Getting Onboarding Right

1. Preparation – Planning for onboarding is part of the overall selection process, but the onboarding actions begin once the offer is accepted. Communication is essential during this process – now is a great time to continue the dialogue and further build your relationship with the new employee. A congratulatory message from the immediate supervisor, and other team members, goes a long way in making the new employee feel welcome and part of the team. If the length of time between offer and start date is more than two weeks, continue the email/text conversation and consider adding a lunch or coffee date. Benefits materials or other basic company information should be provided if that was not shared as part of the selection process. Providing contact information for all of the team members so the new employee can become familiar with everyone’s name and role is another possibility. On that communication point, do other staff members know a new employee has been hired? Have you met with them and clarified how he/she fits into the team? Is there a wider audience of customers, suppliers, stakeholders to communicate with or should a press release be prepared?

Schedule preparation is a key piece of the preparation, beginning with the immediate supervisor and ensuring he/she has cleared sufficient time on the calendar to devote to a positive quick-start. Other team members who are involved in the onboarding deserve as much notice as possible if they’ll be interacting with or training the new employee.

There are typically a number of facility-type items to manage with a new employee; things like office space, computer equipment, email address, parking, etc., which will vary with the size and type of business. But simple things, like a welcome sign or a clean and stocked workspace, cross all types of organizations and not only make any new employee feel welcome but send a message of competence and excellence in how all aspects of your business is managed. Some employers go all out and provide company-branded items such as coffee mugs, t-shirts, or other “give aways,” but that doesn’t fit every culture or situation. Be intentional and consistent with what works for your company.

2. Compliance – Dealing with all of the compliance issues which relate to a new employee is beyond the scope of this short document, but it’s definitely something to include on your checklist. From an onboarding perspective, compliance is the minimal level of what must be done to bring a new employee into your workplace. Obvious things include I-9’s and W-4’s to complete along with standard benefit election forms. But many states have their own compliance standards such as sexual harassment and anti-bullying training (California) or reporting requirements to ensure child support payments are garnished and properly remitted (Illinois). A good payroll/HR system typically will help you manage these details. Compliance also includes covering company-level policies with new employees including your employee handbook and certainly key safety requirements and practices. Basic compliance requires its own checklist!

3. Expectation Setting – Remember that old saying about only having one chance to create a first impression? How about updating it to include setting appropriate expectations in the workplace. Here are a few minimums to consider.

Position purpose and roles – Let’s assume the new employee has been provided a thorough job description with a detailed purpose statement. But at the outset of a new employee relationship, it’s worthwhile to review why your company is willing to hire, train, and compensate a new employee by reiterating the purpose of the position. In the case of the new Comptroller mentioned above, the stated purpose of the position is to ensure the books of the church are handled appropriately. A secondary purpose of the position is to ensure the staff and congregation are educated and informed about church financial practices; this purpose is equally important to communicate, perhaps more so as it outside the norm of a typical financial role. Clarifying the role beyond the basic job description level with a back and forth conversation should be high on the agenda of the immediate supervisor; this is definitely day one material! Details matter here including expected hours of work (in and outside of the office) and setting the bar appropriately high for performance.

Communication and work style preferences – We all have preferred means of communicating and how we like to go about our work. It’s helpful to a new employee for the supervisor to explain any personal quirks or unspoken office practices. Is there a preference/taboo for memo, email, text, Slack, Facebook, Google hangouts, phone, in-person, before or after hours communication? As a supervisor do you encourage independence within your team or prefer to be the ringmaster and always know what is going on? How about open doors vs. closed doors or “do not disturb” hours?These preferences are beyond, “good to know;” they are mission critical to communicate and discuss! It’s certainly acceptable to ask the new employee to reciprocate and explain how he/she prefers to be communicated with, when is their most productive time of day, how they prefer to be supervised, etc. Not that the new employee will necessarily get his/her preference here; again, the concept is to have both parties explain their preferences and then establish a productive dialogue to ensure the supervisor and new employee can work together to maximize their collective productivity.

Discussion of unspoken office practices is a polite way of saying, “let’s talk about some of the awkward things,” such as: don’t microwave leftover fish in the break room; don’t wear too much cologne; do participate and collaborate in every staff meeting; we sometimes raise our voices when having a discussion, etc. I’m sure all of us can add to this list! Think of these topics from the new employee’s perspective – what would you have liked to know on day one to avoid a “situation” in the workgroup somewhere down the road?

4. Assimilation – Connecting a new employee with your company’s DNA goes beyond a quick walk-around or meet and greet. Having structured, uninterrupted time with other staff members during the first week of employment not only creates a personal connection but also helps reinforce the dependencies within the team. Individual and team lunches are helpful in building knowledge and creating community. When planning for this step in the onboarding plan, think about this question – how can I help the new employee understand and embrace our corporate culture? This will likely require investment and patience, i.e., it may be necessary to send the new employee out to another location for this assimilation and training. It also means the new employee may not be immediately productive – it will take some time for them to climb the learning curve to understanding your company. But the whole idea of onboarding is to decrease the learning curve, thereby increasing the ROI, right? It may sound counter-intuitive but spending time up-front in planning, then being patient in working the plan through assimilation is a necessary discipline which pays off in the long-run.

Having a formal mentor is a best practice and I’m happy to plug my friend Rik Nemanick and his new book, The Mentor’s Way, for further assistance here. The benefit of having someone outside of the immediate workgoup as a mentor is to learn and share with an impartial sounding board who can coach the new employee in an objective fashion. The sooner this relationship is created the better! If a mentoring program is outside of the capacity of your company, having a “buddy system” is a reasonable place to start.

5. Review – I recommend meeting with new employees formally once per week, with a full review after the first quarter, to fully gauge his/her performance and contributions. The formal review should contain sufficient metrics and objectives so an outside party can relate to the purpose of the position and the value being created by the new employee; these are ideally created way back in the preparation stage and first communicated in the expectation setting meetings. Of course, the informal review is on-going and indicative of a healthy, back and forth relationship.  The informal review, over time, will likely eclipse the formal in overall utility, provided the organization culture is correct and both parties are in sync with the overall purpose of the position. This informal process is where the supervisor can truly connect, guide, and shape the employee and increase his/her success in the company. Like any review process, it’s a bit like Groundhog Day in corporate America, where the cycle is infinitely repeated, but that’s just one thing that makes it fun!

Finally, these are just the absolutes basics of of onboarding; we at HLA are always glad to dialogue and discuss how you and your business can implement more detailed and specific practices into your organization.

P.S. I did check in with that church prior to publishing this. They did put an onboarding plan in place and are glad they did!