The First 90 Days
Onboard with a purpose to create long-term productive team players.
By Mark Barnard and Harold Barnard
When you consider the loss of an employee who has left or is terminated, no matter the circumstance, and factor in all of the money, training, time and opportunities lost, you begin to appreciate how deeply a company can be impacted.
The costs, in a worst case scenario, can be enormous with many unforeseen and long lasting implications. Now you must deal with replacement, re-training, managers who are unhappy because someone has to fill-in, dissatisfied customers, etc. To add insult to injury, the whole hiring/training process must also begin again.
In the very best case scenario, it is, in the very least, a distraction to the rest of the team and possibly to your customers. With the exception of recruiters, very few really enjoy the hiring process. With many company’s running lean staff levels, employers should be looking for ways to increase the success and grooming of a long-term and production team member, especially during that first 90 day “honeymoon” period.
We are asked by many clients how to minimize employee turnover during the first 90 days and how to improve the overall “onboarding” process. Creating an employee onboard process/policy for this all-important “trial period” can minimize washouts and increases your chances of creating those long-term top producers everyone would like to hire.
Here are 10 suggestions to help get your process in play. As with all suggestions, they are only useful if you put them to practice and follow through on their implementation.
What is Onboarding?
Onboarding is the process of getting your new hire up to speed as to the policies, procedures and expectations the company has in place. It should include introductions to the team, touring the facilities and the setting of short and long term goals. It begins the first minute of the first day and while there are no set time limits, it generally continues for at least the first 90 days of employment. In reality we never really stop the process of onboarding as it something we as employers should do every day.
10 ways to improve your chances of minimizing falloff.
- Meet and Greet on Day One: There are a few times in our lives when we have those butterflies in our stomachs. The first day of a new job is definitely one of those days. It is an anxious time for the new hire and it is important to ease their anxieties. Have your hiring manager schedule their arrival and be there to personally greet the new hire and welcome them to the company. Set this up as you would an interview rather than relying on the old fall back of “go in and ask for our HR Director” routine. This is a critical time to make your new employee feel welcome. There is no second chance to make a first impression and this first look at you and your company will have a long term impact. While you tour the facilities and make introductions to your current staff you are laying the foundation for a lasting relationship. Your team should also want to know who the “New Hire” is too.
- Key People: During your first meeting make sure the employee is introduced to all of the people in the company. This will reinforce the notion that everyone is important and integral. It is a good idea to have all the names listed, which areas of the company they are responsible for, and what your new employee might go to each individual for. Include phone and e-mail contact for those with whom they will interface with.
- Office/Work Space: Make sure the employees work space or office is clean and set up with those tools necessary to be successful. Too often the employee is shown to a messy work area with no supplies or phone and is left for the first day to scramble in getting the phone, computer, office supplies, etc., up and running. Taking the time to have e-mail accounts up, business cards printed and phone extensions installed prior to their arrival will not only make them feel comfortable and wanted, it will also show your professionalism and thoughtfulness as a company.
- Get the team together: Have your managers meet with the new hire during their first week and share the company’s culture, vision and objections and how the new hire will help the company reach its’ goals. Start out with a strong team leading and training and you will develop a good team player.
- Expectations: To get your new employee off to a strong start detail expectations for week one and set the goals for the next 90 days. This is a great time to review the job description again and to answer all questions they might have regarding what is expected of them. Provide a list of key duties needed to be successful. Start strong and finish stronger.
- Skills Training: After outlining those key duties required to fulfill their job responsibilities ask them if there are any skills they need to develop or perfect to do the job better. This is an area that is often overlooked and a new hire will be reluctant to say they may be lacking in a skill. Put them at ease and explain that you don’t expect they will know everything. Every company has some idiosyncrasies and their own special way of doing things. Employers grow strong team players by developing those needed skill sets of their employees.
- Job Training: Be sure that the new hire has proper job training scheduled, including coaching by peers or job shadowing. The better the training, the more likely they are to succeed. Do not leave this off or take for granted. Treat each employee as if they are new to the job and be sure they can accomplish all goals. Skipping this step, will almost always result in poor job performance and issues later on.
- Set up Priorities and Timelines: Have your manager sit with the employee on a regular basis during that first month and develop clear expectations, goals and establish the priorities and set deadlines for reaching these goals. As an example for a sales person; the priority and goal can be to meet your top 10 customers face to face over the first month. What you feel is a priority versus what they think is important and needed might be further apart than you wish.
- Schedule Monthly Reviews: Over the first three months set up and keep a record of a review and give the employee feedback on his/her performance. Good reviewing of where they are will make a huge difference in the employees overall performance. Encourage an exchange of ideas and look to get a new perspective from them. They may see something no one else has before and bring a fresh idea to the table. The new hire should be seen as another opportunity for you to learn or be shown a different view of things.
- Keep things in perspective:
Rome
was not built in a day and your employee should not be judged over the course of a few days. Unless there are flagrant abuses of policy or critical mistakes made, you will need at least 90 days for a thorough evaluation. This is a growth period, meaning that you need to keep expectations reasonable and assumptions in check.
Creating a successful onboarding policy and procedures means that you must set up strict guidelines and follow them. It requires a great deal of communication and attention by your managers. You will need to tailor your plans based upon job complexity and responsibilities. Although this is not an easy or short process to put to practice, the results will be well worth the time invested over the long haul. It is far more expensive to replace good employees than it is to hire, groom and keep good ones.
Copyright © 2008 SnapDragon Associates, LLC
