From “Hello" to High Impact: A Better Approach to Onboarding

Starting a new job is a weird experience. You are essentially thrown into this group of strangers—either in person or virtually—who do things differently than you’ve likely ever done before. The company focuses on adoption and onboarding conversations for new technologies and processes, but it can be easy to lose track of the awkwardness the new team member is feeling.

Whether the role is customer-facing or internal, the ability to seamlessly integrate employees and limit ramp-up time directly impacts overall team productivity and the quality of the customer experience. Below, you’ll find a few things we do for our newly hired team members that approach “Hello” in a way that feels a bit more graceful.

Smoothing Out the First-Week Wrinkles

Employee onboarding is a lot like customer experience in that when you use a one-size-fits-all approach, you get uninspiring results. And when we are designing experiences, a fully templatized strategy doesn’t add the delight you’re looking for. Your employees are individuals, so treat them that way. By giving them a first-week plan based on their role, you can build an experience that helps them know what to expect while exceeding their expectations.

Who do they need to talk to? What knowledge needs to be absorbed? What administrative boxes need to be checked? These all vary from employee to employee and should be considered when introducing new team members to your culture.

Have you ever experienced a working environment where employees were thrown in on day one and expected to get to work without much context? One employee told me a previous onboarding experience felt like “organized chaos” with a lot of bouncing around and little understanding of what they’d be doing each day. That's not the first impression anyone is looking for. If I put myself in that person's shoes, I'd use those shoes to run as quickly as possible to the next opportunity.

“I've never started at a company with a rough daily schedule listed out for me,” another Studio Science employee told me. “It was super comforting to look ahead and know roughly what I would do each day.”

One important aspect of onboarding is introductions to key colleagues across the business. That includes their team, naturally, but it may also include peers in operations, finance, or another practice area. A major source of stress in the early days of a new job is not knowing who to go to for help when those “dumb questions” arise. There are no dumb questions when it comes to a new job. Give your new hire the resources and relationships they need early for a more seamless experience.  

The goal is to lighten the stress load by introducing familiarity. What you’re seeking is what one employee said of Studio Science’s onboarding: “The entire process was very casual, but deliberate, and super smooth overall.”

Managing the Flow of Information

Another important key to onboarding is managing the flow of information the employee receives. Those first few days often feel like drinking from a fire hose, because again, everything feels brand new. Ensure new team members know where to go for help when information drips through the cracks (because it will). A cup of tidbits, a quart of brand factoids, or even a gallon of where something lives on the server takes up cognitive space. Too much information too early can lead to mental saturation.

The custom schedule and purposeful introductions help alleviate content overload by providing resources. In that first week, we also build in free time as “negative space” to process all this new information. So many organizations follow a tight schedule from 9 to 5 and expect new hires to complete administrative tasks after hours. Shuffling from one thing to the next without a chance to breathe is not only counterproductive, but again, it's not the first impression any of us is looking for.

The Job’s Not Done

The first week or two is critical for new hires, but onboarding can’t stop there. Make sure to schedule check-ins and provide other resources 30, 60, or 90 days out from the start date. Questions and issues don’t all come up on day two. A new challenge may arise in week four, and your employees shouldn’t feel like they’re now all alone because they’ve surpassed the one-month mark.

The other part of onboarding that mirrors customer experience is that it needs to be constantly improved. Your employees are your users, so get feedback from them and use that feedback to improve the process. What’s working? Where are the gaps? What missed the mark? Employees' needs are constantly evolving—like customers' needs—so what worked last year doesn’t necessarily mean it will work now. It’s your job as people leaders to continue moving with the change.

Onboarding is simply the beginning of the journey. Long after the welcome emails fade and the swag is stashed away, people remember how they felt when they started. Seen? Supported? Overwhelmed? Inspired? Onboarding is our opportunity to shape that experience. A touch of intentionality can make the experience feel like a nice “hello” instead of a dreaded “aw, hell no!”. ;)