Welcome aboard!
An effective onboarding program makes new hires
feel valued and involved and is a good bet for long term retention…..
It is said that any new recruit
irrespective of the level, decides to stay or move on within the first seven
days. I have personally experienced this several times in my professional life.
The first few days are very like the seasoning
period when either the new joinee gets accustomed to the new environment, tries
to adapt the organization’s culture and smoothly fits into the groove, or on
the contrary might just out rightly reject it. The reasons could be many, which
would go beyond the pay and perks.
This makes it imperative for any
organization to have an impactful onboarding program in place, although, I am
an advocate of not having something which is too methodical, instead the focus
on creativity and touching the employee’s heart, while giving him the relevant
information.
For instance, if someone comes to
our home, do we always go as per the plan – 7’o clock tea, 9’o clock breakfast,
12.30 lunch and so on. No we don’t. Instead, we let our guest or the new member
to feel at ease and ask for his opinion. Our intention is to make the person
feel comfortable and as a good host we would try to accommodate as per our
guest’s preference. Similarly I believe
that there can’t be a fixed routine to the onboarding program. Having said that
it’s equally important to have a plan in place so that there is no chaos at the
end moment, but we should all use your creative judgment in deciding what best
suits our new colleague – the new member of the family.
He has to feel invited in the new
set-up.
It’s not that only an entry level
executive would feel lost in her new job, but even senior employees could feel
the same way if her onboarding is not done the right way.
For instance, if a senior executive
joins from a competitor’s place. It is likely that he would have several
apprehensions in joining your organization irrespective of the hike; he or she
may have been offered. So now how do you welcome this new person. Should you
start with how the competitor has had all wrong practices in place and your
company has got it all right. Or should you make him feel so important on the
first day that you show him how you were just waiting for him to come and
change the fortune of your company.
I have seen many of my industry
colleagues behaving in a similar fashion during such instances. Either they
portray a very humble behavior or turn out to be too regimented, and cold.
In my opinion, the new person should
be given some time to settle down in the new place and meanwhile you can also
take time to evaluate him better.
So here is what I propose to have an
effective onboarding program which should be beneficial in retaining employees
and achieving business goals.
1.
Soak in the company culture:
Every company has two aspects of the
culture. One is the set of rules framed by the company which every employee is
expected to follow and on the other hand, there are some unwritten rules. It’s
important for the new employee to understand both, and at times it may take a
year to get things in place.
I know of a large IT company, where
the company especially deputes a co-worker, who takes the new employee through
the established guidelines and also the unwritten rules. It’s like you have
moved into a new city or a country and how a friend would take you through the
brighter and darker sides of the city.
What a great idea of inviting people to your organization and also make
them feel comfortable. In such a scenario, it will be much easier for the new
employee to adapt the new culture.
I
strongly recommend fostering social relationships with co-workers in making
employees feel comfortable from the initial day at work. Winning organisations consider these
relationships as enriching as they make new hires feel invested in their work
and the company. As part of the onboarding, companies may organize a team lunch
or an evening outing on the first day, which will allow the new hire to mingle with
her team, acclimatise with
the company culture, work ethics and build positive working relationships. PepsiCo
is one such company that I can recall that has developed an online portal
called “
“Pre
start”. Here new hires can find useful information on company values, culture,
organizational structure, etc. In addition, it has also assimilated social
media to make them feel like a coherent group.
2.
Try gamifying
the process
These days it’s new trend that’s gaining momentum
across industries and sector. It's not always about the bottomline, it
about engaging the new hires and keeping their enthusiasm atop from day
one. That is why a lot of companies are trying gamified tools for the
onboarding process. These includes,
learning challenges, games competitions and contests for the new hires. The
passing and sharing of knowledge between the company and the new recruit
becomes much easier with this. It eventually changes the boring onboarding
process to a fun filled activity and the experience tends to linger on. Like
everyone remembers the first day at college, people also keep the memory of
first day at work afresh for long. This whole engaging exercise has a positive
end goal.At DBS bank, for instance, to engage the new hire’s interest
level as well as create curiosity around the induction program, the
organization has built Stereoscopic 3D effects on select screens along with
engaging videos, personalized welcome messages from department heads help in
personalizing the onboarding program as well as boost performance and retention
3.
Treat it like a never-ending process
One common folly that most organizations tend to
commit is that they assume that an onboarding process ends on the new hire’s first
week on the job. Rather, successful onboarding programs can even span over
several months to reap its benefits. The duration of onboarding programs vary
in terms of organization. While for some, it may last for a week, for some, it may
stretch to four months. In any organisation, the culture is built over years.
So how can one expect that a new employee would come and embrace the culture in
a few weeks. Every person has his own personal traits and would need a
personalised approach to this.
Assigning a manager/mentor to track employee’s initial
months on the job helps to understand their comfort level on the job as well as
how things are done at their workplace is also an effective way. At different stages, the assigned manager/mentorcan
ask the new hire about his experiences with the hiring process, if the
induction met his expectations, any challenges or issues he may be facing. This
will help the organization in understanding the level of engagementor connect the
new hire has developedwith the organization. Every onboarding program has to be
continually fine-tuned at different stages to keep enhancing its impact and
benefits and most importantly, a successful onboarding process is never really
over. L’Oreal is one such organization that supports an extended onboarding
program. It has a two-year, six-part integration program called “L’Oreal Fit”
which builds lasting relationships as well as develops employees for bigger challenges.
While I believe that there are no set onboarding designs or
approaches that will work radically for any organization. However, from a
business standpoint, it makes no sense to invest on hiring a talent, pay an
exorbitant remuneration, lose productivity and then finally lose the employee
because the relationship fails to take off on the right foot right at the
beginning. To avoid such pitfalls, invest on your people who will help you reap
the rewards of a stellar onboarding prgram.