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Onboarding New Employees

When your company is growing too fast, it’s difficult to think about anything besides keeping your head above water. Many young, smart people will join your company because of its startup cred. As you ramp up your company, your focus shouldn’t just be on who you hire, but also on how these new employees will be integrated into your company.

Most companies have an induction program but fewer companies have an onboarding program. According to Allied HRIQ’s “2012 Allied Workforce Mobility Survey,” roughly 35 percent of companies spent $0 on onboarding. That’s insane! More than one third of companies are investing literally nothing into properly onboarding and training their most valuable resource. In fact, an April 2013 study of 230 organizations by Aberdeen found that 90 percent of organizations believe employees make the decision to stay or leave within their first year.

After successfully recruiting and selecting top talent, one of the primary ways a company can improve their talent-management process is by implementing an effective onboarding. Onboarding is more than just new hire orientation. Onboarding is a process. This process includes a structured plan of actions which should be taken in order to achieve following goals — accommodation, assimilation and acceleration. I’d like to share my thoughts on this topic and propose a number of required actions in order to achieve these goals.

Make The First Day On The Job Special

First day impressions matter. Just as a new employee has one chance at a first impression so does the employer. To ensure your new employees integrate smoothly into your company, it’s important that you start preparing for them before the first day.

Actions:

• Create an agenda for their first day (confirm start date and time, provide employee information about a dress code and contact person which will be his guide for the first day).
• Prepare a workplace (a comfortable work station for your new staffers, filled with needed supplies and with key papers like your employee handbook, legal forms and more placed on top).
• Sort the paperwork (if employee still need paperwork and legalities sorted out, get everything ready to be signed and over with).
• Do a quick roundup with the team to introduce the new hires.
• Create a checklist (light version of this) which should assist with the department’s orientation process from the day one.

Tips:

Arrange for lunch with the team or buddy for the first day and during first week. An organized but not too formal lunch ensures that new employees connect quickly with the people they will work with every day. It’s the little things that help make a great impression.

Assist Smooth Assimilation

“You will be assimilated.” As anyone who was a fan of Star Trek, The New Generation, is aware, this was the favorite statement of the Borg. But in case of onboarding it’s a core part of the process. It’s a very important to create a welcoming atmosphere and introduce the new employee to the rest of the team. During every step of the process, new employees should know who to turn to and feel comfortable providing feedback.

Employee want their own managers to take charge onboarding them. Research generated by BambooHR.

Actions:

• Assign specific peer mentor (a buddy) to new members of the team, and entrust them with helping their mentee meet other employees, especially those not on their team.
• The first 90 days are the right time to introduce hires to new colleagues and directly responsible individuals and key stakeholder.
• Create a comfort zone during onboarding. Pushing employees outside their comfort zones is often necessary to move toward a desired future state, but during onboarding employee is already out of his/her comfort zone.

Tips:

It’s simply not possible to remember all new information so make sure employee takes notes (e.g. team member’s names and responsibilities, details about a department). Mentor (a buddy) should be a really “care-taker” — a person who can help employee feel she has a safe place to ask any questions.

Present The Way Things Get Done Around Here

This point is all about a working process and organizational culture. Induction is essential for new employees and their understanding of the company policies and their personal role. For most, the first 30 days on the job is not just learning the job — but learning how the company wants you to do your job.

Actions:

• Set expectations early and make sure employee has a clearly stated goals (both short-tearm and long-term).
• Create more transparency around how you work and culture. Be participatory in nature.
• Cover important work processes with your new staff members, including things like software best practices, password policies, and email groups.

Tips:

As you get to know your new hires, think about the other employees that they might relate best to and encourage these new relationships to form. For the most part, socialization on the job doesn’t take away from your company’s productivity — it leads to happier, more motivated workers.

Train Your Employees

Adding new hires to your company isn’t a “plug and play” process. It’s easy to believe that ones a employee came to the work — next day she’ll be like a like a fish in water. No, it’s not that simple. To reduce stress and boost employee confidence you should have an on-job-trainings.

Almost 76% of employees said that they want a training in the first weeks. Research by BambooHR.

Actions:

• Create a training program for new hires. Provide information in a manageable, steady stream.
• Training must encompass How and Why.
• Try bringing people from all levels into the training of a new employee, no matter where he or she sits in the organizational hierarchy.

Tips:

This training program should include daily activities together with expected results. Ideally, training program should have an exam at the end— to understand gaps in employee’s knowledge base. And don’t forget early feedback. It’s one of the most important things a new employee needs to get up to speed and begin contributing quickly.

Deal With New Employee’s Mistakes

We all make mistakes. Every one of us. And for new hires the number of mistakes is pretty high. If you see a certain task was not done properly or a part that requires more attention — do not prod, and do not push. Start a conversation instead of pushing.

Actions:

• Understand why person did this. Focus on first on listening rather than on arguing.
• Say what were your expectations. Set an expectation bar and share it with your employee.
• Update your training program and instructions as you learn what does and doesn’t work for your employees.

Tips:

Face-to-face meetings is a perfect way to solve this problem. As a bonus — you bring a confidence in your business relationships. Simply, stop by their department and ask them “how’s it going?” Never argue with employee in pubic, you can opt to move to a more private area or suggest coming to your office to discuss further. Say your message in as few words as possible. The less you say, the more likely you are to be heard.

Analyze Employee Feedback

Feedback is a gift. An especially constructive criticism. Implementing a feedback gives new team members ownership over the process and demonstrates that their input is valuable. But not only for them. With each new suggestion you’re able to tweak the training or mentoring system and improve your onboarding process.

Actions:

• Talk with your employee on a regular basis. Develop open two-way conversation.
• Establish a good performance review procedure. After 90 days, conduct your first performance review to determine whether or not new employees are progressing as expected.

Tips:

Employees seeing your company with fresh sets of eyes, which could lead to new ideas you haven’t considered. Encourage their feedback from day one. Let them feel comfortable to speak their mind.

Pay Attention On Probation Period

The first 90 days of employment (often called the probationary period) is pivotal to building rapport with the company, management and coworkers. And it’s a very important to track a motivation and technical copetency during the period. This is by far the best moment to understand what person is capable of. If probation period shows a negative trend — bad habit or low motivation — it’s a red flag for a manager.

Popular quote “People Leave Managers, Not Companies” is not a quite complete. People often change their mind but also usually have their own expectations about work.

Actions:

• Use milestone 30/60/90 day review of orientation. All major points (e.g. direction) you want to get on the table and talk about right away during the review.
• Establish a performance measurement. Monitor progress over time.

Tips:

Rather than placing your full expectations on new employees right away, allow them to acclimate and meet increasingly difficult goals as they learn their way around your business.

Don’t Forget To Have Fun

People decide to switch jobs because they are convinced your company is a better opportunity than their previous employment. And they’re totally right!

For employees who really like to have their alone own time

Actions:

• Show the cool parts of your company, not just the paperwork.
• Make new employees feel at home.

Tips:

There are a million low bandwidth ways to make it. Create a welcome kit together with any branded materials with your company logo, like t-shirts, pins, laptop stickers and so on. A lot of those items makes it feel like a useful welcome present and lets them know you’re excited they’re there. Clarify office inside jokes (create a glossary, perhaps?) so they don’t feel like a fish out of water when everyone is laughing but them.

Everyone is different. Introverts, extroverts, HQ. You just want their first weeks to be amazing, and part of that is adapting the process to fit them. Onboarding is a something you need to think hard about because both the “big things” and the “little things” matter. As you go through the onboarding process for the first time, take notes to document everything you did to help get your new employees off to a great start. Update your document as you learn what does and doesn’t work for your company. Automating onboarding will enable employees and employers to easily refer back to onboarding information when needed.

Invest in your new hires and give them an exceptional experience, so you can both know they made the right choice.

Feature reading

• Nick Lucs, “Everything You Need To Know to Create An Effective Employee Onboarding Program”
• Infographics on “What Do New Hires Want From Onboarding”
• Ben Horowitz, “Why It’s Crucial To Train Your Employees”