Onboarding and the missing part that you may not be doing – Bridging

Onboarding! I have seen some crazy statistics around the internet, demonstrating that a surprisingly large percentage of hires go wrong, thanks to poor onboarding.

This week has been a busy one for us at Andrew James SR, particularly in our commercial practise. We are really pleased to have brought together 4 amazing sales professionals with new employers, all of which will start their new roles in August and September. We have also had some senior HR professionals start in exciting new roles which is always lovely to be a part of.

As ever, I observe the onboarding processes that our customers have developed with interest.

So what is onboarding? If you look for definitions, you will find statements like: Onboarding is what comes after the job offer – it is the process of introducing a new employee to your organization.

When you look for text, procedures and guidelines, it is invariably broken down into sections – The essential steps of onboarding usually suggest you consider:

• Paperwork and documentation.
• Orientation (introducing to people, company cultures, values, goals, missions and policies).
• Access (typically relating to IT systems that are needed to do roles).
• Induction (equipping with the skills and knowledge to do the role).
• Setting expectations.

Probation is mentioned too.

For me, there is 2 important stages that are missed when you look at onboarding as described above and one that is underestimated.

What are they?

Interviews! I think that the interviews should be recognised as a part of the onboarding process. There is experiential sentiment here, but there is also a practical concern. Businesses that onboard well, are organised with their interview processes; they make sure that feedback is quick and that offers are swiftly delivered, followed up by the immediate issuing of paperwork (offer letters and contracts). They can also get ahead with orientation and expectation setting.

The second is one that I call bridging. Bridging refers to that period where someone has accepted your offer and you wait for them to start on day one. It is their notice period, or gap why they take a holiday before starting with you. In my experience employing businesses do not plan their touch points and communication strategy enough with incoming people. If it doesn’t happen, engagement can be lost and sometimes people can be lost to counter offers. If it does happen, excitement can be fostered, orientation increased and familiarity gained. The best employers that we support work hard here. They organise coffee’s and lunches with new teams prior to starting, they keep in touch, make calls to congratulate and check in. They over communicate on first day plans and they double check requirements and preferences. I think this is so important. Of course I work hard here too. I play my part to keep in touch with both sides, aiding in communication and familiarity.

And what part is underestimated?

Paperwork – I have seen many businesses underestimate the importance of this stage of an onboarding process. Ideally, offer letters and contracts are delivered quickly to a candidate after a verbal offer (but you would be amazed as to how many typically are quite slow around this – likely because it is viewed as an administrative task). Afterall, nothing is over the line until signatures are secured. We work hard here to mitigate risk but lots of employers are lapse at this stage and a delay here makes the business look slow, in efficient and risky!

We are of course also committed to an aftercare service, that runs alongside a probation – making sure that we check in with both sides to make sure that inductions and early experiences are as positive as they can be.

If you have a new entrant into your team coming are you planning your bridging stage? If not, it is worth planning as it makes a huge difference for your new team member.

Andrew James Specialist Recruitment is an independent recruitment consultancy that manages the hiring process of HR professionals into HR teams and partners with SME’s to manage their commercial recruitment requirements into Sales, Marketing and Operations.

Photo by Ono Kosuki: https://www.pexels.com/photo/delighted-black-businesswoman-speaking-via-smartphone-in-city-street-6000080/