The "Foreign Exchange Student" Philosophy of Onboarding
Our team at PSI has devoted a lot of attention in 2018 to improve the way we welcome new employees into our organization. Our ultimate goal for onboarding is that "all new employees feel welcome, integrated, engaged, and set up for success in their new roles and the organization".
We chose to invest in onboarding because our employees choose to work for us and—especially in a strong economy like we now have (unemployment is 3.8%, and workers are choosing to leave their jobs at the fastest rate since the dot com boom)—they can choose to leave. We knew we couldn't rest on our laurels of a compelling mission and unique approach. We needed to create a great first impression for our new staff when they walk in the door and during their first months. (And we need to continue to demonstrate our value as an employer of choice throughout their careers, but that's a topic for another time).
The HR team, however, doesn’t onboard new staff alone—not even close. HR’s job includes “pre-boarding” (paperwork and system setup), coordinating IT and facilities support, ensuring staff understand and elect their benefits, managing orientation and ensure a smooth handoff to their teams, and being available to answer any employment-related questions. It also includes setting clear expectations for what managers and teams can do to provide a great onboarding program.
In service of that objective (setting clear expectations for onboarding), we sent all managers this note on the Foreign Exchange Student Philosophy of Onboarding. It’s simple: when onboarding a new employee, imagine that instead of welcoming a mature professional into a new job, you are welcoming a young foreign exchange student into your home for the semester.
To successfully welcome a foreign exchange student into your home, you would need to recognize that you take for granted much of your own knowledge and familiarity with your surroundings. They wouldn’t intuitively know about:
- Your language and culture,
- Your home – what they can use and where to find what they need,
- How to reach you if they need something, especially during the first week or two,
- What they're supposed to do and when, and what’s the normal rhythm of the day, week, month,
- If you can’t help them with something, who can?
In sum, welcoming someone into your workplace should follow the same principles as welcoming someone into your home. It requires the right attitude, a lot of empathy (remember, you were new once too!), and attention to the little things.
We told them: “I don’t have the time” simply is no excuse. Successful managers effectively delegate aspects of that program to their team. We, for instance, suggested that managers assign new hires an “onboarding buddy” who could show them around the office, take them out to coffee, and can be a resource during their first days and weeks to answer simple questions they might not want to bother their manager with.
Getting managers to truly own and deliver an effective onboarding program is a process, and we know that the results will be uneven at first. But, we see this as a critical shift in perspective, and we anticipate a great return on that time investment in terms of engagement and retention.