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Onboarding programs rank high on the list of HR programs that get little respect or attention. When managed well, onboarding programs can have a dramatic and measurable impact on employee productivity, retention, employment brand, service/product quality, workplace safety, and future hiring success.

Unfortunately, most onboarding programs are poorly designed and even more poorly executed. After years of researching and advising firms on developing best-practice programs, I have found that there are 15 key factors that can literally kill any chances of onboarding programs demonstrating a positive impact.

The Root of the Problem

Most corporate onboarding programs are designed from the HR administrator’s perspective. The goal and focus is to ease the administrative burden on HR and to drive compliance activities, not to ensure that new hires can reach expected levels of productivity in the shortest time frame possible.

As a result, most programs have boiled onboarding activities down to all but the bare bones of administration. Every new hire, transfer, or merged/acquired employee gets the same information, on the same timeline, via the same channel.

Doing so has made administering onboarding easy, cheap, generic, consistent, and utterly useless. The result is that most onboarding programs frustrate new hires and hiring managers.

While the concept behind onboarding is truly simple, delivering world-class onboarding is anything but easy and generic. If your current approach demonstrates any of the 15 onboarding program killers described below, you’re missing the mark and need to start over:

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In most organizations the recruiting function is entirely separate from the retention effort, yet the design of the hiring process has a dramatic and direct impact on future turnover. I estimate more than one-third of the factors that drive future turnover have their roots in the recruiting, hiring, and on-boarding process.

Unfortunately, most managers and many recruiters are unaware of this direct relationship and as a result, organizations suffer from unnecessary turnover. If you are a hiring manager, a recruiter, or a retention specialist, it’s important that you understand how the hiring process impacts the likelihood that someone will depart early.

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I am still amazed at how many organizations do not allow their current employees to apply for internal positions until they meet a whole bunch of conditions. Typically, they have to have been in a position for a certain amount of time, may have to meet performance requirements, may have to fill out an application, and then go through the same interview process as an external candidate.

Most HR people think this is fine, and in fact, often put these rules in place. Their thinking is understandable from one perspective. After all, shouldn’t a boss be aware that an employee is looking? And if a person has only been in a job for a few months, isn’t it only fair they give their boss their services for a few months?

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I recently finished reading a few of almost 600 pages of postings on MSN’s message board concerning an article by Scott Burns, entitled Is Home Depot Shafting Shoppers?

In a very short period, this article received confirmation that indeed Home Depot was shafting its customers, at least that’s what over 5,000 authors believed when I last looked. MSN Money reports an additional 10,000 emails.

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Article by Dr. John Sullivan & Master Burnett

Last week we introduced the concept of an employment product manager, an individual who would oversee the development and positioning of employment opportunities using approaches similar to those used by product managers in a products company.

This week we will turn our attention to the development of a prototype job description for such a role and explore where the role should be positioned in the modern organization.

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Few of us really want to work for someone else. Many would rather have the freedom, independence, and potential earning power of the self-employed.

But for reasons of confidence, skill, companionship, security, and convention we work for others. When times are good and jobs are plentiful, we are easily enticed to greener grass. And when times are not-so-good, we hunker down and hope we can stay until those better times return.

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