Month 6
ON-BOARDING & CROSS-TRAINING
Welcoming new members to your team and understanding everyone’s roles.
PRE-WORK
Here is messaging to send to your participants prior to this meeting. Feel free to modify to fit your personality:
Thank you all for your participation in last month’s MIBE Meeting. During our next meeting we will be reviewing the work you have done since our last meeting. Please be ready to give an update on any of the action items you had related to our hiring process. No other pre-work is necessary. Our next meeting is ___________ and we will be discussing how we on-board new team members. In addition to that, we will also be doing some work to better understand the various roles and departments in our organization and how we all fit together. Thank you all, I’m looking forward to another great meeting!
AGENDA
Intro from facilitator (2-5 min)
The Why: Use this opportunity to communicate with your team as one group. It’s powerful for them to hear the same message together and a great opportunity to recognize participants in front of their peers.
The How: Choose the things that are most relevant for your company to go over.
Suggestions:
• Welcome – Reinforce your mission/vision/values – Why do you exist as a company?
• Announcements
• Celebrations
Centering Exercise (5 min)
The Why: This exercise helps everyone to be present and focus their attention on the meeting. The quick-fire questions keep participants on their toes and force them to think about what they’re feeling right now.
The How: Go around the room and have everyone complete the sentence one at a time. As the facilitator, you should go first. You can reverse the order of who responds after each question if you want to mix it up. Remind participants that this is meant to be fairly quick and their first thought is often their best thought, so don’t overthink it and go with what pops into their head right away.
Examples:
• Today I am _________
• I’m struggling with _________
• I’m happy about _________
• An opportunity I have is _________
Video from MIBE® (10 min)
The Why: Anthony will provide an intro to the topic and give more information about the overall program. Each month, educational and inspirational information will be shared through this method. The video should make your job as the facilitator easier so you are not responsible for having to “teach” the lesson.
The How: Use the video below. It will be helpful for you to view it prior to the meeting. You will just need to be prepared to show it on a screen to your team. We recommend testing ahead of time to help avoid streaming/buffering/internet issues!
Play the second video (below) immediately after the first video (above) prior to jumping into the meeting discussion. This video is what every single employee who works at Footers Catering views during on-boarding!
Discussion (45-60 min)
The Why: This is the opportunity for the group to share, collaborate and build trust. Ultimately the goal of these meetings is to move the people in your organization forward as leaders and improve your overall culture.
The How: As the facilitator it is very important that you seek participation from everyone at the meeting and that you create space for people to be open, honest and vulnerable. We will provide you with the content each month, it’s your job to facilitate the discussion around that content.
1) Review the ground rules for these meetings (2 min)
You don’t necessarily need to go over the post it notes, just review the rules and hang the poster in the room as a reminder to all participants. If there is something that needs to be added or modified, you can also do that at this time.
2) Hiring Action Items (5 min)
Go over any action items from last month’s meeting about hiring. For example, if someone committed to re-write a job posting, have them give an update on their progress. If it’s not completed, figure out a deadline for when it will be.
3) MIBE-ing the First Day Experience (10-15 min)
Part of the first video was spent highlighting the opportunity that we have to make a great impression when someone new joins your team. The second video showed a real life example from Footers Catering. With those concepts and ideas in mind, use the worksheet provided to decide the elements of your company’s first day experience and assign someone to be responsible for making each item happen.
View & Download Onboarding Process Exercise
4) The Wheel: Cross-Training Game (30-40 mins)
The majority of this meeting should be spent doing the provided team building game. The objective is for your team to learn more about what they are each responsible for in a fun and collaborative way. Have people sit near the other team members within their department. Then, distribute 1-2 cards to each person (question side down) ensuring that the cards they receive are NOT labeled with their department. (i.e. a chef should not get a “culinary” card). Give everyone 2-3 minutes to flip over their card and answer the question. They will most likely need a paper and pen to write down their answers. We also have one card that requires the person to set a place setting, so if you keep that card in play make sure to gather the appropriate items necessary for them to do so. Once everyone has their answers written down, go around the room and have each person read their question and the answer they came up with. The correct answers should come from the department which is listed on the front of the card. Have the people in that department discuss their approach to the question and how they would answer it. This is not so much about getting it “right or wrong” it’s about learning, and the insights that come from the people in that department. Feel free to go through the cards in advance and remove any that may not apply to your organization.
SMOOTH RIDE
Everyone on the team is clear on the roles of their fellow team members and appreciates how each department contributes to overall company goals.
They understand that expectations, hours, responsibilities, qualifications, and location of where work is done can be vastly different between positions and departments.
Team members recognize that no one department is more important than another.
BUMPY RIDE
Some team members “get-it” while others don’t yet have a respect for the other roles in the organization.
Animosity and resentment can start to build between departments with each one thinking they are more important than the others.
While the wheel continues to move forward, internal conflict creates challenges that make the road more difficult.
JUST PLAIN STUCK
Team members aren’t clear on other roles within the organization, and as a result, some departments do not value the contributions of other departments.
Silos are cemented and minimal collaboration takes place between one or more departments due to a lack of trust.
Team members are more concerned with protecting what is going on within their department over the larger company goals.
Recap Video from MIBE® (3 min)
The Why: Anthony will close the meeting and summarize the content with an inspirational message. This is also our opportunity to share our post-meeting action items for participants.
The How: You will need to queue up the third video below. Again, it will be helpful for you to view it prior to the meeting and we recommend testing to help avoid streaming/buffering/internet issues!
