Onboarding: A Welcoming Approach for New Employees
Ruth Wright, Director, Leadership and Human Resources Research
December 19, 2011 Competition for talent is fierce and employers cannot afford to stop courting new employees after they have accepted the initial job offer. Leading Canadian organizations are taking steps to welcome new employees and ensure that they have every opportunity to be successful and productive in their roles. The terms “onboarding” and “orientation” are often used interchangeably. Although orientation is a key element of onboarding, effective onboarding is an extended process for transferring organizational, team, and role-specific knowledge to new employees. Successful onboarding reduces the time new hires take to get up to speed, increases productivity by improving employee engagement, and lowers new hire turnover. In short, onboarding is a welcoming experience that helps people feel comfortable in and connected to the organization. Successful onboarding reduces the time new hires take to get up to speed, increases productivity by improving employee engagement, and lowers new hire turnover. A Conference Board of Canada report, Bringing New Hires Up to Speed: How Structured Onboarding Can Help, identifies five objectives for an onboarding program. The report includes case studies from five organizations (Molson Coors, Bayer Canada, Compass Group Canada, Capital Power, and the Government of Saskatchewan) that have incorporated these key principles into their program design. A successful program should do the following. - Acclimate the new hire to the organizational culture: Onboarding must go beyond communicating the organization’s values and mission statement. It should serve as a guide to organizational expectations and behaviours, providing tips and cues as to how things get done. It is important to relay messages about the broader organizational culture—in other words, how people are expected to think and act.
- Make use of technology, where appropriate: Organizations that take advantage of technology can accelerate the pace of the onboarding process for new employees, as well as reduce costs. Using the corporate intranet, for instance, is one of the most effective ways to support the various processes and phases of an onboarding program.
- Involve individuals outside the human resources (HR) function, as well as those inside it: Welcoming and integrating new hires into the organization is no longer the sole responsibility of the HR department. Successful onboarding programs go beyond the realm of HR and involve a variety of people across the organization.
- Use metrics to align the onboarding process with business goals: An effective onboarding process drives value for organizations. To make the business case, however, one needs to link the benefits to organizational performance. That means isolating investments, quantifying the value of direct benefits, and articulating the return on investment.
- Use a phased approach: Often, orientation programs are too short and too broad. The new employee is overloaded with information about policies and procedures before gaining knowledge of the organizational culture and context. Extending onboarding beyond the first 90 days of employment and using a phased approach allows new employees to acquire knowledge as they become more comfortable within the organization.
By working closely with business leaders and using metrics, HR professionals can design an onboarding process that meets the needs of new hires while aligning the process with business goals.
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