Follow Us
Onboarding-- More than meets the eye
Most businesses want to keep employees happy, safe, and productive. In addition to helping drive the organization’s success, comprehensive onboarding it generally leads to reduced turnover. Studies show that half of all hourly workers leave a job in the first four months. And half of senior employees hired from outside the organization leave within 18 months (Bauer 1). The cost to replace an employee who leaves the company can add up. For entry level employees it is 30-50% of their annual pay. For mid-level employees the cost can be 150% of their salary. And to replace a senior level or specialized employee can cost as much as 400% of their salary! One way to achieve these crucial objectives is to develop, implement, and follow a comprehensive onboarding program.
Onboarding is a term that encompasses a range of activities intended to welcome and orient the new employee. In the past, a new worker was sat (or stood) next to a veteran employee, who was asked to show the new employee “the ropes”. That often worked, but there are problems with this approach.- While most experienced employees placed in this position do their best, just because someone knows how to do a job, doesn’t necessarily mean they can train someone else to do the job.
- There’s no guarantee that the veteran is showing the new person the right things. Perhaps their attention to quality has relaxed over the years, and work gets through that shouldn’t. Or the they trust their experience to make machine adjustments without following safe lockout/tagout procedures. You don’t want either of those habits to be passed on.
- Having to focus on a trainee takes the experienced worker’s attention away from their own tasks.
Further, onboarding goes beyond simply teaching the new employee how to do his or her job. The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) identifies the building blocks of an effective onboarding program as the Four C’s:
- Compliance is the lowest level and includes teaching employees basic legal and policy-related rules and regulations.
- Clarification refers to ensuring that employees understand their new jobs and all related expectations.
- Culture is a broad category that includes providing employees with a sense of organizational norms— both formal and informal.
- Connection refers to the vital interpersonal relationships and information networks that new employees must establish. (Bauer 2)
- Employment Forms
- Benefits Forms
- Safety Training
- HR Training (harassment prevention, legal requirements, etc.)
- Provisioning (equipment, systems access, supplies, etc.)
- Job Training
- Socialization (meet the team, lunchroom/refrigerators, etc.)
- Company Culture
- The industry may be bound by internal or governmental safety, quality, or performance standards that new workers need to understand.
- Each specific job within the organization will have its own requirements and expectations regarding safety, reporting and documentation, dress code and appearance, and so on.
- And all workers come into the new job with their own background and experience. They may have been taught different procedures elsewhere that either need to be retaught or the new worker may be able to share new ideas about improving performance. Workers may also have language or other limitations that need to be addressed during onboarding.
- Creating a safety culture in the organization
- Reducing employee turnover
- Bringing employees up to speed quickly and reducing start-up costs
- Reducing legal risks
- Saving Supervisory time
