Building a Better Onboarding Process, One Employee at a Time
Do you have a planned and carefully executed onboarding process, or do you just give new hires a few forms to fill out, issue their computers, and tell them to go figure things out on their own?
If the latter describes your onboarding process, then Connie Bentley, U.S. general manager at Insights Learning & Development, has a bone to pick with you.
“That’s totally not fair to somebody,” Bentley says. “It’s irresponsible for leaders not to have a way of onboarding people that really gives them everything they need … to do the job well. To me, the days of show ‘em where they sit, tell ‘em where the bathroom is, and have them figure it out — those are over. We can’t afford that.”
Poor onboarding processes aren’t just unfair to employees — as in, how can you expect anyone to be successful if you never give them the tools to be successful? — but also damaging to employers in a number of ways:
- Poor onboarding leads to high attrition rates: research suggests that employers lose 25 percent of new hires within their first years as a direct result of poor onboarding processes.
- Poor onboarding also lowers productivity levels. According to research from the Aberdeen Group, 77 percent of new hires at companies with formal onboarding processes met their first performance goals, whereas only 49 percent of employees at companies without formal onboarding processes met theirs.
The lesson here is that employee success — and, by extension, company success — depends in large part on the onboarding process. Without carefully planned and executed onboarding processes, organizations suffer, in terms of productivity, retention, and, ultimately, the bottom line.
To Build a Better Onboarding Process, Pay Attention to Individual Employees’ Needs
So, you need a carefully planned and implemented onboarding process — but what, exactly, should that process accomplish?
“When somebody starts, on day one, there should be a very well planned and communicated path that they are going to follow to get immersed in the company and the culture so that they know what it’s like to be an employee of the company,” Bentley says. “There should be a
Before they can become engaged and productive members of the company, new hires need to understand the company’s purpose, values, and business strategies through a comprehensive immersion process.
To learn more about how to build such a comprehensive immersion process, we asked Bentley to expound on Insights’ onboarding process, which she believes is key to the company’s success
— On day one, a new employee comes into the office t0 meet with their manager(s) and get all of the mundane stuff out of the way: paperwork, HR tasks, issuing of computers/passwords/accounts/etc.
— Then, the employee begins a program called “Starting Blocks,” which consists of information about the company delivered via videos and reading materials. Sometimes, the employee can even complete this module before day one.
— Managers work with the employee to create “a list of people in the company with whom they will be interacting, as well as key leaders. They set up a calendar of conversations with people so that they have a chance to understand who each person is, what they do in the company, and how they might interact with one another.”
“Those conversations are a really good way of getting people acquainted with their colleagues quickly, as well as with the leadership of the company,” Bentley says.
— After this, the new employee begins a learning path designed specifically for them, based on their role. Through this learning path, they are exposed to product lines, job skills, and other important information related to their role.
“They don’t stand at parade rest for the first six months, but we do try to delay total immersion in the job so that they actually know what they are doing before they engage in the job,” Bentley says.
This portion of the program may also include participation in a “buddy system,” Insights’ peer mentoring program.
“If we learn that the way someone likes to learn is different from our original plan, we change it,” Bentley says. “It’s a living, organic process. Some people want to read, and some people want to start right away with conversations.”
“You need to design [the onboarding process] with the person and the role in mind,” Bentley continues. “What are their preferences for how they like to learn?”
Ultimately, Bentley believes that leadership must be committed to getting people “engaged and productive as soon as possible” — and the requires a strong onboarding process tailored to employee needs.
So, if your company’s onboarding process could use some tweaking, you may want to consider taking a page from Insights.