Facilitating an engaging onboarding experience for new team members
What actions do you take once you have successfully hired a new member of your team? How much time do you invest in a new hire during their first 90 days? I have observed and employed a variety of onboarding practices ranging from highly structured to laissez-faire; finding the right fit method for your company to introduce new team members to their roles can make all the difference in how long it will take them to begin to contribute meaningfully to the mission, culture, and objectives of the organization.
By the time a new hire starts, you have already invested a significant amount of time and resources in them through recruitment efforts. Unfortunately, shortly following the acceptance of an offer of employment, I have seen many hiring managers move on to the next crisis or task leaving the new employee to figure things out on their own. This can result in the new hire feeling overwhelmed and potentially paralyzed leading to early disengagement and frustration and a missed opportunity to cultivate the purpose-driven culture that was promoted during the interview process.
By expecting onboarding to happen organically, there is a high risk of a new employee feeling vulnerable and potentially asking themselves whether they made a mistake in their decision to join the organization. The net effects are that it will take much longer for them to find their bearings and contribute (if they choose to stick around long enough), their traumatic entry (or early departure) will cause disruption to the team or company, and the potential for a significant negative return on your recruitment investment increases if they decide to jump ship. None of these are conducive to cultivating a purpose-driven culture.
The previous article focused on actions leaders can take to build a recruitment and interview process to attract talent that will support and help you build the purpose-driven culture necessary to propel your company’s success. In this third installment in the Purpose-Driven Culture Series, we will focus on setting up those new hires to succeed by accelerating the timeframe in which they can be brought sufficiently up to speed to begin to make meaningful contributions to the success of the organization and help you maximize the return on your recruitment activity investments.
A Quick Recap of What a Purpose-Driven Culture Is and Why It’s Important
As noted in other EverSparq articles, purpose-driven culture promotes connection, high engagement, and meaningful productivity gains by making work resonate on a personal level. (In the EverSparq article Connecting to Purpose: Creating a Purpose-Driven Culture, I outlined the Purpose-Driven Strategic Framework (Figure 1) and provided 5 tips for how to connect employees’ personal sense of purpose to the specific elements of the framework to support a purpose-driven culture.) There is almost always something highly personal that motivates and drives us even during the most challenging times. Our true North. Helping individuals identify what that is and then determining how that applies in their daily work creates a level of meaning that is incredibly profound. This increases a personal sense of ownership and accountability for the success of the company and manifests in ways such as higher productivity, better quality work, and achievement of goals that, when aligned properly using the Purpose-Driven Strategic Framework, can propel companies forward in successful strategy execution.
Onboarding for Success
Onboarding is the bridge between the recruitment phase and the routine performance management system that, when designed thoughtfully, helps develop, engage, and retain talent throughout their time with your company. Here are some specific insights into how you can efficiently craft a standard onboarding approach to help your new hires feel confident that they made the right decision to join your company, become sufficiently knowledgeable in the practices of the organization to meaningfully contribute, and feel fully engaged in helping you and your team to cultivate and grow your shared, purpose-driven culture.
1. Create a Standard Onboarding Process
The goals of onboarding include (1) creating a welcoming experience for new hires that helps validate their decision to join you and your company, (2) creating an anchor point for their role in cultivating a purpose-driven culture by sharing your expectations, and (3) addressing corporate compliance requirements and best practices.
Having a basic template or checklist for hiring managers on what needs to be completed during the onboarding process can help create a degree of predictability for what works well and what doesn’t when it comes to helping someone get oriented and settled in.
Here are some standard onboarding activities that hit all three of these goals:
Schedule Meet & Greets in Advance
- Set up the new employee’s calendar and email account prior to their start date, if possible. That way, there is already some degree of structure in place as soon as the incumbent starts.
- List the individuals in the team and company with whom the new employee should meet.
- Prioritize these individuals based on the degree of direct interaction the new hire will have with them. Those that are higher priority should be scheduled within the first 1-2 weeks (e.g., project team members, hiring manager); those with less contact but still within the employee’s direct sphere of activity, within the first month (e.g., departmental colleagues, colleagues in cross-functional teams, corporate services staff); and those with indirect contact whose support is particularly valuable, within the first 90 days (e.g., senior business unit leaders/executives).
Use A Standard Onboarding Checklist
- Welcome
Share an appropriate gift as a gesture to reflect that you are excited to have them join the team. This could include a professional development book(s) the team has read, a plant, flowers, company-branded “swag”, or some other expression of your appreciation. Include a brief, personalized welcome message. Share a welcome announcement with team members and consider posting on social media platforms. - Standard Equipment & Tools
Most of your employees will share common equipment needs. Having a standard checklist enables you to make sure that the incumbent has the fundamental tools they need to do their job on their first day and will help you keep track of inventory – this includes keeping track of the number of users associated with licensed software subscription fees. - Role-Specific Equipment & Tools
Some positions may require specific tools and access that would not be appropriate for the general workforce. This might include things like a company credit card (i.e., procurement card) or access to certain business systems or online subscription tools, e.g., a marketing team member may need access to certain specialized tools like Figma, Canva, MS Publisher, etc. that would not be appropriate for all employees and would otherwise incur wasted expense. - Access
Have a plan for issuing an ID badge and accounts for standard online platforms (e.g., payroll, corporate compliance training). Keep a centralized database of roles, incumbent names, and associated data platforms for which the incumbent needs access – this will be extremely useful for knowing which system access to turn off if an employee leaves the organization. - Supplies
To the extent possible, gather the necessary information from the new hire in advance of the start date so you can have their business cards ready on their first day. Provide access to logos and other brand standard templates like letterhead and notecards. - List of Common Stakeholders, Abbreviations, & Lingo
Many organizations tend to use a variety of acronyms and abbreviations as shorthand when they are communicating with one another – sometimes it can be like learning a new language. There are also often industry-specific vendors and other organizations that may be new to the new team member. Having a curated reference list of definitions can be a helpful tool for quickly enhancing the new incumbent’s fluency in company matters and accelerate their ability to understand and contribute more meaningfully. - General Corporate Services Orientation
- Mission, Vision, Values | This should be interwoven through all onboarding activities and orientation discussions. Supervisors should spend time translating how they connect, personally, to the company mission, vision, and values.
- Brand Standards | Helping employees know where to find things like company color palettes, document templates (letterhead, presentation slides, and other related tools) is another onboarding accelerator that empowers them to represent your company in a professionally branded manner.
- Corporate Compliance & Data Security Training | Completing certain compliance and industry-specific, relevant regulatory training requirements helps mitigate company liability and risk.
- Payroll & Reimbursements | Review of any actions required of the incumbent in logging hours, time off, sick leave, etc. and, if relevant, the process for submitting supporting documentation for reimbursement requests.
- Employee Handbook | Depending on the size of your company, you may have an internally-developed, highly customized handbook or you may have a more generic one that is outsourced. This should contain specific guidance on employee safety practices, escalation processes and points of contact for reporting concerns, and referral to any customized company policies and procedures such as paid time off, parental/bereavement leave, etc.
- Campus/Office Tour
For situations where the employee will be coming to a physical site for work, integrating a tour of the layout of the facilities is also a nice touch, highlighting important areas like cafeterias, restrooms, etc.
2. The First Week
The primary goals of the first week should focus on diminishing ambiguity and providing clarity into what the incumbent should expect from their onboarding experience.
For a new hire, the prospect of a new job and joining a new organization can be a source of excitement and potential anxiety. New hires may also be seeking signs that validate their decision to join your company.
Meeting with the hiring manager first or very early on in the first week of employment provides continuity from the interview/hiring process and sets the tone and context for what the incumbent can expect from their orientation and onboarding experience. Seeing familiar faces from the interview process can be reassuring during this initial transition period so building them into the initial scheduled introductions can be helpful.
3. The First 30 Days
The primary goals of the first month include (1) orienting the employee to their initial work priorities, (2) setting expectations for how the hiring manager and new employee can best work effectively with one another, and (3) exploring how the incumbent can connect their work to their personal sense of purpose.
As the new team member continues to progressively meet more people, they will invariably have questions both general about the company and more specific to their role. Having regular 1:1s is a good way of ensuring adequate time to answer these questions and for eliciting ideas from the incumbent about how their personal call to purpose connects with the company activities and their work. The frequency of these 1:1s should take into account the preferences of the new employee and the supervisor – typically, weekly during the first month with additional ad hoc, briefer conversations as needed will suffice.
During the first month, the hiring manager should begin covering the following topics:
- Check in on what is working well with the onboarding process for the incumbent.
- Identify ways to make the onboarding and orientation process as valuable as possible for the incumbent and their learning style.
- Answer emerging questions.
- Contextualize why you have scheduled time for them to meet certain individuals and how that could help them in their work.
- Begin an overview of specific projects and work plans. The hiring manager should start to orient the incumbent to priority activities that they need to focus on first. This will provide context for the incumbent as they continue their introductory meetings and will allow them to start thinking about how they plan to jump into these activities.
- Begin negotiating your respective “must haves”. Are there certain things that the new hire should know about you and how you prefer to operate and vice versa? Examples of things to share might include…
- “if you have a time-sensitive need, please text me.”
- “I don’t always have time to check email regularly so if you have a time-sensitive email that you need me to view, please text me to draw my attention to it.”
- “What is the best way for me to share feedback with you? In person/live, via email, etc.?”
The 30-Day Check-In
Being intentional about investing in your people through dedicated professional development conversations can be very powerful signals to employees that you have a genuine interest in getting to know and see them as whole individuals.
At the conclusion of the first 30 days, schedule a 1:1 specifically for checking in how the new team member is managing with their transition into the organization. This deliberate and intentional conversation often sets the tone for that person’s experiences and relationship with their supervisor, team, and the company. It is also common for people to reflect on the first 30 days as they consider whether they made the right choice to join the company. And finally, the 30-day mark provides an opportunity for early recommendations about any habits or behaviors that you think would be helpful for the new team member to start/stop/keep doing and any employee feedback on how the company could improve.
At the 30-Day Check-In, ask the following:
- What is working well for them since they started?
- Do they have the tools they need to be successful in their work?
- Is there any specific positive feedback she/he/they have for any team members during the first 30 days?
- What questions and/or concerns have emerged for them during the first 30 days?
- What ideas do they have for how to make the first 30 days a better experience for new team members?
4. The First 90 Days
The goals of the first 90 Days include (1) checking in on the incumbent’s progress in establishing a daily routine, (2) developing a rhythm for how you, as the supervisor, can stay connected and support the new employee, and (3) setting professional development goals for the rest of their first year.
By now, most introductory meetings with core and support colleagues should have occurred and meetings with sponsors and more peripheral stakeholders are wrapping up. Adjust the emphasis of your 1:1s to get more specific about how the incumbent is adjusting to taking on the responsibilities associated with the priority activities you have assigned. Integrate routine questions that you will ask on a periodic and regular basis.
The 90-Day Check-In
As with the 30-Day Check-in, schedule a dedicated time for a semi-structured discussion. The purpose of the 90-Day Check-in is to dedicate time to share bi-directional feedback on the new team member’s experiences during the first 3 months and to provide early performance feedback, identify any specific professional development goals for the coming year, and to gather any employee feedback on how the company could improve.
At the 90-day check-in, address the following:
- What is working well for them?
- Do they have the tools they need to be successful in their work?
- Is there any specific positive feedback they have for any team members?
- What questions and/or concerns do they have?
- What ideas do they have for how the team and/or company can improve?
- Do they know of any people that they think would be a good fit for the team?
- Complete a 90-day performance review using a modified version of your annual review template. This is an opportunity to encourage productive behaviors and outcomes that are already having a positive impact on the team and company as well as starting to extinguish any behaviors that are not serving the incumbent well or are contrary to the purpose-driven culture you are building. Set concrete, specific performance and professional development goals for the coming year.
5. The First Year
By the conclusion of the first year, the incumbent will have had an opportunity to experience a full cycle of annual company activities and recurring events and have a better sense of what to expect about routine matters. They should be relatively self-sufficient and your routine 1:1s may not require as much frequency depending on what is occurring across the organization and what projects your direct report is managing.
On at least a monthly basis and no less frequently than quarterly, you will have conducted periodic connections with them to review the following questions:
- What is working well for them?
- Do they have the tools they need to be successful in their work?
- Is there any specific positive feedback they have for any team members?
- What ideas do they have for how to improve as a team and company?
- What questions and/or concerns do they have?
By integrating this into your routine practice, you will be able to move into annual performance reviews with no surprises and with ample substrate for fruitful professional development conversations.
Conclusion
After what is often an intensive investment of time and energy in sourcing and recruiting talent, it is critical to stay engaged with the new hire throughout their onboarding period. This transition period enables you, as the supervisor, to set clear expectations on what it means to be part of a purpose-driven culture and meet the employee where they are to help them continue to grow and develop their skills and contributions to the organization.
A thoughtful approach to onboarding can help you compress the period of time from when your new team members starts to when they are able to make meaningful contributions to the company and feel a personal sense of connection to the success of the company.
For questions or to find out how EverSparq can help you design any of the tools described in this article or determine the right fit process for your company, please contact info@eversparq.com.
