CHAPTER 47

Supporting Your Organization’s Onboarding Efforts

Norma Dávila and Wanda Piña-Ramírez

An employee’s experience with onboarding creates an indelible first impression of the company’s business, politics, unwritten rules, culture, and values. If this experience is positive, it reinforces the employee’s decision about joining and staying in the company. In contrast, if the experience is not positive, it may trigger a decision to start a new job search while staying in the company as a disengaged employee.

Learning and development is the source of knowledge about how people learn, acquire skills, and master their competencies, with the goal of influencing individuals and groups to do their work better. Therefore, even though many debate where onboarding should reside in the organization, whether it should be in human resources or L&D, we propose that L&D should be the owner of this important business process. It is up to L&D, as onboarding’s owner, to make sure that employees have the best possible onboarding experience.

Vedran Ismaili (2020) shared this data about onboarding in an infographic:

•  88 percent of employees say their employer did not provide a productive onboarding program.

•  69 percent of employees are more likely to stay with a company after a great onboarding experience.

•  76 percent of organizations are underutilizing employee onboarding practices.

•  A third of all employee attrition happens during the first 90 days.

•  54 percent higher employee engagement is found among employees who went through a structured employee onboarding program.

•  A structured onboarding program improves productivity by more than 70 percent.

•  35 percent of companies spend zero dollars onboarding their employees.

•  70 percent of the employee onboarding experience is dependent on their manager and their skills in onboarding a new hire.

•  69 percent of managers describe onboarding as time consuming.

•  A 97 percent increase in productivity was seen among employees who were assigned an onboarding buddy.

Thus, we can conclude that a positive onboarding experience has a considerable impact on employee engagement, retention, and productivity.

In addition, the average cost per hire may be approximately $4,000 for lower-level employees, while average costs per hire for executives can easily be 10 times as high (Peterson 2020). Regardless of these numbers, the costs of hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic doubled, in some cases, because of the additional challenges involved in finding the right talent at the right moment. Therefore, dedicating time and resources to designing effective onboarding programs is always in the organization’s best interests.

Other benefits of onboarding include:

•  Greater capacity to attract top talent

•  Creates a pipeline for succession planning

•  Increased understanding of brand and value proposition

•  A focus from management and HR on the business instead of on transactions

Why, then, are so many organizations still overlooking this significant component of employee experience that clearly makes business sense? What can L&D do to ensure that organizations have solid onboarding programs? Who can take care of this important business component in organizations that do not have formal HR or L&D functions, units, or departments?

The answer to these questions depends on the size, type, and business model of the organization. Ultimately, in the absence of L&D and HR functions, whether internal or outsourced, the organization’s management has the responsibility to design and implement an effective onboarding program.

In this chapter, we will discuss how L&D can add value by taking an active role and ownership in creating and deploying effective onboarding programs. We also share examples based on our consulting experiences as well as our review of the latest trends in onboarding.

Let’s begin with some definitions to establish a common ground for our discussion. In Effective Onboarding (2018), we defined onboarding as:

Many organizations still mistakenly refer to new employee orientations as onboarding. We compare the main characteristics of both in Table 47-1.

Onboarding is a process, and, as such, it includes three phases (Figure 47-1).

Let’s look at each phase in more detail (Dávila and Piña-Ramírez 2018):

•  Pre-onboarding. Comprises all the activities that take place before the new employee or new-to-role employee receives the employment offer. The organization’s recruitment and selection activities are part of this component.

•  General onboarding. Introduces the employee to the company’s culture (how things are done) by establishing commonalities among all employees regardless of position. This establishes the ground rules to engage newcomers with the workplace.

•  Role-specific onboarding. Entails a uniquely tailored process for each position in the company because it seeks assimilation of the new or new-to-role employee into the nuances of the department’s or unit’s culture. Activities are highly individualized for each position and require a transfer of knowledge from the learning and development function to the manager or immediate supervisor.

Thus, onboarding is the final stage of the recruitment process and the first step of the employee experience. When designing your organization’s onboarding program, make sure that you include the following must-have components:

•  Content and duration

•  Communication, presentations, and exercises

•  Introductory videos

•  Company vision, mission, and history

•  Policies and procedures

•  Industry-specific details

•  Structure and business model

•  Employee handbook

•  Organizational charts

•  Who’s who in the organization

•  Updated job descriptions

•  Mandatory and optional training sessions

•  The onboarding timeline and milestones

•  The building’s floor plan

•  An onboarding checklist

•  Role-specific elements

These elements must be placed in the appropriate onboarding phase prior to delivery. Note that when onboarding is delivered 100 percent virtually, all elements will reside in the system and will need to be tailored for each employee.

Onboarding should create an atmosphere of openness and trust to ask questions and address the cultural nuances that are typical of units and departments by having separate sessions for all participating groups, whether they are in person or virtual. Keep in mind that when employees assume a new role they’ll need to be brought up to date on the latest changes in the organization. They should also participate in the entire onboarding process because assuming a new role requires completing many transactions that resemble those completed by new hires.

The multidimensionality of the onboarding process demands the involvement and participation of several players and stakeholders whose contributions require seamless coordination. Whether the organization is currently operating under in-person, virtual, or hybrid models, the employee’s supervisor or manager, company management, HR, and L&D are usually involved. They may be present in person or through different media options, such as videoconferencing tools, prerecorded videos, or other company communication channels.

In the end, onboarding must foster the employee’s sense of connection and engagement with the organization, regardless of whether it is delivered fully in person, virtually, or both.

Onboarding in Our Post-Pandemic World

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many organizations to accelerate their use of alternative ways to conduct business under different circumstances. What once were considered temporary arrangements to maintain business continuity during emergencies, such as natural disasters and political upheaval, became “permanent until further notice” for many. Working remotely moved from being a wish for those who wanted more flexibility and control over their time to a reality loaded with uncertainty during the rush to implementation. Yet, working remotely became the only way for many organizations and their employees to remain in business.

While many organizations reduced their workforces during the pandemic, others found opportunities to grow and diversify their products and services. They also found ways to source, recruit, onboard, train, and retain those new employees. Often, L&D led the conversion of in-person processes into virtual processes almost overnight. Onboarding was not the exception.

A successful onboarding program must be carefully orchestrated so that all its components, namely, pre-onboarding, general onboarding, and role-specific onboarding, are delivered on time and the program serves its purpose, especially during times of uncertainty. What happens when those components and players are dispersed geographically, perhaps even around the world? These new circumstances call for L&D to design every detail even more thoroughly and put additional contingency plans in place. L&D must proactively minimize the likelihood of interruptions, errors, and other costly mistakes, which could have a negative impact on those crucial first impressions and even prompt the new or new-to-role employee to question the decision to join the organization, accept the new position, or stay in the organization.

We acknowledge that many organizations are rethinking how they will do business, including to what extent they will remain working remotely and how they will bring in employees to perform functions that did not exist earlier. However, we also believe that remote working will remain a major component of how organizations do business. Therefore, L&D has to be ready to embrace this reality, just like it embraced the sudden shift from in-person to virtual operations.

The good news is that L&D now has experience with virtual technologies, which are more commonly available than they were earlier. Thus, designing and delivering virtual and hybrid programs has become a regular component of how to do business. Inclusivity, respect, and personalized attention will make a difference in the experience, whether the program is delivered in person, virtually, or both.

Regardless of how easy or available virtual technologies may be, we still believe that using them demands more than uploading a presentation and hoping audiences will obtain some benefit from it. This is why expertise in how people learn and how organizations operate is absolutely essential for organizations to move forward at this juncture. L&D cannot overlook the possibility of having some new and new-to-role employees participating in onboarding programs who are working remotely for the first time and will need additional assistance as they handle multiple issues related to how and where they will work. Let’s review an example:

Rodrigo’s organization, and perhaps your own, could have anticipated and addressed some of these issues by answering the questions outlined in the tool 9 Questions to Determine Suitability for Remote Work. This tool is available for download on the handbook website, ATDHandbook3.org.

In the tool, we posit that employees are best suited for remote work if they:

•  Work in an organization that has a written remote-work policy

•  Have results measured by product instead of by time

•  Are less dependent on others to do their work

•  Require lower levels of direction and guidance to do their work

•  Need minimal equipment to do their work, such as desk, chair, filing cabinets, computer, printer, access to high-speed internet, and perhaps an extra monitor, laptop, or dedicated cell phone

•  Can access technical support from either specialized staff or informal experts

•  Have low levels of interaction with other areas of the organization

•  Can find ways to connect with others meaningfully, whether in person or virtually

•  Are politically savvy to enhance their visibility to their managers and supervisors even when they are working remotely

We recommend using this tool to gain a solid perspective on which employees are best suited for remote work and identify the specific needs of those who are not so they can be addressed. Differentiate responses by employee when appropriate.

After working with organizations of all sizes and structures, we are even more convinced of the importance and value of in-person contact during the onboarding processes. Because working remotely is here to stay, so will onboarding remotely. However, we recommend you follow a hybrid model for onboarding, which combines in-person and virtual experiences for new and new-to-role employees. This allows organizations to maximize the benefits of both to create positive first impressions and, thus, reduce time to productivity. At the very least, someone from the organization should meet with the new and new-to-role employees—whether in person or virtually (remembering to turn on the camera)—once before or during the onboarding process, even if the new and new-to-role employee will work remotely.

All employees have unique learning needs, so you’ll want to adapt your program’s design and delivery to the type of content and employee learning needs. The ATD website features many resources you can use to design and evaluate programs focused on individual learning needs.

In our pandemic and post-pandemic world, the need for consistent and reliable communication is critical. Therefore, communications about onboarding, such as those discussing buddies and mentors, schedules and road maps, expectations and milestones, contact lists and mandatory training sessions, must be delivered consistently and on time to all necessary parties through the most appropriate channels. Regardless of the delivery method, the messenger of choice for general information is company management, whereas the new or new-to-role employee’s direct supervisor is preferred for delivering more specific information.

Table 47-2 lists who should deliver what content during each onboarding phase.

The Onboarding Communications Status Tool can help you to track the progress of your onboarding communications. It allows you to add information about the status of each component of the onboarding phase within your organization. Select the communications and messengers that your organization will use during the onboarding process. Write “completed,” “in progress,” or “not started” under the status column or use colors such as yellow, green, or red for additional visual effects. Be sure to update the status column regularly. The Onboarding Communications Status Tool is available for download on the handbook website at ATDHandbook3.org.

Onboarding’s Three Phases

Let’s dive into the three phases of onboarding: pre-onboarding, general onboarding, and role-specific onboarding.

Pre-Onboarding

Pre-onboarding signals the start of customization for the general onboarding phase, as well as for planning role-specific onboarding based on the person’s role and employee profile.

New employees will need to complete documentation to begin to work; doing so before their first day will begin to instill a sense of belonging while saving worthwhile time for other activities. This is also a good time to make the appropriate introductions, in person or virtually, to promote relationships.

In today’s technological world, many companies are sending links and granting access to systems, usually accompanied by a tutorial, before employees formally start to work. Acknowledging that onboarding is an emotional experience and a learning journey, as well as that so much of the employee’s performance is contingent upon the onboarding program’s design and delivery, we recommend tailoring the introduction to what employees will find in those systems.

Based on our list of must-have elements, pre-onboarding should include content and duration, introductory videos, information about the organization’s structure and business model, the employee handbook, the onboarding timeline and milestones, and an onboarding checklist.

Use the pre-onboarding worksheet on the handbook website (ATDHandbook3.org) to help you describe each element in your organization’s pre-onboarding plan.

General Onboarding

New and new-to-role employees at all levels would benefit from receiving general onboarding as a starting point to connect with the workplace, their roles, and with one another. We recommend tailoring the organization’s onboarding program to meet the specific needs of contractors and gig workers, with a general orientation at a minimum.

These must-have elements should be included in general onboarding:

•  Content and duration

•  Communication, presentations, and exercises

•  Introductory videos

•  The company’s vision, mission, and history

•  Policies and procedures

•  Industry-specific details

•  Organizational charts

•  Who’s who in the organization

•  Mandatory and optional training programs

•  The building’s floor plan

The general onboarding worksheet on the handbook website at ATDHandbook3.org will help you keep track of each element in this phase.

When necessary, you should redesign the presentations about the organization’s history and how it has changed over time to emphasize the lessons learned to build a better organization for the future. In addition, consider interspersing unstructured time for participants to interact and share stories and experiences. Employees will benefit from receiving information about the topics in the general overview; however, they also will have specific needs and expectations. Be sure to address these separately either in customized sessions by role or organizational level or during role-specific onboarding. Choose facilitators, speakers, and presenters wisely to ensure look and feel, fit, and credibility. If possible, schedule required trainings for everyone during the same week and before they join their teams. Regardless of the current trends toward self-onboarding, we recommend that all new and new-to-role employees come together to go beyond organizational charts and connect names, faces, roles, and departments.

General onboarding must emphasize that employee safety is always a priority. Some organizations are redesigning how they meet, use individual and collective spaces, get together informally, clean work areas, and maximize available hands-free technology. New policies, procedures, and protocols keep safety top of mind. For those employees working remotely, safety practices at home must also be part of the onboarding process.

Let’s meet Beatriz:

Beatriz’s example highlights the importance of clearly defining safety practices in the workplace, wherever that workplace may be. A simple oversight, such as not having the right lighting or not properly securing cords and cables, can cause an avoidable occupational accident.

Discussions about cybersecurity are also gaining strength in the hybrid workplace. Make sure that employees know your organization’s dos and don’ts to protect system and information integrity. Create a glossary of frequently used technical terms for those who are less familiar with technology.

After general onboarding ends, it is time to transition each new and new-to-role employee to the most important phase of the process—role-specific onboarding.

Role-Specific Onboarding

L&D should partner with managers and supervisors to design role-specific onboarding for each new and new-to-role employee. Managers and supervisors will ultimately be directly responsible for the role-specific onboarding of their direct reports, with the support and monitoring of L&D. Depending on the manager’s experience as a manager and managing remote workers, L&D’s role in the process and level of involvement will vary.

You should include the following must-have elements in role-specific onboarding:

•  Content and duration

•  Updated job descriptions

•  Training sessions

•  Performance goals, expectations, and reviews

•  Role-specific systems

•  Career development

•  Information about the supervisor’s working style, availability, and communications preferences

•  Information about employee’s working style, availability, and communications preferences

•  The department’s size, reporting structure, products and services, internal and external clients, current projects, common acronyms and jargon, core processes, main contribution to the business, culture, business plans, and goals

•  Mentors and buddies

You can use the role-specific worksheet on the handbook website at ATDHandbook3.org to help you describe each element of your organization’s role-specific onboarding.

The formal training program included as part of role-specific onboarding should address topics related to specific details about working remotely or in a hybrid model so that employees gain the necessary skills and increase their confidence if and when they need them. Consider providing resources—such as coaches, subject matter experts, and short instructional videos—to support employees and managers in this transition, always keeping in mind employee wellness.

Let’s look at how L&D can use technology to create virtual and hybrid onboarding programs based on an organization’s context and circumstances.

Technology in Onboarding

Employee onboarding is reaping the benefits of new technologies introduced by organizations. Whether in pre-onboarding, general onboarding, or role-specific onboarding, these tools enhance employee experience and expedite the completion of otherwise routine tasks, thus allowing everyone to focus on what matters.

New and new-to-role employees must have the technological tools that they need available and ready to use before an onboarding program starts, whether it is completely virtual or hybrid. Organizations must clarify what equipment and tools they will provide (for example, cell phone, computer, monitors, camera, ergonomic desk, access to applications, and secure virtual networks), as well as how and when employees can expect to receive them and be ready to use them. Organizations must also define what they expect the employee to secure, such as a high-speed internet connection, and whether they will install all equipment on-site or provide direct telephone support for the new or new-to-role employee to do it themselves. Some video tutorials may be useful to delve into specific online resources after the new or new-to-role employee has become familiar with the new equipment and tools.

Establishing virtual and hybrid onboarding programs demands proficiency in the use of technology from all key players, including the use of collaboration applications as well as desktop, laptop, and mobile devices. Even though L&D owns and leads the new employee orientation and general onboarding components, company management and new and new-to-role employees must also have a basic level of familiarity with this technology so they can focus on the experience. Otherwise, technical details like freezing transmissions, uncooperative cameras, and slow connectivity on either the organization or the employee’s side may derail what would otherwise have been a seamless introduction to the organization and its culture.

Let’s meet Petra:

L&D would be wise to secure the services of a technology expert, ideally throughout the program’s virtual deployment but at least during the critical program features that have the greatest potential to become showstoppers, as in Petra’s case.

L&D must find the best possible combination of components, such as live streaming, instructional videos, general communication videos, and quick reference guides, to make onboarding lively and engaging. Short videos by co-workers introducing themselves and welcoming the new and new-to-role employee add a personal dimension to the process.

The aphorism “everything in moderation, even moderation” holds true, especially for onboarding programs to address participant needs. Avoid information overload by programming multiple short sessions (lasting one to two hours) and distributing them across several days for the new employee orientation and general onboarding components of the program. Mandatory training sessions can also be redesigned as shorter sessions distributed across several days. In the meantime, buddies, mentors, and managers can answer questions through the organization’s internal communications tools. The previous points about technology and scheduling also apply for role-specific onboarding, even though it is a more individualized experience between the employee and manager.

L&D needs to monitor the progress of onboarding programs and be prepared to show its impact. Let’s look at how this can be accomplished.

Impact of Onboarding Programs

Organizations need to gauge the impact of their onboarding programs to demonstrate why they are a good investment. Because onboarding programs are strategically connected to employee and business performance, documenting metrics, measurement, and evaluation needs to become part of the organization’s day-to-day operations.

The meaning of metrics, measurement, and evaluation must be clear before we can address these issues correctly. Metrics are standards of performance and progress that can be quantified, while measurement is the process of assigning value to metrics and evaluation refers to making judgments about what was measured (Dávila and Piña-Ramírez 2018).

The task of assessing the impact of onboarding programs can seem daunting at first, especially when an organization’s culture is gradually moving along the data-driven decision-making continuum. The increasing availability of big data and algorithms is stretching the possibilities for thorough analyses.

Table 47-3 outlines some of the metrics organizations track and who owns them. Use it to see which metrics are available for you to use.

Remember to speak the language of your audience. You will want to track, analyze, and convert all measures to business and financial terms because that is the language of the organization’s decision makers. Use the checklist to document availability of common onboarding metrics on the handbook website (ATDHandbook3.org).

Final Thoughts

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting changes have demonstrated the importance of being ready for all types of onboarding, whether in person, virtual, or hybrid. This chapter has outlined the basics of an employee onboarding program; you must be ready, at a moment’s notice, to add and delete different elements to keep it consistent, relevant, and current. You also have what you need to re-onboard employees who were onboarded virtually and then move back into working in the in-person environment.

Onboarding programs demand time and resources to guarantee their ability to sustain and benefit the organization. Make sure to:

•  Monitor, communicate, anticipate, and remove obstacles.

•  Provide ongoing learning opportunities to support career paths and preferences.

•  Reinforce what happened during onboarding.

•  Remember the learning curves.

•  Seek best practices.

•  Revise, revise, and revise your design.

•  Foster the human side of onboarding even when relying on technology.

•  Own it.

About the Authors

Wanda Piña-Ramírez is an action-driven and strategic management and executive consultant with a proven track record of contributing to the bottom line in companies spanning from multinational corporations to small businesses located in Puerto Rico, the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. She addresses those topics that no one wants to address, such as business metrics, labor law, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Reach Wanda at [email protected].

Norma Dávila guides her career management clients through targeted introspection and self-assessments to identify strengths and interests as well as build self-confidence before embarking on career changes. She focuses her practice on entry-level and mid career professionals across the entire employee life cycle. Norma communicates complex ideas in easy-to-understand and relatable terms to all audiences. You can reach her at [email protected].

Together, Wanda and Norma complement their areas of expertise as business partners in the Human Factor Consulting Group (thehumanfactorpr.com) and are co-authors of Cutting Through the Noise: The Right Employee Engagement Strategies for You, Passing the Torch: A Guide to the Succession Planning Process, and Effective Onboarding.

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