 But the second day, and I know some of you were out a little late last night, so hopefully I can get you a little woke this morning. Before I opened a float center, I was in the corporate world for 15 years, and I was a leader in a training development company. I have had lots of experience helping people learn how to do their jobs. And so what I'm hoping today is to share some really, really high level information about how you can help your team to run your business, to do well in your centers. So really quickly by a show of hands, how many of you have employees already? Okay, pretty good. How many of you are hoping to hire somebody in the next six months to a year? Okay. And out of everyone, how many of you actually have a documented training program or policy in place? Yeah, that's kind of what I thought, not as many hands this time. So besides helping your business and adding value to your business itself, having this information in place and ready to go can help you in any of those moments when there's an emergency, but also so your people have the information that they need every single day. Oftentimes whenever I give talks about mindfulness in the workplace, I have to explain what mindfulness is, but I'm pretty sure you all know this already. Is your mind full or are you mindful? And when we are running our businesses as small business owners, there's a million things happening. We have so many things that we're trying to keep track of. And in those times that we are onboarding new employees, oftentimes we're thinking of all the things, we've got to clean the tanks, maintenance is coming up, we've got to do payroll, all the things that are happening, but whenever it's a new employee, they're thinking, how do I do my job? How do I fit in here? What do I do in this organization? How can I become a part of this team? And so when we're thinking about mindfulness in the training process, it's very similar to just mindfulness in general. Mindfulness of being aware of your present moment, observing things without judgment. And so we want to create a program that is really centered around the employee themselves. So I could go on for hours and hours about this, but we're going to keep it pretty high level today where hopefully you can walk away with just a couple of nuggets that you can take back to your centers and implement for your teams. Some things sound really, really obvious. Have a plan. But how many of you all know that you should float really, really frequently and consistently? You know you should, but do you? One of the things we hear most often as floats that are owners is I don't have time to float or I really need to get in the tank, but I just haven't had a chance to. So something really obvious, like have a plan, you should do and make that a priority. Sit down and actually document what people need to know. When do they need to know it and how am I going to bring people on the team? And this is something that you should do even if you're not even thinking about training one in the next several months to years. Have some things that are ready and prepared for them. Of course there's the legal stuff that we all have to do, but whenever you're thinking about your plan including job descriptions and being really, really clear about those sorts of things. Number two, creating a warm welcome. Again, sounds really, really obvious, but if you think about the first day, oftentimes we're going through all of those legal paperwork pieces and then running around showing them how to do everything and dumping tons of information on the people. And one of the things that I hear a lot from floats and our owners is I can't keep staff. And whenever you start looking at why we can't keep staff, a lot of times it's because people feel dispensable. And if you take the time to create a really warm welcome to make it all about that employee, then you start building that loyalty on day one. Really shifting the focus from I'm here to tell you how to do your job to I'm here to welcome you to the team to be a part of something really, really huge and beautiful. If you have the opportunity, take them off site. Take them out to coffee. Take them out for breakfast. Take them out for lunch. And the reason that you want to do this is because anytime that you have an employee at the center, there's first few weeks, there's a position of authority. You as the leader of your business and all of your coworkers, all of the employees you already have, you know more than they do. They're immediately in a place of feeling inferior. They're trying to figure out how they fit in, what do they do, and everybody else knows more than they do. So if you can take them to a neutral location, sit and have a conversation and get to know each other as human beings, it's a much more comfortable welcoming environment. You open up the door to really understand who that person is, how they like to learn. Maybe they want to just use checklists. Some people love to just learn by doing. And just having some of those conversations right from the get-go can really help you in this onboarding plan. Obviously, number three, you want to talk big picture. What is floating? What do we do as an organization? What are the services that we provide? And what often happens, though, is that we get really bogged down in policy and procedure. This is the float. This is how you do the turns, all of that. And it's day one. So on day one, keep it really, really big picture. Help them to understand what this whole float world means. Within that big picture concept is mission, vision, value. How many of you all have these things documented? How many of you put it on your business plan when you were trying to get funding and then never looked at it again? Let's be honest. There's a lot of us who've done that. But this is such a really crucial piece. And it doesn't have to be so formal that you have it on a poster, on a wall, and you're telling people, like, this is what we do. But the idea is to inspire them. It's not to get them to memorize what your mission vision and values are, but it's to inspire them to be a part of something that is really amazing for not just your community, but for the world. It's inspiring them to be part of your community. How do you serve the community? Is that a big piece of what you do as an organization? Number five, how do I fit into the big picture? For some of us, we're tiny centers. And maybe it's just the owners and one employee. Maybe it's a huge team. So helping them understand what that actual organization looks like, you might have an org chart. You might not. And that's perfectly OK. But within this, how do they show up? What does your culture look like? And being really, really clear on those expectations, are you a clinical facility? Are you a super laid-back chill kind of place? Letting people know right up front, this is how we show up every single day. And here's what we're asking of you within that. And then the job description itself, of course, is a huge piece. And then giving them the opportunity to be heard. This is such a huge, huge piece that new employees walk in and they're being told so much new information. But what if they figure something out? They have fresh eyes. They're going to see things that we don't see, because we're there every single day. And so having an opportunity for them to share their ideas, being really, really open about that and saying, hey, here's how you can come to us with feedback. Or I would love to sit down once a week and just see how things are going with you. Being really, really upfront with that in that first couple of days to invite them to be a part of something rather than to be told how to do things. Within that, getting to know them, understanding their strengths and weaknesses. And as small business owners, we are often very controlling. We've studied. We've researched. We've put so much blood, sweat, and tears into building our businesses. But new employees are coming to us with a world of experience themselves. They have different perceptions about things. And the way that you can really start to build loyalty is by letting them be a part of it. Letting them offer you their gifts. So understand, do they have video editing skills? Does somebody love to do social media? Is somebody great at documenting policies that you haven't had a chance to document yet? And really understand what they can do beyond that basic job description of cleaning and turning the rooms, but having a chance to make a difference on your organization. And it saves you money, that you're not having to hire somebody else to do all that. And then setting, we talked a little bit about setting clear expectations, but that includes things like if you're going to be late, here's the policy, here's what you need to do. If you can't come in for a shift, are they responsible for getting coverage? How do they request days off? All of those things. And being really clear about those expectations. We often assume that people just know, but every company is different. And so being really, really, really clear upfront. Do you have a point system? How do they request time? Is it by email? Is it okay to text you? Those sorts of things are just part of that getting to know you sort of relationship. What does your dress code look like? Are you required to wear a uniform? At my center, we leave our uniforms at the center. We do the laundry for everyone. We have a closet, they go there and get them. Just so that we make sure that there's no coffee stains as you spill your coffee on the way into work. There's no pet hair coming off of your clothes, that's us, that's why we don't do it. But being really clear about what the expectation is there. What if somebody falls in the tank? Because that happened too. If somebody falls in the tank mid-shift, do they have a backup uniform there that they can wear? This is a big one. What do you need to know, and when do you need to know it? Breaking it down is such a huge piece. Whenever I created the training program for my center, I did a huge task analysis, and on that spreadsheet, there's about currently 127 lines. 127 things that I've identified of how we operate as a business. And that's just a one-liner for each one. That doesn't mean that it's a quick little one and done kind of conversation, but I've identified that many things already that go into this really simple business of floating. And whenever we think about sharing that with our new employees who are coming in, we're really starting to space it out. Understand that, you know what? It's cool if they know this, but they don't really need it in order to be able to run the center for their first couple of days. So getting super, super clear on all of that. Now, one big part of this mindfulness practice of helping your new employees to onboard is they're new. Everything is new to them. Everything. And one of the most common complaints I've heard of new managers not just in the float world, but I already told them how to do it. I told them five times how to do it. Well, there's 127 things that we're telling them how to do. So to be really, really clear about how to find answers when you're not there and also just continue to be patient with them, remember that they don't know. You've spent years researching and learning this stuff. And so to be super, super patient as you're breaking this down. One of the most important parts is making sure that they have a really realistic view of what their life will look like every day. Whenever we're really cognizant of spacing out the different duties that they're doing, we don't want to hold off on the whole picture, though. Because we want them to know you're gonna be doing this, a significant portion of the time, you're gonna be doing that. And if we hold all of that until week two or three, then suddenly I didn't know I was gonna be working alone or I didn't know I was gonna have to be crouching to clean showers and tanks so often. And so you wanna be realistic about what you're presenting to them that it's not all, hey, let's just hang out. There's a lot of work that goes into this. When do you expect them to be dealing with guests on their own? Are they just going to be there to do service? Are they doing check-ins at the front desk? And be really, really clear about that. So this is a big, big, big piece. Like I mentioned before, a lot of folks tend to get frustrated because they've told people five times how to do something and it's like they don't even listen, right? They forget. So in the 1800s, there was a psychologist, Dr. Herman Ebbinghaus, who coined the phrase the forgetting curve. Has anybody ever heard of this? So this is really fascinating and this piece of information alone really shifted my perspective about how people learn. And the idea is that basically you're exposed to the information, the day that you learn it, say it's interesting to you, it's a skill that you need, you absorb 100% of the information that's being given to you. Within one hour, one hour, 50% of that information is typically forgotten. I know in one hour, half of what I've said, off into the universe, one hour. Within 24 hours, people forget 70% on average of what they've retained, of what they've been given, not even that they've retained. And so it's no wonder, think about that's one tidbit of information. So 127 lines that I'm showing people and teaching them no wonder they forget, okay? People are going to lose that information and that's why it's so crucial to space it out, to reinforce. This is such a big piece of helping people learn new skills. So if you start to space those learning events, that means that they're getting continued exposure, that maybe the first week is all about just learning how to do turns. And the second week is all about orientations and check-ins. And the third week is all about something else. And so you space it out very, very intentionally so that within that period, you can continue to reinforce what they've been given. So in this case, they're still going to forget things by the end of the day, but then you go back and do it again the next day. And then they're gonna forget a little bit again that night. But then it starts to go back up and they start to remember things. So one of the things that we've always looked at in the learning and development world is productivity versus proficiency. And a lot of times, if you aren't used to training people, you're trying to get them proficient. You want them to be masters of your universe. But most people are going to continuously forget. They're having to learn all of this. So what your job is as a leader is to step in and help to make them productive. That they can accomplish a task without you there. And there's a huge difference between productivity and proficiency. Proficiency can take years to master. Even as owners, how many of us continue to tweak what we say in the orientation process? How often do we continue to tweak our policies and procedures? The same is true for our employees coming in. They're learning everything for the first time. The last tip is to listen. To listen to your folks. We spend a lot of time talking at them and they need just as much time to ask questions, to be a part of something bigger. Whether that means that you're doing routine staff meetings but you're creating some kind of an opportunity for people to also share their ideas with you. As your organization continues to grow, if you are fortunate enough to be one of those owners who doesn't spend as much time at the center, it's even more important for them to know how to reach you, to feel like they're part of something rather than just this faceless company that they know how to reach you, whether it's email, phone, or you're always going to have a meeting or coffee every Tuesday listening to your folks. One of my biggest pet peeves is the word training. And given that I have been in some form training people since I was 14 years old, it's a hard piece of vocabulary to get rid of, but we're not training dogs. What we wanna do is teach people how to think, to give them a chance to be really successful. And so often when we're really rigid, when we're presenting information and setting those expectations, we don't leave room for people to think. We say, this is how you do it. This is exactly how you do it. Don't deviate from this. And whenever you do that, that's why we get super frustrated when people aren't doing what we've asked. We're asking them to do what we do instead of to be original thinkers, to be able to take good care of your guests. We've stayed really, really high level. So if you all have questions, if you wanna talk about specific things within your organization and what you're trying to do, then I'm more than happy to speak about that. Flex is gonna come out in a minute and then we're gonna be in the marble room for Q and A during the next break. So we would love to have you come over and chat just a little bit. So thank you all. Stay selfie. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.