I don’t know about you, but in my 14+ years of working in the corporate world, I only experienced excellent onboarding in one job. Here’s why it was so good: my very small company offered a financial incentive for employees to give a longer resignation notice (6 week notice was a bonus of 3 weeks pay). They recognized that turnover was hard on the clients (high-touch, white glove service) and they wanted to mitigate that. The person I was replacing gave 6 or 8 weeks notice and therefore, she was there to hands-on train me for several weeks. Additionally, they were smart enough to have candidates in the pipeline even when a position wasn’t open. That led to a quick hire once the position was open and therefore, more training and I truly felt set-up for success.
Every other job though? Hot messes! I was consistently sent into the fire and told to “figure it out” as I go. The reactive approach is unfortunate because companies are so focused on the short-term that they overlook the long-term benefits of putting in the time and effort to onboard well.
Here are some statistics that prove why effective onboarding is so crucial:
⚡ 88% of organizations don’t onboard well. Gallup found that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job of onboarding new employees.
⚡ Great employee onboarding can improve employee retention by 82%. (Brandon Hall Group)
⚡ SHRM reports: 47% of companies are unsure how to assess the success or failure of their current employee onboarding initiatives.
⚡ Most organizations only focus on the first week of onboarding. (Sapling HR)
⚡ 25% of a company’s new hires would leave the company within a year if the onboarding experience was poor. (SHRM)
⚡ 55% of businesses report that they do not measure the effectiveness of onboarding programs. (FinanceOnline)
⚡Roughly one-third of global executives reported that the quality of their onboarding was below par. (ClickBoarding)
⚡ On average, replacing an employee costs between 16% – 20% of the person’s pay. (Peoplekeep)
Now that we’ve proved why onboarding is soooooooooo important, let’s talk about some best practices to onboard new employees effectively. These are things I consistently share with my clients.
Best practices
✔️ Proactively (well before they start) come up with a thoughtful, intentional gameplan. It should include things like: what does the 3-6 months look like, how will progress be measured and how often, what are the expectations of them in the first 1-6 months. Who is training and are they ready and prepared to train?
✔️ Clearly outline your plan for training. Those who are responsible for training should know – they should know what’s expected of them, what’s expected of the training, how to effectively train. You need to train the trainers. There should be progress checks and coaching conversations. You will probably have to lighten their workload some so that they have time to train.
✔️ Map out the internal and external stakeholders for them and go over it. Fill them in on the unspoken politics of the organization (try to do this without being gossipy).
✔️ Explain the bigger picture to them – provide context of how their role/tasks directly ties into the mission/vision of the organization. Describe the unique value proposition of the organization. What’s the organization’s competitive advantage? What do you do better than your competitors?
✔️ Reinforce why you hired them. What qualities about them led you to hiring them? What did you see in them that you didn’t see in other candidates?
✔️ Avoid vague questions! Ask them specific questions. Vague questions will get you vague responses. Improve your questions to improve the information and communication! Examples of specific questions to ask:
Vague: “How are things going?” (will likely not lead to a substantial response).
Specific: “What’s going well for you right now?” and “What’s your biggest challenge right now?” will give you much better information.
Vague (and closed question): “Did you understand what was discussed in the meeting?” They’re most likely going to say “yes” to this even if they didn’t understand! You’re cornering them with this question.
Specific (and open-ended): “What were your takeaways from the meeting?” and “What didn’t you understand that I can clarify for you?”
✔️ Set-up a consistent feedback and communication loop with them. Don’t just send them into the fire. Not training properly and having people “figure it out” as they go is not only not productive, but, disengaging. Imagine what they’re thinking – “wow, these people are a hot mess.” The rewards you will reap by spending the time to properly train them and set them up for success will be huge in the long run.
From the book HR Disrupted, here are some real life examples & ideas of what companies do for onboarding. (whether they do them well is unknown):
👉🏻 A week-long scavenger hunt for new employees comprised of a series of tasks and questions that takes them into all areas of the company.
👉🏻 Invite people from all levels of the company to talk about their job to new employees.
👉🏻 The last person to join the team is responsible for creating a starter kit for the next person.
👉🏻 A boot camp for all new employees (Etsy). Spend their first week with the team that hired them then they rotate to other teams around the company for 4-6 weeks to cross-trained and build relationships. They repeat the process for each employee at their 1, 2, and 3 year anniversaries.
👉🏻 Send an email to the entire company introducing each new employee with a brief bio, photo, and trivia game two truths and a lie. Existing employees are encouraged to meet the person. The first person to guess the truth receives a $25 store credit.
👉🏻 Google’s HR team encourages the hiring manager to match the new employee with a “buddy” so they always have someone they can go to.
👉🏻 IBM has a “connections coach” for new employees. The coach is an experienced employee who helps them settle in and is the person they can direct questions to.
What would you add to the best practice list for onboarding effectively?
