Ep. 028– Employee onboarding by design
As soon as the (digital) ink is dry on the contract. The onboarding journey begins into the organisation, team and role. What if you were to intentionally design that experience? Creating something that delivers greater connection to the company, culture and people. In this episode you’ll get practical advice and learning around how to do just that. Moving from pure process to experiential.
Listen to full episode :
Resources from Jamie
Connect with him
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jowen-remote
Lightening Decision Jam
https://go.ajsmart.com/ldj
Make Learning Stick
https://cclinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/makelearningstick.pdf
Use to help you with learning activities within the onboarding.
New Employee Onboaridng guide
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/new-employee-onboarding-guide.aspx
Good resource for guidance on splitting you onboarding into manageable chunks
First 90 Days
https://hbr.org/books/watkins
Book focuses on leaders, however can also be applied to all new hires
ADKAR
https://store.prosci.com/adkar-a-model-for-change-en.html
Prefect guide for change management activities relative to leaders, and others in the organisation
Creative Onboarding
https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Onboarding-Programs-Energizing-Orientation/dp/0071736794
Good guidance on process, structure and content
EP. 028 Transcription
Steve: So Jamie Owen, welcome to the Experience designers.
Jamie: Thank you. Thank you. It's really awesome to be here.
Steve: Good stuff. So let's jump in cuz we are, we're talking about very specific topic today and I just wanna throw some words at you first, let's get started with some words.
Jamie: Sure!
Steve: Unorganized, lacking, consistency, Poor experience. Unclear, lacking connection and one of my favorites, drinking from a fire hose. Terms and words that can be synonymous with organizations with a low maturity when we think about employee onboarding.
So I'm super pleased that you've joined me today, as we delve into this topic together, because, obviously it's something which I'm really curious to, to learn from you on how to maybe move that needle and help organizations move from this kind of immature state into a much more mature and much more experience driven onboarding experience.
But before we jump in, let's let's delve a little bit more into your journey, Jamie. Where are you today? What kind of work do you do and how on earth did you end up doing the extraordinary work that you're doing around onboarding journeys?
Jamie: Yeah right now I'm working for a tech company and and my whole role here was to develop an onboarding program and the journey that I have taken to get to where I am today is maybe a. On the unique side and if I go way back when, I went to university and did an IT degree and then did a teaching qualification. So I was a school teacher, a high school teacher to start with.
And and then I realized that there was the, I was destined to do something different. So I I moved more into the ed tech space with with the non-for-profit organization and helped them transition. Their paper based learning into an online online system. And then from there I went into the learning and development and then found my feet with the employee experience.
And as we know that learning development is part of the employee experience and so is onboarding, it's part of the employee journey. It was only natural for me to move into onboarding as part of the employee.
Yeah. Amazing. Definitely a educational red thread through your career.
For sure. Yeah. . So look let's jam on the industry really. If onboarding was an industry in its own, how would you describe like its evolution? How are we treating, how we working with onboarding differently over, over the last five, 10 years?
How have you seen it evolving?
Yeah. Look it's, it used to be , like a pat on the back and welcome. Sometimes you might get a coffee and sometimes you might get a breakfast but it, what we have learned is that, onboarding is just not about, welcoming you to the organization in, in, in front of your peers or in front of your team.
It's really about embedding. Within the organization and setting you up for success. So what I've what I've uncovered through my many years and I've changed jobs quite a few times. So I've gone through quite a few onboarding programs or lack thereof. So I, firsthand I've been able to experie.
What organizations are doing in onboarding. And it can last anywhere from a day to a week to, to a month. at most, at least in, in my experience. And it can be very different in terms of the sort of the manager's involvement as well. Sometimes managers are, a hundred percent on you and, Give you no space.
And that's not a negative thing. They really wanna support you to the, I'm just gonna let you go and deal with it yourself. So there, , there's quite a long a long spectrum there. But what I've what I, I guess what I've seen the most is that everybody wants to set you up for success in the organization
but you mentioned it in the intro, is that, in part of your words, is that there's often a structure element that's left behind and we are so concentrated on getting somebody into the job, getting them to do the work they're employed to do. That we often forget about the onboarding process.
And onboarding is really about learning. It's about learning about the organization. It's about learning about the role, it's learning about your peers, but it's also about connections and establishing relationships.
Steve: Yeah. Super. And in terms of like approach From a design perspective, what's been your approach?
Where would you start or Yeah where would you take it?
Jamie: What I have learned is that every organization is different. We can follow the same recipe, but. Yeah. Every organization has a different onboarding. There's there, there's not one company that could pick up an onboarding program and just, and fully implement it into their own.
It just wouldn't work. So what I have done. And the approach that I have taken is I very much use a a design thinking approach to developing an onboarding journey. So if you're familiar with design thinking it's a very cool method to really embed.
Yourself in the organization and hear from the organization what are some of the areas that need to be looked into. And one of the great things with design thinking is that you can kick it off with research. And whenever I go into any organization it's basically part of my my, my own onboarding.
My own personal onboarding is to research the company. Yeah. Find out, what the current state. Of onboarding is in, in the organization because there are a lot of good examples of onboarding elements throughout different organizations. So understanding the current state to, to build on, you don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, but you can actually build on something that's already there.
You can also, you can, and sorry, you can do that. Conducting interviews and asking people on the ground, asking the employees on the ground, what is it that makes onboarding so good? What did you miss? What would you have liked? And talked to different levels as well. So I talked to new hires.
People within the first three months, I talked to people who had joined organiz, the organization the first 12 months and talked to leaders as well. And I talked to different leaders, well on the ground leaders, VP leaders, get a real good, a good stretch of different different participants.
And then you can look at other data as well what's your retention rate, What's your attrition rate like? What are they saying in exit interviews? So you can use all that to help build a narrative around what is the current state of onboarding. And one other really cool thing is obviously researching.
Researching what other people, what other organizations are doing. Tapped on the shoulder. People love to share. I love to share, find out what others are are doing and find out what the best practice.
Yeah, I agree. Let's let's unpick this cuz I think there's a big element, the word research, in, in some organizations I find have been, are, is undervalued actually.
And of course, in the work that we do, it centers around human centric design. What are the needs of everybody that touches the onboarding journey? How have you found that in terms of that approach? And have you struggled at all, had any blockers around for, from a research perspective or getting those insights that you've had to overcome or challenge
From an insight perspective, people really want to tell you their their opinion.
They really want to tell you their experience and when you ask the question and it's really important when you are asking these questions to. Keep it a little vague. Don't be so specific or you will get specific answers. . So the great thing is it's to ask relatively open, wide and open-ended questions a little bit vague to get them talking, and then from there you can, then you can hone in on, on different elements that they're talking about.
But people love talking about their experiences and what I find is and, we'll, why don't we just call them frontline employees? Like employees that are day to day doing the job. They're not sitting in headquarters. They're not in a leadership position. But if you ask frontline workers their opinion, they're going to tell you exactly what their challenges are, and they're able to give you firsthand account.
Of challenges in the day to day job, not just how, people and managers and people sitting in headquarters and things like that. Not just what they think is happening, the actual on the job. And it's really important as well and to get the most clearest answers and to get the most, just to get the source of truth.
It's really important to make sure that there, that information is a. And really stress that point, that information goes nowhere, That you're talking to X amount of individuals in the organization and we're looking for patents. But that's what I would stress about that.
Steve: That's super valid.
Yeah. Really great. How would you from a buy-in perspective, and obviously the research element is a great opportunity to engage the business, engage those stakeholders, but also. You may not have, complete budget at that stage. How have you used this kind of data and insight then to leverage, and how would you recommend people to use this maybe on a low fire level before getting all in on a bigger project to just play with it and find what, a's in order to get that bite in.
And also just to tack into as well, Jamie, you're around some of the metrics which you did, which you mentioned around retention. Metrics and obviously roi and tying that in is crucially important to this as well. How would you bring those together into then a package to be able to support some of your recommendations into an organization?
Jamie: Yeah, so I guess the really cool thing is once you've gone through the design thinking process and you've done your research and you've done your interviews, you've got your data. You can then start mapping like I mentioned before, the current state. And one of the great things about mapping the current state.
Is developing what is called in, in, in the, sort of the employee experience world of an emotional journey map because you can't really argue with emotions because that's how people feel. And what you wanna do is you wanna make sure that any negative emotions can be moved into a, into more of a positive emotion.
One of the great tools that, that I've used as part of my design thinking and employee experience approaches is that. , you create an emotional journey map. So from all the research that you get, from all the insights you get, not so much from the best practice and what's happening out in the, what other organizations are doing, but what's happening in your organization, you can create an emotional journey map.
And the idea behind that is you map out the process. From start to finish. So in, in onboarding, it could start very much at the contract is signed before the first day, the first week. They could be a couple of processes in the beginning. And then the idea is that you then map on a scale of what your participants had said was, were they positive, were they negative?
You've, if you've got the processes as the as zero, then plus is above and minus is below. And then you can start to. Some of the feelings and some of the emotions that are happening. So as an example, one of the journey maps I did was when you, when a new person had signed the contract, they were, they were very excited.
Really excited. That's a feeling. That's exciting. And when they signed the contract, you want to be able to continue that excitement as far as you can. . And then signing the contract that's excited and then before their first day, they're curious. They're really curious to learn about their role and curious to learn more.
Organization and a little bit more about the culture and who they'll be working with. So there's a very much a an element there of, or emotion there, of curiosity. And if I was to translate that into a desired state, because once you've got your current state, you know what it looks like in the organization now, your desired state, which is the next phase in the design thinking approach is to then map out how do we want this journey to look. So for example, before their first day, pretty much. That we needed to implement some sort of pre-boarding. Some and introduce some sort of social elements and introduce the networking element as well. Connect them with employees, connect them who they're going to be working with.
Start that all early so they don't go, come into their first day, which was our third part of the emotional journey. They don't come in cold and unsure of who they're going to talk. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. I it's one of the most, I find this, one of the most underrated moments actually, is pre-boarding. I know people talk about it, but it, there's, I, the, my, my narrative on this is the longer the notice period, the more you need to show up as a business.
If it's a two week notice period, of course it's much shorter if it's three months. Particularly in a tight talent market right now where you've got potential buybacks chipping away at the employee to stay. Yeah. There's a, I always, I like to describe it as how do you pick up someone's right foot?
And slowly put it over out of that organization and into your organization. I think it's a lovely moment in time or a period of time which you can actively like design for. So I really support that. I think it's something which is often undervalued. And the importance of it is super important.
And as you say, going back to that learning, How do you get people to start learning about your culture or your business in a much greater level of detail that kind of is more con, got a bit more continuity to the candidate experience and their hiring journey. How do you build on some of that or your EVP or some of the content that they've already consumed.
Jamie: Exactly but there's a real fear there from organizations that we don't want them to be overwhelmed. before they start. We want them to finish off their job. We want them to be in the right mindset when they join. But when people start their journey of looking for a new position or they're contacted by a headhunter and they've been approached, their mindset starts to change already.
And what you wanna do is you want to continue, you wanna continue that. Because there, there is going to be a bit of fear in that period. There is gonna be, Oh, have I made the right decision? What you need to do as an organization is not only set them up running and so they don't come in first day cold, but you also need to solidify the choice that they've made.
And re make them feel comfortable with that choice. Just because they've signed the contract doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna turn up on day one, right? So that you also have to be careful about and that's where that connecting the employees you don't have to give them 50 hours of e-learning to do in that period.
And please, hopefully that doesn't happen too often but you don't have to give them tasks to do or work to do. But connect them and feed their interest. Ask them what they're, what would they like to know? What would they like to see before they join the organization.
And set up a, a q and a if they've got any questions, like maybe it's like a 20 minute catch up before they start with the team, and maybe there's some questions there about the role Feed that enthusiasm and that curiosity during that pre-boarding phase.
Steve: Yeah, and also it goes back to what you were saying earlier about About on the research phase is, maybe have a section in your research, which is specifically about content or learning content, what would you like to learn in the pre-board phase that you didn't get when you joined us or in the first few weeks?
Those people have joined recently. Yeah. Ask those questions and you'll definitely unstart to unearth like, Okay, we actually got some already existing content, just how do we then deploy it or share it along the journey. So we're definitely gonna get into that stuff for sure.
What did you find as part of the, the day one, week one as we go further along the journey? Yeah. What was some of your findings and some of your experiences as you're looking at this part of people's experiences?
Jamie: Yeah. mostly the first day is quite social in, in the sense where, you are meeting people maybe not for the first time, but you are meeting people in a more formal setting.
It's in your new work environment. So there's day one is basically yeah, very very social and a lot of times the new hire will spend sort of one on ones with different people in the team and their manager. There. There have been some cases in my research, in, in different organizations that sometimes the manager wasn't even available on day one.
And that could be for a variety of reasons. . But one of the, one of the desired state elements of the first day that we identified was that when you. before you join the organization. Most of your contact is with the manager. And you've obviously got a really good vibe off the manager.
Cause if you had a bad vibe, then maybe you won't join the organization. But the general assumption is that you've had a good relationship with the manager. So it's really important to continue that even on day one. So one of the, one of the desired states is make sure that the manager is there on day one.
Make sure the manager has blocked. One or two hours to, to go through things like the role and expectations and setting them up with onboarding for the for the onboarding period as well. Like where to go and then setting them up with some initial connections.
So the manager element is really important on the first day. As is the buddy. Now, we haven't mentioned the buddy element but everyone needs a buddy and they actually say in the research, everyone needs a best friend at work. This may or may not be your buddy. It just depends on how well you click, But yeah, you have the manager, the managers very formal.
Okay. This is your role. These are my expectations. The buddy is like this is how we book travel and this is what I do when we book travel so that we get really good deals. And, you so the buddy is there as a support mechanism for pretty much everything. will allow you, will allow them, you.
To be introduced to how the work is done as well. There are some good and some bad things around that. There might be some bad traits that, that the buddy that might have. But in, in general, the research indicated that. Most buddies take this as an opportunity to strive in a leadership type role.
So they take the role very seriously. So that's that's one of the things to think about when selecting a buddy. Not only is their knowledge, but also, think about somebody who is thinking about leadership or wants some additional responsibility because it is an additional time on their shoulders that they, and an additional task that they will need.
Steve: Yeah, I agree. I know there's been a yeah, there's been I've, I know some organizations that won't have buddies. I know some of those, some others are really into it. I think just setting up the the policy of it and what it actually means to be a buddy, and also the responsibility, how to engage, even some support around how to do that.
How long do you think buddies should be in place? Always a question. I do get actually what's your thoughts? ?
Jamie: So I what we were thinking is that the idea behind the buddy is that they are there for a significant amount of time. The research says and I'll allude a little bit to more about the process and the structure but the research says that it, an onboarding program should go for about 90 days, three months, first three months of their life.
However, the research also says that there should be a continuous supporting function for the first 12 months. So the buddy's official role and the official tasks are attached to the onboarding and what we are, what I'm doing in, in, in some of the work that, that I'm undertaking is looking at how that buddy can be connected in the.
In that sort of three to 12 month period. So when you say how long a buddy should be a buddy, how long is a piece of string? So it's a little bit like that, but definitely they need to be around for that, that 90 days and connected. They actually need to be connected to the onboarding, not just Oh, you're a buddy for, Joe blogs away you go.
There needs to be guidance, like you said, support. What do they need to do? Checklist. There needs to be check-ins with the manager to find out is everything going okay? There needs to be regular check-ins, not just ad hoc, but then there needs to be a serious plan, thought about after the onboarding for the first 12 months.
So if you stick to the best practice 90 days for your onboarding. And then the next phase is that three to 12 month. There needs to be activities, professional development plans, and the buddy also needs to be linked into that as well. Yeah.
Steve: Have you experimented or worked with kind of cohorts as well in terms of obviously with organizations that are maybe scaling or they're bringing multiple people at one time from different functions?
How have you, Yeah. What's your thoughts around cohorts and how to use them effectively or where could they, you think they could bring value or some of the considerations?
Jamie: Yeah just to clarify co cohort in terms of buddies or cohort
Steve: so more so when there's multiple hires all joining on the same day from, Albeit maybe different functions. What have you done in that space? Just to Yeah, just to show the audience. Cuz obviously buddies are more one to one. , where are maybe the opportunities to leverage cohorts when, Oh, there's a group coming together to, And also there's that thing, They're all in the same boat, they're all feeling a little bit vulnerable.
It's all that kind of, it's like moving into a new, a new apartment block. Everybody is the, in the same situation. I think it's a great way to leverage that in a way. How have you used cohorts or what's you be an experience of them?
Jamie: Yeah, that, that's actually, that's a really good question.
It goes back to organizing these networking and these connections and you are right, there is a lot of if people do, there are a lot of people starting within the same time period. It's really great to have them connect and share their experiences and learn from each other.
So some of the things we've thought about are different types of, let's call them orient. . Okay. Or some organizations call them boot camps or whatever other name it is. And basically it's an opportunity to get all your new hires together in, in one, one place. Sometimes they're conducted monthly, sometimes they're conducted quarterly.
But the idea behind them is to bring them. To learn a little bit, to share a little bit and to network together. One of the things that I try to discourage in, in, in the conversations I have around the death by presentation. So an individual standing up and typical lecture style, talking about different things.
You can get that information to the individuals to the new highs. Another way, you don't have to bring them together just for that, but maybe you might want them to work on something. To take away embed in their job. And I'll give you an example. So let's talk about leaders. So as a leader, as a new leader in an organization, there is, there's a lot of extra layer of things that you need to learn other than the history the culture and who to go to for support for booking hotels.
And is one of the things that they need to do is recruitment. Another thing is, So there, there's just a couple of examples there. What I tend to recommend and talk about is when you have new leaders start, don't just have the head of talent come up and give a presentation on how to do a recruitment plan and how we do recruitment in this organization.
That can actually be done as non own learning. Either, either pre-work or even they could have it as a resource at the time of need. Because let's just say leaders come in on different times and recruitment happens at different areas. One of the things I suggest in terms of getting these people together in an orientation is actually have them come in and develop a recruitment plan.
And as they're developing the recruitment plan for their own area, they can then go through the recruitment process. They can draw on the. The talent acquisition specialist that could be in the room to support them and maybe spend an hour and a half or whatever the timing allows to actually develop a product that they can then talk away take away and embed in their organization.
So that's just that's just one example of yeah, I love that, that sort of cohort together. And there are different ways. Do the cohorts as well. There, there is that example. There is also a a little bit like they, I've seen one example called speed dating, where you would have a group of people just go around to different individual heads of departments simply to find out what they're doing.
Now, you could do that in a different way as well. You could do a video and then have someone talking. . But how awesome is it if you've got speed dating and they tell you what you do? As a new hire, you can shoot back questions straight away. There's a different ways of doing it and it's orientation bootcamp there's different levels as well.
Steve: I saw a lovely example of a company in France actually, who Yeah, they used their cohorts brilliantly. They actually created like design workshops, facilitation work. They facilitated them, and I really support this. I and I, Anyone listening, I would just say really, genuinely think about this.
Is anybody new into an organization? In the first, I don't know, month, two months is like free consultancy. Like they see beyond your norms that all those automate all those automatic things that your brain processes when you walk into your office that you don't see, oh, it's quite messy in this area or whatever's going on from a process point of view, something.
So I just find there's a great way if there's an opportunity to use the cohort in a way that brings value to the organization, you do it in a really fun, engaging way where they get to learn more about each other and then there's nothing more satisfying than producing. Some potential solutions for an organization and bringing value quickly and being recognized for that as well.
It being, really genuinely supported. I think there's always a great opportunity.
Jamie: Exactly. There's a really cool a really cool process called the Lightning Decision Jam, developed by AJ and Smart and. You again you, in an hour and a half, you can get all these ideas and solutions up on the board.
And then practical examples, which they can then take back into their organization and try out for two weeks. So it's there is some really, Yeah, there is some really cool ideas around.
Steve: I agree. I agree. And if any, anybody listening hasn't heard of it, it's called the L LD J or Lightning Decision Jam.
I've also renamed it Lightning Discovery Jam as well. I've used it with like new hires that have come in and literally run, facilitate it as a first like iteration process to use it as an opportunity to fit, to iterate on what we've designed. But it's so cool. It's really easy to to facilitate.
So just Google It, there's some really good YouTube tutorials from a Jane Smart actually on it. So I'll put the links in the show notes for people. So look, Jamie, just out of interest. I'm also curious, bringing, let's bring back on as well, this learning piece, cause I know you're really big on this is how do we, how, Oh no.
How have you approached learning? So when people are moving out of this kind of onboarding phase and then start to assimilate more into their own functional role. How have you approached that? How would you recommend people start to think about that and at what point actually do you start learning?
Is it, do you pull the carpet right up from day one or. Does it evolve? I'd love to just hear your thoughts on that. Yeah
Jamie: It's a really cool question. I'm quite, I am quite passionate about this particular area , because it, I have gone, I have, I've worked at a few organizations and one of the things I remember from one particular organization is that on my day one, I had about 20 emails from their automated LMS telling me that I needed to.
All of these online learning materials , which from my memory was very much a sort of a click and flick. You do it to say, Hey, I'm compliant in this particular area. And then a away you go and there's little, very little application to your actual role, like how this is very generic developed for 50,000 employees, but how.
Generic or how is it personalized to my role? So there's an element of personalized learning experiences here as well. It take it, it takes a little bit more work to do that. But one of the things we thought about was creating learning challenges. And the idea behind learning challenges is that they are given a scenario, or, and this is.
and you talked about, the timeframe of when this starts. And I'm just gonna step one back a little bit and go back. So we've talked about the first day's, hectic. Don't think they're even going to check an email on their first day. There's lots of people they'll meet meeting, so they won't really get to it like until their second or their third day.
And if they've got it problems, it might even take a little bit longer into the week. So the learning. Learning about actual content and how to apply things that you're going to learn to your role in, in our experience of the process normally doesn't take place until sometime later in the first week, maybe even in the the second week of the role.
So I'll just point that out. And then moving to this learning challenge concept. So the learning challenges is you, for a particular role. So let's just say I work in recruit. And one of the, one of the learning challenges could be to learn about the organization in a way that I needed to develop or help develop a recruitment plan for an area in the organization.
And then what you do with this learning challenges is you provide them with connections who they need to talk. What areas of the business they need to find out. For example, say it's part of their, maybe they develop software and they're part of a the product development unit, for example. So they would need to learn about the product development, how that works who's the head of that, how is that split up? So then all of a sudden they need to contact these people. and learn about how the organization works before they even look at the recruitment plan. Yeah. And then not to mention that maybe how you do a recruitment plan is different to how we do a recruitment plan.
So let's find out if your idea is better than our idea. There's different ways you can you can skin that as well. Nice. But the purpose of the learning challenges, Not just to sit in front of the computer and watch endless amounts of learning materials or look through the employee handle to or look through the org chart to find out who's what it's actually saying.
Get off your seat. Go out there and talk to people. Learn about the organization and then create something that is, is tailored to a, a particular area. And it could be a simulation. Which then they present to their manager and their buddy and they get feedback. Nice. Go through that whole process.
It could be actually, it could be a real, it could be a real . Task. This is what, this is one of the tasks that you will need to do. You need to talk to X, Y, Z. They need a recruitment plan. They're about to recruit 30 people in their area. And maybe here's your buddy. So it's all about linking this all together.
Steve: Yeah. That's really. I like that a lot.
How? Yeah, cuz in, yeah, I'm just processing that. So in, in some of the organ. Yeah, of course. Cuz in some organizations functional, certain functions align into others more than others. They'll communicate more. So the sooner you get them aligning into those or building relationships through those kind of learning journeys the better.
So it's much more contextual, isn't it, rather than this kind of holistic. Learning on an overall kind of arching business perspective, which is important of course, cause it's good to understand holistically,
Jamie: How does that, how a big fan of the 70 20 10 model as well. So this is, this also draws on, on, on that element because if, we won't explain the 70, 20 10 but if you're sitting in front of a computer screen, you're not really being social and you're not.
Applying your craft to the actual business. So there's, and of course, don't get me wrong we need to be able to go through the compliance and we need to be able to tick off that we are compliant. But all we're really doing in that a aspect is we're ticking off that we have watched a an online learning.
The business can say, Oh, yep, we've done this. . But there needs to be that link. And I draw on the leaders in the organization in, for example, my manager, like they need to be able to draw that. Between. What that is and how that affects me and my role and how I can be a success to the organization by knowing that, that information and then how do I use that information going forward.
So if you work in a bank and you are learning about risk management or some sort of, or cyber security in any organization, where do you go to next from that? Talk to us to cyber security people go and connect with it and then work out how this affects you in, in your business.
So there's actually an application. After the learning aspect as well.
Steve: Yeah, that's brilliant. I really like the the playback to the buddy and the hiring manager. I really like the sound of that because it's, it puts the onus on the new hire to initiative and to go just, as you say, get off out your chair and just get, get connecting and learning in real time.
That's contextual, but also, managers are busy enough. I know just saying this out how it is to put the, also the, always the onus on the manager that they should be leading these things or, guiding always is sometimes unrealistic for certain businesses and hiring managers.
So actually to just be in the moment for them to play back and then have an opportunity to guide and coach and align. Having already been presented some content and some, their perspective of what they've learned, I think's a really nice way of doing it actually. It's really nice.
Jamie: And like I said before, like we, we encourage the manager to be involved, but you are right. They are busy, but that's also why you have a buddy. To help the buddy not only supports the new hire, they also support the. So there, there are things there which a manager can lean on, and it doesn't always have to be the manager involved in these sorts of things. It could be maybe a couple of senior colleagues from the team as well.
If you're developing a simulated recruitment plan, in this example, bring someone in from the business who has recruited before and get them to provide feedback as well. You probably wouldn't do it in the first month.
You, you would give the new hire some space to to to get comfortable. So maybe you might do that later on. But bring. There's no problem with bringing people in from the business to to provide feedback. And that's what you want. You want that feedback? That's an interesting point.
We haven't done that before. Maybe we can take that. So you are learning something from the new person, but also we actually don't follow that particular protocol. We follow this one. So it. Could you map it into the way the organization, So it's also a two to way feedback.
Steve: And also if you look at some of the, if we go again, go back to a research grounded based on needs, the needs of new hires, one of the fundamentals is feedback and guidance. It's a crucial component of that first, orientation, onboarding, move on a call there. So Jamie, I just wanna jump into as well, because I think onboarding, in terms of deployment, in terms of actually, actually starting, taking your onboarding from where it is to actually deploying out a new enhanced future state can be tricky.
And I just wanted to like, Yeah, just delve into that, around your approach to that. So it's not not seen and above all, doesn't lose steam. In the sense of it's just seen as a one-off project because as we know, hiring managers come and go and it can get eroded pretty quickly. Yeah. So what's your thoughts there?
How have you, what's some of the pitfalls or things you'd recommend around deployment or areas to really focus on? Yeah.
Jamie: I'm a pretty big, I'm a pretty big change management type of person. When I, when. Work in, in, in any sort of space. And from the onboarding perspective, what I've learned is that it, you really need to use the managers or the leaders as your change drivers.
And in order for them to be your change drivers, you need to bring them into the conversation quite early. So when you are talking, when you're doing your research, when you're doing your interview, Yes, you wanna find out what the new hires experience is but you also need to get the managers involved in that conversation as well.
And then you can use them throughout the entire process. You can also use the the, I also mentioned interviewing people that had been within in the first 12. You can also use them as their they should be established. That's the assumption. So you can also use them, but your leaders are definitely your change drivers.
So getting them involved early getting them involved in the project, getting their insights, making sure that if you've got a collection of common insights, make sure that it is highlighted. And you can ask them for permission, but highlight those individuals by name as well. X, y, Z said this and provide that recognition to the organization that they are contributing to the project.
And what I have found is that allows 'em to have a stronger sense of buy-in. And when you go through the change process, they are normally. Happy to continue with the change and what I would say in addition to this is that you need onboarding champions embedded throughout the organization.
So use the people that you were used in the interview as. Champions or ambassadors, whatever phrase you want to call them, but make sure they're continuously, they're not just involved in the first phase they're in, they're involved in the continuous development and communication of the process.
You mentioned design sprints before. I use design sprints as part of this approach. Discover, not only discover what are some of their insights, but also for them to come up with solutions. Okay. You said that the manager is your manager, is time poor. You just don't have time to do some of the ideas that we're suggesting.
What are some of the solutions you can come up with time Paul and hear from? and then when you change the program and mod and build the program based on their insights it's just a lot easier of a journey. Yeah. And and keeping that feedback loop open.
if and testing and have those people those leaders tested in their organization. You've got a new person coming in next month. Great. Let's test the onboarding. And I have I created as part of the onboarding experience, I basically, every phase this new person started with this manager I was developing on.
We were developing on the. . So we, we didn't have a full onboarding program finished. We had the pre-boarding done and then once they were in the pre-boarding, then we're like, Right now we need to get on a first day and fir and the first week, and then they started their first day and. They had their first day stuff, then they had their first week stuff.
And then while that was going on, we were still developing the first month stuff as well. And we were testing live and getting feedback all the time. And it was okay for the manager to say, Now listen, you are gonna be our test bunny. , we are testing our new onboarding on you, so you need to give us.
Feedback and it's basically, it's a little like putting down the shields as well, because they're like, Oh, this, they're doing this. It's okay if it's not right. It's, Oh, and I'm giving feedback to the, to, to the overall program. So yeah. It's really about involving those individuals and the leaders in, in that process.
Steve: Yeah, really nice goes back to what we said earlier in the conversation is this importance of research and it can be used to engage and to bring people the start of their journey. It doesn't need to be something that's in isolation. It's it's part of the change journey as well.
So I think it's yeah, crucial part. So Jamie, just one, one last area I just wanna cover off tech. Because we've covered about kind of people, we've done a bit around process tech is also, I've left it to last on purpose because obviously it's important, but people first, in my mind anyway, humans first please.
And then obviously process, but then it's yeah, tech, It is an enabler for sure. Yes. How have you leveraged tech from an onboarding perspective? We've got some specialist providers out there. You've got it as part of a module of a big, a wider h i s system. I guess sometimes it's just what you have to leverage to its best.
Jamie: And you've used the right word there, enable because you are right. It is about the people, the connections, It is about the process, the structure and the tech, honestly, tech is seriously an enabler and sometimes it can be a positive experience and sometimes it can be a negative experience.
But I guess at. When I talk about probably won't talk about tech in in specifics cuz like you said, you there, there's, if you've got a HR system, chances are you've got an onboarding component. There are other onboarding platforms that are out there that, that do different things and offer different things as well.
I think what I found is that you need. , you need some sort of central location for everyone to go. Now it could be a website, it could be a a certain product that everybody uses for their internet. It could be an internet page. It could be based on their phone, which would be great. It could be a collection of videos in, in.
A very famous video management system . So I guess the most important thing is think about the user experience when you are implementing your people first process orientated onboarding program. And one of the important things is making sure. For example, in a 90 day structure, which is what I advocate for, making sure that 90 days is a seamless experience.
If you've got it on a webpage, then have it very clearly identified the phases. What are the resources? Make sure that it's up to date as well. So don't have 50 people in the organization updating this particular page. Make sure you've got an owner, not a, not only just an owner for the site, but also make sure you've got an owner for the onboarding program.
It can't just be, it can't just be a little a side project. This is we've gone to great lengths in, in organizations to establish different areas of the organization to support them from a people and culture perspective. Onboarding is no different and it should be given that. The time and the respect that, that it certainly deserves.
So having someone to own that is, is really important because then that person can be in control of the updates. If people leave, they can update the org chat, like those sorts of things. And I think the other thing is from the user perspective, is making sure that it's very seamless so that the new hire knows exactly.
Where they are in the process and what they needed to do. So no sort of jumping around, but very clear process identified. And then from that process, what needs to be done in each phase. So if we just, for example, go with pre-boarding as a phase, first day, first week, first month, second month, third month.
what activities need to be completed in those elements. And then from there you can point them off to the LMS that you're using or a external resource that you've rec curated. But the most important thing is seamless journey. Yeah, I agree. Oh, and automation. If you've got a system that can do automation, One of the biggest challenges we found through, through some of the research was that again, managers do not have time.
We are, we have so much to do in our daily lives that if you can automate this process as much as possible, so select a system which connects to your active directory. As soon as someone signs the contract, can it, Is there an automatic function that can shoot off the pre-boarding? And normally pre-boarding is done with their private email normally, and then when they join on their first day, it's done with their company email.
So making sure that the software can also connect that journey together because they may not finish the pre-boarding journey in their pre-boarding phase. They may need to finish it off during their first week. You want that connected and also they might want to go back. So making sure that that, that element is connected, that automation is, if you can automate this as much as possible, you will save a resource there.
Sitting, typing and typing names, adding people to the system, and then telling them what date they're going to start and when they're gonna do all their different phases. Yeah.
Steve: Agree. And I'd also even encourage, just final section of the piece on this is if you can, as if you've done your research and you've mapped your current state and you're moving into the future state and you haven't selected, or it may just coincide you looking at some kind of, onboarding system, it's a lovely way to go to those, suppliers and say, Hey, we've already mapped it.
We know exactly our needs, our user needs. Where can you help us show up where we need to? I think is also, incredibly, time well. As well. Definitely.
Jamie: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I think my only final comment on that is if you are able to take your pain points to that organization, you also get them to demonstrate how they can solve that.
Because a lot of the times, you might hear from vendors, Yes, we can do that. Yes, we can do that, but actually have them demonstrate that according to your process, sometimes you might need to change a, one of your processes or something in your process to match the system. That's just the, that's just the old 80 20 rule.
And that's fine, but. See them. Get them to demonstrate, yeah, what is it that, that this is our pain point. How would you solve that with your system? And get them to show you.
Steve: Yeah. Great tip. Great tip. So look like while we're on the tip Top tips for moving forward. How would you what would you say top three tips to people who are, who've listened to this podcast and want to do something with onboarding?
Where would you where would you share,
Jamie: Definitely start off with collecting your data. Know where you stand, know what your current state is, know what you're dealing with, cuz that will support you. And the change program might actually be easier if you've got a nice solid foundation, which to build on.
Make sure you're providing that support and those connections in the pre-boarding and in the first week, but make sure that continues out through the entire onboarding program. Create a structure. Like I said, I'm a big advocate of the 90 days, but remember that about the post 90 days as well and don't squeeze everything into the first month.
That, that is our biggest fear, that we want them to know everything within that first month. No, no work out. When you need to stretch that out, you've got 90 days and then if you've done a post 90 day, you've got even more time. So allow that. Allow the new hire to. Guide and fall into the role.
Personalize, if you can personalize fantastic. So different tracks for different roles or departments. And just remember that if you have a really solid onboarding program, it can actually help drive your brand and you can actually use it. as part of the attraction phase and as part of the job description, as part of the selling.
Cuz like we know it's very hard to to get top in top employees into organizations right now. It's very very competitive.
Steve: Absolutely. Jamie. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Some really good practical tips. I'm of Yeah, I'm really glad you you agreed to join. I think yeah, getting into the trenches and really getting into the practical elements. We can talk about, all the big brands in the world doing all these amazing things, but actually reality is you gotta get your hands dirty and get right in there and and design for it. Thank you for sharing your your journey and experience. It's been it's been great having you on, mate. Thanks so much.
Jamie: Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure.