Sunday, October 31, 2010

10 Quick Tips on Onboarding New Employees

I recently spoke at a conference about using New Hires Perspectives in your Onboarding Process. For the sake of learning, I choose 10  tips from my 90 minute presentation to share here (and on twitter)for quick things you can implement ASAP to improve your onboarding process.  Remember that onboarding goes beyond initial training/orientation as it includes the first 90 days of a new hire's employment as candidates are most likely to leave a new employer during this period.  Get engaged hires faster by checking out the below 10 onboarding tips:

 Tip #1 - Recruiting promises + onboarding = engaged or disengaged new hires!? We promise the world in recruiting; ensure your onboarding program delivers! So often recruiting & onboarding are run by different departments or individuals; ensure that these owners of these aspects work together so you deliver on recruiting promises in the first 90 days of a new hires employment.

Tip #2 - Do not have a uniform onboarding program. The demographics of your new hire + their role will impact HOW you should onboard them! Would you really onboard a new executive and a millennial in their first job in the same way? NO!  Don’t make the same mistake in assuming that Gen X or boomers (with lots of work experience) don’t need onboarding as they have experience. Onboarding is about educating an employee about your company’s culture and setting them up for success in their new role

Tip #3 - Millennials, Gen Y, Gen X, baby boomers, executives all have different values for onboarding. Great article here by Madeline Laurano on what you should include in each generation’s onboarding: http://bit.ly/bHjCEH. Key takeaways: ensure that you use mediums that make sense to the age groups. Social media is key as part of your onboarding strategy for millennials & Gen Y.

Tip #4 - Poll your new hires/ search social media sites (via a listening strategy) to gain insights on where your onboarding delivered/needs improvement. Do regular check-ins with your new hires – day 5, day 30, 60 and 90.

Tip #5 - Action feedback from new hires to improve onboarding processes & let them know the actions you have taken! Though they may not have felt engaged about a part of the process, you will re-engage them by letting them know you heard them and have changed the process.

Tip #6 - Onboarding goes beyond orientation. Orientation= first 1-5 training days; onboarding = first 90 days of employment! Don't forget about a new hire after the first week - ensure you have regular check-ins and support for them ongoing.

Tip #7 - Effective onboarding programming = in-person orientations/buddies + technological solutions

Tip #8 - 40% of newly promoted managers fail within 18 months of starting new jobs. Know potential pitfalls & build plans to combat them. Great article from John G. Agno here about Executive onboarding: http://bit.ly/bT8kkI

Tip #9- Onboarding is about connecting your new hires to the company culture; create a community ON & OFFline

Tip #10 - Remember onboarding is all worth it as you will ALL be successful with an engaged + productive team!

Please let me know which of these tips spoke to you the most & the results of implementing it into your onboarding program!


13 comments:

  1. Tip 1 and 4 really spoke to me. Your comment about connecting the experiences of the first days to the recruiting process is critical. One thing I like to do is to tailor the onboarding plan (and subsequent SMART goals) to what was learned about a candidate during the interviewing process. Skills, interests, experience are all things that can be utilized to get them their first win.

    Point four is critical to make sure the desired experience is happening and having an impact.

    Maybe point #11 is that the solutions for good onboarding are basically free. They just take time and commitment.

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  2. Thank you for the feedback. I previously held a role that was 100% focused on recruiting but was not connected to onboarding & I saw the disconnect. Getting internal parties talking to ensure you deliver on promises is an easy way to set an employee up in their first few weeks!

    I love your point about tip #11 - so many things in onboarding are so low cost but they have a huge cost impact in decreasing turn over and replacement hire costs!

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  3. Chelsea, thanks for the thoughts - people like you are making the "newbie experience" a much better one! I like Tip #1 best. Here are some tips I put together: http://wp.me/p2CUIJ-4c

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  4. very useful tips.Tip#4 is very helpful..Thanks for yr nice way of ideas...

    New hire onboarding

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  6. All 10 tips are very useful for us .It gives a better idea about the New hire onboarding.

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