Effective Onboarding Strategies to Set Your New Hires Up for Success

Are you waiting until a new hire's start date to begin the onboarding process? If so, you should reconsider! In this episode of Hire Calling, HR consultant Ricky Baez shares the importance of starting your onboarding process the moment a candidate applies and best practices for integrating new hires into your organization.

Additionally, he will touch on ways you can leverage technology (especially AI) to streamline your processes and how to give candidates constructive feedback who didn't secure the role. 

Additional Resources:
1. New Hire Checklist: The Easiest Way to Onboard
2. How to Conduct Virtual Onboarding
3. Keys to a Great Employee Onboarding Experience
4. Orientation vs. Onboarding: The Main Differences

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👋 FOLLOW PETE NEWSOME ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewsome/
Blog Articles: https://www.4cornerresources.com/blog/

👋 FOLLOW RICKY BAEZ ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/efrainrickybaez/
Blog Articles: https://www.baezco.com/baezco-blog

Chapters

• 0:00 Optimizing Employee Onboarding Strategies
• 7:20 Enhancing Candidate Experience in Hiring

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Welcome back everyone. I'm speaking with HR consultant Ricky Baez about employee onboarding strategies. So, ricky, before we get into how to create great ones, let's just start at the top. How would you define employee onboarding?

Ricky Baez: 0:12

Employee onboarding is a process where you take an employee who has the skill set that you need, has no clue what your culture is, and you put those two together. You take their skill set and you assimilate them to the culture. That way, they have a good start and a good future with your organization Perfect.

Pete Newsome: 0:29

Now, how can a company implement onboarding strategies that differ from traditional methods, and what unique benefits do those offer to new hires?

Ricky Baez: 0:36

Well, it's the best way to answer that question, pete, is to tell you what most organizations do today right, as soon as somebody interviews and everything goes well that candidate gets in an offer letter, they go, let their current employer know, they put in the two-week notice and then they start on day one. Most organizations, onboarding starts on day one, and I'm here to say that's a mistake. The best way, the best way to ensure that you have a good onboarding process and your employee sticks with you for the long run, is to start onboarding not when they start on new employee orientation, not when they get that offer letter, but as soon as a candidate applies for the position. And here's what I mean by that, pete. It's these days. Employees want to know who or what kind of organization they're going to be working for, so they want to know the culture. Of course, they need a paycheck, but they want to know the culture of an organization and they want to know how their skill sets meet the needs of the organization and how they fit in that big picture.

Ricky Baez: 1:34

The best way for you to attract the right people for the right jobs is to make sure you start telling that story at the very beginning of that relationship.

Ricky Baez: 1:42

And, pete, that's when the person applies for the position, right, you start telling that story, the recruiter tells the employee exactly what they can expect, what the organization is all about.

Ricky Baez: 1:52

It's just like a relationship when people first start dating. Before you ask them out to go on a vacation for like 14 days in a cruise, you're going to want to go on a couple of dates first, right, you're going to want to get to know each other. Same thing here, and, pete, what that does is, by the time that person starts, they're going to be so excited about being a part of this team and if the training continues past that first day where that person has to support they need in this brand new world that they have no idea about, and you're going to have an employee that's going to stick around for the long run versus somebody who's you know walking around in the dark, and then they'll leave you after two weeks so that makes perfect sense, and I think that a lot of times onboarding is confused with orientation a bunch of the time, right, because now let's talk about that difference, right?

Ricky Baez: 2:39

new employee orientation? It's letting the employee know. Well, it's that that one day, when you fill out all the paperwork, you get your badges, you get your login credentials, whereas onboarding is a whole process. It's not just one day. It takes about three months to properly onboard somebody because if you're doing it right, you're focusing more on making sure the employee feels welcome in the organization, they feel welcome in their team, they know how to use their tools so you can set them up for success, so they can exhibit the talents that you hired them to do. So that's that difference. Orientation is one day to get all the paperwork done and onboarding is an entire three-month process to make sure the employee feels right at home.

Pete Newsome: 3:20

Now let's talk about putting it into practice. What role does technology play in the onboarding process and how do you ensure it enhances rather than complicates the new hires?

Ricky Baez: 3:30

It's. So it's getting interesting these days with AI. Right, for the past couple of years, ai has made a name for itself. Now, ai has been around for longer than a couple of years. Right, it's because if you have Siri, if you got Google, you've always have to use AI. It's because, if you have Siri, if you got Google, you've always have to use AI. But in the past few years, it's become more relevant in the workplace. Today, here's how we can help. Right, whenever an employee has any kind of a random question that is relatively easy for you to find or for anybody else to find, but it's not for the employee, you can have an AI assistant help out with that. If somebody has a question about PTO, ai assistant can help. Somebody has a question about benefits, general questions, ai can help. Now, it sounds a little bit more robotic, but with more practice and knowing how to use those AI tools, you as an HR person, you as a business leader, can use all these tools to make the onboarding process for the employee just that much more easier.

Pete Newsome: 4:22

Do you think that too much technology can make matters worse?

Ricky Baez: 4:25

I think too much technology too fast can make matters worse. It definitely can. But there's nothing wrong in having several different options and trying them out to see which ones best work out for your organization. There's nothing wrong with having a couple out there and then one of them may not work as well, because at least you know that's not the route to go.

Pete Newsome: 4:44

So it sounds like some trial and error may be necessary to find the right balance.

Ricky Baez: 4:48

Trial and error may be necessary, but at the end of the day you have to make sure as a business leader and as an HR professional you got to make sure that whenever those errors come about that you and your boss are okay with it, because then those errors can be big and they can be costly.

Pete Newsome: 5:01

Can you share an example of an onboarding program you've implemented and talk a little bit about the impact?

Ricky Baez: 5:06

All right, so here's something I implemented about four years ago with a different client. So the person applied for that position and as soon as that person applied, it was a marketing show, it's a commercial for the organization, right? The whole goal, from the time the person applies to they get their first interview, is to let them know who they just applied for, what the organization is all about and get the candidate excited. Again, this is all part of the onboarding process. The recruiter their goal is going to be to guide that candidate, to let the candidate know exactly what to expect, every single step of the process what happens after the pre-screen, what happens after interview one, what happens after interview two, what happens if you get the job and, more importantly, pete, what happens if you don't go, if you don't move on to that next step? So let's fast forward, right, let's fast forward that the person interviewed, right, the person interviewed with the panel, the interview is over and done with, the recruiter checks in with that person. Hey, how'd it go? Everything's okay. It's their own personal coach. Again, all part of the onboarding. Let's fast forward. They get that position, they get the offer. Once they get the offer, send them a gift basket, send them some wine glasses when I started at Darden. As soon as I got my offer letter. A couple of days later, I got a FedEx package with chocolate, wines and wine glasses. They knew how to get me in there. They definitely did.

Ricky Baez: 6:25

And then you learn more about the person in the time that they get that offer letter to the time they actually start. And, pete, this is where organizations make the biggest mistake. This is what I call no man's land. When an offer is made, and from the time the offer is made to the time they start, there's no communication with the candidate, which is a huge mistake, because guess what Other organizations are trying to, especially if it's a sought after candidate. Other organizations are going to want to get this candidate and if you stop talking to them, somebody else is going to court them.

Ricky Baez: 7:00

Then, once you start learning about them, here's some little bit information about the leaders. Let's learn about you. The more you learn about them, the more you personalize their first day experience. If they love Star Wars, get some Star Wars mugs. They love Chick-filfil-a? Have chick-fil-a breakfast.

Ricky Baez: 7:15

I'm telling you, pete, if we go that route, you will have an employee that's going to be in there for the long run. But let's talk about the person who did not get the role. If the person made it to the final interview and they did not get the role, then you get. You ask if you could give some feedback and you give some really good feedback and you help them for later on. That way you turn an employee who a candidate who could have been upset because they didn't get the role and now because of how you treated them all the way to the end. Now you have a walking marketing campaign that they're going to apply again and people talk that's an onboarding program. And let me tell you, if you start your employees on that foot nine times out of 10, they're going to stick it out with you longer than if you didn't do that.

Pete Newsome: 7:57

Perfect. Well, the taco Chick-fil-A has me hungry. So I think it's time to run out and go get some Ricky. Thanks so much for all of that information. Very helpful, and if you have more questions about onboarding, leave us a comment. We'll get back to you and we'd love to hear how we can.