FROM AUGUST 2014'S RECRUITER MAGAZINE

The experiences of new recruits en route to their new company can be many and varied; often the joining process leaves a lot to be desired. DeeDee Doke investigates

Creating a smooth path for new recruits to follow when they join an organisation so that they get off to a barrier-free, flying start is a practice few employers get right. And to be frank, too few even pay it lip service.

So from ensuring that an email login is operational on the first day to explaining the new recruit’s 30 to 90-day goals, in-house recruiters are increasingly having to take the lead on the practice known as onboarding — a minefield that really needs the full participation of a variety of integral players within an organisation to clear. 

Onboarding generally begins between the signing of an employment contract and a new starter’s first day, continuing through the period of the recruit’s bedding-down within the organisation. However, there is little agreement about precisely when onboarding ends. 

In fact, there is little agreement about much to do with onboarding except that there are a number of missing links. What are those missing links? And where is it all going wrong?

Lack of ownership and consistency, to start with, says Emma Mirrington, co-founder of The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM) and talent director at Write Research: “We need consistency in terms of how candidates are engaged with and the importance of the business’s buy-in.”

To fill in the missing links is a global problem facing global businesses. And with that in mind, in association with insurance company Aviva, The FIRM recently held a focus group for in-house recruiters about onboarding to explore existing practices and to begin building a global onboarding framework. 

The 18 participants came from companies including Arcellor Mittal, HSBC, Microsoft, 02 and Premier Oil, and most felt that onboarding should fit within the resourcing team. “However, the hand-over to the line manager is where it often falls down. That’s where the lack of ownership from a line management point of view could be an issue,” Mirrington says.

At the same time, participants agreed that technology was “where most failure exists in all organisations”. 

One situation described by Mirrington was, sadly, not unfamiliar to many participants. A new starter had to leave the workplace on their first day only to return the next week because the necessary security pass and IT essentials for new employees had not been prepared.

“The IT infrastructure isn’t always in place,” Mirrington says diplomatically. “People join, and they don’t have a laptop, they don’t have an email login, and that impacts on people’s ability to hit the ground running, when they don’t have the tools to help them with their role.”

Whether the onboarding offering should be the same for employees at all levels was one of the hottest topics of discussion. For instance, at multinational RSA Insurance Group, “our focus is to ensure that our onboarding is extremely well developed for senior executives”, Mariya Gibb, the firm’s talent acquisition manager, tells Recruiter.

An idea shared with the group that could be especially helpful for new executives and managers was to put a few questions to the team that the manager was to be joining such as ‘What’s the key challenge facing the team?’, ‘What’s the biggest priority for the team right now?’, ‘What do you know about [the new manager]?’, ‘What would you like to know about [the new manager]?’. The responses would then be collated and sent to the new joiner.

“They could join the organisation then with a bit of insight and context and hit the ground running,” Mirrington explains. “That was a nice example of something that was really easy to implement and yet incredibly valuable to both the team and the manager that was about to join.”

For newcomers in more junior roles, similarly bespoke offerings would be harder to provide, participants acknowledged. “There should be some common themes [between junior and senior new starters],” Mirrington says, “but for your more senior staff, there should be a more tailored and personalised approach because your investment in those people is going to be significantly more, and their impact on the organisation is also significantly more.”

RSA’s Gibb adds: “Very often they [new executives] are joining to change the status quo. We want to make sure there is more clarity around the company and future stakeholders and the people they will be working with. We want to highlight the culture and values of the company.” 

Providing new starters with a ‘buddy’ or peer to help them navigate the organisation was raised as a useful and helpful part of successful onboarding offerings. 

At innovation consultancy Promise Communispace, new starters are set up with buddies at roughly the same seniority level but who work on a team different to the newcomer and are “leading lights” in the company, the company’s recruitment specialist Elisabeth Bucknall tells Recruiter. 

The initiative, known as Peer-Assisted Learning or PAL, is part of Promise’s newly revitalised induction offering. Induction, while at the start of an employee’s tenure, is key to retention, Bucknall says: “Retention is super important to us.” 

Promise’s London operation has doubled to 120 employees in the last 12 months. Globally, Promise employs around 500. As a result of growth, some snippets of its onboarding have had to change, Bucknall acknowledges. For instance, she says, “sometimes it’s not always practical to walk someone around the office”. 

The findings from the session suggest that getting line managers more involved and committed to successful onboarding is “one of the biggest challenges”, Mirrington emphasised. “That’s just in terms of trying to get line managers to take more accountability for their new starters.”

Asked what line managers should contribute, Mirrington says: “I think the most important thing they can do is provide them [new starters] with a safe and supportive environment in which to join the organisation and the team. It’s also about some very clear guidelines and KPIs [key performance indicators] for the first few months.

“Every new starter joins wanting to make a difference. If they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing… then actually it’s very difficult for them. They can lose confidence and disengage quite quickly.”

What's not working?

• Lack of consistency

• Lack of or too much content

• Lack of ownership

• Business sees onboarding as HR’s problem

• Technology

What does 'good' look like in onboarding?

• Continuity through pre-onboarding, onboarding and employment

• Roll out the red carpet — get the brand right!

• The employee experience should be the same as the customer experience

• Don’t show the plumbing!

• A new entrant charter

• It should be clear where and how to find information, eg. learning and policies

• Toolkit for provision of key information

• IT access and kit — fully equipped from Day One

• Buddy system for all levels

• Ongoing governance

• Personal touches

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