Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Onboarding Existing Employees

The topic of interest this week is the importance of onboarding existing employees – those employees that are joining your team from another division. We recently welcomed an employee to my team at work who had worked in another team for the past year. Though her old & new teams worked closely together, she moved desks, has a new manager, and new responsibilities. We are just so excited to have her.

As her manager and I discussed her training, we also thought about how we could show this excitement and make her first day just as special as we would for a “new” employee. As a best practice for new employees, we always make a welcome sign, bring in a beautiful plant to dress up the new desk or leave a few little favourite treats of the new employee in addition to a first day team lunch.

It got me thinking:  Why don’t we make it a best practice to do this for transitioning employees? The reasons is that most teams & companies don’t take the time to make that first day in the new team just as special as it isn’t viewed as a “first day.”  Well, it should be! The extra effort it takes to welcome someone new to your team is going to pay off big time in how they feel about their transition.

Next time you welcome either a net new employee or an existing employee onto your team, I hope you really make them feel that personalized special welcome!

10 tips to do this:
1.   Create a welcome sign in their favourite colour & have the entire team write a welcome message
2.   Ask them their favourite candy & have a dish of it on their desk
3.   Ensure their favourite colour pens or highlighters are in a cool new pen holder on their desk
4.   Decorate their desk area with streamers, balloons or other fun finds
5.   Have lunch plans for their first day with their new manager & new team members
6.   Have the team make lunch plans (even just to sit in the lunch room) each day of the first week so the new employee can get to know their colleagues
7.   Ensure the employee has some time with the department manager on their first day and day 5 to see how the first week is going
8.   Bring in a coffee for them on their first day in a special mug you bought just for them that they can keep at the office
9.   Welcome them via social media sites if you/they are active in that space
10.  Buy them a cool new notebook for all of those new notes to be captured in  


Remember it doesn’t have to be fancy; the goal is to leave someone with the feeling that you recognize their uniqueness and are so excited to have them on your team. This is especially true with millennial onboarding as they want to feel recognized for the unique individual they are and what they will bring to your team.

I leave you with a photo of my team welcoming our newest team member & a quote from Maya Angelou:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said,
 people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel."


31 comments:

  1. Great post Chelsea! Proper onboarding makes such a difference in the long run. It sets the tone of the culture of that specific department/team. When I joined the Mosaic TA Team, I have been at Mosaic for almost 6 years at that time but I have never felt so welcome before in a team. I was thinking, "Why are these people so nice? Are they for real?" and now, over a year later, I KNOW they're for real! :)

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  2. Wow. Talk about a great idea. I think most companies do the average "orientation/meet n greet" but this takes it to the next level. Thanks for sharing this Chelsea.

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  3. Thanks Grace & Patrick for the responses. This blog post got a lot of hits so hopefully a bunch of new hires & transitioning employees are receiving warm welcomes with some of these tips!

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  4. Thanks for Chelsea for had a great thinking about Onboarding Especially new employees into the new team... Really It was nice thought..

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  5. This site was tells about the online employers .Thanks for that.
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  6. this post is true but now a days its moving for new technologies, employee onboarding helps to Explain coporate process for new hires
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  7. This post in the blog shows the current status of employee onboarding in the compaines

    Staffing Onboarding

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  8. This is a very good post. Staffing onboarding is not an easy process...

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  9. This post is Explains about existing onboarding proces But now corporates are moves to new and effective methods

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  10. It was a nice Blog. In my opinion Employees transitioning to a brand new role get pleasure from their information of the organization and its culture, also as established relationships.

    staffing onboarding

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  11. Thanks for sharing this information. but nowadays Staffing onboarding is also a impportant

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  12. onboarding process is a difficult task but its very important.

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  13. This Post will help us to handle the employee onboarding in smooth way....

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  14. Its a great idea for handle employee onboarding but now a corporates moves to the new method new hire staffing

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  15. This above 10 ideas will help for new hires and HR's new hire staffing

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  16. Onboarding Existing Employees is an great article i ever studiedWOTC Processing

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  17. well said by the author this idea is little old now the corporates are moved to the technologies new hire restaurant

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  18. Please update some informtion about hybrid onboarding. i would like to learn about that topicnew hire staffing

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  19. This tips seems to be very easy and effective. thank you sharing your information with us staffing onboarding

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  20. The employee onboarding for exixting employees is really quit difficult.Because it was more complex compare to onboarding a new employee.

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  21. Onboarding the existing employee also a difficult job.But we give a nice home feel welcome is more important.Retail employee onboardingYour new employee visits the secure Efficient Hire portal and creates an account. Once logged in, your employee will be guided through a question-and-answer process, completing all necessary paperwork and forms.

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  22. Onboarding process is more important process in the company .It was more difficult to onboarding the existing employee .But onboarding the existing employee is more useful for company growth because they had an great experience.Retail onboarding

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  23. Every company needs a employee onboarding process.Because employee is more important resource for a company.

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  24. Efficient Hire Staffing is built around your Staffing Firm. All of the new hire paperwork that you currently have your candidates filling out by paper are built into the custom interactive question and answer process. Employee On-Boarding Software Web-Based

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  25. Onboarding the existing employee is not an essayist job because he made his comeback to his old office.So that HR person need to make an comfortable environment for a existing employee. Retail employee onboarding

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  26. Efficient Hire Staffing currently integrates seamlessly with Bond’s eEmpACT product. Additional Bond integrations are coming soon. Other integrations can be done with products from other vendorsEmployee On-Boarding Software Web-Based

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  27. Onboarding Existing Employees is quite difficult job .Because onboarding the existing employee also makes some problem so handle that problem is important.WOTC program

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  28. Many of these companies not ready to take the existing employees.Because create an nice environment for the existing employee little difficult job.new employee onboarding

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  29. Efficient WOTC has removed that barrier. Our easy to follow plain English interactive Question and Answer process completes the required forms (8850 and 9061) in good order every time.On-boarding program

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  30. This post was very well written, and it also comprises a lot of useful facts. I enjoyed your differentiated way of composing the post. Thanks, you have made it very simple for me to realize.
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  31. Thanks for sharing this great article. Employee On Boarding is beneficial for companies especially for those who are after efficiency and productivity.

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