Employee Onboarding: The Right Way
Many business leaders will tell you, if you do not properly introduce a new employee into your organization, both from a skill and culture standpoint, they will not last long. Statistically, those who claim they do not feel like they were properly onboarded do not last past the first 90 days of their job. But what is onboarding exactly, and how does this differ from training?
As mentioned before, this 90 day period is critical to properly enculturate an individual to your organization. It is crucial that managers and supervisors offer the necessary direction and support to their new hires to curate positive feelings and confidence.
However, many do not understand the difference between onboarding and training.
Onboarding has been defined by Michel Falcon, founder of Experience Academy, as the "design of what your employees feel, see and hear after they have been hired. While training has a role in onboarding, it doesn't represent the scope of the process".
Training represents the act of teaching your employees the how and why of their roles and assignments. They should be trained to be not only familiar, but comfortable with operating given systems and software included in their role. This idea of why has been proven to be critical with new hires - proving to them that they are not doing busy work, but something that is critical for the success of the company. This fosters a sense of purpose and belonging in an organization.
While this is a critical part of the process, onboarding involves much more. Employees should exit the onboarding process with an understanding of the organization chart, a general awareness of any company politics, and some basic cues to the culture/behavior of the standard employee. Expectations and desires should be shared mutually between managers and employees. People want to be treated as such, not just cogs in the system.
56% of employees who claim they were put through a proper and standardized onboarding program within a company stayed with the organization for 3+ years.
Managers should consistently review their onboarding process (or implement if one is not in place) and collect feedback from employees on what they would have liked to experience during their hiring process.
