Onboarding with Heart

Olga Cenic, Senior Human Resources Manager, Voortman Bakery

As human resources professionals we want people to feel appreciated and supported, but how do we achieve that during the onboarding process?

Years ago, when I began my career onboarding was very different. The focus was on getting all the legislative requirements for training and paperwork done and getting new hires in their workstation rather than a holistic approach.

Things have changed, and that’s a good thing.

Here are a few simple ways to achieve the goal of a more holistic onboarding process. These suggestions work for onsite, hybrid, and remote employee situations.

Onboarding is a team sport

Make sure to involve team members outside of Human Resources in onboarding, ideally forming a committee that comes up with ideas and helps to divide the workload. In a perfect world, you could get a representative from each department in the company to be an onboarding champion and take part.

Rolling out the welcome mat starts pre-arrival

Personalize the experience. Before a team member’s first day, have the team write a personal note letting them know that they are looking forward to that member’s arrival at work and are excited to meet them. As part of their package, you can include some swag with the company logo. If your company makes something include varieties of that product, if appropriate. Not everyone has the good fortune to make cookies - I get it. You don’t necessarily have to have a big budget for this, use your imagination and make an impact.

Be available. If someone leaves you a voicemail or sends you an email, get back to them promptly and enthusiastically. Follow-up is key. Always reassure people that they can ask questions anytime. Ensure the onboarding team member has contact information for their Manager and Human Resources contacts (at a minimum) before day one. So that they feel further prepared for their arrival, give them a detailed schedule of their first week before their first day. They should have a schedule set to their email address as well as their work email.

Making someone feel welcome can be expressed in many ways. I once worked at a company that made frames and they sent me a stunning artisanal frame to my home before my first day. Every team member in the office signed the outside of the box in colored markers with welcome wishes and inside there was a handwritten note with some beautiful hand-drawn artwork! No wonder that company had a Chief of WOW. I was wowed!

"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget the way you made them feel"

To this day I have that frame and every time I see it those happy memories flood back to me. We can’t all be Banksy, but we can all put some personalization and thought into what we do. You know the new team member loves cats, write your message in a cat-themed card, include a few cat magnets, and get a cat-themed notebook. Every time they go to their fridge and see those magnets, they remember the kindness behind the card and box they received. Just putting company swag in a box is a simple way out. Do better. Expect better.

Make your own customized staff survival kit for your company, You are only limited by your creativity.

Day 1 – The Tour and More

On Day 1, take the time to take the new team member on a tour of the facility. If they are working in an office take them from person to person and introduce them. Tour the common areas such as lunchrooms and breakout rooms.

Learning everyone’s name in a new workplace takes time, for most people it doesn’t happen the first day, even with a walk-about. That’s why providing an org chart with photos is another great way to reaffirm who is who and put names to faces. Also provide a contact information list (e.g. emails/ extensions) so that new employees have contact info for their direct report, an HR contact, and other contact info they need to know.

Schedules & training

Training opportunities where they can train with a trainer in person or online are ideal; however, this may not be realistic for all environments. If they are doing online training don’t have them do it all on day one or in one sitting. There is no greater way to disengage someone and create training overload. Break up the training and ensure training time is noted in their online calendars.

The Buddy system

Although we are all adults now, we still have fears. How do we help alleviate some of these fears when onboarding someone? How do we do our best to set them up for success? Set them up with a buddy. This is a simple but highly effective tactic. In their onboarding first-week schedule provide their Buddy’s contact information and have the HR team coordinate a call before day one where they are introduced to their buddy.

The buddy simply put is the person that is a positive company ambassador who is there to help. They also meet the person on the new hire’s first day, show them around, and introduce them to the team, in person or via a Zoom or TEAMS call. They are also the go-to, to show the new employee info such as where to put their lunch, where the best coffee is in the area, and who has the best candy dish in their workspace.

Week 1 – 1:1s

The new employee’s first week requires curation. Include a one-on-one lunch with their manager and a brief half-hour meeting with each department head they will interact with to understand how their role interacts with these departments. This will also give them an opportunity to learn about the company and the interactions between departments.

7. Be a kind human

Don’t make rash decisions. I had a new employee once that contacted me before their first day letting me know they could not make that start date as they had a death in the family. We gave them the time they needed, and they started two weeks later. To this day that employee stays in contact with me although I no longer work with them. Why? Because they appreciated the company’s humane approach to how we handled that situation. We also sent that team member a card and flowers in sympathy for their loss.

Starting a new job can be exciting, but it can also understandably make people nervous. When people start a new job they often wonder: How will it go will I like this company? Will I like the people? Will I fit in? A supportive onboarding approach is one of the best ways to ensure a team member is successful. Human Resources Professionals are often reminded of Maya Angelou’s sage advice “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget the way you made them feel.” Those words serve as an excellent North Star.

Sage