majority of people it’s the transaction coordination process. It’s that contract to close period that includes paper work, details, chasing down contractors and scheduling inspections. It’s all of that stuff that has to happen. That’s your biggest time suck. Get that stuff off of your plate and get it over to the admin so that they can start giving you your time back.
INVEST TIME
You need to invest more time in their on-boarding. Too many people do what I call the “drop and run”, or the “dump and run”. They dump everything on their admin’s plate then they’re out the door to their next meeting and the admin’s left looking at everything wondering what to do with all of it. They don’t know how you do things or what the process is that you normally use. You need to realize that in the beginning, yes you’re hiring an admin to get more of your time back, but you’re actually going to have to spend more time at work, more time at the office, more time getting this person up and running, and that’s okay. After you’ve invested the time, you’re going to have more of your time back that you can focus on more important activities.
FIND REPLACEMENT ACTIVITIES
Once you have this list of activities off to the admin, you’re going to have time back. But the question is what are you going to do with that time? What are you going to replace that time with? What are you going to start focusing your time on? Usually it’s those BGAs, the business generating activities. I want you to focus on your replacement activities. Here’s why: something called Parkinson’s Law. Most of us are familiar with it and it says this: your work expands to fill the time you’ve allotted. What we often times find happens here is your admin starts doing a bunch of things and then rather than focus intentionally on those business generating activities, what do people do? Other busy work. They fill up their time with distractions rather than investing that time in to those things that are going to generate more income and more revenue and more leads for your business.
PRO TIP
(This is critical and this is the hardest part about bringing anybody onto the team.) You need to let go. Delegate, delegate, delegate. At some point, you have to trust the people you bring on to the team to do the work that you’ve hired them to do. You’ve got to trust the process. You’ve got to trust that they know the details and that’s not your specialty. I want you to manage the process, but don’t micromanage the person. You’ve got to let go, delegate more of those activities so that you can focus on the business generating activities. Focus on the things that are more important that your admin can’t do, but you can.
You now know when to hire an assistant, you know who to look for as an assistant, and now you know exactly how to get them on-board, up and running in 90 days or less. Leave a comment, like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos! We look forward to serving you in the future!
