Unlocking Hiring Talent: Mastering the Onboarding Experience

Music. Welcome to the Manager Lab, where we delve into the increasingly dynamic world of talent management.

In each episode, we will unravel key insights, break down the most relevant books and articles, and provide actionable tips to optimize your approach in developing and retaining top talent. Stay tuned for a deep dive into the art, science, and strategy of unlocking your team's full potential. Let's enter the Manager Lab.

Rock stars wanted. That might not be the job posting headline, but it's the underlying message that a lot of companies communicate during the recruiting process. This article review is from the Gallup organization. It's why the onboarding experience is key for retention. So a company's employee value proposition, or EVP, really sets the stage and expectations for the rest of that new hire's employee experience.

Unfortunately, many organizations fail to deliver on the promises that they make during recruitment, resulting in a very poor onboarding experience. In fact, the statistic here is only about 12 percent of all employees feel like their organization does a good job on onboarding new employees. So this results in a poor experience for the new hire and a setback to the connection that they can initially establish with this new employee.

Now, this failure gets in the way of the formation of an emotional bond between the new hire and the company. That connection can make or break retention. According to SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, employee turnover can be as much as 50% in the first 18 months of employment. Employees leaving the workforce can be very expensive and put pressure on the already highly burdened resources that companies are facing today.

SHRM also estimates that it'll cost a company about six to nine months of an employee's salary to identify and hire and then onboard a replacement. So it's very expensive. And that's a very conservative estimate. When I was in the pharmaceutical company, we used 1.5 times the employee's salary. So it can be very significant. Okay, so how to avoid new hire turnover and disengagement? Gallup says by understanding the journey.

The decision to join a new organization is often accompanied by leaving another. And new hires are placing bets that their new role will be better than their last, fulfilling a need that the previous employer was not able to meet. It's a decision that starts with rational considerations, but is ultimately decided based on emotions, how they feel, what they perceive their emotions are around this new company.

So after making the decision, all future interactions people have with their new employer shape their perceptions of what it's like to be on the inside, to be an integral member of the organization. From the employee perspective, onboarding involves a series of firsts. You got the first day on the job. You got the first time meeting a manager, first time meeting coworkers, first work projects and tasks, first opportunities to share their talent with the organization.

So, tremendous number of firsts. Eager about their own role, enthusiastic about how they will contribute, and anxious about how their colleagues will receive them. New hires then head off to their new position with visions of what it will be like when they arrive.

Now, with all this in mind, companies should make sure that new hires feel welcomed and immediately appreciated, quickly developing a sense of purpose and belonging. Now, from an employer perspective, onboarding is the very best time to deliver on the EVP we talked about earlier and other promises made during the sort of the align and acquire phase of onboarding.

Now, deviating from the energy generated during the hiring phase to treating the phase of onboarding as a day one or week one event or as an administrative process that's just focused on paperwork, orientation manuals, and supply cabinet shopping puts a very early strain on the employee-employer relationship.

Throwing new hires into work immediately without training or context, not socializing, let alone introducing them to the rest of the team, focusing on tactical work too early, or not meeting or receiving feedback from managers early and often are more than the norm than the exception. But this isn't how it should be. Companies should treat onboarding with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm equal to or even greater than that of the new hires.

This time leading up to and extending beyond the first day on the job is all part of onboarding.

Don't lose the momentum you've gained during attraction and recruitment by failing to deliver during the onboarding process. Welcome new hires like they are the rock stars that you diligently sought out and selected. If you don't welcome them like rock stars, the experiential disappointment could start them off on an emotionally slippery slope, leading to low engagement and maybe even seeking out a new opportunity elsewhere.

Let's not make that happen. And if you're in HR, if you are in operations and you're a hiring manager, make sure that you're well aware of the onboarding process in your organization. And when possible, reach out to improve it every chance you get. Well, that's it for this episode of the Manager Lab. And until we meet next time, do good work.