DS Cohen & Associates
The process of onboarding begins with your very first contact with a potential employee when they encounter your job posting – even before you’ve spoken to them directly. The onboarding process then continues long past the day they accept the job offer. As of Jan Carlson, the former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, remarked: “Every moment is a moment of truth.”
Integrating an employee and getting the individual up to speed is not merely an orientation process; it is a continuous process of acclimation to the cultural norms of your company.
Facilitating the new employee’s assimilation into your organizational culture reduces their stress and accelerates their speed to full productivity. Onboarding is your organization’s best opportunity to influence the employee experience positively before the new hire’s first day. By formalizing what experiences the employee will encounter, before their first day, you can influence which messages are being received by the employee. You need to understand, from the new employees’ perspective, what messages you are sending intentionally and what messages are you sending unintentionally. You are also ensuring the employee learns the correct behaviours for success before day-one on the job.
Having a well-structured process, before day one of employment is an excellent opportunity to share some of your corporate legends and history with your new hire. Your company’s oral history is a powerful message. These messages should continue for at least the next six months to teach the new hire about what really makes the company tick.
Starting at a New Organization can be Stressful. It Doesn’t Need to Be.
There is a variety of research that has demonstrated a clear connection between a quality onboarding program and employee retention, especially in the first year of employment. Through dialogue with you, we will help you find the right way to onboard your new hires and new promotions successfully, helping them best hit the ground running. Once you implement the onboarding process, we will provide a post onboarding evaluation to ensure continuing quality. Onboarding should be treated like all other people activities and be owned by the manager of the new hire or the recently promoted person.
One of the keys to this process is a series of well-placed stay or retention interviews.
The Positive Impact
Some of the positive impacts an effective Onboarding program will have on your organization:
- By improving your retention of staff, and thus lowering turnover, you save considerable money on replacement of employees (including hiring, interviewing, training, coaching, and similar activities)
- Increased speed to productivity for new hires and new promotions
- Enabling the new hire to understand the company values and corresponding behaviours
- A sense of belonging to the organization before day-one on the job
- Ease of stress for new employees as they transition into your organization
- A checklist for managers and coworkers to ensure the new employee’s expectations match the new employees work experiences
- A message to the new hire your company has its act together, and that you care about them as an individual
For more information on BIODS, check out our blog or click here. If you would like to discuss how BIODS or our other services can help your organization, please contact us using the form here.
