How to Fix Your Employee Onboarding and Retain a Strong Team
Lori noticed a pattern she couldn't ignore. Week after week, Flower Clique members were calling to set up prep school accounts for new employees — and in the same breath asking her to delete accounts for the ones who just quit. One shop summed it up as "one step forward, four steps back": one new hire, four departures. So Lori went digging for answers, found a short article by Ted Bauer on fixing onboarding, and in this episode she and Vonda turn it into a practical playbook for flower shop owners who are tired of watching new hires vanish.
Your real competitive advantage isn't your flowers
The episode starts with three assumptions every owner needs to accept. First: the only truly sustainable competitive advantage a business owner has is the culture of the shop. You may have the freshest flowers and the best reputation in town, but that's your product — and almost nobody takes a job because of your product. As one shop owner bluntly told Lori, her employees could work at Taco Bell for the same money or two dollars more. Culture is what you can offer that the drive-thru can't.
Second: poor culture fit is the number one reason new hires fail, so your onboarding needs questions and checkpoints that surface fit early. And third: effective onboarding is both how you reduce the risk of bad hires and how you assimilate good ones into your culture. The hosts admit these are hard truths to swallow — especially if you've owned your shop for decades. Sometimes you have to own why people keep leaving, and sometimes the problem isn't even you; it's a clique of existing employees who won't let anyone new in.
Stop cramming a job into three days
Vonda paints the familiar picture: day one, the new hire is told to clock in, vacuum, process flowers, answer phones, work a stack of orders, and watch what's coming in tomorrow — all at once. By the end of the description she's exhausted just saying it. The fix is to slow down. Set two or three easily attainable goals for the first week, assign a key employee as a day-to-day mentor, and then still check in yourself — because if the owner disappears after the hire, the message the new person hears is "you don't really value me."
Lori also flags a pet peeve with real onboarding consequences: constantly telling people how busy you are. Say "I'm super busy, so-and-so will help you" on day one and you've just taught your new hire that you're unapproachable. As the article Lori found puts it, nothing is worse than starting a new job and having your manager barely paying attention to you by day two — while you're thinking, "I said no to job B for this."
Let them try every pocket of the business
One of the most useful ideas in the episode: rotate new hires through every corner of the shop — processing, deliveries, the front counter, the phones — and then ask, honestly, "Did you like it?" You may have hired someone for sales and discover they light up processing flowers because they get to see every new variety come in. Watch for the signs in both directions: if someone is clearly frustrated in a role you didn't specifically hire them for, it's fine to finish the day and quietly transition them elsewhere.
New hires — especially those who've never worked in a flower shop — also need to understand how the business actually makes money. Selling flowers isn't taking a drive-thru order; offering a higher price point serves both the shop's margin and the customer, who is genuinely happier with a nicer product.
Train with repetition, invest in education
Lori recalls learning to tie bows from Julie Poeltler, who told her that in her shop, a new employee would spend the rest of the day making bows and pinning them to a corkboard — because that's how confidence is built. Show the example, then let them do it twenty times. The same goes for phone dialogues: practice, even if it feels silly. And if you use a tool like Flower Clique's Sales Prep School, don't park a new hire in front of the computer on day one and call them trained — pair the coursework with real goals and real check-ins. Finally, make continuing education part of your culture: Lori loves that several owners are sending employees to SAF's Next Gen event. An employee whose boss invests in them rarely wants to leave.
Key takeaways
- Culture — not product, price, or reputation — is your only sustainable hiring advantage.
- Onboarding should take weeks, not two or three days; set two or three attainable first-week goals.
- Assign a mentor, but keep checking in personally — and never lead with "I'm so busy."
- Rotate new hires through every part of the shop and ask what sparked; adjust roles when you see the signs.
- Teach how the business makes money, train through repetition, and invest in ongoing education.