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
