How to offer an incredible onboarding experience, even during lockdown restrictions

All too common and all too unfortunate, these are real first-day experiences from Glassdoor. Extreme examples but representative of the impact when onboarding falls short of employee expectations.

The information, concepts and strategies contained in this document are confidential, privileged and only for the information of the addressed and intended recipient and may not be used, published or redistributed without the prior written consent of Scarlettabbott Ltd.© scarlettabbott 2020

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And, successful onboarding impacts your bottom line:“They gave me a laptop, put me in a corner and left me there.”

“I got the impression they had no idea I was starting that day.”

x2.5revenue growth

x1.9profit margin

91%1 Year +

Companies that excel at onboarding and employee retention experienced 2.5 times the revenue growth1.

They have 1.9 times the profit margin of companies who struggle with these two critical skills1.

And 91% of employees at companies with best-in-class onboarding experiences were still there at 1 year, compared to 30% of employees with poor onboarding experiences2.

1 Source: https://blog.hubstaff.com/employee-onboarding-best-practices/2 Source: Aberdeen Group

9 principles for successful onboarding

The information, concepts and strategies contained in this document are confidential, privileged and only for the information of the addressed and intended recipient and may not be used, published or redistributed without the prior written consent of Scarlettabbott Ltd.© scarlettabbott 2020

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Before new employees start:

1) Inspire: Connect new employees with your company’s purpose and ignite a shared passion for your vision of the future. Well before day one, invite your people to glimpse behind the scenes of their new brand with a virtual video tour or co-created team welcome message.

2) Empower: Provide some elements of choice around the working needs of your new employee: whether it’s tactical things like what kind of tech set-up they prefer or sharing their preferred ways of working with their new team.

3) Tailor: Prepare resources and tools that accommodate different learning styles. Offer the same content across different channels to enable people to choose how they consume it. Make your content bitesize and define which parts are essential and which are more optional.

Regardless of lockdown restrictions, there are some elements to onboarding that remain constant. These best-practice principles will help guide your focus to the parts of the experience that will make the biggest difference to your new starters.

As part of your ongoing processes:

4) Support: Support managers to own and deliver the onboarding experience. From a simple desktop guide to great inductions, to quarterly refresher training on people leadership skills, the leader of a new employee can make or break their experience, so they are worth investing in.

5) Nurture: Make time for formal and informal team relationship building exercises. The bonds we build in our first weeks contribute to our sense of belonging and enable us to get up to full speed much quicker than on our own.

6) Explore: Talk regularly to colleagues at different stages of their careers to understand their changing wants and needs at different times in their lives, so you can profile new joiners more accurately and adapt your onboarding to suit.

When you’re ready to review your onboarding process:

7) Redefine: Ask yourself if your culture is articulated as authentically as it could be. If what you say isn’t reflected in what you do, then new starters will quickly see through any veneer and some may even choose to leave.

8) Rethink: Are your current onboarding processes are using the most up to date platforms and branding? Think about the purpose and ambition of your brand and make you’re using the technology and visual identity that really reflects this.

9) Reengage: It’s not just new employees that need to receive onboarding content. If you’ve refreshed your suite of materials, make sure that everyone in the organisation gets to experience the updated messages. Dedicate the start of a Town Hall to a preview or create an online ‘takeover’ week across your digital channels.

The information, concepts and strategies contained in this document are confidential, privileged and only for the information of the addressed and intended recipient and may not be used, published or redistributed without the prior written consent of Scarlettabbott Ltd.© scarlettabbott 2020

So what support is available*?

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No matter what your circumstances, the best first step is always a conversation.

We’re here to listen and to help, so if you’d like to make your onboarding experience even better, or find a way to immerse your new starters without being in the same room, do get in touch –hello@scarlettabbott.co.uk

*Remotely, of course!