Onboarding Can Be Worth the Cost

I read recently an excellent review of an understated process for new hires known as onboarding or the process of inducting novice employees to an organization. An HR Market Analyst, Kyle Lagunas, wrote an informative post that I recommend, regarding the ROI metrics that should be of interest to executive managers who need to know if onboarding is worth the cost http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/onboarding-roi-metrics-f....

This post prompted me to review my own past writings and thoughts, pertaining to this important topic. Since my main interest is in the career development of individuals let's revisit onboarding to see why this tactic matters, particularly for the worker trying to perform optimally for themselves and for their new employer from day one.

To review, career development can be defined two ways, depending on point of view. From an organizational viewpoint career development is seen as the procedures necessary to advance employee value to meet organizational strategic demands. From the view of a worker, career development involves the integration of cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and contextual factors that determine employment decisions, work values, and life role such that a profound satisfaction with what one does is achieved.

Of course the employer knows that you work for them, but how well is the employer working for you? Let's look at an evaluation point an employee can make about their employer and that is by evaluating their onboarding process. Onboarding refers to the manner in which the organization brings new employees on board, i.e. assimilation, induction, or orientation. How this is done reveals some interesting information about a company's treatment of employees. Think about it, at your work were you thrown into the fray or eased in gently with a measured flow of training and information?

If done well, an organization's onboarding process should encourage employee productivity and loyalty. It would inform the new hire about work processes and standards, benefits and other legal necessities, culture, logistics, performance expectations, mission, vision, and values. If this is crammed into one day and then you're on your own the message to you becomes that individual survival is valued more than group acculturation. However, if onboarding is handled over time and in reasonable increments, hopefully including a one-on-one mentor, then you are left feeling that your long-term engagement and commitment to the organization is important to your new employer. It's simple really, if they care about you, then you're more inclined to care about them.

I like to see an onboarding process take up to a year or more. Naturally, the data dump would be more front loaded, but over time there should be targeted check-ins with newbies to see that questions and other issues have been addressed. And over this time, I like to see that a trusted mentor has been assigned to you to shepherd you through the induction phase of your employment. This increases efficiency, while providing an emotional bond to the organization. But this process also gives you a chance to see how other departments within the organization handle the treatment of new employees. The Human Resource, Training, and Management departments should all have a role to play in onboarding. And besides a mentor, I want to know what co-workers and immediate supervisors are like in their introduction to new hires.

In most cases, there are not bad employers and there are not bad employees, but there can be bad fits. Avoiding a mismatch is one of the first steps to advancing your own career development while working for someone else. In these times of extreme cost consciousness any organization that is attempting a thorough and humane onboarding process is probably a decent place to work. And as Lagunas shows onboarding ROI can be measured.