Recently, I met a person who had just started a role in a new organization that’s huge in size. They have over 5000 people employed at this facility. You would think in a large organization like this, the onboarding process would be very buttoned-down and sophisticated in order really help the employee to assimilate people into the organization, so they don’t lose talent early in the process. Not in this case!
As the person explained to me, their process is long and they have the person go through all the forms that are needed to enroll in things like 401K, health insurance, etc. There was no interaction with HR during that process. It was all “self-service” and as I like to say…Self-Service is NO Service!!!! HR was virtually non-existent in the process. In fact, the person never even met anyone in HR. Part of acclimating people is knowing who is their “go-to” person in HR if issues come up. The one plus I did see was that the supervisor was expected to be engaged in the process and did a nice job considering the way the onboarding was set up.
The other thing that is interesting is that nobody ever showed this new person where the closest bathroom was, where they should eat lunch etc. Granted these are small details but they are nonetheless important. After all…when you have to go…you have to go. It also appeared that there was no checklist to ensure that everything that should be covered is covered. If you don’t have a systematic process and a checklist that pulls it all together, you will never optimize this process and could be missing some important points the newbie needs to know in order to feel comfortable in order to assimilate into the organization.
More and more this employee recruitment speaker sees onboarding getting worse…particularly in larger organizations where it should be more sophisticated. Onboarding is a critical component of employee retention strategies. If you are someone reading this, and not in HR, pass it along to them. After all, the last thing you want a new hire asking is “Where’s the bathroom.”
Remember…Give Your Employees C.R.A.P.® (Caring, Respect, Appreciation, and Praise) Why? Because C.R.A.P. Works!
