The value of a robust onboarding program for new hires

Five objectives and six lessons learned in educating the newest FiscalNote employees

A candid moment during a photoshoot for the February new hires at FiscalNote, in front of our new building at One Thomas Circle in Washington D.C.

“Will I be issued a computer or should I bring my own?”

This isn’t an uncommon question for startup hires, who often join expecting chaos. I asked it before joining FiscalNote in Sept. 2014 and other new hires have asked it since. Luckily, for me, FiscalNote had the basic elements, such as supplies, organized.

We also realized, however, that we could build employee onboarding into a formative experience for new hires — increasing their commitment to the organization and decreasing their ramp time. So, shortly after I started working here, we invested a substantial amount of time into designing a comprehensive four-day onboarding experience.

Our updated onboarding, which has now gone through multiple iterations, launched in Feb. 2015 and received strong reviews from our new employees.

There has not been one month where we have not made at least minor tweaks — and sometimes they have been substantial tweaks.

Here are some of the lessons we learned along the way:

Start with the objectives

Before developing our onboarding process, we determined what success would look like. Ultimately, we wanted new hires to:

1. Understand and be able to articulate FiscalNote’s mission and vision
2. Embrace company culture and values
3. Understand the company and team organizational structure
4. Identify their role within organization and complete individual development plan for first 90 days
5. Be prepared with the logistical information to hit the ground running

Once we established our objectives, we could build out the components of onboarding. In fact, we designed each day thematically around a different aspect of our mission and emphasized various company values on different days. We wanted to challenge our new hires to think about how we are going to accomplish our big institutional goals.

Our March class of new hires included two Business Development Associates for our New York office and one new Associate Product Manager.

Share Stories

During the first hour of onboarding, we welcome our new hires enthusiastically and take turns sharing our FiscalNote story. Rather than just introduce ourselves and identify the last place at which we worked or where we went to school, we share insightful narratives about how we ended up working at a scrappy tech startup focused on government information. A veteran employee models this by leading off — sharing what he or she was looking for in a workplace and what in their career and personal life led them to this point.

This week, a new employee shared their experience of researching and talking to 200+ startups before accepting an offer to work on the Business Development Team at FiscalNote.

Then it is the new hires turn to get started — and we always learn something unexpected and delightful. This week, a new employee shared their experience of researching and talking to 200+ startups before accepting an offer to work on the Business Development Team at FiscalNote.

We also make sure one of our founders shares the story of how FiscalNote got started. Though we are now a Series C-funded company with 22,000 square feet of office space, it is important for new FiscalNoters to understand our humble origins from a Motel 6 in Sunnyvale, Calif. These founding stories are our shared history and we reference them often. We don’t want our new hires left out of the loop, so we build this into their experience at a detailed level — the onboarding conference room is even named “Motel 6.”

FiscalNote’s January new hires made a tremendous impact on the company in just their first few months on the team

Create Connections

Though we could film a lot of the onboarding conversations and play them back to employees, we take the time to have the new hires introduced to topics with in-person instructors. While this is partially to improve the learning experience, it is even more important to create cross-team connections — the relationships people will rely on to get their work done.

Our VP of Research will spend time meeting with a new cohort of Business Development Associates, as will our VPs from other departments. Other recent hires will come share their advice about how to succeed in the organization. Our CEO will explain our cultural values and answer questions.

Creating these connections further emphasizes our flat, decentralized culture that we hope new hires will embrace.

Administration should not dominate onboarding

At a lot of new jobs, day one is all about signing up for benefits and signing your name on forms. Based on our objectives, we knew we didn’t want onboarding to be focused on filling out paperwork. We handled everything but the I9s (because, by law, the documents must be viewed in person for verification) before new hires started using Zenefits.

We also wrote a living book, FN 101 (which we take the time to update on a regular basis) that explains all the ins and outs of life at FiscalNote. This includes everything from printers, to bathrooms, to workplace etiquette. We assign FN 101 as light homework reading, which brings me to my next point…

Provide Homework

At the close of each onboarding day, new hires receive an email recapping the day’s lessons with links to all presentations, relevant intranet pages, and any other references. In addition, there are anywhere from 3–10 assignments. Some of these assignments are as small as subscribing to one Slack channel of interest, while others are product review sessions.

We end each onboarding day before the work day wraps up, giving new hires a chance to sit near their teams and start diving into some assignments. Each morning we review the assignments as a group, and help each other solve any challenges we had. This material has been so valuable that employees have requested an onboarding library in the intranet.

Protect the Program

Managers are often so excited for their new hires to start that they have a list of projects ready to go on day one. This was making it hard for the new hires to focus on the onboarding experience and to get the 360-view of the company.

To solve this, we started sending an email to managers before the new hires started. The email explained the purpose and benefits of onboarding, included an onboarding schedule, detailed when new hires would be available to work on team projects, and specifically requested that managers refrain from assigning substantial work during the company-wide onboarding. This allowed the new hires to get the most out of their experience without feeling tension or overwhelmed as they started.

Measure Success

At the conclusion of each onboarding week, we send out an anonymous survey asking new hires to rate how well onboarding met each objective, what was most helpful to their learning, what they would change, and any other feedback. Every month, we reviewed this feedback, averaged our scores, looked for trends, and shared this insight internally along with a list of changes we would implement for the next cycle. There has not been one month where we have not made at least minor tweaks — and sometimes they have been substantial tweaks.

Repeatedly, we scored lowest on the objective to help employees understand their role within the organization and develop individual development plans (3 out of 5). We learned to build in more time with their managers, and explained to new hires that better understanding of their roles would build over time. Development plans and goals would be dynamic and would change. Only after collecting and analyzing this feedback, we realized the trend and implemented some shifts in messaging.

Our employees are our most valuable resource at FiscalNote, and we are incredibly invested in their happiness and satisfaction. As their first exposure to company operations, onboarding helps put them on the right path to success.

With a complete understanding of company values, goals, and responsibilities, the newest FiscalNoters are able to hit the ground running with confidence.

And, of course, we’re still hiring.