Outline:
- Why Onboarding is an Extension of the Hiring Process
- The Benefits of Effective Onboarding
- Answering Common Objections
- Elements of an Onboarding Plan for Thriving Success
- Corporate Citizen Requirements
- Working Effectively with You
- Setting Expectations and Defining Success
- Processes, Practices, and Rituals
- Specific Projects and Initiatives
- People and Networks
- Getting Recognition for Progress and Successes
- Final Recommendations
Why Onboarding is an Extension of the Hiring Process
Hiring the right people is clearly one of the biggest responsibilities of managers. The more senior your role, the more you think Who and the less you think How.
My observation is many hiring failures are more accurately onboarding failures. (Many, not all.) I’ve kept notes on the career success of everyone I hired. A few times I hired the wrong person for a position. No amount of onboarding would have helped. My most embarrassing hires were two people who were excellent for the role but who both flamed out because I did almost nothing with their onboarding process. I can’t do the split-test experiment to know, but it’s likely that a better onboarding effort would have helped these two become successful for our organization.
You can reasonably expect less onboarding for senior roles, for very experienced people, and much more onboarding and training for entry-level roles and less experienced people. But there is always some onboarding.
I recommend the hiring manager own the onboarding process. Delegate aspects of the overall effort while keeping the overall responsibility. Treat onboarding as an extension of the hiring process.
The Benefits of Effective Onboarding
A new employee will get a much faster start to being a productive contributor when you provide systematic help. Long-term retention of talent will improve. Project teams will suffer less disruption because of new-but-not-informed members. Effective onboarding redounds to your reputation as an effective hiring manager and increases the likelihood you’ll have more opportunities to hire in the future.
This article focuses on knowledge workers (though a portion of what is described here will be helpful for any kind of role). Knowledge workers roles are focused on adding value through information flows and decision-making. They create knowledge-based products and services.
Effective onboarding does take significant effort. It’s neither free nor passive. I suspect this is why many managers fail to do it well. This article will give you a straightforward, repeatable framework that you can use – and I’ll share many time-saving tips to reduce the overall workload on you as the manager.
Answering Common Objections
“Onboarding is HR’s job, not mine!” Almost no HR department in organization today has the capacity to handle more than basic transactional startup (which I address below). You can delegate portions of the onboarding work, but you dare not abdicate it as this person’s manager. No one is better equipped than you to work through the onboarding process.
“I don’t have this kind of time.” This is a short-sighted excuse. Invest some focused time early, and both you and the organization will reap the dividends going forward. You’ll avoid serious problems. You’ll minimize the disruptions that new team members can create.
“I hire people who should be able to do these things themselves.” Even the most experienced people will benefit from help navigating an organization and getting started on key initiatives. Reducing the threshold energy for success is worthwhile. Plus, you can ensure they understand your working style, your perspectives, and a clear picture of what success looks like.
“This is a lot of work for an employee who is likely to leave in 2-3 years anyway.” Are you always this cynical about the people you hire? Losing talented professionals reflects badly on you as the hiring manager. Failing to onboard well increases the likelihood they will leave sooner. Maximize their potential contribution by systematic help at the start.
The Minimal Work to Onboard a New Corporate Citizen
Your organization certainly has requirements for new employees. This is the list of items that most people think of when they hear the word “Onboarding.”
Your HR department likely has a checklist of required paperwork and registrations, including for payroll. The IT department will set up new account and appropriate security access. There are building security and ID badge requirements. Your organization may have required compliance or safety training. You may be required to identify initial performance goals.
The key for success here is to leverage the help your organization gives you and your new hire. Focus on efficiency and completeness so these required tasks are executed quickly and don’t leave lingering stumbling blocks. You may be able to delegate parts of this work to administrative assistants and designated contacts in support organizations.
A common mistake is to think the onboarding process mostly ends here. The larger value comes form the next steps.
Elements of an Onboarding Plan for Thriving Success
Beyond the “minimal corporate citizen” requirements are all the aspects of helping a new hire become successful in the role(s) for which you hired them.
The successful outcomes of this plan are:
- An effective working relationship with you as their manager
- Clear expectations on projects, ongoing work, and what success looks like
- A working network of peers, colleagues, and stakeholders
- An understanding of organizational culture – common practices, expected standards, rituals, internal language
- Successes with initial project work and meaningful contributions that will be recognizable to your superiors and other stakeholders
Let’s consider these desired outcomes in turn and outline what you and your direct report need to do. These are the steps which distinguish a new hire.
Working Effectively with You
We manager have our preferences – we know what works well for us. Our new hires are not mind-readers, and often fail to ask the correct questions early. The first few days are the best time to create expectations.
You should explain:
- How you prefer to receive information. Some people are primarily readers, others prefer listening. There is in-person and remote communication. Managers generally don’t like surprises. How should they keep you apprised on work in progress, and concerns? Do you prefer email, instant messaging, text messages, phone calls? Give them concrete examples.
- How you will give them feedback and what kind of 1:1 time they can have with you. I recommend you explicitly say “I will coach you when I see situations where you need to know something, can avoid a ditch, or do something better next time.”
- Expectations for team interactions, notification about absences or problems, standing meetings, typical agendas, and seasonal rhythms.
- Mutually share some personal history information to help create a stronger relationship. You can’t and shouldn’t force people to share but most people will be happy to answer a few questions about what’s important to them outside of work, and their previous work history.
Setting Expectations and Defining Success
Your new hire may already know the purpose of the organization. They may know something about goals and expectations of the senior management – but explain them in depth. At worst, you’ve reinforced the importance of this perspective. Likely you will add to their understanding and provide additional context which connects their role to the larger organization objectives.
Don’t assume they know it or will magically “absorb” it from others. Own the responsibility that they know and understand. Here’s the test: Can they relay it accurately back to you?
You should also discuss the seasonal, quarterly, and annual flow of the business. Every organization has rhythms, and calling them out helps your new hire how to fit in, why project timelines are what they are, when budget decisions need to be made, etc.
It’s quite rare for knowledge workers to be fully effective immediately. Share your perspectives on how long it will take for them to experience success. Here is a script you can edit and use: “We hired you because we believe you can be a contributor soon, and a much better contributor in coming years. I’m going to help you get some early wins in the next 3-6 months. We have a complex business. Some things only happen a few times a year or once a year. So you might not hit stride for 18months – and that’s ok. The key is continual learning and striving for excellence.”
Establish formal goals. Your organization probably requires a document about annual goals. Focus on concrete, achievable goals for the next 2-3 months. Edit these goals as you go forward. Co-develop a work plan for the 6 weeks. That process will make it apparent who your new hire needs to meet and what they need to know (more on this below).
Schedule a review time 3 months out. This doesn’t need to be a formal “HR performance review.” Tell them the purpose is to set aside a few minutes to review how things are going and make any adjustments. “Your work is valuable. I want to ensure you’re getting what you need so you can deliver extraordinary results.” Specifically ask if there are things you need to do differently to be more clear, break down hurdles, and introduce her to more people.
Processes, Practices, and Rituals
Given enough time your new hire can probably figure out how the organization works. A few short conversations from you will dramatically reduce that time and eliminate the problems that happen with “trial and error” built on a dogpile of faulty assumptions.
Here’s a starting point of topics to explore:
- Typical cultural expectations for email, instant messaging, agendas, meeting management
- Standing meetings they need to attend. (Sidebar – make sure they get the invitations!)
- Budget and expense tracking. Rules about travel and gifts.
- Mechanisms for recognition and awards
- How projects are typical approved and managed
- Rules for getting approval to share information externally
- How bonuses, promotions, and merit salary increases are handled
Specific Projects and Initiatives
Knowledge workers will generally jump into one or a small number of specific projects.
For existing projects and initiatives: Take some time to go through the project history or expectations of what the project should deliver. Brief them on project methodology (e.g., “we use agile software development here”) as helpful. Give them a concise and tangible description of what the successful project outcome will be. Discuss key attributes and background for other team members. Work with them to clarify project milestones and KPIs.
For new projects you’re asking them to begin: Add to the above more conversation about the picture of success, resource availability, what you expect for project updates and addressing problems, and details about all the stakeholders.
One of the most important outcomes of your onboard plan is to deliver early wins for your new hire. Design them. Make it tangible, with specific value. What can be delivered in 2-3 weeks, and then within 2 months?
People and Networks
Knowledge worker roles, even those defined as “individual contributors,” require significant interaction with other people. It’s simply a fact.
Your new hire will benefit from introductions to:
- Her close working team, and peers
- People in key supporting roles
- Anyone who provides them information or context for their work
- Direct beneficiaries of their work (sometimes called internal customers or clients)
- Your boss
I recommend you create a 30 second and a 2-minute introduction “script” to personally introduce your new hire to others. Pick which one depending on who you’re introducing her to. The basics plus some context. Voice or in person introductions are best though this is not always possible.
You should also create a list of key influencers in your organization, including more senior managers and your peers. Give your new hire this list and ask him to set up meetings with them over a period of months for mutual introductions and sharing insights. Ask him to report back to you what he learned in the conversation. (Creating that expectation up front helps.) The goal here is to give your new hire additional opportunities to hear from others, but also to be “on the radar” of decision-makers in the future.
Getting Recognition for Progress and Successes
Consciously work to draw attention to the good work that your new hire is accomplishing. I recommend creating a weekly or bi-weekly recurring task to remind you to tell your boss about their work. Emphasize the value this new employee brings to your organization. Trumpet the early wins. Be candid about development opportunities when something did not go well.
Schedule time, even 15 minutes occasionally, to talk with stakeholders who are supposed to benefit from their contributions. Test assumptions. Listen to their feedback and suggestions. Relay insights and recommendations back to your new hire.
Look for opportunities to forward email correspondence or project documents to your boss or other stakeholders, adding your comments about their performance.
Timeline of the onboarding work
I recommend you think about onboarding work in three timeframes:
- The first two weeks
- The first two months
- The first six months
A large fraction of the onboarding work – especially information sharing and introductions — does fall in the first two weeks, but the effort on your part will diminish as they develop confidence and connections.
The focus and effort over time looks like this:
Final Recommendations:
This is significant work but the cost of not helping someone onboard effectively is far higher. This fits the old mantra, “Pay me now, or pay me more later.”
Create a few notes about the onboarding plan. It’s likely that you can re-use some of this for future hires.
Explain what you’re doing and why to your boss. Emphasize the benefits to the organization. Reinforce this by sharing specific milestones and project deliverables from your new hire. This will add to your credibility as a manager.
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see other managers doing anything like this. Hopefully your good example will be contagious.
Make this a fun process! Don’t think of it as a burden. You don’t have to do this onboarding work, you get to do it. Your new hire will benefit enormously, your organization benefits, and you benefit.
