Wednesday Wisdom: Onboarding, Training, Leading

Wednesday Morning, Wednesday Wisdom, Motivation for Women Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses

Sitting in the back of a volunteer training room this week, I realized it had been quite a while since I was in an educational setting being instructed. For the past thirty years, I have been in the front of rooms teaching, inspiring, and introducing business content to others. With the roles reversed, I sat quietly and took in the information.

It was insightful being on the other end of the spectrum – a bit uneasy because I am a natural leader. I was the one raising my hand in sixth-grade class to go to the blackboard, raising it to take on the treasurer’s position of the honor society in junior high school, and raising both hands to take on my businesses. Sitting and doing nothing but listening just felt odd. The trainer was excellent, with the perfect disposition of humor, clarity, respect, and attitude to be leading the class, and an expert in her professional position of onboarding volunteers.

Onboarding is learning how to acclimate new hires into an organization’s culture and providing them with knowledge and resources to succeed. I only onboarded ten people in my 30-year entrepreneurial career because I loved working alone but I am positive I was not as professional as this organization which trained me since they onboard 300 volunteers a year.

The experience opened my eyes to the importance of training. Many women entrepreneurs have little or no staff, so the thought of onboarding might be foreign to them unless they are being onboarded themselves into a new leadership or volunteer role. It honestly shouldn’t have taken me 3-decades to sit and listen as opposed to always being the one leading and talking.

Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is a small reminder to you, as the leader of your own business, that you should be attending training and leadership opportunities to enhance your skills so that when the time comes for you to onboard volunteers or staff members, you are well prepared. We might think we don’t have time for our own training, but it is an essential element of personal and leadership growth. Also, take a look at the materials you use to onboard staff or volunteers for your organization and update them if you need to.

Onward movement and onboarding lead to upward growth for you and your enterprise, so consider doing more of it in 2024.