Onboarding Research Highlights Importance of Engagement

Aberdeen just published a report on “Onboarding – The First Line of Engagement”.  It recommends:

collaboration between all relevant stakeholders in a formal onboarding process that is integrated with other key talent management elements.

Such a process can drive new employee engagement, speed to productivity and performance.

Implications for PrimeGenesis and its clients

1. Continue to push new leaders to get a head start, manage the message, and help others deliver. These are the keys to reducing the risk of failure from 40% to 10% by delivering better results faster
2. Dial up our efforts to help hiring managers do a better, more integrated job of recruiting, hiring and accelerating their new employees.  Engaged, supportive hiring managers are essential to engaging and accelerating new employees.  (More on that to follow in subsequent notes.)

Aberdeen’s Findings:

The top 20% “best-in-class” (BIC) organizations achieve stronger onboarding results than do the lagging bottom 30% of organizations.

• Employees who have been with company for one year or less rate themselves as “highly engaged”: BIC: 89%, Lagging: 25%
• New employees achieved first performance milestone within the agreed-to time period: BIC: 87%, Lagging: 21%
• New employees receive a rating of “exceeds” in their first performance review: BIC: 67%, Lagging 20%

The best in class organizations apply more rigor to onboarding than do laggards.

• Formal process to ensure all relevant stakeholders know what is expected of them to ensure new employees arrive on day-one ready to be productive: BIC: 79%, Lagging: 50%
• All relevant stakeholders (e.g. hiring managers, HR, all interdependencies) know how they can impact each new employee (in employee’s early days): BIC: 64%, Lagging: 24%
• Data from the recruiting process is integrated with the company’s performance management process: BIC: 41%, Lagging: 13%

The best in class organizations onboard more employees than do laggards.

• Percent of companies that onboard 80% of employees: BIC: 68%, Lagging: 35%

Aberdeen’s full report by Kevin Martin and Justin Bourke is available at  www.aberdeen.com.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

The Right Role for HR in Onboarding

My partner, Rob Gregory, suggests there are three core processes in any organization: strategic, operational and organizational.  Separately, last night, I sat in on Anna Tavis’ wonderful Talent Management class at NYU’s Master’s Program.   Crossing Rob and Anna’s ideas suggests that HR should be the functional leader of the organizational process and its essential overlaps with the strategic and operational processes.

This indicates that the right role for HR in onboarding is owning the onboarding process and linking with senior management on the strategic parts of onboarding and line managers on the operational parts of onboarding.

Onboarding as part of organizational process

Whatever organizational process you are using, onboarding should fit.  We use an ADEPT framework: Acquire, Develop, Encourage, Plan, Transition.  Onboarding fits upfront in Acquire.  HR is the functional leader of the organizational process and its components, including onboarding.

Onboarding is strategic

The strategic process is about creating and allocating resources to the right place in the right way at the right time over time.  Since onboarding is all about creating new human resources, it is strategic.  With this lens in mind, HR needs to be a thought leader around how to onboard the right people in the right way at the right time.

Onboarding is operational

There’s an operational component of onboarding – things that need to happen at the right time.  HR can play an important role here in figuring out which operational parts can be outsourced, and managing that, figuring out which parts need to be done in-house and providing training and support for those.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

KISS Messaging in Onboarding

Your message is the simplifying tool that makes the complexity of your circumstances and ideas easier for people to understand and remember.

Mary Vonnegut and I had a good debate about the importance of messages yesterday.  We finally realized that what makes messages so important in onboarding is that they are the key to making things less complex or complicated, plainer or easier for others to understand – simplifying.

Henry Ford′s message was ‟a car in every driveway″.  He used this  to simplify his communication about everything from product choice to manufacturing to pricing to marketing.  Everything that contributed to getting a car in every driveway was helpful.  Everything that did not, was in the way.

Net, the value of the message is less in the words themselves than in the ideas for which they stand.   So, whether you are the hiring manager bringing someone onboard or the new hire yourself.  Invest time to get your message right.  You can not Keep It Simple until you figure out the core simplifying tool – your message.

If you want to know more, there are sections on messaging and communication in both our books: The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan and Onboarding – How To Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time. Both have executive summaries available for download and click-throughs to order at www.primegenesis.com where everything is designed to help you and your team deliver Better Results Faster.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

Onboarding Winners and Losers

Have you been listening to the people that got silver medals in the Olympics this week?  There is a marked difference between those that think they won a silver and those that think they lost the gold.  Some go to the Olympics to get to the top of the podium.  For them, it is not enough to win; everyone else must lose.  Others go to the Olympics for the joy of the competition.  They think they have won in just getting there.  If others win too, so much the better.

There are no medals for winning in onboarding

Unlike snowboarding or other Olympic sports, there are no medals for onboarding itself.  Why?  There is no value in onboarding on its own.  Onboarding is a tool to accelerate productivity and reduce the risks of failure.  Just like the push and the run before a bobsled run, or the trip down the hill to a long ski jump, onboarding feeds into other victories.

There are huge penalties for losing in onboarding

Yet, just like those that fall at the start of a race, onboarding mistakes can be very hard to recover from.  Even though onboarding is just a tool on the way to delivering results, it is an important tool

Win and help win

Bottom line, those that seek the only gold medal for onboarding, who must be better than everyone else, and need others to lose for them to feel that they have won, those are the ones most likely to fail.  Those that approach onboarding as an absolute good, who don’t keep score, who help others win while they are winning themselves, those are the ones most likely to succeed.

Help others win and you will be a winner.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

Fundamental Onboarding Beliefs

Purposeful integration is essential

This is why it’s so important to get stakeholders aligned around the organization’s purpose, a Total Onboarding Program and recruiting brief before starting to recruit.  Get a head start.

Everything communicates

This is why it’s so important to manage your messages during talent acquisition, pre-selling while buying and taking a strategic selling approach to closing the sale with the lead candidate.

Basics matter

There’s no excuse for a new employee showing up on day one unable to do work or with key stakeholders surprised by his or her arrival because no one picked up the accommodation ball.

It’s all about the team

The new employee/boss partnership is crucial.  They should co-create the new employee’s personal onboarding plan with the boss following through with proactive introductions to aid assimilation.

Following through delivers

New employees deliver accelerated performance when their bosses provide ongoing tools, resources and support.

Believe to lead

Leadership is about inspiring and enabling others.  Matching your actions to your words is necessary, but not sufficient.  You must believe what you’re saying in order to inspire and enable others over time.

These ideas are explored more fully in our books: The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan and Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time – Executive summaries available at www.primegenesis.com.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration