Finding the right people to surround yourself with is probably the most important thing someone can do to invite good into your life. Not only is this true for your personal life, but it is also true in business. When you find the right people to work alongside you, you are putting a team together who all share the same vision. Finding the right people who not only share the same mindset but also elevate our culture is what we strive for at RHI.
When we first started discussing the idea of growing our inspection company, we honestly didn’t fully understand what that would look like. At that point, we just knew we needed to hire people in order to keep up with demand. However, we did know we wanted genuine and dependable people to help us grow our business and make a good life for themselves in return. Because of that, as we brought more and more people into our team, we learned quickly how to select the right types of individuals who shared our vision.
We have spent a lot of time crafting our onboarding process. Once we receive an application online, we review all the submitted materials. Initially, we are looking for someone who really makes an effort to show us their best self. If we see potential, we then ask them to complete some additional assessments. If the results come back that the individual has an aptitude for our position, we sit down to get to know that person. We want to surround ourselves with people we genuinely like and who understand what we are trying to create for ourselves and them.
If that initial meeting goes well, we then move on to a discussion about the position and the path it will take for them to become a member of our team. For our inspectors, we discuss our training period and what will happen once they become an RHI inspector. Once they are licensed, they will start as a beginning inspector with us, and as they grow, so will their responsibility and compensation.
For our training, inspectors will start after they have completed all their coursework. Our training then allows them to apply their knowledge in the field. Our inspector trainees are paired with a training inspector. We put our inspectors through a rigorous 12–14-week training program. During each week, the trainee will complete our additional RHI curriculum as they are out learning the inspection process firsthand. When an inspector trainee completes our program, he/she will have 150 inspections completed.
Once the inspector takes their exam and earns their license, they will officially be hired as an inspector with us. In the beginning, we are careful to support and monitor our inspectors. Reports are double-checked before they are published, and we utilize a team communication app as a means for newer inspectors to ask questions and receive feedback from other team members. Inspectors will also start their education to earn additional certifications, so they are able to provide more services to our clients.
From this point, we work hard to help individuals grow internally and externally. We want to build leaders. We meet with the team often to discuss our business and we like to hear their thoughts and ideas. We often encourage readings, podcasts, etc. for individuals who need growth. We also encourage them to set goals and we help them achieve those goals in any way we can. We don’t just view people as employees that have a job to do. We see them as our work family, and we hope that is reflected in how we treat them.
Building a team can definitely have its challenges, but if it is done well, it can also lead to huge benefits for all involved. Surrounding yourself with people who share the same mindset and vision is the common denominator that fuels growth. At the end of the day, we are here to grow our business, but we get to decide how and with who we are going to do that.