Effective onboarding of new employees increases retention by 58% in the first 3 years on the job. On the flip side, employees decide whether or not they belong within an organization in the first 3 weeks.
Organizations need to establish effective onboarding programs and have a robust approach to measuring the effectiveness and business outcomes of those programs.
KnowledgeAdvisors and Metrics that Matter provide cloud-based software and expertise to improve the impact of employee onboarding, as well as programs across the talent spectrum.
6. Onboarding
that Works
1) Start Pre-Hire
2) Make the 1st Day Awesome
3) 6-12 Months Duration
4) Provide a Buddy
5) Blended Learning
6) Onboarding Analytics
7. Analytics: Answers “How do we…”
Improve new hire
engagement & retention?
Shorten time to performance?
Provide knowledge & skills
more effectively?
Improve quality of hire?
10. Onboarding Analytics
Key Metrics
Data Collection
New Hire Separation
Program Evaluation
Speed to Performance
Knowledge Tests
New Hire Engagement
360 New Hire Assessment
Program Effectiveness
New Hire Experience Survey
Visualization
Actions
Onboarding Dashboard
Enhance new hire experience
New Hire 360 Report
Improve onboarding training
Program Effectiveness Report
Identify & prevent flight risks
Onboarding Pulse Report
Assess capabilities
14. Launched new
Onboarding Program
Welcome to InnovateU
U
Welcome
Experience
Onboarding
Buddy
Prescriptive New Hire Training
New to InnovateU
Community
Role-Based
Simulation
29. How Did Analytics Help?
Eliot
Steve
Natalie
Automated data
collection at
various milestones
Tailored
onboarding to his
needs
Insight into
perceptions of new
hires
Automated
reporting to
improve program
Received timely
feedback on
progress
Improved
leadership
effectiveness
33. Q&A and Thank You!
Jeff Grisenthwaite
Contact me to:
VP, Operations
+1 312.676.4450
jeffg@knowledgeadvisors.com
Discuss your situation
View a demo
Receive these slides
knowledgeadvisors.com
Editor's Notes
New hires decide whether or not they belong at a company within the first 3 weeks. Better make them count.
1 in 25 hires will quit after an awful experience on the first day
When organizations have effective onboarding programs, the 3-year retention rates of employees jump by 58%. Investing in effective onboarding pays dividends for years to come.
There are 6 practices that KnowledgeAdvisors recommends to improve onboarding programs for new hires:Your crafted onboarding experience should start before their first day. Prior to joining, think about ways to take advantage of their excitement for the new job with introduction videos. Maybe take care of some of the paperwork drudgery that so often makes up the first week on the job.Put some effort in to make the first day on the job a great one. At a minimum, do no harm—make sure their cube or office is ready and they have a laptop or other equipment. But also look at ways to welcome new employees with tours, events, lunches with coworkers.Onboarding shouldn’t end within the first week or month. For optimal results, there should be sustainment activities that continue for 6-12 months.An onboarding buddy is typically a peer who can help the new hire get to know their colleagues and navigate their first couple months on the job. Having a buddy system as a part of your onboarding program increases 1st year retention by 25%New hire training is a big part of the first month. It should be a blend of modalities: classroom, eLearning, simulations, and virtual communities. This blend will provide more effective learning and also be more engaging.And finally, our primary topic for today: You need effective Onboarding Analytics to ensure these other 5 points are driving the business outcomes you need.
Think about analytics as the answer to the questions you should be asking… Analytics provides you with these insights and supports decisions for continuous improvement. These are just some of the many questions that Onboarding Analytics can answer.
And that brings us to the Metrics that Matter Talent Analytics Suite
6 Components of Talent Analytics Suite:OnboardingLearningLeadershipCapabilities EngagementPerformance
The Onboarding Edition helps you to analyze key metrics such as retention of new hires, speed to performance, and program effectiveness.We’ll be walking through the range of data collection methods and reporting visualizations that help you to achieve this.Actions: Enhance new hire experience and improve training to decrease flight risk and set employees up for long term success
Automated Analytics: our aim is to automate as much as possible. You’re busy people. You need technology to do the work for you.IntegrationMany kinds of information can be fed into MTM (employee info. org structure, etc.)Key business systems can be integrated with MTM (CRM, finance and accounting systems)This allows people to see how much talent is driving business resultsData Collection: The Onboarding Edition includes expert-designedtemplates for gathering information from employees in the form of surveys, 360s and tests.Employees, managers and talent professionals get the info they need to make better informed decisions
Let’s bring this to light with a day-in-the-life story of people leveraging analytics to make better decisions when it comes to onboarding new hires.Welcome to the headquarters of InnovateU. They’ve become a major biotech player in just a few years. That kind of rapid growth has been great for shareholders, but left some shortcomings in their approach to talent development that they’ve been working to address.
The first character in our story is Eliot. He was put into the role of Onboarding Program Manager 6 months ago due to high turnover they were seeing in the first 90 days.
During that time, Eliot has been steadily building and improving the new hire program. It includes and Day 1 Welcome Experience. Each employee is assigned an onboarding buddy for their first 6 months. Eliot has moved away from the standard curriculum that all new hires go through and toward a tailored approached to training both to roles and experience. This is supported by a virtual community of new hires and a role specific simulated project or challenge that all new hires go through.
When Eliot came into the role, there was really no data on the effectiveness and impact of their former onboarding program. Eliot had always believed that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so as a first step, he worked with KnowledgeAdvisors to establish the right set of key performance indicators to focus on. These fell into 4 categories:Onboarding Program EffectivenessSpeed to PerformanceNew Hire EngagementBusiness PerformanceThe data on these dashboards comes from a combination of data collected in Metrics that Matter along with data that’s automatically imported from InnovateU’s Talent Management System.He uses these to monitor progress and also communicate the value and impact of the changes he’s been making. It’s been positive across the board, but Eliot knows there’s opportunity for further improvements.
One of the beneficiaries of Eliot’s work is Steve, who has just been hired as a new Product Manager at InnovateU. Steve was recruited from one of InnovateU’s competitors—he has high expectations that the culture and environment of InnovateU will be a step up from his former employer. The onboarding program make or break that impression.
The morning of the first day includes a highly motivational event about the future of InnovateU and how Steve can contribute to it. After going to lunch with his new co-workers, Steve takes a handful of tests that assess his level of knowledge coming into the role.After each test, he’s able to see how he did. He’s coming into the job with quite a bit of relevant knowledge and experience. Results from the tests are automatically fed to InnovateU’s Learning Management System, which automatically passes him out of some of the required new hire training.
Eliot is able to look at pre-test scores by new hires by individual and in the aggregate. This is one measure of Quality of Hire that he passes back to the Talent Acquisition function.
As Steve goes through his new hire training, he completes periodicevaluations. Eliot has it set up so that Steve does not need to complete an evaluation after every single session, rather, he’ll complete 1 evaluation per week that cover the range of sessions and modalities over that week.
Eliot receives automated reports that inform him that there are still improvements to be made in the quality of classroom instruction and providing better context and examples of how the new hires will be using what they learned on the job.He reviews the low instructor scores with the Delivery Manager and works with the course developers to add more role-based examples to the content.
After 30 days, Steveis asked to complete a New Hire Onboarding Survey which asks him about his experience with the company and the training he has received thus far. Steve will get similar checkpoints at 60 and 90 days. To ensure these are deployed consistently and minimize administrative effort, a simple data feed from the HRIS is imported into Metrics that Matter nightly, which includes:The start dates of new employeesTheir contact infoKey demographics, such as job type, department, and tenure in the industryTheir manager’s contact info
Natalie is Steve’s manager. She’s the Director of Product Strategy. And when it comes to onboarding, her primary need is for new hires like Steve to ramp up faster.
An Onboarding Feedback report is generated automatically for Natalie (and all other managers with new hires going through onboarding).Natalie is able to compare feedback from Steve and her other new hires to those of the rest of InnovateU. She sees that her new hires are looking for her to be more involved in the onboarding process. They want more recognition, constructive feedback, and coaching. Before this report, Natalie wasn’t aware of this disconnect, so she immediately sets up recurring weekly meetings with each of the new hires, in which they discuss their progress and set expectations.When Steve and the other new hires fill out the 60 and 90-day checkpoint surveys, Natalie is already seeing her scores improve.
Eliot is able to see the feedback across departments and notes that manager support is a critical need during onboarding throughout much of InnovateU. As a result, Eliot provides a training session for managers to help them understand the difference they can make. He also institutes regular checkpoints with the manager as a part of the onboarding program.
After 3 months on the job, Steve, Natalie and Steve’s peers complete a 360 multi-rater assessment, providing feedback on the competencies that Steve has demonstrated. This too is triggered by the automated simple data feed from the HRIS.
Steve and Natalie automatically receive a comprehensive report with the 360 feedback. It shows that Steve shows great initiative and has useful new ideas, but he could work on collaborating better with others and adapting to change with a more positive attitude.They agree to focus on developing these competencies over the upcoming months.
Eliot is able to look across the 360 feedback for all new hires. He uses this data for a couple different purposes:Determine common competency deficiencies across the organization that could be addressed as a part of the Onboarding Program curriculumManager feedback is used to inform measures for both Speed to Competency and Quality of Hire (which is then fed back to the Talent Acquisition function).
Eliot has established a quarterly process in which he presents an executive report on the effectiveness and outcomes of the Onboarding Program. The purpose of this is not simply to justify that it’s making a difference. Instead, Eliot aims to show that he’s a good steward of the investment by measuring and continually improving results. Additionally, he uses it as an opportunity to discuss areas in which collaboration with the business units would substantially improve results.The accountability that he’s demonstrated and focus on aligning with business needs has led to Eliot having a great partnership with leadership in the Talent function and out in the business.
Each of our 3 players benefited from the Onboarding Analytics solution.Eliot has a streamlined, scalable approach to tracking important metrics, gathering feedback from new hires, and reporting out for himself, managers, and executives. This automation enabled him to spend more time improving the Onboarding Program.Steve thought it was great to be able to skip over training that he has already comfortable with. The feedback from the 360 will be instrumental in his success in the role.Natalie was able to become a better manager by receiving timely information on the perceptions of new hires. By seeing how she compared to other managers in the company, she was able to prioritize the areas she need to focus on to improve the experience of new hires.
Eliot was not at all alone in implementing the Onboarding Edition. KnowledgeAdvisors is there to provide expert guidance and assistance to help get organizations up and running quickly. Our approach is to leverage best practices while tailoring the solution to your particular organization and onboarding programs. We help you to define your key metrics, design your various data collection forms, and also develop a reporting plan for the various stakeholders who need to see the data.
To get started, you can contact me directly to learn more or if you’re currently using Metrics that Matter, you can talk to your account team.
I appreciate your time today and I hope you learned some tips to both improve your onboarding programs and your approach to measuring them. I urge you to contact me to discuss your onboarding situation and how analytics could help you. I’d be happy to lead a more in-depth demo of the Onboarding Edition or send you these slides.At this time, I’ll stay on the line to take any questions you may have. If you do not have any questions and need to run, you’re welcome to drop off. Thank you!