Successful Employee Onboarding with 4 Agile Working Principles

=> Agile working methods with Microsoft Teams and Planner

Based on the Agile Project Management manifesto, we can also derive various working patterns into other business processes. And introducing new employees is a standard scenario for each company on the planet. Hence, this post is intended to be another example of how Microsoft Teams and Planner support business processes while taking into account agile working methods. It will be my second contribution to the #AgilityAdvent series.

Quickly integrate new employees into the company

The onboarding of new employees is a very similar process across all companies and industries, even if the content is different, of course. The requirements for successful onboarding are a great match to the requirements of agile project management methods. This means, the four principles of concerning manifesto can be perfectly applied.

1. “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”

Each employee brings different knowledge and their own talents. In the example of IT: Why does a new employee have to complete a one-week course on Office 365 if they have previously been senior consultants in the same field? Because that's simply our unified onboarding process? No! The processes should be customizable in order to optimally engage the employee and thus the company can benefit from the acquired knowledge and talents as early as possible.

2. “Working software over comprehensive documentation”

The sooner companies can take advantage of employee’s performance, the sooner they benefit. This means, the new employee should take on his/her first responsibility, even before the entire onboarding plan has been completed. Hence, the company benefits from its contribution at an early stage and the employee feels the appreciation and confidence to be able to take on its own tasks.

3. “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”

I would like to transfer this point into the cooperation with the new employees, i.e. that he/she is directly involved in conversations with the team, instead of reading a thick book "Corporate Culture". Microsoft Teams is the perfect tool for this approach, because the new employee gets quickly an idea of how their colleagues communicate with each other (formal, informal, after-hours beers, etc.). In addition, he may be able to contribute his knowledge and experience directly and help to solve problems instead of inflexible working towards the completion of onboarding.

4. “Responding to change over following a plan”

Even if I tried to adjust the onboarding plan 100% to the talents of the new employee (see point 1) I have always had something torpedoing this plan and thus I had to respond to that.

For example:

• Instead of learning the governance features of Office 365 – as planned, there was suddenly an urgent need for migration calls with customers.
• Instead of further modifying new hire’s own demo environment, a workshop/conference presentation suddenly had to be delivered because no other colleagues were available.

Today, we need to be able to respond quickly to such requirements and this is the basement of a good training plan.

How can Microsoft Teams and Planner help?

As already described under point 3, any necessary resources and materials should be provided within Microsoft Teams or at least linked from there. Thus, the new employee is immediately integrated into the team and part of the squad.

Planner can also be used for a detailed onboarding plan. The different onboarding phases can be easily visualized with different task baskets.

General concept using Planner as onboarding plan

Very important is the basket on the far left. This should be used as a kind of reminder for the management, IT and human resources department. The tasks in here should usually cover various administrative tasks, which must be done even before the new employee has his first day in the company in order to guarantee a smooth start. This includes, for example, but is not limited to creating an account, obtaining a welcome gift or informing colleagues that a new employee is starting.

After that, the next basket contains the first tasks for the new colleague. During the initial days administrative tasks must be carried out. This is usually very similar for many companies, e.g. setting up computer, installing programs, checking access rights, ordering business cards, etc.

The following tasks later in the ramp-up can differ greatly depending on the industry. It is important to tailor the exercises not only to the company AND the role of the relevant employee, but also to the new hire’s experiences and talents. This guarantees a successful start for both, the news hire and the company (see agile manifesto point 1).

How to use Planner task card

On each individual task card, I recommend the following fields as a useful help for the ramp-up process:

1. Assignment of colleagues with whom the new employee can/must coordinate on specific tasks. In example of personnel topics, a colleague from the HR department is assigned here. For other topics, it's the manager or the mentor. For self-study tasks, the field remains free.
2. The task should be assigned to a chronologically meaningful basket. However, taking manifesto point number 4 into consideration, keep this setting flexible and expect it to be moved into other baskets if necessary, e.g. if other tasks must be preferred.
3. Simple overview for the employee/mentor/manager whether tasks were already started.
4. In interaction with number 2, some tasks can be given additional priority.
5. Although being flexible and responding to changed requirements regarding number 2, postponing tasks shouldn’t be the default behavior. In order to set expectations, it makes sense to set due dates, when a task must be completed.
6. Depending on the task, additional information can and should be shared to make clear, what is meant by the concerning exercise. Sure, the requirements are clear for the manager, but the employee, who is new to the company, may not yet understand all tasks just because of a headline.
7. The checklist is especially helpful to define subtasks, that can be checked.

Pro Tip for better overview: I recommend including subtasks or description on the card in the Planner Board.

1. In addition to notes or subtasks, file attachments can be used. A nice example are email signatures. A company template can be easily attached to the task.
2. Please also use labels for an additional task categorization as well as filtering.

The concept for structuring the onboarding plan should now be clear and thus transparent for the employee. If a task wasn't as clear, or if links weren't working or attached files are out of date, then the employee should record it in the task's comment box.

Pro Tip for better “evergreen” approach:

Mark all tasks, which were not clear or working as expected from new hire’s perspective, with an additional label. The filter options make it very easy afterwards to go through all these cards.

The big picture during onboarding phase

For mentors, managers, but also other colleagues, the dashboard can be helpful. In this way you can see at a glance whether tasks are delayed as well as the current ramp-up status. This is useful, if the employee needs to be scheduled for tasks even before “official” completion of his/her plan (see my example under point 2).

Like regular Scrum meetings, the ramp-up process should also include feedback conversations during and especially at the end of the onboarding phase. It is important to check everything was clear and easy to understand for the employee. In doing this, managers and/or mentors can go through the completed plan together (=> see the Pro Tip to filter by label) and use the comments to understand what can be improved. As I said, we know our business, but for the new colleague everything is unfamiliar.

Pro Tip to make sure, onboarding was successful:

Before trying to define special KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and measuring them with PowerBI or similar “anyhow”, I recommend using Microsoft Forms in Quiz Mode.

In this way you can ask questions about the role, which are important to do the job. Ask your new hire to complete this quiz on day 1. Of course, the final score will not be perfect – as expected.

Since you can define the correct answer(s) per question and assign points, the new hire gets automatically his final score, but also understands, what was wrong. This provides an additional learning path.

Assign the quiz again after onboarding completion. The expectation will be that more or even all questions will be answered correctly. This provides a very positive motivation for the new hire and the company can make sure the new employee is ready for his role.

Pro Tip to replicate the plan to other new hires:

It is possible to copy the entire plan. In this way you can save all updates in regard to the evergreen approach and assign a fresh and new plan to the next new hire.

Please make sure, you have a “template plan” for that and not copying the active plan of a new colleague. Unfortunately, there’s a current limitation, that a copied plan must create an entire new Office 365 Group. However, when working with Group Expiration Policies from Azure Active Directory, completed plans will usually not be used after onboarding and therefore automatically deleted to tidy up your Office 365 tenant.

In the end, we have a nice structured process for employee, manager/mentor and colleagues. As discussed, the onboarding tasks can and should be adjusted not only depending on the role, but also to each new employee’s skillset. Furthermore, based on agile working processes the plan should be flexible to be able to respond quickly to changed requirements. If you consider these tips, you’re good to go for your successful employee onboarding.

Happy Onboarding!