Beyond Day One - Electronic Onboarding

An interesting article on electronic onboarding. It raises some interesting questions (is it a stand alone function? extension of recruiting? automated HR?) as well as keys-in on some areas where there may be room for organization's to improve in (and I loved the reference to “best in class”, for any teams with “world class” visions!).

Here’s a short excerpt and a direct link to the article from the HRE Online newsletter.

Beyond Day One - Electronic onboarding can cut costs and the time needed for new employees to master their jobs. But its real value may be even more strategic.

Says Platz: "If you look at the excitement curve of an employee about to be hired, they're on a real high. Then they get the job and there's a drop in interest." Calling Silk Road's process "talent branding," he says a new employee's experience should match up with the expectations they had as a candidate. "You get the company pitches during the interview process, but then you start and reality hits," he says. "[Comprehensive onboarding] is a way to bridge the gap."

Many companies don't handle things well during the period between a person's date of hire and when they actually start work, says Holbrook. "The more you can fill that gap, the better your relationship with the employee," he says.

The Aberdeen study, which rated companies on the basis of how well they integrated new employees, noted that 30 percent of "best-in-class" companies extend onboarding to the first six months of employment, while only 10 percent of "laggard" companies do so.

And 90 percent of best-in-class organizations incorporate "socialization" in their onboarding process, compared to just 75 percent of laggard organizations, according to the report, which defines socialization as "delivery of information about the culture and history of the company."

Tarquinio recommends laggard companies integrate onboarding with the hiring management process, adopt a long-term approach to onboarding and define the onboarding process -- what it includes and how it will achieve ever-greater consistency.

The study recommends that industry-average organizations develop a formalized onboarding process, measure first-year retention rates and time to performance, and eliminate paper-based processes in favor of Web-based ones.