Getting someone on board of an organization or team is the first time we are able to set a benchmark, and this one will stick with them for a while. Not only this will be the time where first impressions are made, but also where the baseline of expectations is going to be defined. Oftentimes, this is the moment new employees get to decide which type of coworker they will be towards the future, and changing this will take much more effort in the long run than it takes to have a perfect start.
Disclaimer
This article is written based on my experience in the tech industry, more concretely in the service area. Although I am pretty sure different industries and roles have absurdly different needs and processes when it comes to onboarding someone, I am also pretty sure the core principles are still the same.
Defining Standards
It’s during those first days that we will be creating a reference, a set of standards, that will be used to compare future experiences with.
If we send out a vibe of being an unorganized structure or a “too busy to do this properly” organization, we will not only have to work twice as hard to rebuild that person’s image of our company but we will also be sending out very dangerous signals as to what is acceptable from them in the coming months or years. If we can’t structure ourselves, how can we expect that out of someone or complain when they don’t take their work seriously? We also didn’t. People will also be tempted to extrapolate this experience to other parts of the organization. There’s a concept in behavioral psychology called anchoring — basically, the first data point someone receives becomes the benchmark for everything that follows. Kahneman wrote extensively about this in Thinking, Fast and Slow. That first week is literally programming someone’s anchor for what “normal” looks like in your organization.
On the other hand, if we send out all the right vibes during an onboarding, we will be creating a very strong image of ourselves. We will be reassuring these new team members that they made the right decision when they decided to work with us and this is where they will need to bring their A game. If we nail an onboarding and send all the right vibes, future f**k-ups (which will always happen) will be just that, f**k-ups.
The right vibes
Just like meeting the in-laws for the first time, I want to make sure we paint a specific picture of ourselves in new hire’s minds. It’s not about lying or faking, it’s about letting your values shine through. If I would have to fake it then it probably meant that I would need to work on my values first.
The vibes I try to convey during this whole onboarding experience are roughly the following:
- Care and concern: As in, “You matter to us”. Nothing destroys a relationship faster or keeps one at bay like having the feeling that we are just another body entering a factory to produce.
- Empathy: The most useful and broad skill when managing teams. Connecting to, relating to and understanding another person’s perspective goes a very long way.
- Discipline and structure: Conveying that there are clear expectations of how we work and relate is not being “Bossy”, it’s being organized and showing that there is intent behind what we do on a daily basis.
- Attention to detail: The small things do matter. Wearing a company shirt during an onboarding is far from a rule or even something I would go out of my way to ask others to do. Not doing so has absolutely no negative impact, but doing it, brings out a positive one.
- Cohesion: As in, we are all working in sync. This onboarding plan structure is not only deliberate but fits within everything else.
- Purpose-driven: How we are not perfect but we have a clear goal and vision. It means we are working towards something, not just working. There is a mission and that means plans.
- Flexibility: All of this is meaningful if there is no room to improve. Organizations need to adapt and we also need to have room and a process to do so.
None of this is necessarily about forcing or pushing people to do better, it’s instead about motivating them want to bring their A game, if they have one. If they don’t, then it’s about discovering or fostering it into reality and even improve your company’s own A game in the process. It’s all about making people trust, connect and respect your organization to the point of wanting to flag the bad parts and help you work on them rather than just use them as an excuse for their lack of standards.
All the layers
The ultimate purpose of the onboarding is not to deliver specific vibes or feelings to newcomers, of course. It’s something that I believe is key to maximize one’s chances of setting up the perfect scenario to maximize one’s engagement, while attending to the real objective: Hand out practical and hands-on information about the organization and what’s expected out of someone.
To get here there are many ways. We could just document or explain what the expectations are, we can let them learn on the job, we can assign mentors, we can do all of the above, or even none as I’ve seen many times. But explaining people what to do is just one layer of the practical information. I personally like to paint a much bigger picture.
Just like a list of “vibes”, I also work down a list of must-know with the following:
- Company: The big picture. Where we are, who we are, where did we come from, where are we going, etc. I like to turn this into story time as I really see that it resonates with people as it turns something boring and corporate into a human relatable journey.
- Product: Not all companies have a product per-se, however, even as a service based company, everyone is selling something. Whatever it is, I walk them through the why, the how, what makes it different, struggles and successes.
- Culture and values: This part is super important and closely related to the vibe topic above. Sharing the company values and overall culture (communication, focus, vibe, etc) will create a mental reference of expectations that are very relevant specially in the first interactions.
- Team: One of the most common feelings when starting in a new job is the “I have absolutely no idea who to reach out to” feeling, and this can leave someone feeling very lost and clueless. That’s why I try to introduce newcomers to key people in the organization based on two things: How easy it will be for them to be of assistance and how much visibility they will bring of the actual organization to new hires. Out of these I always like to assign a go-to person so everyone knows from day 1 that reaching out is not only “ok” but expected.
- Structure: Few things attempt to say “organized” and “professional” as much as an company’s organizational chart. In tandem, few things can also say “complicated”, “bloated” and “slow” as the same organizational chart. An organization’s structure is, however, still essential to be know by everyone inside it. If it brings clarity or more confusion, that only depends on how predictable, organic and simple it has been built to be.
- Role: The absolute essential of any onboarding: “What will you be doing”. This onboarding is not a one-time thing, although this happens quite often. This is supposed to be a continuous onboarding for whatever time we deem it necessary for someone to pick up their role fully. The first session is, however, incredibly important to define clear expectations, a timeline or a calendar, a support line and anything else that gives new hires the feeling of structure, expectations and support. These will follow.
- Documentation: Having all the above documented is also part of showing how organized and deliberate we should be at things. If we have no documentation and we just say things, newcomers may think that we are winging it. If we have support documentation, structure, etc, it means that we thought about this, that we’ve planned it, that we are methodical and organized.
How to plan it
As mentioned in probably 50% of the articles here, planning is a huge deal for me, and here it’s important both for me as well as the new hire. I’d like to start this track by giving a few examples of what an onboarding should not be:
- A time wasting over complicated “moment” designed to bloat an organization beyond its actual size/goal/vision. Also known as a two week long ego trip. Eventually people will catch on the BS and all the legit good things will be placed in the same bag as the rest. I prefer to play with the strengths, be honest about the shortcomings and have a clear plan to tackle them.
- An essay reading, documentation filling, tool onboarding journey that goes beyond the need-to-know basis. As much as onboarding someone is important, the thing that makes people feel the more at home is by actual walking the walk. I prioritize anything that gives people exactly what they need to start moving around and having the rest be taken care in parallel.
- A “hi, welcome! We’ll ping you soon!” uncomfortable hiatus that can last for days (I’ve been there). Nothing make someone not feel welcomed as being treated as a spare ad-hoc part that nobody took the time to take into consideration. In a post-pandemic remote this is less awkward
Long story short, an onboarding should be exactly as complete as it requires it to be and should, in my opinion, prioritize any actions and information that will let the person know what the dynamics are, what the job is, what to do next, and who to reach out to. People feel more comfortable doing their job and being productive. Favoring this process without neglecting any of the other aspects (vibe, support, access to information, training, etc) is my preferred approach. My only exception to this would be huge corporations where the brand’s gravitas on it own justifies week long employee reprogramming to get people in the right mindset.
As an example, how I structure the onboarding of service-based tech company follows.
PS: All of these different steps below do not require different profiles, per se. They just require to be delivered. A one man team still has to go through most of them as well, albeit, alone.
Here we go:
- Plan things ahead of time: Nothing is more awkward than not knowing when to start, what you will do when you start. Or worse, logging in and waiting for someone to reach out to you. This doesn’t need to be hard. Intent goes a long way. I send out a welcome email a few days before explaining what the coming days will look like, and I start to create any accesses and paperwork that could already be tackled. Any equipment, tool, must-have gadget has to be there in day 1.
- HR layer: In the first day it’s important to ground new hires with other people that are not “work focused”. I am not an “HR worshiper” but it’s very important to have a somewhat neutral fallback to rely on. They should focus on sharing basic processes, who to report to and when, and what to expect on a monthly and yearly basis regarding 1 on 1s and evaluations.
- Organization layer: Here it’s where new hires are onboarded into the actual company/product/organization structure, culture, values and mission statement. Unlike many cases, I really believe that this should be done by top management and not delegated to anyone else. There is a special type of story telling that can only be delivered by those who lived through it.
- Team layer: Just like it’s important to have HR to fallback to, it’s also important to have a notion of the overall structure of the teams and go-to people. Here I focus on painting an idea of a structure/hierarchy, and one key go-to person per department/role. There is no need to introduce the person to 100 people and pretend like they are going to remember everyone’s names, so focus on who gives people support to do their job better.
- Role specific onboarding: List all the areas of importance for the role specific training. This can be processes, documentation, tools, job duties, standards and expectations. The later being super important as I’ve already mentioned in the article I wrote about this exact topic. It just needs to be done.
- Job and team onboarding: Unlike the general role onboarding this is a much more down to the nitty-gritty. This is where we start to go into the actual concrete work someone will be doing for the immediate future. It’s where I’d introduce specific team members, project scope, context, motivation, etc. This can and should be easily done by a Project Management role, for example. This can expanded with a specific technical onboarding, training. tools, processes, which would include different roles, of course. This can also last more or less time and be divide into more steps/days, but as a rule of thumb, anything that is not a must-know for now, gets picked up later, organically.
On top of this I would only add that in an ideal scenario there should always be up to date documentation about all of these things, and that on the first week there should already be a booked meeting for the first and third month review to be done with HR.
If the above plan looks too simple, it’s because it attempts to be. If it’s applicable to all organizations of all sizes? Yes and no. The same principles and priorities are totally translatable, the breakdown most definitely not. What is important to understand is what is a must-have for all organizations, a must-have for a specific one and the fastest way to get someone getting hands dirty. There has to be a plan, structure and documentation for everything else, but a parallel one.
If the above plan looks too complicated, I would consider some improvements on your approach.
Closer
In the dawn of my management days I have to say I didn’t really pay that much attention to onboarding. Actually, I paid absolutely no attention to it. I was still stuck in a strictly developer mindset and the only thing that mattered to me was to give people access to a repository and a list of tasks. I was very wrong. In the process I’ve let some people down, either because of my insecurities, or pure lack of vision.
A good or bad onboarding means starting on with the right or wrong foot, and everything that comes with that.
Lastly, an onboarding is not about faking the quality of an organization, is about letting expectations shine through and maximize chances of success, both for the business as well as the new employees, which, are the make or break of an organization.