It’s a simple formula.

… backed by countless studies…

Organisational research has clearly shown THIS as a predictor of:

• Increased job satisfaction
• Strengthened company commitment
• Reduced turnover
• And dramatically heightened productivity

Basically everything that you want to go right with a new employee hinges on it.

The underlying driver of motivated and successful staff?

CONFIDENCE. 

Yeah I know, it’s a term that gets thrown around in many circles…

Yet it’s so fundamental to a healthy workforce that it deserves to be un-packed and explored.

First, I want to give you a working definition of confidence in the context of an employee starting a new role.

Here’s my simple definition: 

Confidence is a belief in one’s ability to suceed. 

Again we are talking about emotional states and beliefs.

Why? Because they are the driver of human behaviour.

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to engineer the most effective beliefs and emotional states within your employees that lead to optimal performance.

Notice I said engineer?

Yes, it’s possible to systematically instill confidence in new employees.

You’re going to do it by following my simple 3-part formula known as The 3 C’s of Workplace Confidence. 

Clarity, Culture and Connection = Confidence.

1. Clarity

What is Clarity?
It’s a crystal clear understanding of the job, the perform expectations and how the role fits into the company. You can’t be confident about something you don’t understand.

How do I instill Clarity?

• Provide written guidelines of the performance requirements of the role
  • Establish and agree on measurable KPIs
  • Create a measurement and feedback process
• Discuss and set goals
  • On-the-job performance goals
  • Objectives at a personal, team, department and company level
  • Ongoing learning and development needs
• Explain department policies & procedures (and how the department fits into the overall company structure)
• Regular check-ins with the manager to directly address Clarity and understanding of the role requirements
• Ensure understanding of the company’s basic compliance requirements (rules, policies and processes) with an Employee Handbook
• Encourage question asking!

2. Culture

What is Culture?
It’s the ‘why we come to work’, ‘how we do things’ and ‘what we’re about’. Culture gives employees a sense of identity with the role and cues to how to behave. These are the psychological nuances that form the foundation of confidence in succeeding within the company.

How do I instill Culture?
I’ve written extensively about developing culture here, here and here. These are 7 important ways to indoctrinate employees into your company culture:

1. Develop your company mission and vision
2. Write out and share your company values
3. Document organisational structure (authority levels and position descriptions)
4. Have a Code of Conduct policy
5. Internal communication channels (ways for employees to learn the culture informally from others, i.e. intranet, meetings, newsletters)
6. Reward and recognition processes for performance in alignment with culture
7. Offer leadership training for those involved in leading and managing others

3. Connection

What is Connection?
It’s the social, personal and information networks that new employees need to develop. Feeling connected is linked to a feeling of belonging. Which is linked to happiness. Funnily enough, happy employees who feel like part of the team are more confident and perform better.

How do I instill Connection?
Connection is all about people. We covered several unique ways to build relationships in last week’s article. Here are some more fundamentals:

• Use a buddy or mentor relationship system to teach new staff the ‘social ropes’ of the company
• Create time for the team bonding using fun activities off the job
• Set up and encourage interest groups (i.e. a lunchtime running group) to foster social bonds
• Offer monthly ‘coffee catch-ups’ with various key executives focused on giving ‘insider’s tips’ on how to succeed in the company
• Other fun connection-building ideas:
  • Pot lunches
  • Ted talk afternoon drop-in sessions
  • Yoga or art classes
  • Company wide breakfast and learn sessions
  • Team challenges (break the company into teams and have them work on ‘creative ideas’ or ‘hacks’ to company challenges. Best idea or solution wins prizes)

Any questions?

If you have questions on this topic or any others, feel free to reach me by email or set up a free one-on-one consultation session, or drop me a comment below.

Thanks for sharing!