Finding the right people for your company is very important. The entire
process of recruiting, interviewing,hiring and training is time-consuming and
expensive. Losing newcomers before they
ever become productive can be devastating. The best way to assure that once you
find the right people they will perform well
and stick around for the long haul is to get
them thoroughly indoctrinated into your
company’s philosophy and culture. If they
feel an early sense of commitment and
ownership, they are much more likely to
stay with the company.
“Effective onboarding is one of the keys
to employee retention,” says Dr. Michael
Wesson, Department of Management,
Mays Business School, Texas A&M. “The
more quickly employees adapt to your culture and become fully productive, the better chance you have that they will become
long-term employees.”
Smart Business talked with Wesson for
more insight on effective onboarding.
What is onboarding?
Onboarding should be seen as the
process by which employees are brought
up to speed in terms of work performance
and become organizational ‘insiders.’ It is
not something that simply happens during
the first week of employment; for most
jobs the process can take from six months
to up to a year. In order for an individual to
become immersed in your culture and
assimilated into the business, there are six
key areas that newcomers need to thoroughly understand and adapt to. These
areas are organizational goals and values,
history, politics, language (slang and jargon), people, and performance proficiency.
Why is onboarding important?
Research clearly shows that effective
onboarding leads to higher levels of organizational commitment, job satisfaction
and lower levels of turnover among organizational newcomers. Employees tend to be
overwhelmed when they start a job with a
new company. There is a lot to learn in a
very short period of time, especially when you expect them to start performing well
right away. Simply having them fill out a W-2 and showing them where the restrooms
are won’t cut it. It is potentially the single
best period of time to share with employees what the values and goals of the organization are and what is expected of them.
Too many companies squander this unique
opportunity.
What are some of the keys to proper
onboarding?
Planning is one of the main keys to success. What are the most important things
you want your employees to adapt to and
learn? When is the optimum time for them
to learn this information, who is the best
person to provide it, and what is the best
method to convey the information to
them? Many companies are moving
towards providing computer-based orientations. My research shows that while this
can be effective in delivering some types of
information, it is sorely lacking in its ability
to deliver much of the socially rich content
that is arguably the most important.
Bringing in people as part of a group helps
them to adjust — they have an immediate
network of employees in a similar situation
and they are more willing to ask questions.
Involving the CEO or other high-level managers is also important — it sends new
employees a signal that they are important
to the organization and that the values
being shared with them are not simply
words on a written page.
What are some of the most common mistakes in onboarding?
The most common mistake is assuming
that employees will just ‘pick it up’ in a
short period of time. Managers mistakenly
think that a good orientation program is
too expensive. However, the cost of losing
employees because their expectations
aren’t met or are taking longer to master
their jobs, and the amount of time supervisors spend poorly covering the same information is much more expensive to organizations in the long run. One other major
mistake is assuming that your experienced
new hires don’t need onboarding help. I
have research that shows that new employees with significant amounts of experience
are perhaps the most difficult group to
truly socialize to values of their new company — partly because they think they
know everything already.
Understanding that the socialization
process starts well before new employees
show up on their first day is also important.
Research shows that impressions newcomers get during the recruitment and
selection process, and even the signals
companies send during salary negotiations, affect incoming expectations and
attitudes. These attitudes are hard to
change once a new employee starts work.
Let employees in on the company culture
up front. Send them information after they
are hired, but before they actually start.
Give them as much information as possible.
DR. MICHAEL WESSON is in the Department of Management
at Mays Business School, Texas A&M. Reach him at (979) 845-5577 or [email protected].
