Strategic Onboarding
Onboarding staff members is such an important part of integrating new or returning employees to your organization. Unfortunately, many leaders either skip this step in the hiring process or handle it as quickly as possible. Many times, managers or HR team members are tasked with doing the paperwork related to onboarding without taking the time to orient new hires to their new organization and their new responsibilities.
Yes, in addition to the required legal and compliance requirements necessary to add to your staff, have you considered how you can encourage your new staff members to develop relationships with their coworkers?
You have spent time helping your new and existing staff members to carefully develop external networks. But consider the value of helping new hires in particular, to develop strong internal networks.
Think about what it feels like to be the inexperienced staff member on an existing team. They are anxious to contribute to discussions in staff meetings or online discussions with colleagues, but do they know enough to participate? If they don’t, they may feel less than fully engaged in their work.
A great way to avoid feelings of disengagement is to connect new hires with current employees who can provide resources and support. Some savvy organizations assign a “buddy” to new hires to do just that—provide resources and support.
New hires need to develop a sense of belonging and one way to make this happen is to create shared learning experiences that the entire team can participate in. Formal mentoring programs are a great way to help new employees learn and grow as they are integrated into the organization.
Making a new employee feel comfortable and adding to their sense of belonging can have a significant impact both on the employee and leadership. Here’s a creative way to start the process.
Give new hires your current organizational chart. Depending on the size of your organization, have them begin focusing with their team or department and work from there.
List the names of incumbents and, if possible, show a photo next to a name and title.
Expand the chart to show skills and talents of each team member.
Chart out the names of people to meet with.
Develop questions to ask new people.
Keep notes of people you meet as knowledge of the organization expands.
This exercise helps newcomers to the organization understand and develop relationships and build internal networks.
Strategic onboarding can help develop that sense of belonging as new hires connect with a buddy or a mentor to help them through the challenges of working in a new organization. But don’t expect them to do it alone. Help them make the necessary connections.