New Leadership Must Inspire New Talent

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The following blog post is part 3 of a 3-part series, which is adapted from a speech given by Harlan Schafir (CVO, CEO of ExactHire and Human Capital Concepts) at the Collective Alternative Executive Speaker Series on September 17, 2015.

In my previous two posts from this series, I discussed how changing demographics, views on the nature of work and the workplace, and rapid advances in technology have converged to create intense competition for talent in today’s job market. I believe that this has resulted in making talent management the #1 constraint to a business’s growth. As a solution, I’ve proposed that organizations seek to adapt their work culture to attract, hire, and retain top talent. Today, I would like to discuss how leaders of  an organization can do the same by adapting their leadership style.

Style, Not Substance

It’s easy for business leaders to become defensive when we begin to talk about “adapting leadership style”. I can imagine the response to such a proposition would be something like: “But my leadership style has been successful to this point!” or possibly, “I didn’t dictate the style of the leaders who led me! I fell in line and paid my dues.” or even, “ These whiny, spoiled millennials want everything their way.”

However, when we talk about “adapting” leadership style, it’s important to understand that this refers to changing the delivery of your values or principles, not changing your values and principles themselves. In other words, if you are a leader who values trust and accountability, then the change is in how you engage employees in imbuing those values through their work; trust and accountability do not need to be discarded simply because it appears that the two values are threatened by a shift in workplace culture like, say…an employee’s need for telecommuting or flexible work arrangements.

So the question before leaders today is: How do I effectively communicate my values and principles to a new generation of employees in a way that inspires their loyalty and motivates their work?

Leading a Multigenerational Workforce

Much has been written, spoken, and thought about the Millennial Generation. These blogs, tweets, posts, podcasts, ebooks, etc. have gone to great lengths–some based on dubious sources and research–in describing how DIFFERENT this group is from those generations before it.

So much has been written, in fact, that one might believe that “leading millennials” is the most pressing and important challenge before business leaders today. But I believe it’s much bigger than that. It’s about leading a diverse workforce that, for at least a little bit longer, will span 4 generations.

And while 4 generations working side-by-side is unprecedented, the concept of leadership evolving in response to generational shifts in the workforce is hardly anything new.

Leadership Styles Over The Years

Dr. Tim Elmore–a noted author, thought leader, and speaker on Leadership Development–speaks of the different styles of leadership over the past half century as being products of the time–and specifically products of each period’s emerging generation.

  • 50’s – 60’s (The Military Commander)

    Organizations were run from top-down. Authority was not questioned. If someone left a staff position, they were considered disloyal. These leaders led from positional authority.

  • 70’s (The CEO)

    This leader led by creating a vision that would influence followers to buy-in and work toward fulfilling the leader’s vision. Productivity was the focus. The style was still very top-down.

  • 80’s (The Entrepreneur)

    This leader was pioneering and often preferred the unconventional. They managed by “walking around.” They felt the most critical element was being the first to do it. Innovation was the focus. This style allowed for employees to share ideas that could be implemented, which helped them tolerate the fact that the leadership style was still top-down.

  • 90’s (The Coach)

    This leader assembled and worked with teams. They saw themselves as coaches of players. The leader found the proper roles for all the players, so that together–as a team–they could accomplish more than the sum of its individuals. This style was participatory, but still top-down.

  • (Today) Poet Gardener

    This leader is discerning of the culture and ideas that emerge from others. They gather thoughts from others and draw connections in order to make the best decisions–even if the ideas are not their own. They see their primary function as developing their people, and they equip and empower employees accordingly.  These leaders value individual and organizational growth, but see the the latter being driven by the former. This is leading with shared ownership.

Adapting Leadership Style

The fact that we can map the evolution of leadership styles and their differences is evidence that the challenge before business leaders today–to adapt their style to a new generation of workers–is not new; however, what could be considered unique is that meeting this challenge today will directly impact the constraint to an organization’s growth.

In other words, whereas previous changes in leadership styles evolved in order to increase efficiency or production indirectly through the employee, now this evolution in leadership is required in order simply hire and keep an employee. It has a direct impact on an organization’s ability to grow.

The mindset of “Here’s my leadership style. Here’s my culture. Accept it.” will not cut it. For businesses today, leadership style and culture may be more important than ever before. In order to grow, we must adapt to the new realities of a changing workforce.

“The mindset of ‘Here’s my leadership style. Here’s my culture. Accept it.’ will not cut it.”

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Becoming A “Poet Gardener”

So how do we begin transforming our leadership style to one that engages and inspires a new generation of workers, while still serving to encourage and affirm preceding generations? Oh, and still results in the overall growth and increased profitability of our company.

I think it begins with listening. Until we are able to understand the needs and values of our employees and those that are prevalent and unique within each generation, we cannot effectively lead and inspire. I would like to provide a quick story of how I realized this.

Before starting ExactHire, I had spent over 25 years leading employees–mostly Baby Boomers. But it was with ExactHire–around 2012–that I began encountering a different type of worker: the millennial. What I noticed most in these workers was the change in expectations. And so, rather than forcing my leadership style–honed through managing Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers–I stopped and listened. And then I began to understand the expectations of this new generation of employees and how I could meet them.

The point here is that employee expectations change. Sometimes this is due to generational shifts in the workforce, sometimes it’s because of popular culture or societal shifts that span generations. But inevitably, employee expectations will change. Your approach to meeting these expectations as they change will define your leadership style and, ultimately, determine whether you retain top talent. 

And this is important not just in addressing a seeming crisis–like a massive generational shift in the workforce–but also in building the type of organization that, thanks to its leadership culture, is “self-sustainable” and can adapt to future change–long after you’ve gone.

ExactHire provides hiring and employee onboarding solutions to assist organizations in attracting, hiring, and retaining talent. To learn more about how you can leverage our SaaS solutions to optimize your talent management efforts, contact us today!

Feature Image Credit: Change by F Delventhal(contact)

Monday Funday

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Case of the Mondays, anyone? Mondays get a bad rap for being the first day of the week and being somewhat mundane in general. Everyone is back in the office to regularly scheduled meetings and phone calls instead of enjoying weekend fun with friends and family. Blah!

Luckily, I work at a company that believes in building and growing a fun culture. I was recently named the Fun Ambassador here at ExactHire, and my Fun Committee includes two other coworkers. We decided to recognize the workiversaries and birthdays of our team on a monthly basis during Monday Fun-day ‘Funventures’.

Monday Funday

Last week, we celebrated our first monthly–nay, inaugural– “Monday Fun-day”, and we set the standard high. Glorious cupcakes were secured from a local bakery, helium balloons were brought in for a burst of color, and musical comedy was provided in the form of a couple Jib-Jabs in honor of our workiversarian and Birthday Boy.

The highlight, however, was an office chair race. The racetrack was defined with rainbow duct tape that was placed around the kitchen area of the office and down the hall.  We had 9 participants (3 employees not present) and 1 clear winner who finished with a time more than one second better than 2nd place. And–importantly–no injuries!

A Case for Culture

Of course, not every organization can or wants to host monthly office chair races–we just happen to be wired for this. But as employers seek to hire the best talent, it’s becoming more important that they find ways to differentiate themselves from other employers. For some, this means office chair races; for others, perhaps a zipline adventure. Regardless, creating time for employees to blowoff steam and have FUN together is an effective approach to creating a working environment where people want to work. This helps in hiring talent, and it also helps in retaining employees.

Let us know how you have FUN at your workplace by adding a comment below. Our Fun Committee is always looking for ideas!

Official Office Chair Race Results

  1. Allen 08.98
  2. Tom 10.70
  3. Randi 12.59
  4. Jessica 12.93
  5. Susan 12.96
  6. Darythe 13.10
  7. Christa 13.49
  8. Jeff 14.03
  9. Eric 17.16

Stay tuned to see more ExactHire Funventures!

 

Feature Image Credit: 4/365 monday
by Robert Couse-Baker
(contact)

Talent As A Critical Resource

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The following blog post is adapted from a speech given by Harlan Schafir at the Collective Alternative Executive Speaker Series on September 17, 2015.

 

Many organizations are growing, and so is their need for talent. The problem that many employers are beginning to face is in finding and retaining that talent. Today, I’d like to talk about staffing our organizations to meet the demands of growth and turnover–or simply, talent management.

An organization’s growth in this decade and beyond will be determined by how its leaders respond to the challenges associated with talent management. Talent has become and will remain the #1 critical resource for businesses in this decade. And for the foreseeable future, I can think of no issue more threatening to the growth of SMBs than this one.

The following quote I recently read sums it up nicely:

“The changing workforce is influencing the way companies do business, suggesting that workforce stability will be an employer’s competitive edge.”-Roger E. Herman, CSP, CMC

Today’s Workforce

Demographic shifts have placed vital demands on talent. And while the dynamics of the talent market have changed over time, the impact of this change is now upon us in full force.

But if the demographics were changing, how did we not see it before now? Did we fall asleep?  Let’s look back over the last 8-10 years, beginning right about the time the recession started.

Through The Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the slow recovery that followed, the vast majority of organizations were trimming their workforce, attempting to do more with less, and trying to just keep their businesses solvent. So the focus for most leaders was on increasing sales–this was the constraint to growth.

The Workforce and Hiring Since The Recession

YearBusiness ClimateMillennial WorkforceHiring NeedsHiring Concern
2007-2009Sales Declining22%LayoffsNone
2010-2014Sales Flat, ModestSteady IncreaseSlight IncreaseLow
2014-2015Sales GrowingSignificant increaseSignificant IncreaseHigh

At that time, Millennials were entering the workforce, but studies showed that many were just taking jobs to have jobs. Although their percentage of the workforce was slowly increasing, hiring was stagnant. So many organizations hired one, maybe two Millennials and that was it. There simply was not enough hiring taking place for Millennials to make their mark on organizations, and so the dynamics in the workplace and how these companies operated really didn’t change.

It was only recently that hiring increased significantly as sales have continued to grow and show stability following the recession and slow recovery.

2011-2015 job openings talent

And as companies go to the market to hire, the makeup of the talent pool has changed significantly since before the recession.

A New Generation

Through the recession, the Baby Boomer generation continued its reign as the largest generation represented in the workforce, but many left the workforce in the years immediately following it.

baby boomer talent decline

In the first quarter of 2015, the Millennial Generation became the largest percentage of workers in the U.S. labor force (Pew Research Center).

workforce generations talent

That’s important because that reality essentially flips the labor market on its head within the span of a decade. Think about it.

Today, in a recovered economy–which really only took hold in early 2014–sales are up, companies are growing, and hiring is increasing. Instead of adding one or two Millennials to the payroll, they’re adding several. Suddenly, this new generation of workers accounts for a larger percent of the organization’s workforce. By 2020, the Millennial Generation will represent nearly 50% of all workers in the U.S. (SHRM).

Now the unique needs, values, and skills of these new workers must be fully considered. Their impact on an organization’s culture must be considered. To ignore them is to lose them, and to lose them is to incur the costs of rehiring.

Times they are a changin’. Talent has become and will remain the #1 critical resource for businesses in this decade. And for organizations to succeed, I believe leadership style and culture must adapt to address it.

Read Part 2: New Day, New Talent, New Culture

ExactHire provides hiring and employee onboarding solutions to assist organizations in attracting, hiring, and retaining talent. To learn more about how you can leverage our SaaS solutions to optimize your talent management efforts, contact us today!

Feature Image Credit: Oklahoma Pumpjack by Jonathan C. Wheeler (contact)

Scheduled HireCentric ATS Data Center Migration Weekend of October 2nd – 3rd

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Starting late Friday, October 2nd (10/2/2015) and continuing through the early morning hours of Saturday, October 3rd (10/3/2015), we will be migrating our HireCentric applicant tracking system (ATS) to a new data center. Our new hosting provider will give us more control over our infrastructure and allow us to provide you with even better service.

We do expect brief periods of downtime; specifically, intermittent connectivity issues to our servers while we make the switch to our new data center. These connectivity issues may persist through the night and early morning hours as updates are propagated. We’ll have many members of our team on hand to address any bugs or issues that arise during the switch over. Should you notice some slowness or downtime after the switch over is complete, please contact us at support@exacthire.com.

Action Item for Customers

Along with the data center migration, we will be using a new vendor to send emails from our ATS system. If you’ve previously white-listed our IP addresses, note that they will need to be changed. Please have your IT staff approve the following list of IP addresses on your organization’s mail server white list:

167.89.10.181
167.89.16.17
198.21.0.135
198.21.6.101
75.126.253.211

Although the time of this migration is meant to coincide with a time slot during which most of our clients’ applicant portals will be receiving very minimal job seeker traffic, we wanted to provide plenty of advance notice about this scheduled migration so you may plan accordingly.

Thank you in advance for your patience as we prepare for this positive infrastructure change!

Oregon Ban The Box Legislation

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As we approach the final quarter of 2015, it is never too early to start preparing for new legislation that will affect hiring practices in 2016.  Effective January 1, 2016, Oregon will become the newest state to implement “Ban the Box” legislation for both public and private sector employment.  Other states that have already enacted this practice in both public and private sector employment are Illinois, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Hawaii and New Jersey.

Oregon governor, Kate Brown, signed House Bill 3025 on June 26, 2015.  This law, H.B. 3025, will take effect on January 1, 2016 and prohibits an employer from requiring an applicant to disclose a criminal conviction on an employment application or prior to an interview.  If an employer does not conduct an interview, the employer is prohibited from requiring an applicant to disclose a criminal conviction prior to a conditional offer.  

Employers are able to notify applicants that they will later be required to disclose convictions or that a criminal background check will be conducted as part of the hiring process.  This legislation does include the caveat that an employer may still consider convictions when making hiring decisions.  For additional information on what this legislation includes, visit the Oregon State Legislature and The National Law Review.  

Upcoming “Ban the Box” Legislation

To keep abreast of states and cities who enact “Ban the Box” legislation, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) has an interactive map that provides an overview of the current legislative status.  For the actual legislation, you will need to go directly to the state or city government website to access the passed law(s) in its comprehensive language.

Employers need to be aware of the legislation that exists and what legislation is pending to be prepared for the potential impact on their organizations.  If your organization currently has hiring practices in multiple states and cities, or posts job listings nationally, it is important to be cognizant of the locales’ legal expectations and determine if you need to alter verbiage on your employment application(s) and/or change specific steps in your hiring practices to be compliant with “Ban the Box” legislation.

Please note:  The ExactHire team is not legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice, so any questions regarding your company’s eligibility for exemption with the “Ban the Box” legislation and/or proper verbiage for your company’s employment application(s) should be discussed with your company’s legal counsel.  To learn specifically how Oregon’s H.B. 3025 affects your organization’s hiring practices, please contact your company’s legal team.

ExactHire Clients

At ExactHire, we take pride in doing our best to ensure our clients’ satisfaction is the highest possible. We do whatever we can to resolve clients’ current needs and identify potential needs.  After you speak with your legal counsel, and if you and your legal team decide changes need to be made to your employment application(s) to comply with legislation, the ExactHire team can work with you to create a new application with the verbiage you specify for compliance.  Also, please know that one of the benefits of using ExactHire’s HireCentric software as your applicant tracking system is that you can create multiple employment applications, each specific to your needs.  If you’re an existing client looking for more information about updating your current employment application(s) and/or creating additional employment applications, please email support@exacthire.com, and let us know your needs.

Learn More About ExactHire Solutions

If you are not yet an ExactHire client, for more information about HireCentric ATS, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Allen Edwards | Developer

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My journey with ExactHire began back in August 2014. With each passing year, I’ve had the privilege of contributing to the growth and evolution of ExactHire, which led to stepping into the role of Chief Technology Officer in 2019.

As CTO, my focus is on steering our technological vision and strategy. I am immensely proud to lead a team of dedicated professionals who share a passion for innovation and excellence. Together, we are committed to harnessing the power of technology to shape the future of ExactHire and provide our clients with solutions that go beyond expectations.

How Content Marketing Can Help Attract Top Talent

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If you’re a marketer at a small- or medium-sized business (SMB), you’re likely no stranger to wearing many hats and thinking of creative methods for doing more with less. And while your earned, shared and owned media efforts may be overflowing their respective buckets, you might be faced with just a little trickle of budget available for your thimble-sized paid media opportunities. Or perhaps that has even run dry?

The SMB scenario can make it challenging to compete for market share with your Fortune 500 counterparts, so it’s no surprise that it can be just as tricky to attract top talent through dazzling content marketing efforts, too. But it can’t be ignored, either. In March of 2015, recruiting difficulty for companies reached four-year highs for the 11th consecutive month. And that’s for companies of all sizes in the U.S.

The key is to make the most out of available resources– starting with formulating a strategy for the recruiting process in the same way you would for customer acquisition. In this first article of a series, we’ll examine persona development and a few ideas for generating initial awareness and interest for your employment opportunities through the use of content.

Define Applicant Personas

Keep this simple at first, as you can always debate the finer differences between job category target personas later. Start off with two different persona definitions. For example, choose one of the following pairings:

  • Exempt vs. nonexempt employees
  • Executive-level vs. associate-level employees
  • Customer-facing (sales, customer service, marketing) vs. internal department employees (IT, HR, operations, accounting)

Once you’ve defined your initial personas, think about how each of their preferences will shape how they respond to recruitment-specific forms of content marketing. Use that info as a guide to map content marketing efforts to each stage of the recruiting and hiring process. We’ll use the executive-level vs. associate-level employee example in the next section.

Create Awareness & Interest Around Your Job Posting

Depending on the scope of your candidate search, it’s quite possible that your future employees won’t be familiar with your company before spotting a link to your job listing. If that’s the case, their first experience with content from your organization may be via a third party such as a job board or an executive recruiter. If you pique their interest, then you could eventually have a chance to grab their attention on your company site and/or careers portal, too.

Here’s how you might be able to appeal to the executive-level and associate-level personas with an integrated approach using earned, shared, owned and paid media:

Associate Persona

Earned

Free external job boards and job board aggregators arguably fall into the earned bucket because you’re not necessarily guaranteed that job postings will publish. Your odds of inclusion will depend on the reputation of your careers portal and whether you try to game the system by posting multiple positions by the same title and/or frequently refreshing the start dates for jobs.

Make sure your job description includes not only the key responsibilities of the job and the essential requirements, but also a brief description of your organization (including location and general size, since they don’t know you) that paints a compelling picture of the unique opportunities available with your firm.

Name the key benefits offered that make people passionate about working at your smaller company (e.g. flex time, work from home policies, casual dress, beer Fridays, paid volunteer time, etc.). Stand out from most other job postings hosted on third party sites with a video of an employee describing the highlights of the job and then embedding that video in the job listing.

Shared

Social media is a common means for savvy organizations to be discovered by job seekers. Automatically post new job listings to social media via an integration with your hiring software. Be sure to include relevant jobseeker hashtags, including those descriptive of the position, but also of the geographic area, to generate awareness for your positions.

Owned

Assuming you’ve intrigued job seekers enough to read through the bulk of your job description (and its ideal length will of course depend on the job, persona and company culture), give them links to additional information if they want to sink their teeth into the role details before committing to an employment application.

Appeal to a persona’s preferences with the appropriate writing style (e.g. entertaining top 10 lists for extroverted marketers or detailed flow chart graphics for operations professionals). Here’s one such blog that has worked well for ExactHire in the past. Take it a step further and publish these position snapshot blogs on Medium, LInkedIn and other platforms that may resonate with your persona.

Paid

Perhaps the most obvious source of this media type for recruiting is the use of paid job boards such as Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice and more. It can be a budget stretch for SMBs to use these resources frequently; however, if they are to be fruitful, make sure that the message is crafted in a way that captivates, informs and converts the job seeker to the point of application.

Smaller companies that don’t command brand recognition should focus on putting position-specific keywords at the beginning of the posting, and elaborate on organizational details at the end of the job listing. That way, the job listing snippet that appears to the job seeker will correlate with the search performed by the job seeker.

Executive Persona

Earned

Consider business, news and industry-relevant publications within the geographic scope of your applicant search and pitch them on spotlighting your organization for its unique employment benefits, planned growth increase, corporate culture, etc. Higher level candidates are especially likely to read these resources and appreciate the fact that your organization was news-worthy enough to command prime media real estate.

Shared

For executives, their first exposure to your organization may be the LinkedIn InMail a recruiter sends them describing your opportunity. Work with your recruiter to craft a message representative of your culture and position that will resonate with that persona.

Start or join a LinkedIn group relevant to your industry and regularly participate in discussions that may catch the eye of potential executive recruits. Use the forum as a means to advertise the availability of your organization’s opportunities, as well as to comment on desirable traits in successful performers.

Owned

Create content that describes the factors necessary to be deemed successful six months into the position. This resource can live on your own domain and should also elaborate on the corporate culture and convey the typical day or week (or why it is atypical, if that is a selling point). This is often an emotional, warm-fuzzy accompaniment to the typical job description.

Paid

If history has proven that a specific job is a beast to fill (i.e. it requires a boat-load of high-level certifications or is a highly technical job in a remote location), then even the thriftiest of recruiters may need to invest in paid media for this persona type. Conduct research to uncover the most likely outlet for your opportunity. Sponsored social posts with substantial targeting capabilities are a good place to start, and messaging should entice high-level job seekers by appealing to what makes your organization a special and rewarding challenge for the executive (e.g. “Even if you haven’t heard of us, you should check us out and here’s why.”).

By defining your applicant personas and thoughtfully considering what would initially attract them to a job opportunity with your company, you dramatically increase the number of chances you get to convert job seekers into applicants. Stay tuned for the next post in this series for tips on guiding intent within your potential applicant base and using content marketing to increase the number of employment applications your organization receives.

This post originally appeared on Relevance.

Image credit: SaaS Marketing Strategies by Seven Atoms (contact)

A Simple Onboarding Cheat Sheet

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As summer comes to an end and everyone’s schedule gets hectic with school, fall activities and new work projects, finding ways to simplify and focus at work are a must!  There are countless tips out there for enhancing your employee onboarding process (think employee retention), but here is a quick “cheat sheet” to make sure you’re doing the big things–and a few little things–that make the process easy and effective.

Complete New Hire Paperwork…Painlessly

Just like starting school or with any new job, there are a lot of forms to be filled out. Going paperless will help you get through these quickly and easily.  Onboarding software makes this process streamlined and painless for all involved.

Ready New Hire Workstation…Before The First Day

When a new employee arrives, make sure they feel at home with their work area, not just sitting in an empty cubicle. Have office supplies ready  and laptop and any other hardware already set up so that they are not just sitting around watching you get these items together. This will show that you are excited about their arrival to the team!

Inform Staff About The New Hire…All Staff

Make sure every member of your staff–regardless of role–is aware of the new hire’s arrival. Encourage interaction and support of the new hire so that they will feel part of the team immediately.  This will be a positive for everyone. The sooner a new hire is  comfortable and acclimated, the more efficient the organization can be!

Welcome New Hire To Your Organization…Social, Fun

Be fun! And be yourselves! Host a carry-in lunch, or order in bagels the first day to help break the ice. You want the new hire to enjoy open conversations (this is easy to do over food!), rather than feel  bombarded with inquiries. Also, invite current employees to celebrate the new hire via company social media pages. They can post with fun hashtags #newhire !

Provide Ongoing Support…Resources to Thrive

Resources for learning the job in the first few weeks, as well as for continued professional development, are vital for new hires. Also, have a plan of attack for the training period, and be able to provide an outline or schedule of this plan to the new hire. They will feel more at ease with what to expect during the first few weeks. And after the first few weeks, be sure to keep new hires informed of opportunities for continued improvement through professional development and job evaluations.

Hopefully this list helps you do the bigs things (and a few small things) to effectively onboard new employees. Great onboarding will lower costs and boost moral within your whole organization, so it’s worth your investment.

To learn how onboarding software can compliment your current onboarding process, visit ExactHire to checkout a demo, or contact us to learn more.

The Onboarding Game

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Employee onboarding is no game; it’s serious business. But sometimes our well-planned processes breakdown, and it seems as though employee onboarding experiences are determined by a roll of the dice. Will everyone on our onboarding team execute this time??

*fingers crossed*

It can be maddening for HR professionals when inconsistencies creep into the onboarding process. I like to compare it to the board game, Chutes & Ladders. So in the spirit of that classic board game, I’d like to offer 5 dangerous ”Onboarding Chutes” and 5 helpful “Onboarding Ladders” that can determine whether your onboarding process is a winner.

The Chute: Weak Pre-Boarding

This is the first mistake you can make with a new hire–and it could also be your last. You’ve put so much time and effort into finding the right candidates. It was a hard decision. But after coming to an agreement on compensation, you finally hired the perfect fit for your organization. You’ve come so far!

But now, you decide to take it easy and relax. You go radio silent with your new hire for the next two weeks.  Your “perfect fit” hire is left wondering whether your organization is really the perfect fit for them.

The Ladder: Bridging The Gap

Rather than leaving new hires out in the cold for two weeks, invite them in as soon as they accept your offer. The time between job offer acceptance and the first day can be used to strengthen the employer-employee relationship and get a jumpstart on required HR tasks.

Determine which forms or documents can legally be completed before an employee’s first day, and then offer the new hire the opportunity to complete these ahead of the first day. If you use onboarding software, many of these tasks can be done from home–without paper and pen. This will free up the new hire’s first day to include exciting and engaging activities.

Beyond paperwork, organizations can bridge the gap with creative welcoming gestures. A “welcome card” signed by future co-workers arriving via mail? An invite to a company after-work social? A quick, quirky “welcome video” shot with an iphone? Grand or tiny, welcoming gestures that occur before the first day will elicit excitement from new hires.

The Chute: No Written Training Schedule

Your new hire has arrived! Yay! You pull out all the stops for your new hire in those first few hours: bagels and coffee, grand facility tour, co-worker glad-handing, and big-wig sit-downs. The whirlwind welcome ends with the new hire arriving at a clean, nicely appointed desk. The computer is ready. Email is set up. Now what?

If the new hire’s next five hours and the remainder of the week are characterized by a hodgepodge of ad hoc meetings and supervisor drop-ins, then your impressive welcome may be all for naught. New hires need to learn and do a lot quickly–this can hardly be avoided. But to leave them in the dark is a step–or several steps–in the wrong direction.

The Ladder: Proactive Transparency

A written training schedule sets expectations–expectations for the organization and expectations for the new hire. This provides context and confidence for new hires, as they are able to see the big picture and anticipate how best to manage their free time. It also reflects well on the organization, in that it illustrates thoughtful planning and adds transparency to the onboarding process.

A training schedule can cover the first few days, weeks, or even months. The length will vary based upon the unique needs of the position and organization. The important thing is that it’s designed to be accurate and useful; otherwise, the schedule will confuse new hires–the exact opposite of its intended purpose.

How to present it? Hard copy schedules will work, but electronic documents that are hyperlinked to relevant digital resources will save time, paper, and money for your organization. Going paperless will also provide a more seamless experience for your new hire. Bonus points!

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

The Chute: Internal Communication Breakdown

So everything is sailing right along with the onboarding of your new hire. A warm, enthusiastic welcome? Check. A written training schedule that outlines the new hire’s next few weeks and is in the hands of said new hire? Check.

The blue ribbon is as good as yours!

But then something quite unexpected happens. Larry from IT forgot to order and set up your new hire’s computer before leaving for his month-long spiritual trek in Nepal. Larry from IT!!!

Apparently, Larry didn’t get the memo or email, or hear in the weekly stand-up meeting, that a new hire was coming onboard during his absence. Whether it was the mode of communication or Larry’s understanding of his role in onboarding, the ball was dropped.

The Ladder: Clarity In Role and Expectations

Too often, employee onboarding is looked at as an HR function. True, HR takes the lead in creating, reviewing, and improving the process. But employee onboarding must be owned by everyone in the organization–especially Larry in IT.

Communication breakdowns are the result of either an ineffective mode–email, memo, voicemail, etc.–or unclear roles and expectations. Barring technical difficulties, it’s most often the latter.

Building an efficient and effective onboarding process is not enough on its own. All stakeholders in the process must understand the role they play and the expectations that come with that role. And when it comes to expectations, these need to be as specific as possible–meaning deadline driven. Namaste, Larry in IT.

The Chute: All Work And No Play

With a fine-tuned onboarding process, your mind might explode with ideas for leveraging new efficiencies. Some onboarding stakeholders may set their eyes on the time-to-productivity metric and urge you to pack in more time for training. This makes sense; the faster a new hire is up to speed, the sooner your bottom line benefits. But there is a danger in that approach.

If you work your new hires to the bone, you might find that another important metric is negatively impacted–your employee turnover rate.

The Ladder: Work Hard, Play Hard

With the cost of re-hiring equal to roughly 20% of a new hire’s salary, HR professionals are wise to consider leveraging onboarding efficiency to provide opportunities for training (work) and social interaction (play). This approach balances the two important metrics of time-to-productivity and employee turnover rate.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

The Chute: Monotonous Inefficiency

Sometimes organizations boast very consistent and reliable onboarding processes that result in adequate outcomes. And adequate is good. But don’t you want to be the best? Number one?!

If your onboarding process consistently and reliably provides new hires with a tower of forms and documents to read, sign, and submit…you’re good.

If your onboarding process is characterized by co-workers who consistently and reliably request, remind, and follow-up on required onboarding tasks via email…you’re good.

But if your process consistently and reliably results in a “meh” experience for new hires…you’re not the best.

The Ladder: Paperless HR

A paperless onboarding process is characterized by efficiency and highlighted with excitement.

When you eliminate stacks of paper, automate form completion, and enable e-signatures, new hires spend less time on monotonous tasks.  Similarly, when you eliminate document production, automate task reminders, and enable e-countersignatures, your onboarding stakeholders save time too. That’s where the excitement comes in!

With all the time saved through the use of onboarding software, there is now the opportunity to inject more fun into the the onboarding process. And if you have an efficient, consistent and reliable process that is FUN…you’re looking at “best” status.

Competent HR professionals understand how vital the onboarding process is to maintaining a healthy employee lifecycle–one that spans years and not mere months. However, too often an organization’s well-planned employee onboarding process morphs into a real-life game of Chutes & Ladders. Sure, even the best organizations will have unforeseen circumstances (chutes) that cause process inefficiency, but when those chutes outnumber proactive, value-added measures (ladders), the organization risks being the loser.

Onboarding success should not be a game of chance. Success can be ensured when organizations take the time to plan and gain employee buy-in for an onboarding process that engages and inspires new hires early and often.

ExactHire offers HR technology to help small- to medium-sized business recruit, hire, and retain top talent for their organizations. To learn how you can add efficiency and excitement to your employee onboarding process, contact us today!

Feature Image Credit: Chutes and Ladders by Thor(contact)