A new hire's journey toward a challenging career and professional excellence has led to a new doorstep. With high hopes for the pathway ahead, the new hire is eager to accelerate growth within the new organization and embark on an adventure of personal and professional discovery. Has the firm provided the roadmap this person will need, showing the new hire how far he or she can go, or has it created a climate that may stop a new hire cold?
The effort organizations make to ensure that the newest members of their teams are integrated into the organization—the strength of their onboarding process—can make the difference between a new hire seeing the environment as one of possibilities and pathways or as one of roadblocks. Importantly, how a company onboards can determine whether a new hire stays and reaches his or her potential, stays as an underperformer, or looks for another route to professional fulfillment.
The Business Impact
Onboarding is the process of integrating employees into a new work environment. Typically, an onboarding process involves education about the company and the new hire's functions and roles, meetings with key stakeholders to establish relationships, and communication about expectations and objectives.
Leading organizations recognize that a sound onboarding process is key to retaining new hires with strong potential and guiding them toward success. They also recognize the impact on their bottom line. An appropriate onboarding process speeds a new hire's reach to full productivity and increases engagement and retention, which saves costs associated with rehiring if the new employee turns out not to be the right fit.
In fact, Aberdeen Group found that of organizations it deemed "best-in-class," 70% were pursuing onboarding to influence employee retention--with success. One hundred percent of these organizations had raised their retention rate of new hires, and 60% experienced increased productivity of new hires. Even more, the Partnership for Public and Booz Allen Hamilton found that organizations that successfully onboarded new employees during their first year increased retention by up to 25%.
Behaviors of Key Contributors
What did new hires who were most successful in an organization do during their first few months that contributed to their long-term success? The highest-performing new hires:
Willingly accepted management/coaching
Studied the new environment; looked for patterns and connections
Asked questions; were open about areas where they needed to learn
Were willing to take risks to express opinions; demonstrated competence
Established connections with key resources
Saw mistakes as learning opportunities, not as an indication of lack of fit or competence
Focus on Learning
The common thread is a desire to learn. New hires who do best approach their new roles as an opportunity to grow and a foundation for ongoing advancement. Standard onboarding processes typically focus on the content of what a person needs to do his or her job. What is often overlooked is the willingness and capacity to learn. This embrace of learning from the outset is a key variable in ensuring long-term success in meeting the requirements of a new role.
Research by Novations indicates that this onboarding period is actually the first of four distinct stages that individuals may go through during their careers. Since the organization expects different things from the employee at each stage, the individual's mindset and behavior must shift to be considered a high performer as he or she progresses through the stages.
Stage 1: Willing Learner: Learns "how we do things around here" and willingly accepts direction; demonstrates competence at core tasks; contributes work to a larger effort or project; shows "directed" creativity and initiative; performs well under time and budget pressure
Stage 2: Independent Contributor: Increases in technical competence and ability; assumes responsibility for definable projects; relies less on supervision; works independently and produces key results; develops credibility and a reputation; builds an internal network
Stage 3: Local Leader: Involvement as a manager, mentor, or idea leader in developing others; stimulates others through ideas and knowledge; increases in technical breadth; represents the organization effectively to constituents and external bodies
Stage 4: Strategic Leader: Provides direction to the organization; exercises power to influence decisions or obtain resources; represents the organization on critical strategic issues; sponsors individuals to prepare them for leadership roles
Interestingly enough, the research indicates that high performers "recycle" back to Stage 1 each time they make a transition to a new job, department, company, or career. Being willing to embrace the need to learn everything about the new situation—formal and informal—is fundamental to moving successfully into the other stages.
"Proving" at One's Own Peril
Too often, there are influences—both internal and external—that distract new hires from learning. They become caught up in proving that they have what it takes to be successful—and spend a lot of energy avoiding looking unskilled or recovering from a misstep. A focus on proving leads new hires to dwell on perfection in a role to which they are brand new, which is unrealistic. Instead of gaining information, they question their ability and assume others will too; they tend to think, "Can I do this?" or "Will I look good?"; they view errors as a demonstration of inadequacy; and they seek activities that showcase current level of skill and avoid exposing skill gaps. In addition, they seek flattering information and find feedback intimidating, tend to compare themselves to others, are most satisfied when they are the "best," and can be reluctant to ask questions or request coaching.
New hires who want to learn assume they have ability, ask themselves how they can do better, accept mistakes as a part of their progression, seek learning opportunities, request feedback on how they can improve, channel their energy toward betterment, measure their success on their personal standards, and take advantage of resources available to them. As a result, they get "onboard" faster, produce more effectively, remain engaged, and become key contributors and ideally, strategic leaders. Over time, the new hires who focus on learning produce better results.
Creating a "Learning" Culture
Most new hires are vulnerable to feeling they need to prove themselves. People who are different from others in the work group are particularly vulnerable. Those already in the organization assume that "people like me" will be successful. Where there are fewer employees "like me," the assumption may be that there are fewer similar employees because those employees are less successful and less able. Managers and co-workers may unconsciously seek proof of that assumption—and the new employee feels increased pressure to prove the assumption false. So the employee enters into "proving" behavior on the job, which ironically can contribute to compromised learning and underperformance.
Yet, managers have the power to shape the environment so that it is conducive to learning, for new and veteran employees. Here's how:
Prepare Yourself: To begin, managers need to question to what extent they are driven to learn versus prove themselves. This awareness can help a manager recognize the "prove yourself" behavior in others. Managers should be honest with themselves about any anxieties or discomfort they have about the new hire. Giving the new person time to learn and integrate into the organization, assuming that he or she has a lot to offer the group and is able to learn whatever is required to be successful, is critical. Learning about the new hire is the final aspect. What are the unique talents and perspectives that this person might bring to the organization?
Prepare the New Hire: The next step involves being clear that this is a time of learning and expressing confidence that the new hire can learn to do the job. Action items include: creating incrementally more challenging job assignments that encourage the new hire to learn both technical skills and the organizational culture; providing specific feedback and redirecting to learning mode, as needed; and helping the new hire determine the difference between establishing credibility and "proving" him- or herself. In addition, it is important to educate the new employee about the culture, values, and unwritten rules of the organization; help the employee to establish a network of people and resources who can provide answers to questions and support; and attune to signs that someone is slipping into proving mode. Managers should also regularly ask about concerns, need for support, or feedback in order to help the new hire stay focused on learning.
Prepare Others in the Environment: The last step involves being explicit with others that their job as co-workers is to support learning. To create this environment, managers can assign a peer coach who is responsible for helping the individual integrate into the organization and arrange for opportunities for the new hire to get to know others in the work group. Then, be explicit about why it is exciting that this person is joining the team and explain the expectation that the unique characteristics of the new hire will greatly contribute to the group. Managers should make it clear that they are open to talking privately about any individual concerns about the new hire and prepare to run interference for new hires when others' expectations (management and co-workers) conflict with the focus on learning.
Changing Thinking
Evolving an organization's thinking and behavior to adopt an onboarding process tailored to continuous development may be novel and difficult. It may move leaders out of their comfort zone personally. However, for a company that makes 2,000 external hires in a year, the return on investment for an optimized onboarding process exceeds $2 million, according to talent management solutions provider Taleo. A proven onboarding process based on learning, supported by solid preparation by management, the new hire, and other members of the group, provides the platform from which new hires—and current staff—can confidently welcome challenges that lie ahead and guide other new employees through their professional journey.
About the Author
Tim Vigue is an Executive Consultant for Novations Group, Inc. In this role, he works with leaders at all levels to expand the capacity of their people to deliver results, helping clients identify the barriers getting in the way of maximizing the contribution of all employees and then designing solutions to unleash that potential.
Prior to joining Novations, Tim was with MFS Investments in Boston, Massachusetts, for eight years, serving as a Senior Recruiter, Senior HR Generalist, and most recently AVP of Human Resources. In addition to his work in the financial services industry, he also spent six years in retail management and human resources.
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