The article highlights common gaps in people onboarding in IT organizations and proposes a structured guide for company new joiners. The article aims to enhance onboarding processes in IT organizations, making them efficient, effective, and purpose-driven.
Background
If you’ve ever faced onboarding to a new company or role, statistically, you should be dissatisfied with it or even left without any structured process. On the other hand, if you are going through an efficient and well-established onboarding process, you are more likely to commit to staying with it for years.
In general, onboarding aims to integrate a new person into their role quickly so that the company benefits from their contributions as soon as possible. From the new joiner’s perspective, it is a way to obtain personal safety in the company and ensure a stable and stress-free future. But if both parties are interested in a positive outcome, why do stats represent a lack of attention and even signs of ignorance of this topic from companies and organizations?
The answer is simple: because it works without any effort. The majority of organizations limit their onboarding process to a brief introduction to the company, project, and team, and delegate to new members all the details, stating that X months should be enough for an average person to start meeting the role’s expectations. While those introductory sessions are helpful in general, the onboarding process never ends here; it is offloaded to the new person and their ability to navigate ambiguous situations.
Imagine an expert in botany being kicked out of a plane with a parachute after receiving 60 minutes of instructions on how to open the parachute and a 60-minute brief overview about the abandoned island they are going to live on without any help or supply drops. Survival mode enables instantly. For those who have already faced similar situations, the mode activates even before the first day in the role.
An unwell-thought-out onboarding process is a source of stress on one side and a significant risk on the other. The same statistics indicate that poorly onboarded individuals have an increased likelihood of leaving the company, even after completing the onboarding process independently. The loss of each hire has a significant impact on the company’s budget and commitments (approximately 3 months to hire, 3 months to train, and 6 months of lost opportunities due to the previous employee’s departure).
Problem
Onboarding is a critical process in the business flows of each company and organization. It should be purpose-built, effective, and efficient. It should take into account the strengths and growth areas of each new joiner and accommodate their learning pace.
Is it even possible without hiring a dedicated person responsible for people onboarding?
Opportunity
The answer to the problem question is “Yes, it is possible.” The majority of companies are already doing the right thing by providing ongoing support to new hires from management and peers. However, there is a lack of a process or mechanism that distinguishes reality from perfection. However, by agreeing on specific rules, people can transform several months of stress and continuous analysis into a predictable and steady process with clear, measurable goals and success criteria.
Let’s start with a clear goal: new joiners should have a comprehensive understanding of their new workplace and begin delivering value to the company as quickly as possible.
Important Note: The following tenets and approaches are provided with the assumption that both the new joiner and the company collaborate to ensure the best onboarding experience. However, if one of the parties limits its contribution to the goal, another party can take the initiative into its own hands. More direct instructions for such cases you will find under “Company owned” (actions to be done by the company for individual joiners) and “Individual owned”(actions to be done by new joiners if the company onboarding process does not cover this topic), notes below.
The onboarding process should go through the following steps:
- Introduction and overviews of the company, projects, and the team (unit). Company-owned: a set of scheduled sessions between the new joiner and relevant stakeholders. Individual owned: Q&A sessions between you and the manager, skip-manager, team members, and stakeholders (POs, PMs, investors, customers, and all other applicable).
- Identification of role requirements and expectations. Company-owned: The manager should outline key expectations for the role, relevant metrics, and both hard and soft skills. Individual owned: Q&A session with the manager around expectations from the role and the timeline when you should start to meet all critical expectations.
- Identification of an individual’s skill gaps. This step should be completed by the new joiner, with potential mentoring from a manager or a peer. As a result, both parties should have a list of growth areas.
- Building an individual onboarding plan. Identified skill gaps should be prioritized based on criticality, and a mitigation timeline should be discussed. If “Individual owned,” after determining a list of growth areas, align your priority of addressing and timeline with the manager, and ask for experts and resources that can support the success of each effort.
- Regular progress checks and plan adjustments. Typically conducted during one-on-one meetings between a new hire and their manager.
By following this step-by-step guide, both parties involved in the onboarding process will have a defined goal with success criteria, a measurable and clear understanding of progress at any given moment, and, as a result, reduced stress.
Let’s conclude this post with some tips for both sides.
For new joiners and new hires:
- Dive deep into the new role and position and learn from scratch. Try to avoid being biased with your previous experiences and never underestimate the job.
- Don’t wait for the onboarding; onboard yourself. Approach your manager and discuss with others to gain a deeper understanding of the various aspects and perspectives of your role. Develop your onboarding plan to address the differences between the “ideal person in the role” and your skill set.
- Always align your actions with your manager and look for their corrections and approvals. This will reduce the number of wasted efforts.
- Ask for help. If you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, ask your manager and peers for guidance. Most likely, they faced the same situation before and already solved it.
For companies and managers:
- Never expect that people know how to onboard themself. Communicate a complete action plan and expectations.
- Stay open to asks and connected to the details. New joiners will need your help in numerous areas; the faster you unblock them, the faster you have a valuable expert on your team.
- Be transparent. Always share your understanding of the progress, highlight misses, and celebrate success as soon as possible. Concrete and timely feedback is your best tool to adjust the direction of the process.
