How Important is Onboarding?

Have you ever tried to do exactly what you were told to do only to have it end up in disaster? My kids had a house house sitting job when they were young, probably they were too young. And the owners asked them to water their plants while they're gone, which they did faithfully on the days they were supposed to. And when the owners came back, water had spilled out from the plants onto the wood floor and luckily it was caught in time to avoid damage. But they didn't understand the goal. They thought the goal was to water the plants. Really the goal was to keep the plants alive and keep them with enough water so they didn't die. So doing the right thing can still be wrong when you're not clear why you're doing it. My name is Brian Walsh. I'm the owner of Shift Focus Coaching and Consulting and I do these short videos, these LinkedIn lives to share ideas of how you can be a better manager and how you can build management capacity at your organization. And before I jump in, I need to close my door. So hang on. All right, so today talked last week about flying the plane and what that means is that if you're a manager and you've hired somebody new hire until they are firmly established in an onboarding program. And today I want to talk about what an onboarding program looks like and give you some principles so that you can either evaluate your onboarding process or build one yourself so that you have a better employee experience for your new hires and that you have a higher likelihood that they stay engaged and employee at your company. So the first thing I want to do is distinguish between orientation and onboarding. Orientation is when you hire them, you're getting them set up in the environment, you're giving them a computer and getting their credentials so they can log on, you're getting them a desk, showing them around the office, giving them introductions, giving them employee handbook. If it's a remote position, you're doing all the team introductions, that's all orientation, it's important. But onboarding is so much more than that. Just like orientation, onboarding is a process and it needs to be designed, it needs to be deliberate and it needs to include the boss, it needs to include the employee and it needs include others at your organization. But it's the why that's important, not the what, not the process. So you don't want to run the risk of over watering the plants and damaging the floor. That could happen in a house sitting job. But in hiring you're going to run the risk of losing employed, having Poor results if you don't understand the why. So here is why an onboarding process is important and why you should do one. So during onboarding, what happens is the employee is understanding the breadth of what that job requires and how they can be successful. They're getting acclimated to the company culture and they're learning about what are the values of the company and how do my values fit into those values and how is, how am I going to kind of assimilate here. They're forming relationships with the company and with people at the company. And most importantly, they are validating the decision they made to join your company. That time of onboarding is when they're still reaffirming that decision they made. Now it's also an important time for the company because you as a manager and as an organization are beginning to understand what is the employee's strengths and weaknesses, what do they bring to this job. You're forming a relationship with employee and that employee has some really valuable perspective because they're coming in with new eyes and a fresh perspective of how they see the company. And so it's a great time to get feedback and insights from them and hear about their observations being a new employee. And then lastly, it is the company and you as a manager are validating your decision to hire that employee. So that's why you want this onboarding process and why, why you're doing it. And so today I'm going to give you three components of what a good onboarding program will be. The first component of a good onboarding program is it's structured but flexible. And what I mean by that is you have people from varying backgrounds, they're going to be hired at different seniority levels, they're going to come into different roles. And an onboarding process needs to have some flexibility so that you can meet the needs of the employee while also helping meet the needs for the company. So I'm not a fan of time based onboarding programs. It could be a three month program for some people, it could be a six month program. For some people, it could be a year long program. Your onboarding process should be outcomes focused and be measured about progress. Some people are going to move faster through the process, some people will move slower through the process. Now if somebody moves too slow, you have a problem. There's also a problem with too fast though. Some people come in and they get things really quickly and that, that's great and that's what you want, but you want to make sure they're not a firework where they come and, you know, are really showy and then they, they burn out quickly. So you want a structure that assures that they're building a foundation that will help them succeed at your organization for the long term. All right. That's structured but flexible. The second key component of your onboarding process is visible progress. When an employee starts a job, it is very stressful and, and if you think back to a new job you've started, you know, like when you come in, you don't really know how you're doing. And people may tell you you're doing a good job, which can feel good, but it also, you don't have that trust and that relationship built with them where you really know do they mean it or are they just encouraging me and you have that doubt? So it's really important for the employee to have some visible progress so they know intrinsically and for themselves, yes, I'm doing, I'm doing fine. It's also important for the company though, as well to have visible progress. See, if the person's making good progress and they're, they're moving fast, the business and you as a manager need to know that so that you can have conversations and make sure you're addressing that. Maybe they're ready for more, maybe they need a wider foundation. If the person isn't making progress, you need to know that early as well so you can have those conversations and address it. Because here's the fact. You are going to make bad hires. Doesn't matter what you do. And in fact, so many people try to, I would say, over index on avoiding bad hires that they end up missing out on really future stars. And if you think about a hiring process, I think you really want to like, engineer your hiring process to hire as many potential stars and not, not worry about making one or two bad hires because you're going to make those regardless of what you do anyway. When those people aren't a fit, you want to identify that early. You've made a hire that's not a good hire, that's not a good fit. You want to identify that as early as possible and part ways. And the sooner you do that, the better it is for the company and for the employee. So not, not saying anything about, not thinking about your hiring process and making sure you're hiring good people. But when you make a bad hire, do what you can to make sure it really isn't a fit and then cut, cut ties early so they can go on and be great somewhere else. All right, the third component of a good onboarding process is that it's well supported. If you're a manager and you are doing, you're bringing in new people, you need to be heavily involved in the onboarding process. It really is you, your process, you should own it. You should. You're taking that time to establish communication patterns and behavioral expectations. You're defining kind of what is your management style in the eyes of that employee. But the other reason why it would tie back to that first point of being well structured. If it's well structured, it can also be well supported by other people. So if you think about your team, you may have somebody on your team that is really good at one component. Like they may know the CRM system really well and they can mentor this new employee on using the CRM. You may have someone that's a good, you know, networker in the team and is really good at kind of connecting everybody and building relationships and so they can support that new employee as they're getting integrated into the team. So having a well structured process also is a well supported process because lots of people can get involved in addition to the manager who is really owning it. So those three components, structured but flexible, visible progress and well supported, I would say those three components form the basis of what a good onboarding program is. Now, in my methodology, the shift focus management methodology, we actually have a framework where we define three stages for every role. And we have a framework you can use to create a structured onboarding process for that initial stage of a role, really the onboarding stage. I coach managers on how to use that framework so they can help employees make visible progress, they can support their employees, develop them into long term superstars. So if you want to learn more, let's talk. Hit me up and we'll set up a convenient time to talk. I hope today was helpful and thank you for joining the LinkedIn live or watching the recording.