The easy guide to a
great onboarding process
Research tells us that 90% of employees will make the decision to stay with their
employer within the first year. We also know that 20% of employees that decide to
leave will do so in the first 45 days.
This means you’ve
got less than...
...to give staff a
reason to stay
Effective onboarding has been proven to reduce turnover and increase the
likelihood employees will remain with you for the long term. This Cognology guide
will step you through the key ingredients for an onboarding experience to exceed
your new hire’s expectations. Following our tips for success, your business will
reap the rewards of more productive and engaged staff, and your turnover issues
will be history.
Houston, we have a problem...
You show up on your first day of work after receiving a verbal offer from a recruitment agency
about 4 weeks ago. The receptionist tells you the manager is away and no one knew you were
starting. After waiting in reception for an hour, a HR officer appears with some paperwork
and a clipboard and asks you to “fill this in”. After another hour of battling to read the poorly
photocopied forms, the receptionist leads you through the closed door to a desk piled with
papers and the odd sticky, stained coffee cup. She tells you that you can sit here because Jack
is on holidays this week. Eventually, a guy called Peter brings some product manuals over and
says you can read through these today until the manager gets back tomorrow. The rest of the
week unfolds with you borrowing security passes to get to the loo, getting lost on the way to
the cafeteria, and trying to figure out what your job is in between the manager rushing off to
meetings. You still haven’t met most of the team - who just give you a shy smile laced with pity
as they pass you in the hall - and you don’t know who to ask for help. You won’t have your own
desk until the lady in the corner goes on parental leave next Friday and IT has promised to sort
out your login and computer once the paperwork has been lodged by your manager...
How are you feeling right about now? Valued? Doubt it. They don’t even know who
you are. Committed? No way! You’d take any job offer right now just to get out of
here. Regret? You’re drowning in it. You wish you had never left your last job with
the view over the river. Sadly, this is a really great job with a fantastic team and
is going to lead to big things in the future. But you are never going to know that
because you’re not going to stick around long enough to find out. This nightmare
however, could have had a happier ending with the right onboarding process.
Onboarding is a series of activities and interactions for new hires to help them
settle in, introduce them to the expectations of their new job, ensure they build
the skills and knowledge they need to succeed, and most importantly, understand
the culture of your company. Unlike traditional inductions that last a few hours or
a few days, onboarding starts from recruitment and encompasses the first 6 - 12
months of a new hire’s time with you.
An effective onboarding process increases staff engagement with the business,
reduces turnover (particularly in the first 12 months) and results in staff becoming
more productive more quickly - which boosts your bottom line.
Step 1.
Start with a plan.
Tailor the onboarding plan.
The first rule of onboarding is that not all onboarding
programmes are created equal. This is not to say
some staff are more important than others, just that
different staff will have different needs.
Cover job specific skills and knowledge.
Onboarding should be tailored for the nature of the role. Consider the differences
between onboarding a call centre operator and a management accountant. One
must learn product knowledge, be trained in the company’s customer service
standards, and be able to navigate the CRM. The other will be responsible for
costing projects and scrutinising budgets, developing strategy, and undertaking
financial reporting.
Cater for the Individual’s level of experience and autonomy.
Onboarding should be pitched at the right level and in line with the person’s work
style. For example, is the new hire a school leaver or graduate? Has the person
had experience in a similar role? How much direction will they need vs. autonomy
they’d prefer?
Mix it up with formal and informal activities.
While formal training is going to be a big part of any onboarding programme, it is
important not to overwhelm staff with too much information too soon. Mix up the
experiences so that the employee’s first days are inspiring, not boring.
In addition to formal training, your plan should include:
-- roundtable discussions. -- site visits.
-- meetings with key people. -- shadowing.
-- on-the-job learning. -- corporate videos.
-- one-on-one mentoring. -- performance planning.
-- buddy system. -- strategy workshops.
Resourcing and provisioning.
Determine all of the equipment this person is going to need to do their job. Your
new hire will be productive a lot faster if they are fully provisioned right from the
start with phones, computers, email accounts and the appropriate security and IT
access.
Plan to communicate.
Be sure that you factor communication with HR staff, leaders, mentors, buddies,
IT, security and so on into your plan. You want to make sure your newbie’s
onboarding experience runs like clockwork.
H o w ar e y o u s et t li ng in?
Step 2.
Four pillars of onboarding.
performance
social
role clarity
cultural
performance
preboarding management
compliance
company values assign a buddy career planning
e-learning/knowledge
law and policy staff interaction personalise management
peer to peer
contracts communication initiation rituals feedback
forms and paperwork terminology/language informal catch-ups corporate strategy
Compliance
This involves the most fundamental aspects of onboarding for a new employee.
It includes legal and policy compliance training, as well as company paperwork
to formalise the employment. A lot of the compliance aspects are the same from
employee to employee and are ideal items to automate using technology. What’s
more, an automated system will enable you to reach out to new staff as soon
as they have been offered the job. By ‘preboarding’ you can finalise contracts
and sign staff up with payroll before they even arrive, meaning you can get them
started more quickly on more fruitful activities.
Performance
Role clarity
How a new employee performs and how soon they start contributing to the
business is affected by how well they understand the expectations of the job. By
clearly setting out the role and responsibilities for the employee and agreeing on
KPI’s and milestones, you can build a foundation on which to meet regularly and
discuss performance.
Performance management
It is important to introduce any formal performance management systems
as early as possible, particularly in situations where performance needs to
be monitored as part of the probation period. Regular meetings should be
scheduled to ensure issues are raised and addressed in a timely way.
Career planning
It is never too early to talk over career goals with new staff. Too often, they are
only covered during performance reviews, but people’s experience, ideas, and
lives are changing all the time. It is healthy to talk about what interests them. In
fact, these conversations are key to tailoring onboarding experiences and can be
useful information to feed into talent planning processes. The employee will also
feel a greater sense of connection with you and the organisation when they see
that you are interested in their future development and career progression.
Peer to peer feedback
Peer feedback may feel awkward at first for the uninitiated, so it is essential to
ease new hires in. Talk about the benefits of sharing, sourcing and receiving
feedback from the people you work with. Get them engaging in the process as
soon as possible and watch their energy and enthusiasm skyrocket.
e-Learning and knowledge management tools
Providing new employees with on-demand access to onboarding materials and
resources is a way to turbo-boost their learning and fast track their performance.
Join the dots to corporate strategy
Have senior managers educate your new hire about the company strategy as you
did in the old days of induction. But when they are back in their chair, assist them
to understand the part they have to play in achieving strategic objectives. Your
new hire will find their work far more meaningful and their engagement levels will
increase.
Social
Research shows that the sooner a new employee feels connected and accepted
by their new colleagues the sooner they will begin to truly immerse themselves in
their role. To kick start this connection, there are a few key things you can do.
Preboarding
The employment relationship begins at recruitment and can set the tone for
the rest of their time with you. Reaching out and communicating with a new
employee before they even start can be a powerful way of solidifying the
person’s commitment to your company and helping them feel part of your team.
Technology can really expand the opportunities for your new hire to connect with
you and your team during the preboarding phase.
Assign a buddy
A buddy is someone who partners with a new employee in their first weeks of
employment. While primarily there to offer advice and guidance regarding the
day-to-day aspects, the buddy may also offer encouragement and knowledge, and
help the new hire navigate some of the cultural aspects of the company. Most
significantly, having a buddy takes a lot of confusion and anxiety out of those first
days for your new hire.
Personalise
How would it feel to be greeted by name on your first day in the office? What if a
new colleague asked you about the amazing project you ran in your previous job
at XYZ company? Welcome messages and making sure other staff in the office
know a new employee’s name and a brief summary of their background before
the person starts can jump start relationships and create a sense of connection.
Once again, technology can help make this process easy.
Initiation rituals
Let’s just clarify that we’re not talking about rolling someone in glue and sticking
feathers on them, or hanging them out of a window by their feet!! Initiation rituals
should be positive gestures that signal an acceptance into the fold. For example,
a construction firm might give new hires a red hard hat during their training so
everyone knows that they are new to the company and they can welcome them
to the team. Alternatively you might send your new hire a welcome gift or hold a
morning tea for the whole office in their honour.
Informal catch ups
Morning teas, lunches or other social opportunities however shouldn’t be limited
to the first day. Inviting a new staff member for a coffee and taking the time to
talk to them about how their first days and weeks with the company can give
you valuable insights into how you can support them towards full productivity.
Likewise, taking a new hire along with you to have lunch with colleagues can help
open up new social and professional networks for them.
Culture
You can tell a lot about a corporate culture from strategic elements like vision,
mission, values and purpose, it’s business process and systems, as well as from
policies and rules. However, what is most telling are the subtle things like: how
co-workers prefer to communicate (whether through scheduled meetings,
voicemail, e-mail, peer networks etc); whether there is a unique language and set
of terminologies; how staff socialise and celebrate (for example lunch on Friday, or
birthday celebrations); and how employees respond when a crisis hits (are others
willing to pitch in and help out). This is where the use of buddies and mentors can
be invaluable. By choosing trusted people to role model the right behaviours and
guide your new staff member through the uncharted waters of your culture, you
will be equipping your people for earlier success.
Step 3.
Brand it, build commitment.
To get employees and stakeholders
committed to the onboarding process, you
need to do more than just invite them to
attend a training program or event. You need
to pull out all stops and convince everyone
of the value of onboarding and what it has to
offer. Branding is much more than adding a
logo or tagline to your templates. It is about
communicating an experience, a perception
and an attitude towards onboarding initiatives
through multiple channels targeted at specific
stakeholders. (If you’re not sure where to
start, go and talk to your marketing team).
Only by gaining the full commitment of all
staff involved can you ensure a consistent and
positive experience for all your new hires.
Step 4.
Transform with technology.
A flexible and well designed, automated onboarding system will open up a world
of opportunity to streamline your paperwork and integrate your onboarding
processes. Most importantly, automating routine aspects of the programme will
free up your leaders and HR staff to invest time in productivity boosting activities.
A great system will allow you to track individual and team performance and
provide reliable data and insights into how you can continue to improve the
process over time.
Step 5.
Measure your success.
Your greatest resource for determining the success of your onboarding program
is the new hires themselves. In addition to having regular check-ins with the new
team member to discuss how they are progressing, many employers also survey
participants at critical junctures eg: the 30 or 60 day mark. Collecting reliable
feedback like this will give you an accurate picture of what is working well and
what isn’t.
Review and refine the plan regularly
As you get to know your new staff member and begin to understand their skills,
experience, strengths, weaknesses and preferences, you may need to organise
further training or even change the content of their onboarding programme. Your
plan should be flexible enough to adapt to their needs.
Impact on turnover and retention
Once you have rolled out your onboarding programme, take a look at the
difference it is making to the turnover of your staff - particularly in the first 12
months. You should notice your retention rate increasing and the number of new
hires requiring onboarding dropping.
Now lets rerun that first day of work.
This time with a great onboarding process...
You arrive at the office and the receptionist greets you by name and takes you to
meet your manager. There is no paperwork to fill in - that has already been taken
care of in preboarding. After some one-on-one time with your manager discussing
your onboarding plan, you are taken to see your desk which you notice is fully
equipped with a telephone, laptop, company iPhone, and business cards. Your
manager then introduces you to your buddy who takes you for a coffee at the
cafeteria before showing you around the building. Your buddy then introduces
you to staff you met in the company’s online social network who are working on a
new app which will change the way....
Houston, we have lift off!
So, how do you feel now?
Bauer, T.N. (2004) Onboarding New Employees : Maximizing Success.
SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series
https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/resources-from-past-
initiatives/Documents/Onboarding%20New%20Employees.pdf
Bauer, T. N. (2013). Onboarding: The power of connection.
Part 1 of the 3 part Success Factors Onboarding White Paper Series.
http://www.successfactors.com/en_us/resources.html
Lahey, Z. Strategic Onboarding : Help New Employees and the Business (2016)
Strack, R. Caye, J. von der Linden, C. Quiros, H. and Haen, P. (2012).
From Capability to Profitability : Realising the Value of People Management.
Boston Consulting Group. http://www.bcg.de/documents/file110599.pdf
Stein, M. and Christiansen, L. Successful Onboarding: Strategies to Unlock
Hidden Value in the Organization. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2010.
Pike, K. (2014) New Employee Onboarding Programs and Person - Organization
Fit : An Examination of Socialization Tactics. University of Rhode Island.
Seminar Research Paper Series. Paper 24. http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/
viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=lrc_paper_series
Academic paper (PDF): Onboarding: The power of connection.
Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286447344_
Onboarding_The_power_of_connection [accessed Apr 10, 2017].
Connect your employees to your
purpose with Cognology onboarding.
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