If you want a successful onboarding process, one that quickly engages new employees and helps them succeed — rather than leaving them with “new hire’s remorse” — there’s a mantra you must remember. More importantly, you need everyone on your management team to remember this mantra. It comes from a lesson that branding guru Scott Bedbury learned at Starbucks.
After joining the java juggernaut, he went on a coffee-hunting expedition with Dave Olsen, Starkbucks’ chief coffee buyer. Bedbury, author of A New Brand World: Eight Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century, probed Olsen for the secret to Starbucks’ branding success. What was, to use anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson’s famous term, the critical “difference that makes a difference”? What mattered the most to the company’s branding success? Was it all about the coffee beans; were they that different? Was it the ambience Starbucks has so assiduously created? Was it the employees they’ve hired? What particular part of their winning combination mattered most? After pondering Bedbury’s question and weighing the variables, Mr. Olsen responded: “Everything matters.” All world-class brand managers know that everything matters. They know that every communication and every interaction with the customer matters. Every decision and every choice matters, because they will either strengthen or weaken a brand. This same principle holds true when it comes to organizational and managerial practices and how they affect employee morale, engagement, and pride. Every decision, every moment of truth in which an employee bumps up against organizational policies, procedures, and processes matters.
Noticing Minor Flaws
The principle “everything matters” is especially true in the first 60 to 90 days of an employee’s tenure with your company, because employees are the most impressionable during this period. When people are in unfamiliar territory, they are more alert for any clues that will help them navigate the terrain. In this state of uncertainty, they are also more likely to leap to conclusions when forming perceptions and opinions. This is because when we feel vulnerable and uncertain, we’re more prone to remove any uncertainty possible. To use a term from cognitive psychology, they are vulnerable to making “premature cognitive commitments.” When we make a premature cognitive commitment, we leap to a conclusion before having enough data to make a truly informed choice. Because new hires are more vigilant for clues, they’re likely to notice even the most minor examples of a poorly designed and executed orientation program and onboarding process. Because they are prone to premature cognitive commitments, they are more likely to see these as indicative of a poorly run organization that doesn’t care about employees. Thus, when it comes to onboarding, everything matters.
Everything You Do Sends a Message About Your Company
Every choice, every action, every communication has potential consequences. Every choice has a consequence in terms of how quickly an employee gets up to speed. Every choice communicates to the employee something about your organization. For instance, poorly organized, “fly by the seat of your pants” orientations communicate something very different about an organization than does a well-organized, professionally delivered program. Recognizing the importance of having new-hire orientation reflect and support the company’s culture of excellence, Eric Wood, president of EnviroSense, requested that his HR team conduct an “orientation makeover.” Because every action carries an implicit message, their new orientation program communicates to employees a message consistent with the company’s culture, mission, and values. “In our business,” says Wood, “high levels of performance and attention to detail are critical and expected of every employee. In order to ask for this level of performance, we want to make sure we show our employees the same commitment.”
Showing You Care Is One of the Strongest Drivers of Employee Engagement
The level of support provided to employees after leaving orientation also communicates an important message. Using a “sink or swim” approach to onboarding communicates a loud “we don’t care about or value you” message, while an onboarding process that provides new hires with a mentor and periodic check-ins sends employees the kind of message that leads to engagement and loyalty. At Community Living Association, a Maine non-profit organization that provides services to individuals with developmental disabilities, employees frequently complained about how awkward it was going into a new home when they were both new to the job and a stranger to their future client. To remedy this, new employees no longer have to “cold call” their new client. Instead, a staff member who already knows the clients makes the introduction. By demonstrating their concern for their new employees’ comfort, management obviously communicates a far different message than if the company had adopted a “that’s just how it is…deal with it” stance.
Is Your Orientation Program All Rules and Red Tape?
Another significant moment of truth that matters greatly is whether your orientation focuses on rules and regulations and neglects the inspirational component of being a new employee. Making orientation primarily about rules and regulations communicates something very different about an organization than an orientation that communicates these messages:
I’ve been working on a program for a hotel group that includes how to onboard new employees and thought I would share with you a modified version of the tip sheet I created for it.
Wouldn’t it be great to have access to an off-the-shelf, easy-to-execute morale-boosting program, one that includes two “employee engagement killer apps”? Given how challenging—and important—it is these days to keep employee morale high, wouldn’t it be great to have this morale boosting program, and not pay a fortune for it?
