In many companies where resources are limited, once the offer is signed there is little done afterwards. Hiring managers and people teams can often miss the opportunity to roll out the red carpet and truly make a new hire feel welcome.
Recently, we hosted a webinar with Sapling and Glassdoor on the top onboarding hacks for success. Our moderator was Sapling CEO Bart Macdonald. Our panel included:
- Elaine Yang, People Programs Manager at Lever
- Sharon Salmon, founder of Atolent
- Courtney Bigony, Director of People Science at 15Five
- Naomi Engelman, Managing Dir at Premier Talent Partners
There was no shortage of compelling debates and research shared across these knowledgeable speakers, as we’re sure you can imagine, so we limited our blog to cover the nine most popular onboarding questions asked during the webinar.
1) How do you ensure employees are onboarded effectively and receive and unforgettable welcome?
Take a proactive approach to onboarding and cover all 4 C’s: Compliance, Clarification, Culture, and Connection. According to SHRM, only about 20% of orgs achieve this level, so if you are taking an approach to onboarding employees, you’re already 80% ahead of your peers.
Pro Tip: Read Power of Moments by the Heath Brothers and inspire yourself and peers on how to create the most unforgettable welcome for a new hire.
2) Should you give swag before day one?
Timing for swag ultimately depends upon when the candidate signed the offer.
Is this someone starting three weeks out? If so, consider mailing swag out to keep them engaged in the company prior to their start date.
Or, is it someone starting next week where the package might not make it in time? Adjust accordingly and the key is always to keep folks continually engaged once they sign to come and work for your great company.
If resources are limited, consider digital gifts to send. A welcome GIF can do wonders for welcoming a new hire as well as a thorough email welcoming them to the team, and outlining all they need for success in their new role.
3) How should you handle onboarding with multiple offices and no centralized HR?
Connect new hires both to their internal community and to their local community. Internally build connections through buddy programs, interest groups, and social events.
Help new hires develop social ties to their specific work location as well.
Externally, connecting a new hire with local community service events and team off-sites are a good place to start as well. However, this came up quite a bit on our webinar.
How exactly do you tackle connection with multiple offices at play or a decentralized HR team? Technology can be your friend in this case.
Research seamless onboarding platforms like Sapling to help monitor your onboarding processes and ensure everyone is on the same page for day one success.
4) What is the best way to get buy-in from senior leadership?
Bart mentioned on the webinar that according to Boston Consulting Group Report, onboarding is the leading driver for revenue followed by solid recruiting practices.
Also, highlight the cost of turnover when employees aren’t onboarded the right way. Some estimate that the cost of backfilling a position is 6-9 months of that former employee’s salary.
Add to that the cost of the hiring process, which can be several thousand, and you’re looking at a pretty big price tag on turnover.
Even worse are the bad hires that turn over within a short amount of time. That’s like paying for the hiring process twice. So, be sure to build the case for solid onboarding practices by painting the picture with data, using engagement surveys, and highlighting employee retention numbers.
5) What is the best way to enable hiring managers for onboarding new hires?
According to Marico Hewer in her article on a Google scientist searching the workplace, ensuring managers meet with their new hire(s) on day one is critical to success.
Platforms like LeverTRM ensure collaborative hiring, integrating all teams into the process and allowing communication through Slack and email to not miss any steps.
You should also partner with hiring managers to ensure they have a training plan in place for new hires. And Dominance, Influence, Steadiness & Conscientiousness (DISC) assessments prior to start dates can also ensure new employees are set up for success and give you the information you need to ensure your hiring manager is prepped to manage any new hire.
If running your own assessment for a new hire, here are some sample questions to ask:
- What is one important thing your manager should know about you?
- What are your expectations for your manager and how can he/she support you in your day-to-day and career development?
- Do you understand what performance is expected in your role and are you clear on what would constitute bad vs. good vs. great performance? Elaborate.
- What do you feel are your areas of improvement or development?
- What is one contribution you can make that you feel will have an impact?
- What are your long-term career goals? What would you like to be doing in 1-3 years?
- What’s important for you in your job? In your career?
The ideal helpful template to use to compile answers to these Qs should also include role/duties confirmation, a rundown of what should be achieved in the first 90 days, and general performance expectations over time.
6) What should an ideal Day One look like?
Some ideas to create a compelling day one for your new hire might include:
- Hosting a dedicated ramp camp
- Offering snacks and coffee runs
- Matching new hires with a buddy
- Delivering a starter project
- Ensuring they interview people across the org
At Lever, we believe in doing all of the above to set up new employees for success.
7) What is culture training?
Culture training is an opportunity to give employees a glance of your company to ensure the right fit from day one. And it turns out, according to Science for Work, that that fit with the organization is more important than fit with the job itself.
The type of job matters more at the beginning of the process — candidates aren’t going to apply for roles they aren’t interested in, after all. But, your employer brand makes a bigger difference when it comes to accepting the job offer or not.
It’s critical to validate that culture and homework that they’ve done on sites like Glassdoor, on day one with a plan in place.
A company’s true colors (a.k.a. its culture) also shows up in who you hire, fire, and promote. Share more about your hiring process, what underperformance looks like (how its defined, what are next steps), and promotion processes.
8) What is the best tech to integrate remote employees, hourly workers, or workers in industries like manufacturing or food and beverage?
Sapling is an onboarding and HRIS platform which is fully integrated with Lever, and enables remote teams like Invision, Zapier, and Digital Ocean to power consistent, automated, and red-carpet experiences for people teams and new hires.
Other platforms like Slack and Zoom also make the goal of integrating new hires even easier.
9) Tell us your top ideas for icebreakers without someone dedicated to onboard new hires (e.g., grabbing coffee)
Naomi mentioned a really great idea like having a new hire roll around the bar cart on their first day. This gives them a great way to get to know everyone around the office without a dedicated resource. For smaller office settings, have planned lunches and coffee dates.
This takes the training facilitator to own the administrative portion of scheduling in advance and introduces that new hire to important players to their success.
Also, be sure in your weekly office meeting to have them answer a silly icebreaker question.
Didn’t get your Q answered? Courtney leans on the research below for onboarding success:
- The Deep Feedback Movement – Courtney’s website for people teams to design evidence-based people programs.
- ScienceForWork – amazing resource for evidence-based people programs.
- Whitepaper: Onboarding New Employees Maximizing Success – her favorite onboarding white paper featuring Talya Bauer, one of the leading onboarding researchers at Portland State University in collaboration with SHRM.
- The Missing Part of Your Employee Learning and Development Strategy – an interview with Julia Lee, Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan on the importance of strengths discovery during onboarding.
- Kim Cameron Ph.D. on Mastering Your 1:1 Meetings – an interview with Kim Cameron, Professor of Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan on the importance of role clarity and everything that should be covered during the first 1:1 between manager and employee during onboarding.
Learn how Lever customers work with HR systems like Sapling to enhance their onboarding process and candidate relationship management strategies. Schedule a demo today.
