How do you update and improve your onboarding program based on feedback and data?

I've found it helpful to start with the big picture. Establish what it means to be a successful firm, then what the firm needs from each member of the team to be successful, then work backwards from there. For example, productivity is important in the role, but to be highly productive, one must also be confident, independent, understand our culture, and the expectations of them, and how to achieve those expectations. I like to have a roadmap for each of those objectives with clear steps the candidate can take, and a scorecard for to track and measure their progress (and ours) in achieving the common goal of employee, and therefore organizational success.

As a leader, the first step to improving an onboarding program is to understand what's working and what's not. Therefore, defining metrics that will help you make this decision such as time to first value, onboarding time etc is necessary. Talk to the teams such as the CSMs or onboarding specialists to ensure all metrics that are relevant are being tracked. Figure out what the baseline numbers should be for each and share with the team.

Before you jump into trying to improve the onboarding program, you have to understand what part of the program needs tweaking, why does it need to be improved and how will you measure the new improvements going forward. Having 1-1 conversations with employees that went through onboarding and sending out end of onboarding surveys will get you information about where the process is broken. Make sure that when you start to improve the process (have conversations with other leaders and team members), you are aligning the improvements with the org's goals. You want the employees to understand what they need to do, get value from the program so they can start to engage and be productive. Set up metrics to track these.

I gather feedback on each part of the onboarding experience (sent on Day 4 of the new hire's tenure): Pre-onboarding, including laptop/tech shipments, communication effectiveness (e.g. did the comms help the new hire know exactly what to expect). Day 1 Experience, including presenter effectiveness, clarity of important information (e.g. does the new hire understand the benefits/perks available to them, how to get support, etc.), if orientation made them excited working for the organization, and if they felt welcomed. Post-orientation, including if the manager made an effort to form a connection with the new hire, and if they received a completed onboarding guide from their manager.

Collect feedback multiple times along the way is one of the most crucial things to implement. Think of several key moments: - Right after signing the contract - One week before start - Week 1 - Month 1 etc etc. This allows your onboardees to give you the full picture in the moment. Without the risk of forgetting about that key moment or certain challenges they faced. Secondly; make sure you include other stakeholders as well in your feedback. How easy is the onboarding process for Managers for instance? Or what do IT, Facility Management, Payroll, Buddies think of the communication methods? Make sure to focus on both those aspects and you will get the most accurate and relevant feedback possible.

I always make sure that I have collected at least 6 months worth of data before thinking about making any changes. It is important to get data from various customer segments and channels. It is also important to get qualitative data from internal teams such as CSMs as well as customers. The law of large numbers states that your data set has to be of a certain size; if not the information that you see may not be accurate.

Something that I've enjoyed doing and received a great ROI on: social learning techniques. Having pause moments and confidence checks mid-learning allows me to understand the effectiveness of the learning thus far, while gauging learner confidence...even if I've felt the content has been communicated in the best way, it's truly only as effective as the impact it has on the learner.

With qualitative data collection, an important filter to keep: what is situational feedback and what is global feedback? It can be easy to get caught up with the feedback that is most recent, but focusing on the trends is what will drive overall impact and satisfaction.

Make sure to have processes in place of how to analyze data once that data actually starts coming in. 1. Separate Qualitative from Quantitative. 2. Qualitative can be analyzed one by one. However, in the day and age of AI you could leverage AI tools. This allows you to summarize the feedback you are getting into a condense, easy to understand overview. 3. Quantitative can be transformed into graphs. This enables you to track progress over time. Finally; always make sure to show and discuss these results with people from outside HR. They need to have an understanding of what people feel. Make it easy for them using these reports, graphs and summaries. That ultimately promotes action from everyone at the organisation, not just HR.

Look for weak links, such as commonly failed questions, to identify areas needing improvement. By examining whether issues stem from the question design, training content, or delivery method, we can make targeted adjustments. Regularly reviewing this data ensures onboarding evolves to better meet the needs of new hires and the organisation.

Many people forget this step or don't do it consistently. But to understand whether the changes are working or not, you have to monitor and make adjustments. Making adjustments as soon as there is evidence of something not working as expected is key to maintaining a positive user experience. Prioritize the changes that have the most impact and urgency. Work with the teams that are impacted the most so they understand what is happening and what to do to fix it. Communication is key to enhancing support and resources as needed.

Based on the question, the answer to the question “how” is - act. Once the data and feedback are collected, it is important to truly see and understand them and take relevant and timely action. Review the process and make adjustments. This way, you will show care, the reporter will feel heard, and employees will see that their input is valued and actually leads to change.

The goal on onboarding is to get the new hire acclimated to the culture and job as quickly as possible. For each new hire to feel empowered, you need to ensure they received value from each step in the onboarding process. This means that he/she has been trained and has the right resources to get him/her productive to meet the team's and org's goals as quickly as possible. As a leader, have an open door policy where questions and concerns can be addressed as quickly as possible. Having frequent conversations with the new hires and giving them a plan for success goes a long way!

Another consideration, outside of surveying new hires, is to hold onboarding office hours once a week and track the questions that new hires are asking. If you notice certain questions are being asked time and time again, consider how you can update your presentation or post-orientation resources to include this information. This can also help inform changes to your partner group's presentations (e.g. IT, Benefits, etc.) and resources as well and will have a broader impact on the new hire experience. I personally implemented this approach in my current program and went from having multiple questions every week to rarely getting questions as our presentation and post-orientation materials got much stronger as a result.

Have the customer be part of the onboarding enhancement. Frequent surveys or 1-1 chats with the high tier customers will often provide additional areas for improvement!