Tackling employee on-boarding

Employee on-boarding is a curious problem. In today’s business environment, rapid innovation and bringing products to market faster is the order of the day. Companies are now asking themselves “how can we get new hires “working” and innovating as quickly as possible?”

Do you offer “crash-courses” — a short, finite period where a new-starter is bombarded with meetings, presentations and training? Or do you instead just get them up-and-running with the basics (i.e. the legal and HR stuff) and hope that they learn the other, “less-important” stuff on-the-go? OR do you follow the example of approximately one-fifth of companies who, according to a 2012 survey, don’t even bother with a formal on-boarding program at all?

Before you answer, consider the following stats from a TalentWise study: 91% of employees stick around for at least a year when organizations have efficient on-boarding processes. Of those, 69% stick around for at least three years when companies have well-structured on-boarding programs.

Added to this is the fact that the average cost to fill just one position is about $11k (and even higher when filling specialist or highly-skilled positions), this is a pretty big deal.

At Beyond, as we grow, the question of on-boarding is becoming an increasingly important one.

We have, as of writing, close to 150 full-time employees across four offices, plus many more contractors and freelancers. This means it’s virtually impossible for a single person to deliver or manage on-boarding for all new hires. Additionally, as we’re discovering, every current employee has their own interpretation of what Beyond does, how it does it and what it stands for, meaning new hires are being told different things by different people. Finally, we are recognizing that people prefer to learn in different ways, at different paces, meaning there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.

All of these factors are coming together to show us that on-boarding is actually more of an academic challenge than a business one.

So, how are we tackling it? It’s a work in progress but, taking a cue from academia, we’re designing our employee on-boarding around the following principles:

• Grow, don’t tell: Instead of bombarding new-starters with a series of “knowledge-dumps” of policies and processes — often in the forms of multiple decks, meetings and presentations — quickly anchor your new-hires in what you feel is immediately important for them to understand. For us it’s our values, our culture and how Beyond works. After anchoring them in this knowledge, foster their growth in each key area by structuring all further activities and initiatives so that they can be easily cascaded down from these things.
• Empower self-lead development: Create a core “curriculum” (based on the stuff outlined above) and schedule for the new-hire to get started, but create an experience where they are ultimately encouraged and empowered to be in charge of their own growth. Provide the resources (people, materials, training) and make them easily available (through an open-culture and the right technology) and already the employee has a framework to pursue the method of learning which suits them best.
• Don’t provide an end-point: In the spirit of an exponential organization, where learning is established as a habit, employee on-boarding should not be communicated or delivered as a necessary preamble to billable work. Instead, it should be positioned as the start of a new-hire’s journey and personal development with the company, something which is never ending. As part of this, ask yourself, is “on-boarding” even the right term or label for the experience you are asking them to participate in?
• Provide for preparation: First days can often feel daunting so new-hires often spend time before starting a new job “brushing up” on the company, typically through the company website. Rather than relying on this, proactively provide them with the things you’d want them to come in on their first day already knowing. Maybe it’s your company history, maybe it’s your values, maybe it’s who they’ll be working with. Create materials for these and make them easy for new-hires to access, ahead of Day 1.
• Communicate the important stuff once, well: If your new-hire is typically going to meet many different people across the business, people who will all have their own experiences and guidance to share, it’s critical for the stuff that you really want them to understand clearly is communicated consistently throughout. You can achieve this by doing the following: i) creating a definitive set of materials which communicate these things and then ii) ensuring both your existing employees and new hires have easy access to — and are trained in using — them.

It may sound daunting to replace your set of readily available training and decks but, really, on-boarding should feel like an experience as unique to your company as the clients you work with and/or the products you create.

The start of a new hire’s career is the absolute best opportunity for you to set the tone and create the right conditions for how you want them to behave and perform in your company. After all, habits are much easier to create than change or break.