Beyond Day One: Why Real Onboarding Starts After Orientation

You’re a manager and your new hire just quit abruptly or maybe you’re the new hire sitting there twiddling your thumbs wondering why on Earth you were brought on board.

As an HR manager with a significant role in employee relations, I’ve heard from countless managers who were left bewildered by a sudden departure and from employees anywhere from the front line up to C-suite wondering why their supervisor hasn’t given them anything to do.

A quick search on Reddit can yield dozens of horror stories of professionals scrolling online for hours on end because they are under-utilized resulting in them feeling frustrated or “completely worthless.”

Yes, there could be a multitude of causes, but quite often in my experience the problem lies with a poorly constructed (or completely lacking) onboarding framework.

An important distinction to make: orientation and onboarding are often used interchangeably, but think of orientation as the initial introduction to the organization and the team (oftentimes HR paperwork, a tour, and a presentation of the company’s mission and vision in the conference room), whereas onboarding is the broader process of not introducing a new hire to the organization but developing them to the point of performing well in their role.

It may surprise you, but the onboarding process – depending on the type of role, its complexity and seniority, amongst other factors – can take up to 12 months according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Very importantly, it’s within the first 3 to 6 months that “employees decide whether to stay or go …”, and while we can only make informed estimates on the turnover costs to an employer, data suggests that this could cost an employer in the “from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary” to replace an employee.

In an ever-increasingly competitive job market long since dominated by the War for Talent popularized by McKinsey in the late 90s – where changing dynamics like an aging senior leadership, changing development tracks for employees, and a move away from the old ‘job for life’ mentality – employers just don’t have the luxury of taking for granted something so foundational as new hire onboarding.

OK, some tips:

• Very importantly, as a supervisor, you will want to create on onboarding framework along the lines of “30-60-90-day-plan” where you outline the key developmental milestones of progressive intensity (note: ensure a good balance to ensure your new hire is challenged and engaged but not overwhelmed) in those first extra crucial three months – you can already begin to formulate this before your new hire joins the team, but it is advisable to make this a collaborative process.

  • Be sure to use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Achievable, Relevant, Timely/Timebound) goals in your plan and any other performance plans going forward.

• Put in place a regular pattern of 1:1s, establish a good rhythm of communication, and begin setting mutually understood and accepted expectations of good performance.

• I strongly advise documenting 1:1s in a shareable platform from the outset – in my experience, using Microsoft OneNote makes for a great diary-like interface.

  • If you run into any miscommunication or performance issues down the line, documenting your 1:1s will save you so much headache.

• Use your initial meetings your new hire to establish a mentoring and coaching relationship –which is a key component of leading with your employee’s development in mind – with the aim of supporting not just their contributions to the workplace but their career development overall keeping in mind that the employment relationship is always temporary with they’re called “permanent” in HR information system or not.

  • So, for example, you may consider getting to know the ways in which they’d like to progress, like maybe they’d like to become certified in their field and you can help them with that.

  • An employee who feels like you’re supportive of their entire career will be far more productive and engaged in their day-to-day than one who feels like they’re only worth their time at their desk.

• The orientation is certainly a really important first impression, so make sure there’s a warm introduction, an informative presentation, a smooth process when filling HR paperwork, a nice-looking conference room, a tasty lunch, etc. (I swear that on my first day at a new job, it was genuinely the quality of the bathroom fixtures that made me feel like I had made a good decision).

• Socialization into the organization is then really important in a new hire – introduce your new hire to others, help them formulate the network they’ll need to do their job, and generally just make those interpersonal gestures that help an employee feel part of the team.

• You may consider assigning an “onboarding buddy” from your team to show your new hire the ropes, or the so-called buddy may come from another department.

• If you’re an employee and you find yourself with not enough work to do and you’re feeling frustrated, before you consider jumping ship, just be sure that you’ve advocated for more, searched out ways to contribute or projects that could benefit the organization, or perhaps even some further training or development, e.g. in my field I’ve taken lots of short course of HR-related subjects like how to run workplace investigations.

Overall, for employers and managers, the key thing you need to be mindful of is what’s called the Employee Value Proposition, put simply: why would an employee choose to join or stay at your organization?

When a company has branded itself to a new hire – from the application process to the first few weeks and months on the job – as one thing, it’s absolutely crucial that how the organization has sold the role and its internal culture is felt to be reasonably accurate by the employee.

It’s worth bearing in mind when considering the importance of onboarding (and not just compensation and benefits) is that every employee is “five minutes away from handing in his or her notice, and 150 working hours away from walking out of the door to a better offer.”