Welcome Onboard! (I know it’s supposed to be welcome aboard, but my contribution to the newsletter this month is about onboarding new employees, so, get it? onboard?) 🙂
Joking aside, onboarding is a critical practice for any company interested in reaping the rewards of the huge investment they have made in recruiting and hiring a new employee.
Typically, in small to medium-sized businesses, onboarding is a semi-formal to informal process that involves some specific training in job-related tasks, maybe a tour of the office with introductions to other team members, perhaps some discussion about “the way things are done” and perhaps some completion of employment and policy-related forms.
Does that sound familiar?
According to Docebo (2016) one-third of newly hired employees do not make it through their first year with a company that does not have an effective (consistent and well-planned) onboarding strategy in place. They either leave voluntarily or they do not make it through the probationary period – and that has an impact on a company’s bottom line. According to author Ken Ferrazzi (2015), the turnover cost for an employee that doesn’t make it can range between one and three times that employee’s salary.
So what does an effective onboarding strategy look like? An effective strategy is first and foremost intentional.
Company leaders should take time to really think about their company and what a new employee needs to know, not only survive, but to thrive as an active, engaged member of the team; one that will grow along with the company – and that will ultimately help the company to grow!
Best practices in onboarding, according the Docebo report, include:
- Setting up a comprehensive, multimodal onboarding process that includes both push methods: deliberate, compulsory training through online courses, face-to-face training with other employees, and study of procedural manuals or videos; and pull methods: access to knowledge repositories (like IRN’s IT Glue – where team members can share documentation and videos of ways in which they have solved a challenging problem) and access to mentors and “buddies” new employees can turn to for questions and support. It also helps for company leaders to check in with new hires to see whether they have any burning issues or questions, and to let them know how they are doing.
- Keeping the learning going! Good onboarding doesn’t stop after the first two weeks. It takes about 8 months for a new employee to reach full productivity (Ferrazzi, 2015). Even after that — strong companies that retain excellent employees keep the learning going by offering ongoing opportunities for team members to grow in their jobs. (Think: conferences and social learning and sharing platforms, like Scoop.it (http://www.scoop.it/) or Flipboard https://flipboard.com/ — online places where employees can share exciting things they are learning about their field or practice.)
- Provide a platform for “just-in-time” learning. As I mentioned earlier, here at IRN, team members have access to IT Glue, an online documentation platform, so everyone on the team can both contribute to and benefit from a knowledge base that is specific to the types of problems that team members need to address on a regular basis. It’s ongoing communication that helps everyone grow.
And finally, this advice from Ferrazzi: Take the time to measure the impact of your onboarding efforts. Company leaders should conduct “stay” interviews to glean information about what has worked or is working well to help team members who have stayed on and thrived in the company.
A company is only as good as its team. As a company leader, if you want to maximize the potential for every employee, which leads to active engagement, job satisfaction, and ultimately, longevity and growth for the whole organization, then make the most of the investment you have already made in recruiting and hiring an excellent prospect. Make sure new hires start off on the right foot, and keep their footing, so they can thrive as members of your team. Take the time to develop and implement an effective onboarding strategy. It will definitely pay off.
Resources:
Docebo (2016). Onboarding at the speed of growth: how to slash your ramp up time for a stronger team, faster. Retrieved from https://www.docebo.com/employee-onboarding-elearning-lms-best-practices/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F.
Ferrazzi, K. (2015). Technology can save onboarding from itself. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/03/technology-can-save-onboarding-from-itself).