Top 3 Tactics to Increase Motivation & Decrease Ramp Time

With a dramatically expanding and changing workforce, getting people up to speed, performing, and staying at a high level has become extremely difficult. Frontline tenure is flat and ramp is rising. With average ramp-time for SDR’s now 7-12 months, and average tenure at 2.2 years, months at full productivity is 9.4 to 14.4 months.

The issue of low tenure is unsurprising since many view the SDR role as a stepping stone to closing. However, we still have an opportunity to increase tenure and decrease average ramp, increasing months at full productivity which justifies investments in necessary onboarding and coaching programs.

My last post talked about the importance of training in improving this dynamic, but what can we do as leaders to affect tenure and ramp in our day to day? How do we reach optimal (and sustainable) performance as fast as possible?

Here are the three most critical factors, outside of training, to ensure people ramp faster and stay longer.

1. Expectation Management
2. 1-1 Goals
3. Disciplined Freedom

1. Expectation Management

Expectation mismanagement is the most detrimental and frequent behavior trap among top leaders. Failing to set proper expectations is typically a symptom of inauthentic communication, which is typically underestimated. What do your people expect of you? What about their teams? What do you expect from the team below you outside of the tactical day to day? What type of character, teammate, and person do you expect to see every day?

These are the conversations we don’t ask often enough and create most of the issues that we feel in our day to day.

The good part about this particular issue is that it can be fixed quickly with a well thought out, documented conversation. Ideally this conversation occurs before new hires start to set the tone. At Skaled, I take new employees to lunch and I ask them what they expect from their leader and from myself – in terms of meetings, preferred communication style, etc.

After this conversation, it’s fairly simple to document day-to-day and general expectations. The intangible expectations, such as a growth mindset, must be understood if you want to create a thriving company culture. Everyone doesn’t have to agree on everything, but understanding how the group handles conflict, what happens when you do a great job, and how we communicate up and down the chain are all fundamentals that must be understood.

It isn’t enough to just create the document, as a leader you need to ensure adoption by reviewing these expectations on a monthly basis, and updating the document as expectations inevitably change… on both sides.

2. 1-1 Goals

Goals are critical for both new and seasoned employees as they are the main motivators for why your people work. As a leader, understanding good goal setting practices allows you to understand the key drivers behind why your people work and then allows you to create an environment of success for individual employees.

This is something I’ve done for nearly a decade and typically leads to the most fun, interesting, honest, and successful conversations I have had with my people. What do you need for a successful goals meeting?

You need to understand SMART goal setting so you can take their ideas and structure them in a way that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. If you can’t quantify the goal, you won’t be able to coach.

Avoid talking about the day to day or their performance. Keep all negativity and daily tasks out of the conversation to ensure you are focusing on bigger picture objectives. This meeting should focus on a mix of their professional and personal goals.

People ask me if I really help my leaders talk to their people about the importance of a 401k, how to save, how to pay off debt, and becoming more active or completing a Marathon – and the answer is yes! If you invest in your people’s long-term success, whether they stay with you or not, they will be better employees while they are with you.

This also helps to see the people that are checked out. If you come to the meeting 2-3 months and very few of the goals are completed our even acted in, it typically means they have other motivators and either the goals aren’t what they actually care about or they aren’t bought in. Either way, it makes for an honest conversation where you can discuss and work through key motivators.

3. Disciplined Freedom

Disciplined freedom combines two words that you do not typically see together, but they accurately describe a culture that allows structured autonomy. This type of freedom is earned through proven success and out of trust that a person will take ownership and successfully complete projects without the need for extensive management of the day-to-day.

This does not mean from day 1. This is something that is earned over time after showing the ability to produce results over and over again. There is such a fear of micromanagement in today’s leadership that we many times don’t even manage our people. People are leaders for a reason and it’s not to give general guidance to people and say “good luck,” it’s to provide the holistic environment and strategy so that they are able to be successful. Once they have proven they have the ability to understand and operate in that environment, disciplined freedom comes in.

This was a core value at Careerbuilder and something I truly believe in as a way to motivate and allow for the proper amount of autonomy. Give people clear expectations and when they hit those expectations, allow them the freedom to go outside of the box – with structure.

There are many schools of thought on how to motivate (read Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why”) and there are people who question if you can motivate someone without it coming from within. I agree with both camps because as leaders we have to invest in our people and help guide them down the right path, but in the end they have to take the steps themselves.

As leaders, we have to facilitate an environment where our employees feel motivated, driven and can be successful. Motivation may come from within, but it will not manifest unless the environment is right. By continuing to use these three tactics, you will see your people ramp faster, stay longer and be more successful for a sustainable period of time.