tools and techniques for successful onboarding

• Demonstrate to the new employee that he/she is a valuable part of the team.
• Reduce time to productivity.
• Reinforce decision to accept offer, eliminate the possibility of "buyer's remorse".
• Increase the support of family and friends for the employee's decision.
• Create initial excitement.
• Reduce the amount of time needed to explain things.
• Increase ability of the organization to attract talent as positive word gets out.
• Waste less staff time answering unnecessary questions.

Just the Facts — Send out organization/business unit information to the employee at home. This information should include organizational charts, forms, mission statements, etc.

Who Am I? — Everybody likes to know who they are and how folks can get in touch with them. Have the new employee's business cards printed and ready for them on their first day.

Glossary — What? Huh? Who? Provide an acronym glossary for the employee to help with any acronyms commonly used.

Announcement — Send the new employee a copy of the announcement of their employment with the agency/department.

Web Savvy — Send the new employee helpful links and web pages that they can be looking at to familiarize themselves with their new place of employment.

Podcast —-Take advantage of technology. Consider doing a podcast that new employees may view at their leisure before they come to work. This can be simple or elaborate.

Anticipation —Send the employee a list of upcoming challenges/projects they will be working on.

Welcome Letter — Send the new employee a welcome letter from the Unit/Department Head.

Welcoming Gifts — If the unit has t-shirts, notepad, etc., have some on hand as welcome gifts for the new employee or mail them to the employee's home.

Email Coach — Pair new employee up with an existing employee to work as an e-mail coach to teach them about the agency/department's e-mail system.

Training Schedule — Pre-assess learning needs and set up a training schedule for the employee.

E-Card — Send the new employee an e-card welcoming them to the agency/department.

What's on the Agenda? — Send the new employee an orientation overview.

• Decrease time to productivity.
• Build commitment.
• Create improved image of organization as positive word gets out.
• Increased confidence in new employee's acceptance of offer.
• Create initial excitement, which lessens need for more expensive motivators.
• Increase number of referrals by new hires.
• Increase morale and satisfaction.
• Set clear and concise expectations.

Be there on their first day — It is important to new employees for their boss to be there.

Send a welcome e-mail — This is cheap, fast and usually forgotten, but it can make a new employee feel great about their choice.

White Board Welcome — Write a welcome message on the whiteboard or create an inexpensive banner to welcome the new employee.

Fully supplied workstation — Stock the new employee's office with basic office supplies so that they have what they need to begin work.

License Plate/Car Sticker — Give the new employee a license plate or car sticker with new agency/department's logo on it.

Personalized Nameplate — Have the new employee's nameplate ready to welcome them to the team.

Quick Reference Card/Guide — Give the new employee a quick reference guide or card to help reduce confusion as they are learning the ropes.

Parking — Have a parking spot already assigned to the new employee so that they don't have to deal with the hassle of trying to find a space on their first day.

Welcome Coordinator/Buddy — Pair the new employee up with an existing employee to show them the ropes.

Celebrate — Have a celebration lunch or refreshments to celebrate the new employee's first day.

On-site and off-site resource locator — Designate an on-site and off-site resource locator to help decrease wasted time when trying to locate possibly needed resources.

Director/Unit Head call, visit or e-mail — Have the director or unit head give the new employee a call, e-mail or stop by for an introduction.

• Build strong relationships.
• Improve cooperation and communication, which leads to increased team performance.
• Increase the number of innovations, creativity and willingness of new employee to present suggestions due to increased comfort level.
• Help new employee fit in.
• Reduce time to training because co-workers can assist/teach each other
• Increase satisfaction and morale
• Decreases turnover

Crossword puzzle — On the new employee's first day, provide them with a crossword puzzle where they have to match employee's names with the provided clues. Programs are available on the web to make the puzzles.

No Cancel Meetings — Schedule meetings with the new employee with key people within the organization who are not allowed to cancel. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss their role in relation to the new employee's role.

Diversity Group Affiliation — Provide the new employee with a mentor of a similar background so that they can begin building relationships and be comfortable with their new environment.

Wall of New Faces — Create a wall that has a picture of the new employee's team members, as well as their name, department, and title.

Baseball Cards — Create a baseball card with each team member's picture and unique information about their work/projects or hobbies and give to the new employee during their first few days.

Box of Chocolates —Provide the new employee with a box of chocolates or sharable snacks in order to encourage team members to drop by their office and interact with the new employee.

Grow with Us — Identify the new employee by placing a plant at their workstation and then encourage the current team members to introduce themselves.

Lunch Coupons — Get the new employee to know current team members faster while making them feel comfortable asking questions by providing the new employee with a lunch coupon that will cover the cost of lunch for two people. This way the new employee can invite a co-worker to lunch without having to foot the bill.

Theme Coffee Talk — Coordinate coffee talk meetings at your office by ordering out for everyone's favorite coffee or bringing in a variety of flavored coffees for the group. This gives the new employee an opportunity to interact with the current team members.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream — Gather employees together and host a quarterly ice cream social event to recognize all the new hires/transfers. Include light refreshments such as sodas, cookies, chips, candies, fruits, and ice cream with toppings. This provides a fun, informal and comfortable atmosphere for current employees to meet and get to know all the new faces.

Let's Do Lunch — Schedule a celebration lunch at the location choice of the new hire/transfer and invite the entire team to the lunch. The manager pays for the new employee's lunch. This gives everyone an opportunity to get to know each other away from the office. During lunch encourage employees to introduce themselves, give their position, and something interesting about themselves.

Every Picture Tells a Story — Schedule a time when all team members are available and take a team photo. Ask everyone to wear something with the agency logo. If available use the company sign as the backdrop for the photo. Take the picture with a digital camera so that the photo can be sent via e-mail to the team and/or posted on the unit's web page.

E-mail Alumni Network — Create a network of former employees who wish to remain in touch with the company by getting them to serve as mentors for new hires. The network is basically a list server where new hires post questions to the "alumni" or former employees. Educate the alumni on the types of questions that they will be asked so that they are able to provide sound advice.

Who Knows How to Guide — Create a guide that includes information for the new hire regarding who to contact when they have a question. Have the guide broken down into categories to help make it more user-friendly.

Birds of a Feather — Develop a network of new hires and recent hires. This network is a group of volunteer recent hires that become mentors to the new hires. They can help the new hires with various questions or issues that come up based on their similar experiences as recent new employees.

Team Representation —After the new hire has had several weeks to settle into his/her new job, search for an opportunity to have the new hire/transfer represent the team at an internal presentation. Provide all of the appropriate resources to prepare the new hire/transfer for a successful presentation.

Electronic Staff Meeting — With employees in different remote locations, it can be difficult to schedule everyone together for the new hire's first staff meeting. Instead, use technology to conduct staff meetings via video conferencing or teleconferencing so that the new hire has an opportunity to meet everyone either in person, via video, or over the phone.

Mentor — Each new hire is assigned a mentor or buddy on their first week of employment. The mentor is responsible for answering questions, introducing the new hire, identifying resources, providing feedback and assisting in the clarification of assignments.

• Reduce time to productivity.
• Waste less time during the first week because the new hire/transfer lacks the appropriate equipment, training or knowledge of the facilities.
• Provide the new hire/transfer with positive role models.
• Decreased waste and machine breakage.
• Decreased frustrations, which lessen absenteeism, tardiness, or sick leave use.
• Fewer missed project deadlines.
• Individuals increase their learning speed because they realize what they need to learn and how fast to learn it.

Instant Communication — Before the new hire/transfer arrives on their first day, have all of the appropriate tools (i.e.-phone, computer, etc.) necessary to carry out their job assignments. This creates less down time while the new hire/transfer has to wait to have everything set up or delivered.

Dumb Question Coupons — Create a coupon/voucher that is used to trade with current team members in order to have questions answered. This helps the new hire/transfer break the ice as they ask questions to the current employees. The questions may seem obvious to the current employees but are often important to the new hire/transfer.

Don't Limit Orientation to One Day — Stretch orientation out for multiple days in order to prevent information overload for new hire/transfer. Break the orientation up into several half days so that they are refreshed and retain more of the pertinent information.

Interviews with Recent Hires — Before a new hire/transfer begins work, arrange for him/her to work with top performers who have previously occupied those jobs. They can identify and answer questions that they had when they started the job or offer things that they wished they had known/asked. Present this information to the new hire/transfer when they start the job to help give clarity from the beginning.

Recruiter Involvement in Retention — Have the recruiters stay in touch with the new hire/transfers and use their knowledge to help managers understand and manage better. Since the new hire/transfer is already comfortable with the recruiter and the recruiter has a detailed knowledge of the situation, this is a win/win situation.

Online Orientation — Create an online orientation/workshop to streamline the orientation process and allow the new hire/transfer to complete it at his/her own pace. See podcast.

Interactive Online Game — Create an interactive online game for the new hire/transfer that covers pertinent information and is categorized in different sections. Cover this information in an interactive way and have exercises or activities at the end of each section.

FAQ Website — Create a list of questions that previous new hires had when they came on board. Give the new hire/transfer access to this website when they start in order to help answer any questions that they may have.

Shadow — Ask for volunteers to act as the shadow to the new hire/transfer. The shadow should be efficient and skilled at doing the new hire/transfer's task and must be familiar with each step of the process in the department. The shadow will be responsible for answering questions, introducing the new hire to fellow colleagues, identifying resources, providing feedback and assisting in the clarification of assignments.

Multiple Mentors — Arrange with other teams and departments to select several mentors to work with the new hire/transfer. Allot time for the new hire to spend with each mentor in order to help the new hire/transfer better understand what each department/team's responsibilities are and how they fit into the new hire/transfer's job.

• Increased productivity because the new hire/transfer knows exactly what is measured and rewarded
• Increased productivity because the new hire/transfer knows and understands the team's goals and objectives
• New hires are a better "fit" because they understand and are aligned with the company's culture and values
• Provide a clearer idea of future career path
• Decreased frustrations, which results in less absenteeism, tardiness or sick leave use
• Decreased new hire/transfer turnover rate due to early on-the-job frustrations
• Decreased manager frustration because of the lower new hire/transfer productivity rate
• Increased performance during the new hire's/transfer's first year

Show Them Their Role — Within the second week of employment, meet with the new hire/transfer to review the business plan/mission statement of the section/unit and the agency/university's. Include how their job fits into meeting the goals and objectives and their impact on the business plan.

Discuss Manager's Expectations — Schedule an hour or more of uninterrupted time to spend with the new employee to ensure they understand your expectations up front. Spend the time reviewing the job descriptions, resources available, expectations of the new hire/transfer, what is being measured/rewarded, how it will be measured, how often it will be measured, accountability and answering new employee questions. Consider multiple meetings at 30/60/90 day milestones.

There's No Such Thing As A Dumb Question — An important principle to convey during an orientation is your commitment to continuous improvement and continual learning. That way, new employees become comfortable with asking questions to obtain the information they need to learn, problem solve and make decisions.

Individual Development Plan — Meet with the new hire/transfer to formulate an individual development plan. A development plan may include cross-functional training, job rotations, stretch goals, etc.

Before It's Too Late — S chedule time with the new hire/transfer to identify his frustrations and what he wants more of/less of. Some examples can include lack of challenge, growth, rewards, or development. Reiterate your commitment to continuous growth and learning. Discuss training opportunities.