Employee Onboarding Process – Does it Matter?

Why is the employee onboarding process such a big deal? Is it worth all the trouble to build an onboarding system? For a company in growth-mode, the ability to quickly onboard a new employee (or a newly acquired company) is paramount to being to able to scale quickly. 

 Let’s start with a scenario that is all-too-common in organizations:  

New Hire Experience Without Employee Onboarding Process

Tim is a department manager for a busy organization. He manages 15 employees and reports to a director. Tim begins to hear complaints from his staff that they are too busy to complete work on time and thinks that it might be time to hire. He reaches out to his director and gets the thumbs up. Tim advertises, interviews, and hires the new employee, Sally.  

During the two-week gap between Sally accepting the position and starting the job, Tim has lost track of time and before he knows it, Sally is standing in front of his desk, ready to get to work.

After hearing this story, we can all squirm a little bit, but the bottom line is that an impression has been made with Sally, and it’s not a great way to start the relationship. There is a general scramble around the office to clear desk space, scramble for technology setup and about 1 week later, Sally is ready to begin work.  

In this (not-so) fictitious example, Sally had initial enthusiasm for the job, that, according to studies, diminished significantly when Tim’s lack of preparation left her feeling unvalued.  

Tim is not the villain of this story! Tim failed as a leader in this situation because he lacked an onboarding process. Let’s rewrite the story, but this time, let’s insert an onboarding process:

New Hire Experience WITH Employee Onboarding Process

Sally accepts the offered position, which triggers the onboarding process. HR sets up her benefits, IT is notified to purchase and setup her computer, create her phone number, setup the phone etc. 

 Maintenance is alerted to make sure that Sally has a desk and could even take the extra step of calling Sally to see what type of chair she prefers to be excellent in. 

Sally begins her first day with a decorated office space (HR sent a card around for signatures to her team members), a computer/phone, and her benefits package is laid out on her desk.  

Tim has cleared his morning to make sure that he has time to train Sally on the important work that she’ll be doing as a member of his team.  

Conclusion

In this scenario, Sally’s enthusiasm has only grown and she already feels a part of the team. Tim doesn’t feel stressed about trying to throw something together last minute, and everyone is ready to get to work.

Through the use of employee onboarding systems, we can help new employees feel valued and excited. Hopefully this feeling will last for a longtime and your relationship with your employees will flourish!  

If you don’t have an onboarding process, give us a call. Even if we don’t end up working together, we’ll openly share what has worked for us. We are dedicated to making sure that work doesn’t suck! 

Wil Buchanan

With an undergraduate degree in Applied Management, a graduate degree in Business Administration and as a doctoral candidate in Organizational Psychology, let’s just say that business and leadership are Wil’s passions! He is also a small business owner who understands the rigors and joys of business building.