Comprehensive On-Boarding

Valve trades traditional managerial structure for free body massages.
Those opening the first page of Valve's latest guide for new employees will be met with a simple block of text containing the following words: "A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one's there telling you what to do."

Every great author has a trilogy and this is mine. Well actually I’m not really a great author, but this is part of a trilogy. This is the third article on the topic of onboarding salespeople.
For the uninitiated, “onboarding” is what happens after you successfully complete the arduous process of hiring a new salesperson. It is also something that most companies do poorly.

An employee's introduction to the company is equally important to the later success of both the individual and the company. Here are some tips from top workplaces on how to handle new hires.
Picture this: You've just hired some wonderful new talent to join your company but you don't have a specific role intended for them. Instead, you give them three months to explore all the different departments of the company and you train them so that they know your products and services backward and forward—and then you allow the employee to choose what department they feel is the best fit for them.

Pick up any business publication, and you'll see a plethora of stories on individual leaders and how they cut costs in a down economy.

High-growth companies need steady-handed managers, largely internally focused, who bring stability to an enterprise growing at lightning speed. These individuals exhibit control, discipline, and predictability.

11 months ago, I accepted a job in the nuclear industry (Company X). At that time I was unemployed. The offer was contingent upon the issuance of a security clearance.

Have you outsourced your human resources department? If not, you're part of a steadily shrinking minority. According to Culpepper Compensation & Benefits Surveys, 53 percent of all companies..

Analyze step by step the first few days on the job that your new employees experience. Do you do things that communicate "We're glad you're here" or is it more "All right get to work, we've got things to do here..." Look at how well-run both your orientation program and the onboarding process as a whole are. Are they thorough, organized, compelling, and state of the art, or are they a slipshod, haphazard mess?

While there's little consensus on how to categorize it, vendors, users and analysts agree on several guidelines for HR leaders who are considering e-onboarding. Naomi Bloom, managing partner of consulting firm Bloom & Wallace in Fort Myers, Fla., recommends that organizations in the market for an e-onboarding solution ask how the tool will integrate in real time with the company's relevant non-HR applications such as procurement and finance. Southwest Airlines uses Silk Road Technologies for onboarding all new personnel, and it employs full-time onboarding managers in HR.

A study by global consulting firm Novations Group found that 62% of employers rely on a structured selection process to make good hires and keep them. More than half provide new employees with on-boarding support, often lasting as long as several months. A variety of approaches, the study found, are used to prevent "hiring failures," new employees that quit within their first 12 months. For one-third of employers as many as a quarter of new hires depart within the first year, according to the firm. Another 11% can suffer first-year loses of nearly 50%.

Performance training is a bit high on the value chain. On-the-job training is a critical part of the learning curve and employees need complete support for this, particularly freshers whose idea of the corporate world would be the way he/she is treated on the first job. Having mentors in place is one of the ways to deal with the problem. It is essential not only to keep track of the bottlenecks plaguing new recruits' performance, but also to keep them motivated.

Most large organizations do a fair job at giving new employees the basics. They teach them how to access the email systems, use voice mail, get office supplies, and so forth. But in conversations with many (ex) employees of smaller firms I find that not even this is organized in any formal way. Mostly new hires learn by asking others, as well as by trial-and-error. In many of the organizations who win the best-place-to-work-in-America awards, orientation, assimilation, or induction programs play a major role in getting new employees up to speed quickly and in adding months and years to retention.

Net Geners are accustomed to creating and interacting with online communities relevant to their interests - anything from photography and music to dating and shopping and, more importantly, learning and sharing information. Attracting, engaging and orienting Net Geners requires chief learning officers to rethink every aspect of their corporate learning programs. From new-hire orientation to leadership development programs, greater flexibility and cohesion in delivery modalities are critical.