6 Tenets of Onboarding a New Hire
When expanding your team, consider these 6 tenets to guide your onboarding program to success.
This posting expresses the views and opinions of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yext and its affiliates, employees, officers, directors or representatives.
When I took on the role of leading onboarding for our Consulting Design team, we had a lot of room for growth. Onboarding when I joined the team wasn’t formalized or structured much at all. I had a steadily increasing amount of client work, and was expected to fill the rest of the time with shadowing and self-learning. Given the complexity of our design process, this undefined onboarding left a lot of gaps in my understanding, and it took months before I was able to fully understand how to really excel at my role, and work comfortably within the nuance of client requests.
We had made an attempt and, most importantly, created an opportunity for reflection and iteration.
Three months later, to prepare for our next onboarding, we developed a process that aimed to cover all of the essential information for our team. We had begun to build a complex internal design system, and needed comprehensive training to cover how and when to utilize different elements. The onboarding was by no means a great success, but we had made an attempt and, most importantly, created an opportunity for reflection and iteration, aiming to be more successful the next time around.
Our seven-person team doesn’t onboard folks all that often, but with interns and new hires, we were able to iterate on our process four times over the last two years. We developed an experience that gives new hires comprehensive exposure to our work and the team. The onboarding process is capped off with a training project that presents a low-stress opportunity to walk through all the steps of a full implementation for a client. This process faced some new variables when we onboarded two new members at once in August. That experience helped us recognize that although the process was working, it would struggle to meet our shifting needs as we scaled the team. We needed a process that required less upfront time from members of the team and empowered the new hire to drive the success of their onboarding experience.
Through iteration, we have developed a set of tenets that guide our continued improvements and goals of building the most positive onboarding experience for new teammates. Here they are:
Early wins build confidence
First impressions are extremely important, and although many new hires don’t expect to dive right into real work, we want to give our new hires an opportunity to immediately impact a client project. This gives them an exciting glimpse into how we work, and gives them a client that they are immediately working with and can write home about.
Let them falter, but not fail
No matter how experienced, it is possible to miss something when working on a project. New hires shouldn’t be protected from this possibility, facing challenges that parallel the difficulties of real work. As they work through these challenges, support them. If they falter, provide guidance and take over if needed. The goal is to let them struggle some, but not enough to kill their spirit or risk impacting the timeline of the project they are working on.
Never teach just the ideal case
In our consulting work, we rarely have a project that is fully defined and easy to execute on. It would not be fair to the new hire to pretend that everything always goes smoothly. We want them to know how a project is supposed to go, while also feeling comfortable responding to the common deviations, and having an internal signal go off when a particularly bizarre request is made.
Teach as a team
Along with all of the technical details we teach during onboarding, we also want to establish relationships between the new hire and all the current members of the team. Everyone on the team should feel comfortable interacting with each other and early facetime during training is a great opportunity to build these bonds. The team then creates a lattice of support, where the new hire feels comfortable approaching anyone on the team for aid when working, and no single team member is strained with the load of onboarding or ongoing mentorship.
Create a judgement-free environment
Many new hires aren’t going to excel at their job from the start. They are going to make mistakes and produce sub-par product on occasion. We expect these errors, and let our new hires know this from the beginning. Messing up doesn’t make them a bad designer, but gives them an opportunity to learn and grow. We maintain a supportive and positive environment through these mistakes, never chastising or punishing, instead working together to recover and hone their anticipatory skills.
Everyone has a voice and a vote
Related to the previous tenet, a new hire should feel like a member of the team from their first day. They are encouraged to share opinions from the start, and although they might not have much to contribute in many meetings, they should not be barred from asking questions and participating based on this assumption. Many new hires bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the team and should be leveraged as an asset from the beginning.
Conclusion
These tenets are a strong foundation that enable us to continue to evolve our onboarding process. With the help of our newest hires, we are aiming to take a larger leap this winter: developing a revamped process that will be more efficient for our expanding team.
