Mastering Scalable Talent Strategies: Data-Driven Onboarding & Retention for E-commerce Leaders

Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Oh, my journey? Yes. So it’s. Let me start by saying that the Internmentor is a 360 service. And so the journey has lots of different components that led me to be here and launch this business. Though part of it was, and this is the original sort of catalyst, which is a couple companies ago, I’ve been in the fashion industry for 15 years plus. But a couple companies ago, I started working on an intern program with the company and the HR team and everyone there. And what it was very organic. My leadership was like, hey, you seem to have a knack for training interns. What’s your trick? Let’s share it with some of the other mentor managers that host mentors or interns. And I’m like, okay, great. So I whipped up this thing called a roles and responsibilities, which if you know, for people who don’t really know what that is, it’s basically a job description, but for internal use.

It’s not the thing that you see posted per se, but it’s very similar. And I shared it and I’m realizing this isn’t. This isn’t what I do. Like, I had to create this at a request, not. Not so much what I actually use and do in the process. So I started to pull together all this information and I shared that and it snowballed. I won’t get into all of it, but it snowballed and eventually became quite a program through the company, which was really exciting in part because I had the freedom to do it. And I didn’t stop with just the training aspect. I also worked a lot with the managers that were taking part in the program. And I was very particular about who would be a manager and what they were bringing to the table and not just bringing in all these interns and hoping for the best, you know, making sure both sides were. Were prepared to do this. Because one of the things that people don’t talk about very much is that interns are usually paired with people who’ve never managed before or don’t have a lot of experience managing. Like they haven’t gone through all the difficult conversations yet and all of that stuff.

So. So I wanted to sort of Provided a support system for. For them as well. And what was interesting, after having done this program, there were a couple unlocks that, that came up pretty early on. One from the manager perspective, which is you are training your ideal new assistant designer. Like, you are training the person you want. You are not just training someone and spending time on someone who’s going to leave in three to four months. Like, don’t think of it that way. Think of it as, this is the next person you want to hire. Like, this is your investment in your future and your team’s future as well. And that made a huge shift. The other huge shift, which again became a catalyst for everything else, was when the interns came, I was telling them, like, don’t think of yourself as an intern. Don’t think of yourself as someone who’s sort of stuck between schools, school and work. Think of yourself as someone who is now in the role you are auditioning. You’re in this role and you have three to four months to prove like, you are the person for this role. Like, this is yours until it’s not.

And their investment in it and their engagement and their dedication and profession, everything shifted. Everything changed. And so eventually Covid hit, left the job, found a new job, did some other things along the way. And I’m realizing in a new job that I’m starting to rely on a lot of these skills again. And I’m thinking, wait a minute, didn’t people just get smarter?

Like, time has passed. Has. Isn’t this common knowledge? Like, it didn’t. This. This isn’t necessarily, you know, brain surgery or anything. And I’m realizing, no, no, people. People are still in the same spot that they were in a few years ago. And so I start leveraging the same tools and tricks, and I create onboarding documents and all sorts of things like I did for the program originally, but for now, for contractors, so now for people who are anywhere from entry level to senior level.

And what was interesting about that is they all had the same challenges. Being new is a universal challenge for people. And so this opportunity was really exciting for me because it gave me the insight to do this from the corporate lens, but outside of the context of an intern program per se, and really branch out and look at everything from a different perspective.

Yeah, so we’re 360, which means that I work with those who are either in school, about to graduate, have graduated, or just in that entry level phase, whether it’s one to three years, ish. And I help them really finesse the skills, which are usually soft skills to prepare and land a job and then onboard themselves. So get through that 30, 60, 90 day period on the job.

Like I said, onboarding is such a critical part in this whole thing. It’s not enough to just go through the intern or the interview process. You gotta get through learning a new role.

Yeah, yeah. You actually have to do the job at the end. Like there’s, there’s time after all of that. And so that was part of it. And then I ended up teaching a course that was professional practices at a local art school, which was a huge unlock too from the instructor perspective. What is being trained in school, where their emphasis are, what their challenges are for instructors, you know, where. Where do they have the bandwidth to spend the energy in training? I had the opportunity to really pilot some programs through there, which was really exciting and got phenomenal feedback from the students, specifically in how to talk about the things that really set you up for success after school.

And then of course the company side of things, which is really the onboarding. Because onboarding doesn’t stop with the HR onboarding. It really starts when you’re handed off to your manager and you go through the 30, 60, 90 period.

Yeah, well, word of mouth is definitely one of them. I’ve been keeping close with former co workers and educators and all, all of that network that I had developed through the design roles that I held in the industry. But I also have a social media account account where people can find me. And then a lot of people have been finding me on LinkedIn as well.

I hate marketing. I really hate marketing. I am a creative person and I really don’t like the marketing. I’m the person who likes being behind the scenes kind of doing and then I help other people get in the spotlight. I. Being in the spotlight is not always my comfort spot. So marketing is sort of an extension of that, unfortunately. So I’m getting my skills polished a little bit in that realm, and I’m learning as I go.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I. I sort of go back and forth on how I identify in this space, but it’s. I am definitely different in the sense that I’m filling the hole between the two worlds. So a lot of coaches will be very resume, portfolio, interview, skill focused. And I do address those things, but my focus really isn’t on those. It’s about the habits that take you from school into a professional environment that will take you through the end of your career.

And really understanding what’s within your power when you go into new environments and navigate challenges professionally, that I think some coaches do address it, but a lot of it is cookie cutter. And I’m very. Every individual is different. It’s learning to manage people in a way, you know, giving them the space to be unique individuals in corporate environments.

Yeah, yeah. And it builds. Right. You get more experience, and then you go back to some of the original foundational things and you’re like, oh, I see why that was important. Now let me brush up on the foundational. Make sure I’m really solid for this next round or this next opportunity.

Long Term, long term, I would really like to start to focus on systemic issues with the transition and coaching and support system around young professionals. Because it’s been, at least based on the stories and my personal experience and things that I’ve heard this. Well, I went through it. It was always rough. It’s not good. And so I’m not going to spend time because everyone has to go through this. This is just a thing that people have to live through or figure out. And it’s almost a badge of honor once you’ve gotten to the other side. And I feel like what that ends up doing is everyone starts backwards. So instead of moving the group forward and building off of, you know, experiences and knowledge, you’re. You’re always cutting yourself and the team and a company back by starting from scratch again and having everyone learn everything the hard way and hoping for the best. Right. Because you’re big. Your. The managers are like, oh, well, they’ll figure it out. But they don’t know. You know, they figure out what it’s like to be new.

Yeah. And it’s different now, probably, than when they were new. You know, they’ve gotten different information and they might not have gotten the same. You know, there might be aspects that aren’t being told now that they got when they were new. And there’s just so many assumptions and just breaking out of that.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you so much.