Taking new hires from the potential stage to the

achievement stage is the role of the onboarding team,

and never have the mechanics been so important—or

so complex. Our first paper focused on the rationale for

strategic onboarding as well as the objectives of effective

onboarding programs and the practices employed by

high performing organizations.

”“The second of three papers in SilkRoad’s series on

the most critical retention activity your organization

can undertake—onboarding.

— By Alexandra Levit

Onboarding 201Onboarding 201

In this second paper, we’ll delve into the details of best-practice onboarding program

components, including:

Onboarding Technology Systems

In-Person HR-Driven Sessions

Systems Set-Up

Networking

On-the-Job Training

Long-Term Follow Up

By the time you finish reading, you should have enough specifics on these to begin planning or

enhancing your own formal onboarding initiative. Then, in our third paper, we’ll discuss how to

measure the return-on-investment (ROI) of your program and improve it in ways that directly

benefit your organization’s bottom line.

Onboarding Technology Systems

Having a centralized employee portal that serves as a hub for everything your

people could possibly want to know and do requires some upfront investment,

but will save you time and resources in the long run. Solutions like SilkRoad’s

RedCarpet introduce hires to their new job electronically and get them acclimated to your

organizational culture and procedures before their first day.

New employees are provided portal access as soon as they accept an offer, along with content

that’s designed to engage them early such as friendly first-day information, welcome messages

from and photographs of their new teammates, a glossary of company buzzwords and acronyms,

and your organization’s social, sports, or volunteer calendar. A virtual copy of your employee

handbook is essential, and any detail you can provide about the new hire’s department and job

responsibilities will only make getting new hires up to speed that much easier.

Perhaps most usefully, new hire portals interface with HR and manager dashboards to organize

and track internal tasks that need to be completed over the next several months and manage

forms electronically so that you don’t have to physically chase down new employees for that W-4

or I-9. Given the time-sensitive nature of many government forms, there are substantial benefits

to using a system that automatically reminds new hires to respond within the deadlines.

Having a centralized employee portal that

serves as a hub for everything your people

could possibly want to know and do requires

some upfront investment, but will save you

time and resources in the long run.

Taking onboarding administration online solves a variety of additional headaches with which you

are likely familiar. Content is easily updated and current so you’ll minimize misunderstandings and

avoid potential compliance issues, and you’ll make a terrific first impression on new hires who are

accustomed to organizations where onboarding is a somewhat careless operation.

Depending on the onboarding technology system you use, you may also leverage it to

consistently manage offboarding and other employee lifecycle events.

Retirement, relocation, promotions, and

offboarding are transitions that can be just as

critical as onboarding. Imagine the company that

doesn’t track offboarding tasks and thus continues

to pay for benefits or doesn’t block access to

internal systems when an employee leaves. The

potential risks and xpense associated with such errors can be astronomical.

The same goes for employees that transfer to another department where operations and staff

are completely different. The culture, environment, reporting structure, goals, and responsibilities

may be completely different. Why not use a content-rich a customized portal to provide the same

information you’d provide to a new hire? Even internally there’s tasks to be handled such as new

business cards, HR paperwork, work station relocation, perhaps even new equipment is needed.

It is certainly beneficial to use one system to keep complete records on each employee so that

even after they’ve left you, you can have a detailed and accurate “paper trail” of their activities

and performance in your organization.

In-Person HR-Driven Sessions

Online technology systems are incredibly efficient, and implementing one that

starts before Day 1 can significantly shorten orientation time. However, at the

end of the day, new hires are people, and a brief but smartly executed in-person

session can make all the difference when it comes to positive engagement.

Whether or not you have a robust onboarding technology system affects how much you’ll need

to cover in your in-person HR session. Ideally, the in-person session should include a brief history

of your organization, its products/services and culture, highlights from your employee handbook

such as dress code and ethical regulations, and an explanation of benefits.

Online technology systems are incredibly

efficient, and implementing one that

starts before Day 1 can significantly

shorten orientation time.

According to Billy Grossmiller, a benefits consultant with CrawfordAdvisors, you should make

sure any benefit details distributed are 100 percent current, and that you clearly define eligibility

requirements. Even if your new hire portal contains benefit information, the in-person session is

an excellent time to clarify and answer questions about it.

The in-person HR-driven session, which should be no longer than a few hours and should include

all of the individuals starting in your location that week (with the possible exception of those who

will be working remotely and live too far to travel), can be a wonderful opportunity to engage

and excite new employees. If you bore them, they will launch their careers at your organization

with a sour taste in their mouths. For this reason, you should keep the mundane administration to

a minimum and be as creative as possible. Food that’s more special than your usual fare, videos,

tours, clever icebreakers, and special guests will all make for a more enjoyable first day.

Systems Set-Up

We’ve all been there. You start a new job and are led to an empty office,

or better yet, no office or cubicle at all. Maybe your desk was in the hall, or

you were left sitting in the lobby or at someone else’s station until your new

employer got its act together. The experience didn’t instill much confidence that you’d made the

right decision, did it?

Take responsibility for stocking every new hire’s workspace with supplies in advance of their

start date, and work with your IT department to ensure that the new employee has some sort of

computer (laptop, desktop, phone), an operational e-mail address, and usernames and passwords

for essential online tools and resources, available for immediate use. Have business cards, parking

permits, and ID cards ready so that new hires can move freely around your facilities. Note that

you can use an onboarding technology system to assign these tasks to the appropriate parties

and ensure proper tracking and follow through. With this many moving parts, you don’t want to

risk something falling through the cracks.

Networking

Create a document that outlines the names and contact details of go-to

individuals within your organization (for instance, a new contact can e-mail Sally

Crane for questions about the billing system and Tom Smith about setting up

an onsite meeting.) Place this document on your new hire portal, or design a

card that you can pass out at your in-person session.

It’s also helpful to guide new employees as they begin to establish fruitful relationships within

the organization. It’s a good idea to pre-schedule one-on-one meetings with various key

players throughout the new employee’s first month. These existing employees should not

only be extremely competent, but also friendly and positive about your organization.

Coordinate a start date when the hiring manager is certain to be in the office and can meet with

her new hire and introduce her around for at least an hour.

As mentioned in our first paper, assign a

mentor in another department of roughly

the same age and title who can assist with

assimilation. Reward your existing staff for

engaging in onboarding activities by paying for

lunch out with their mentees or sending notes

of praise to their supervisors.

Onboarding technology systems can prove

helpful in the networking department. You may wish to engage an internal social networking tool

that facilitates colleague-to-colleague and manager-to-report interaction, and also integrates

seamlessly with the rest of your onboarding and performance management information.

On-the-Job Training

Any orientation-related training that can be given online should be

administered prior to the new hire’s start date. As part of your onboarding

process, however, you should also plan and schedule professional

development courses and intra-job training activities so that they occur

early in the new employee’s tenure. A learning management system (LMS)

may assist you in planning job specific or compliance related classes that must be completed

according to policy. Just be careful not to overload new hires with too much mandatory training

as their primary focus should be in-role immersion.

If you have them, configure your onboarding technology system to interface with your

performance management system so that you can establish three month (probationary period),

six month, and annual goals that are tied to specific training initiatives and actual work projects.

This approach, customized to the individual, requires close collaboration between HR staff and

hiring managers. But, as we talked about in the first paper, there is no better way to get new hires

to full productivity and engagement quickly and effectively.

Best-in-class onboarding does not end

after 30 or 90 days. You can have a terrific

process at the beginning, but if you don’t

keep up a back-and-forth dialogue with

new employees, you will lose much of the

ground you’ve gained.

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Long-Term Follow Up

Best-in-class onboarding does not end after 30 or 90 days. You can have a

terrific process at the beginning, but if you don’t keep up a back-and-forth

dialogue with new employees, you will lose much of the ground you’ve

gained. Although hiring managers and their teams should be the primary

parties involved in ensuring that new hires are adjusting well and doing what they need to do,

it behooves HR to schedule check-ins every other month during the first year. After all, if a new

employee isn’t happy or is experiencing roadblocks or frustrations, you want to know about it

sooner rather than later.

You may also want your onboarding process to have a designated end point. Stephen Balzac,

CEO of 7 Steps Ahead, recommends a believable accreditation ceremony of sorts. “While a

cheesy graduation won’t cut it, having some way of recognizing that people have taken a step

toward their future career success is a powerful way of cementing loyalty,” he says.

Next Up…

By now, you should have ample detail on the components of world-class onboarding programs.

Whether your budget is large or small, implementation of these techniques will enhance the new

hire experience and aid long-term retention.

SilkRoad hopes you will have a look at our final paper, in which we’ll offer guidance for

effectively measuring the return-on-investment (ROI) of your onboarding program and making

improvements based on what you uncover.

Alexandra Levit is a business and workplace writer and speaker who educates organizations on how to better connect with and retain top talent.

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