Onboard Week day 3 - The human connection is a competitive advantage
Today was the third day of Onboard Week and the topic was Personal Onboarding.
Our speakers were Sanne van Leeuwen of Humanitas DMH and Bryan Peereboom of Wortell. Although their organizations are completely different in many ways (health care vs IT) they share a vision. Both value their people really high and make use of the management system of self-organisation.
My 12 learnings of day 3 for you.
Learning 1 Personal onboarding is a 2-way street
Today’s topic had two angles. The first being to give every new employee an onboarding experience with a personal touch. The second is giving your new hires the opportunity to express who they are in life and professionally and have them explain what they bring to the table. From my professional experience I know that this is a blind spot in many organizations.
Learning 2 Making onboarding personal drives retention and productivity
Bryan mentioned that the importance of making onboarding personal is to create a sense of belonging. People will feel at home with your organization. This is also the way to create an atmosphere for making a difference together. At Wortell the numbers are impressive. Making the onboarding experience more personal has led to a 14% less departure rate and increase from 80% to 98% of candidates that sign the contract when offered one.
Learning 3 The human connection at work is a competitive advantage
Both organizations report that having a strong connection with their people gives them a competitive advantage:
At Wortell this advantage is in attracting the best talent on the market.
At Humanitas DMH employees become ambassadors for the brand. 1/3rd Of new hires are recruited by these ambassadors.
Sanne explained that people really enjoy working at Humanitas DMH, because they can feel at home and they feel valued. “People are at the heart of our organization. It is in our DNA!” And you should not only show that in onboarding but through the whole employee journey.
Learning 4 Start with making introductions
And what makes onboarding personal. Get to know each other! Bryan brought a nice set of cards to get the conversation going. He also introduced the idea of coffee dates with random employees.
Make sure you have your icebreakers in place for this and give people some time for a proper introduction.
Learning 5 Make content specific to target groups/ persona’s
Bryan explained that they improved the onboarding at Wortell by creating 4 tastes for specific roles in the organization. The next upgrade of the onboarding program at Wortell involves making 20 specific tracks of onboarding, one for every team. Content creation was mentioned by both as quite a challenge. It can be very time consuming, but once you have taken this hurdle your program will start running smoothly.
Learning 6 Buddy systems are of great value in making your onboarding personal
Certainly the human connection also comes from buddies. A person that supports you in answering questions and introducing you to colleagues. Bryan mentioned a couple of criteria for the selection of buddies. Look for people that are keen on being a buddy. And check if these people are empatic. Then train the buddies you select for their role.
Learning 7 Some ideas to add a personal touch
Coffee with team members.
Play icebreaker games in the team.
Random pairing of people and have a coffee together. Live or online.
Have your managing director/ CEO tell a personal story. About her/ his background, personal purpose and drives.
Have fun in the (online) introduction session.
Use a bingo format. Tell something around the topic that comes up in the bingo.
Give your onboarding app a personal touch by using personal stories of colleagues.
Send out a personal attention! Flowers, a chocolate bar or…
Learning 8 Evaluate, learn and improve
Evaluate with your new employees. Ask them how they are doing and also ask them how you are doing? How was the experience so far? What did you like? What do you still miss?
Keep updating your onboarding program. Use a (re)design cycle.
Learning 9 If you don’t like what you find, start from scratch
Sanne explained that she set out on a big quest when she started in her current job. She didn’t like the whole employee experience that was in place. So she decided to start from scratch.
Learning 10 Put the team in the lead of onboarding
Many team members are really keen to help out with onboarding. So give them roles in the process and involve them in the design and redesign of your onboarding program.
Learning 11 Of all participants 52% rate their onboarding as very or extremely personal
Today’s poll indicates that roughly half of the people find their onboarding personal. Which leaves the other half with still some work to do. And don’t wait with that! Start right NOW.
Learning 12 Personal onboarding is the responsibility of the whole organization
Especially the warm welcome is to be delivered by the organization as a whole. Engage all managers and team members by providing them with information, tips and trics on onboarding and updates of new hires entering the organization. Or get together from time to time to share learnings among the teams about onboarding.
That’s it for today!
See you all tomorrow.
Greetz,
Frank