Demystifying Modern Onboarding

This is an excerpt from the Click Boarding eBook, "Demystifying Modern Onboarding: A Step by Step Playbook for Delivering Amazing Employee Experiences."

Consciously or not, we are all increasingly accustomed to amazing technology in our everyday lives. Siri dictates our texts and recommends the best route to work. Alexa turns on our lights, orders our groceries and if she’s in the mood - tells us a joke. Our watches keep track of our bodies so we know when it is time to eat, exercise and rest. We have apps to do the rest of our bidding, and an Uber study conducted in 2014 proves we won’t wait longer than five minutes for our ride. It is not even restricted to technically savvy millennials anymore; we’ve all become digital natives. As consumer brands continue to pull our expectations higher, we require interactions in every facet of our lives to be simple, flawless, and intuitive.

With all this power at our fingertips, is it any wonder why the workforce of today has consumer level expectations about business processes and work experiences?

Of course not. There is zero wonder.

As an HR professional, you already get this - because, you know, it’s 2018. You know your employee experience must set you apart from the competition, foster engagement, improve retention, and drive performance. You also know that onboarding is the critical pivot where the candidate experience transforms into the employee experience. It is the moment of truth and it sets the tone for everything.

As an HR professional you have likely modernized the lion’s share of your talent acquisition and talent management processes, and experiences. Perhaps, you are on your third, fourth - maybe fifth iteration of that, or maybe you are just getting started. Either way, one thing is certain: the vast majority of HR professionals are still grappling with modernizing the onboarding process.

But why? Digitizing new hire paperwork, compliance forms, and learning modules should be a no-brainer by now (remember, we can launch rockets from our pockets!). In an age when two billion people connect daily on a single social media channel, engagement should be table stakes.

The simple truth? Onboarding is about so much more than technology.

It is just as easy to get onboarding right as it is to get it wrong.

It is the critical step in the employee’s experience that can undermine all your investments in culture, employer branding and ‘the soft stuff’ if you don’t get it right. Onboarding is about nailing what really matters to your new employee well before day one while making it easier on the HR team to get new employees assimilated, productive and meaningfully engaged as efficiently as possible.

Here’s what matters to new hires and what all of them are constantly asking themselves even before they start:

• Will I fit in with the culture and like my team? (Do I feel connected?)
• Will I make a good first impression? (Do I feel prepared?)
• Will my manager champion my success? (Do I feel anticipated?)
• Will I grow and get to do exciting work? (Do I feel productive and purposeful?)
• Does this employer brand look the same on the inside as it did on the outside? (Did I make the right choice?)

Above everything else, onboarding must address what matters - and it must do so consistently. Onboarding should start the moment a new hire says ‘YES!’ and continue while they assimilate to your culture, socialize with their teams and begin to find their groove. It is never a “one and done” step, rather, it is repeated throughout their tenure at critical moments in time (cross boarding, offboarding, M&A, internal org shifts, etc.). As the first impression your business makes on a new employee, good (or bad) onboarding reinforces their choice and makes or breaks whether they will stay. It is just about the most important thing you have to get right.

Onboarding is about nailing what really matters to your new employee well before day one while making it easier on the HR team to get new employees assimilated, productive and meaningfully engaged as efficiently as possible.

If that sounds dramatic, here are a few reasons why ignoring onboarding today can derail your entire talent strategy:

• Up to 20% of employee turnover happens in the first 45 days
• 90% of employees decide whether to stay with the organization or leave within the first 6 months
• Half of all senior-level outside hires fail within 18 months.

Ouch!

If the stats above don’t convince you that delivering an amazing onboarding experience is critical, let’s bring it back to something that always works - following the money. According to the Center for American Progress, it costs an average of 16-213% of salary to replace an employee depending on education and qualifications.

When you fail to nail the onboarding process, you waste the time, money, blood, sweat and tears you already invested on both sides of the employee lifecycle.

The technology is already here and the best practices are proven. According to Deloitte, when onboarding technology is used, 75% of employees are happy with their job decision - and apparently, they stay happier too; because those who participated in a structured onboarding program are 69% more likely to stay with an organization for 3 years.

Read more of the eBook, "Demystifying Modern Onboarding: A Step by Step Playbook for Delivering Amazing Employee Experiences"