Success starts with Onboarding, a Virtual Path Forward

Sarah  00:03 

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s webinar success starts with onboarding a virtual path forward hosted by HRDQ-U and presented by Bill Ryan. My name is Sarah and I will moderate today’s webinar. The webinar will last around one hour. If you have any questions or comments, please type them into the questions box on your GoToWebinar control panel. And we’ll answer as many questions as we can today. Today’s webinar is sponsored by the HRDQ Reproducible Training Library. The RTL consists of over 85 half day soft skills training courses, over 300 hours of high quality learning content. Each course includes instructor led classroom and self study versions, and a new virtual instructor led version has been added for each course the RTL it’s downloadable and customizable learning learn more at www.HRDQstore.com/rtl. And I’m excited to introduce our presenter today, Bill Ryan. Bill is the founder and principal consultant with Ryan consulting, using learning as a strategic business tool to develop and impact people to improve retention engagement and performance. Bill has a demonstrated record of corporate and industrial management experience leading performance support and instructional design teams globally, including government, high technology and health related industries. Bill holds an MS from Ithaca College focused on instructional design and a PhD in computing technology and education from Nova Southeastern University. Thank you for joining us today, Bill. 

01:34 

Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate it. And welcome everybody talking to you from Louisville, Kentucky this afternoon. I’m sweating rain here this afternoon. And if you see here, in the questions box, please jot down one thought you have about onboarding. When you say that word, what’s the word that pops into your mind? A great experience, terrific launches those questions for a into the answer or the questions box. I always want to say chatbox. I get confused. And if you tell me who you are, what your role is, I’d appreciate that too. But I really want to know what you’re thinking about onboarding. meet and greets as Anna. Well. That’s true. How many people though? Did you meet Anna real people from like your peers or people that were brought in to talk about? Need to sell your experience? Thanks, Julie. It’s an interesting one. Learning about the culture. Oh, Sherry, tell me more about the culture. Do they actually? Is it what you found to be true? Or was it something perhaps a little bit different? I’m curious about that. Onboarding is bad at best. Well, Herschel, thank you for being honest. It’s there’s a lot of one in Dunn’s. I think that gets into the, into the mindset sometimes of folks involved in that. That’s the soon to be assistant supervisors. Jennifer, congratulations. You hate there had been too much or not enough. A happy medium. I think we can talk a little bit about that. Because I think that’s one of the things that when we look at what onboarding is about, I think the question that comes into the, our conversation is, is what are we trying to have? What are we trying to make it work? I think, Debbie, you have a really, really good point WM shared here, that learning is the basic of the how-to’s of how things work communication organization. I think if we think about this, you know, a way to help people be successful. In the long run, we’re talking about a way to engage them and retain them. And here’s my bias. I think onboarding has been done poorly in the past. And, and the silver lining of this pandemic, has, we’ve had an opportunity to step back and think about a design that engages people in a way to increase their retention. Now, I also look at this as a way to because we’re focused on their performance, we’re focused on their success, that we can help find a way to reduce that time to proficiency because there’s a difference between, you know, going into work and being proficient. And I think there’s an opportunity that and Christy just shared here about onboarding, increasing the status and feeling of being ready to do the job at hand. I think there and I think there’s a divergence of what we think about in terms of what is onboarding role from my side, as, as the individual coming into the organization, and from the organization side, we’re going to explore that in just a minute. But one of the challenges I think the learning and development and the HR people face is is that that poll of you know the one and done compliance kind of things and and setting people up for success. So it’s about how we get people to look at what we’re trying to do and ultimately Follow the money. Now. I’m curious throw back in the chat. If I say chat you everybody, let’s agree, I may use the word chat. What we really mean is the question box. I should read the my own slide it says questions box. These, the numbers I’m going to share, haven’t all been updated in the 2122 span. So some of these are from 20. And some are from 21. And I’ll share what I got. But just as a rule of thumb, we can reuse these as kind of a benchmark 50% of hourly workers. How many months are they leaving? What what did you think? And what do you think now? If you have two answers, that’s okay. Just throw the numbers in there. Eight months is Christie. Six months is Anna. 22 months oh, Hunter and 24 months and 18 Oh, well, interesting. Laura 22 months, seniors leaving in 12 months? Oh, that’s a good one. We’ll come back to that one in a second. So in 20, this is from Sherm Society for Human Resource Management for months, hourly workers. I am guessing that that might have changed in the last 12 months, I cannot find any current data Sherm has not come back out with anything else. HR ATD, excuse me hasn’t come out with anything I could find. If you do find it. Share with me, I’d love to be able to update this one. Now. Somebody said senior hires 12 months I think 

06:32 

Sherry Sherry was saying 12 months Anybody got any ideas about seniors? Thinking about exempt people 18 months, Vanessa? Six months is Brianna. Jonathan 18 months, 18 months, 12 months Misty has for 18 months, not a year and a half. And that kind of makes sense. They kind of get through one cycle and realize it’s not working out. Now. What do you think the cost of just a percentage of their salary? We’re not taking compensation. We’re not taking benefits. And we’re taking an average of exempt and non exempt. What do you think as a percentage of salary 35% Is Jonathan 20% says Julie 40% is just Jana, and I’ve I’ve seen rod names wrong, please forgive me. My my my little screen is to my left. That’s why my eyes will you’ll see me looking at it 36% says Vanessa, Michael said the 50. And Michael’s close between 50 and 60% is the cost of salary. Now, that includes recruiting time, posting time, interviewing time for people involves all those parts and pieces of a salary compensation can take anywhere I’ve seen every I’ve seen varying statistics between if you take the compensation package of benefits, health, additional compensation incentives, or vacation times that you could take that and make it anywhere from 100 to 150% of this of what that salary is, is in when you start adding in the compensation so it gets a little query glass door, this glass door came in from the end of 2021. And this was again the averaging of exempt and non exempt days to fill a position or anything about days developer position 180 days is Jonathan 120 days says lower 60 and other 180. From Brianna. Julie says I went too fast. 5656 interesting days 52. Very close. I’m guessing this two has changed. And I’m guessing this is this changed dramatically more. And I’m guessing it’s again, I have not found anything. I’ve seen some antidotal in certain in certain areas. And on the clinical space hospitals, those areas, I’ve seen some retail numbers that are much higher. I’ve seen some manufacturing, though, that seems to be picking up and finding lower days, depending on the market to this came in from MIT. This this this came in tied to proficiency. Again, this was a range between exempt and non exempt. This came in at the end of 2021 I think it was December of 2021. Think about weeks, and then I’m gonna then we’ll then we’ll have a round kind of table. But tied to proficiency. And of course that’s assuming the organization has defined what proficient is. But between hourly people and non exempt that they’re being successful on their job. They are meeting performance expectations when he can I mean in terms of weeks, how long does he think it takes a retail person to be proficient? How long do you think it takes a manager to be able to you know work without being monitored consistently. What do you think those kinds of 26 weeks is Ana? 12. weeks is Jennifer. Jennifer? Yes, 12 to 16 weeks is Jonathan a year, says Maria of all 52 plus weeks, 78 weeks as Christie at 26. And, and a lot of this is, you know, comes about the learning curve. And, and and some of the manufacturing spaces and some of the retail spaces talked about, they looked at the time to proficiency as between 1% and two and a half percent of their total revenue. They’re saying for new hires in the hourly areas range from eight weeks and clerical jobs to 20 weeks for professionals and more than 26 weeks for executives. So I forgot who said 12 months. It was Jennifer, you know, for executives, I think that would be right on cue. But what is this get to the point of helping us have this conversation with our operational leadership people. All of these can be tagged with $1 Number, follow the money if somebody leaves in four months, and it took you 

11:10 

almost two months to fill a position, that six months of lost. So that can be equated to $1. So when we look at onboarding and what I’m going to propose to you, folks, is a change in how we look at this one and done issue. There’s a way to start looking at this as a return on learning that can be tapped into the language that our operational people like to talk about in terms of their investments. So that’s why I wanted to bring that out. Now, your last onboarding experience. What was either the worst or the best part of your last onboarding experience? And did you even have an onboarding experience for anybody who might have gotten a job over the last two years? I’ve talked to a couple of folks that have not had a job, or excuse me, did not have an onboarding experience. In the last as they took a job in the last two years. They literally were told, Well, here’s the zoom, blink, you’ll meet everybody. Now, I’ve heard a couple others too, so we’ll talk about that. But your last one was a good what was it? What made it good? The worst part? It came months after you started since sherry. Oh, Anna had different learning styles, or different communication styles. I’m guessing Anna, I’m just guessing there. A day and a half reading policies and procedures overfill I’m so sorry. That’s the one and a half plus done. out, I’m hovered for you. Jennifer had too much information and too short of time, not a lot of retention. You know, the fire hose approach? Is that what that was, the Chrissy had a good one was they were able to observe others in the same position. So little Sajak federally, that’s a plus. That’s a plus. Vanessa was overwhelmed. Again, it sounds like the fire hose. Very policy heavy in a short amount of time from DCLs training. I don’t know who that is. But again, you know, we’re going to have this kind of focus about what does onboarding have? And who is it for? You know, Debbie kind of got thrown into the deep bet. Here’s where the data is. Here’s the people that have to go for it. Oh, this that’s that’s Learning in Action, you know, workflow learning. Aha. Now, Jonathan had a good one, with a director led a genuine interest in sharing her knowledge of the organization. Positive, you know, when you can have somebody that helps create that, that this is accurate to the business network. You’re building for people to grow. And that’s, I think, a key part about this. And I won’t say somebody’s name got it. I am practically non existent. Oh, enough to make you cry at the end of the second week. I been there I moved my family to Louisville, Kentucky. My twins at the time were two and a half years old. And it was my wife’s first ever move. I’ve been a roadie. So I travel a lot. And I came here I went through the onboarding. About 60 days into this job, I, I went home and I went, I think I’ve made the worst mistake in the world. And I don’t know who cried harder. So and that’s a hotline. Luckily, luckily, it all turned around. I’m still here. I’m not at that job anymore. But it was it ended up being a good experience. But it is one of the worst feelings in the world. And I think that’s where onboarding has the chance to bring attention to engage people to help create performance success and help them stay. So Debbie actually had a chance to say that as a result of of her onboarding experience, you’ve implemented a new onboarding process while we may have to do Later on, we interested to hear how good that was. Sherry said them, interacting with other new staff and learning about other areas of the organization. So you’re building out a network, you’re building out that the people you need to have relationships with to be successful. It’s not just your peers, you know, it’s creating those connections with the support teams, the operational teams, they use support, or serve, or provide services to internally or the external clients and vendors. It’s it’s building that broader acumen of of knowledge that you had to use in the performance of the role. All those are really, really good. But I think what it highlights is that we have this kind of different view of what onboarding is. So put your organizational hats on your corporate suits, coding, coding finger series suits, from the viewer, the organization, what do you think onboarding should be? What should be in an onboarding program? 

16:02 

Oh, when I like Laura, Laura has the new hires are given a mentor work related as well as a buddy Laura, I mean this in those professional manner. Love it, love it. So that’s a great example. But if you were, you know, having to put your organization hat on, you’re managing budgets, you’re managing the the the operations, people who are crying for their people to fill the open roles. What do you think should be in you know, would be their their top things that they say this is what you got to have? This is what onboarding should be defined as they show up and your your training and learning department team and say, Give me this? What would this be from a from an organizational perspective? 

17:01 

Berea has the mission, vision and values and asking what they expect from the organization. Okay. Learning about the culture, and their fit in the organization policies and procedures and organizational priorities is Christy. You’re absolutely right. Getting introduction to the best immediate resources, Misty, okay, okay. ability to make choices. Learn alone or with a peer. You’re very, you’re very open minded. And I think it was Anna, sorry, Jennifer, given a training binder kala company policy, manual expectations, the priorities of the organization and strategic planning objectives is another Jennifer. Sorry, there’s a couple of Jennifer’s all those things? Absolutely. If you put this in from the organizational perspective, these are the things that you’re just describing here. You know, I love this, you know, Debbie’s got, you know, a presentation by the CEO, what the company is all about, right? All about, you know, the corporate view of where you fit in compliance issues. And we do need that, don’t misunderstand me, you know, we want to make sure if, you know, we’re all keeping the same rules, or we’re following the, the legal needs of the organization to stay. So we’re all on business score. So we all have jobs. But let’s take it from the other side of that fence. Now we’re sitting there, what are the things that you think the individual we should be providing that individual instead, if we were really focused on, on retaining them and engaging them? And still fitting I think Jonathan’s got a good point he talks about the training is online, and it’s in his schedule of the new hire. And that’s a good point. What what are the things that if you could change the organizational perspective, what would you add to it? Or added a list of who to call for what it’s great? Some openness and warmth DCLs Yeah, well talk about what humanity me silly, but you know, human and human resources. I love it. That’s absolutely you know, we should do I think I think the more we make this personal the more we get to the point where we build those relationships, it’s more than just a role sharing has a great point about you know, what does success look like in my role? Wow, yeah. You know, what will I be measured against the first 90 days who again whole idea of go who’s my go to who’s my immediate network that I need to have some some learning to our individual needs and and an usher that apart and I think that’s a good point and about, if we can create context of the content. There are certain things that certain people need to know, but it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes when you just kind of, you know, boilerplate, I think there has to be some kind of ability to do a duly suggesting, which is make it a little more interactive, you know, put some kind of opportunity to help people and into the concepts and connect to the purpose. So they can see that bigger picture from their roll, we got to grow, we got to we got to be successful here to be successful here. So I think those are all important kinds of things. And these are the kinds of expectations that I think the Jonathan really highlights is, is this whole positive reinforcement and feedback. Jonathan, I’m going to ask you one question here. Positive, reinforcing the feedback. And I have an answer in my head. So I’m going to I’m going to tell you upfront, but who should that positive reinforcement feedback be coming from? Elders, not multiple, Jonathan’s, I get a little, they go by fast as scrolls off their direct report. So their leader is what you’re what you’re suggesting is what? Yes, thank you, Jonathan. And, and I completely agree. There’s this point where we’re, we’re gonna get into that just a little bit. But you have to have that feedback. Am I doing okay? You know, I think what we’re seeing here, though, is this internal conflict, because organization needs people to go to work, you know, as soon as possible, they want to build, you know, start making money for him. And the new hire, wants to feel welcomed, valued, and heard. So this balance between effectiveness and emotions, and between creating that commitment to work. And a community of workers, I think, is where we’re kind of like going to end up all together. Now, I’m not going to ask anybody to mark this up. But I’d be curious on this, if there’s one thing you could add to the new hire programs that is in your shop right now, what is the one thing if you could add to this? 

22:01 

That would be a value. And why would you think it’s Jonathan asked the question, how do you know if you’re correctly performing a task or meeting actually patients? Yeah, if you don’t have feedback, you don’t know. If and this goes back to proficiency. I’m a big, I’m a big fan of of competencies, behavioral competencies, technical competencies, but looking at those skills and how they grew up, but you have to say, We want you to be able to achieve a level of proficiency, and that looks like this. And how do you get that kind of feedback? If you don’t have it between your leader? You know, and or the people that you’re providing that service and support to? I think that’s also a good opportunity to create that conversation that provides the feedback that you kind of go oh, okay, I’m doing good. I’m, I’m okay here. See, Jonathan’s a checklist, as a roadmap for success. Keep that checklist in the back your head, I’ll be back to you on that one. Use the time prior to day one says DCLs for doing paperwork and forums. Alright, you obviously went ahead of the presentation and looked ahead. I appreciate that. And we’ll dive a little deeper. But you are absolutely right. And that’s one of the Silver Linings I think we have in this this kind of remote space, is there’s an opportunity to do that. Where before people would, you know, HR, and it would go Oh, no, they have to be here, day one show up with their, you know, license and their security guard or whatever. There’s an opportunity, I think, to start doing more of that, before they show up on day one. And Anna, you know, brings out you know, empowering new employees by before putting them into the learner, less empowering mode. Okay. So, you know, how would you? How would you look at that, from that perspective? And where would you bring this kind of process of, of helping them fit in. So they slide into their role a little a little smoother. I think there’s opportunities where we can create those connections. And I’m curious if if somebody else you’re talking about I’m sorry, I forgot who suggested this, but they get mentors and get coaches. And I think that’s a part of it. And an ANA shared more that on the first day that new employees talk about themselves and their strengths, and recognize and can share them. I’m a big believer of those those kinds of skills. And I think I’m not a big believer of of using some of those kind of evaluation tools as hiring tools. But I am a big believer of if you could start to see and share how you like to share information. Are you a bullet person? I mean, it’s we all do this when we have a new leader, right? Do they want bullets? Do they want numbers do they want paragraphs? You know, we have to figure that out. That’s part of our part of our job. But a little bit of this, how we work with our peers, students You know, it’s just about the news. And we want to catch up on family for like two or three minutes, and then kind of get into what I’m here for. I think that’s a great idea. And of just having doing that, and Julie, the peer to peer mentors, that buddy system. And I do think there’s a difference between a buddy and a mentor, but we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But the idea of having someone to connect with, I think, is kind of vital. Because from the minute you start from accepted from the day of they accept that job until they want this is, I think, a prime time area to start engaging them in a pre boring initiative. You just I’m sorry. DCLs, you mentioned the idea of forums, they absolutely. 

25:45 

How many of us have and I raise my hand here? I’ve had to go on the tax forms, am I putting 1am I putting zero on my buddy to, you know, let me go quit call somebody who knows those answers, because I never remember, you know, now you got a little time, let me use it. You know, I would have some short videos, right of key staff, members, teammates, and have a, you know, little explanation of who they are what they do. And as informal as personal as possible. You know, this is this is, I think it matters more when I can see what my leader, my direct leader, and my teammates, I think that means more to me than it does, you know, hearing from the CEO. Now, yes, it’s nice to hear from the CEO, and maybe the CFO, and maybe the CIO. But there’s a point where I want to know, who are the people I’m going to work with, tell me what the day in the life is like. And if we could start getting access to people ahead of time to both like our learning and communication platforms, there is some informational content that is easy to share. And it can be done even if they, for whatever reason, maybe don’t start on day one, it doesn’t, you know, proprietary information, there’s some basic stuff that I think you can get, you know, how tos and, you know, filling out the forms and, and the nice part is some of this, you can let family members be involved. And having a support team for that new employee that is like engaged and positive about what’s going on. That’s important. And while we’re in this virtual space, why not think about, you know, inviting them to a meeting, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but if you want to, here’s a link, meet your team, meet your teammates, you know, and make it personal. And think about it a little bit from you know, what’s in it for me, from their perspective, put some fun kind of experiences together, maybe you’re having a team, so fill our invite them, you know, get to know more about them and get to ask them questions back and forth, you know, you know, low stress, low stakes kind of environment, and plan for a little more just in time training, you know, thinks about how we train in onboarding is, is kind of fixed on when they start. But it doesn’t some, it doesn’t often align with the business cycle. So if you’re going to have somebody who is going to have to do budgeting, and it’s they’re gonna have to use your budgeting system, why don’t you just start teaching them how to use that and do that, like three or four weeks before the cycle starts, or, you know, if they’re gonna have to do some kind of like expense report for him, you know, teach them how to, you know, use that a couple of weeks before they have to actually do one, don’t teach them, you know, six months ahead, and then expect them to remember it six months from now. You know, I think it’s the opportunities to create that learning experience, that that is timely, it reinforces the application of the time. And it combines the technical and the behavioral capabilities that we want people to be able to demonstrate. This is where we start building our leadership pipeline. You know, it starts for all levels, and it starts on day one. So that’s, you know, that’s my soapbox. And I own I admit that. Now, one thing I want to share with you, and there’s a link here is that Whoopsie daisy, I want to I want a click twice my apologies. Let me go backwards. Nope, I didn’t go. Sorry. I was I was looking at a note here, and I wasn’t watching what I was doing. On this is it for Human Resource Management. SHRM has come up with this wonderful guide, called the four C’s to onboarding. And it’s a PDF you can get from their site, it’s free. I’ve added one additional C career pathing because I think it’s this last C that provides a commitment that each party, the organization and the individual makes to each other, because it’s built on openness and a strong base for trust. It also has this issue of what we can do before they show up on day one, because the first part of the season is compliance. You know, it’s the lowest level, but it includes all the things that we want to make sure people don’t do wrong so we can all stay in good graces and you know, employed and all those kinds of things. It’s the basic legal and policy related rules and regulations. And it’s the first step, enabling new hires to access and complete both company and government documents and trainings and do it online. via some kind of an onboarding portal, most of our HR portals have external facing, and we can put stuff in there that there was a question. I’m sorry. Thank you, Jonathan for the intent of the EAA. But Julie had a question I’d like to share with everybody that I think has an impact to our conversation here too. Does the employee choose their mentor? Or does the department head assent? assigned a mentor, I’ve seen both. And Scott, it’s in a handout and it’ll come to you in the handout, it should be in the handout for that for the Sherm resource. 

30:34 

But I think it’s it’s usually the department from Jonathan. And I’ve seen both, too, I think it really does depend on how we’re looking at this. And I’m going to come up here and say, mentors and Buddy, buddies, usually somebody within your area, a buddy is a coach, somebody that can help you within your role area to provide connections direct, and guidance on how to perform a mentor is usually someone within the organization, usually it is slightly higher level that can help you network on a broader space, provide a different viewpoint of the business operations, and broaden your business acumen. So that’s how I’m using these terms. But I think that there’s an opportunity to have a buddy system, a coach that you can bring into it, and can be assigned, either either within the department, or at least within the division, somebody that’s close to what you’re doing, I think that works at best. And that’s somebody that can also then reach out ahead of time and say, Hey, let me help you with these forms. Let me let me, you know, you got a question about this, you know, maybe it’s an OSHA forum, maybe it’s a Safety Forum, I can tell you about this. But especially because all these things are online, let people do it ahead of time. And then HR can monitor you know, have you done it or not, and retain them for the amount of time they need to be retained. The next part comes into clarification. And I think that that’s about that having employees understand what their new job is all about, you know, knowing what your expectations are, is key, I want to I don’t want, nobody goes to work saying I want to fail, especially a new job. So this is about providing access, access to HR knowledge base, something like that SharePoint system, for example. You know, give, you can give people access to the HR kind of related information for onboarding, you can information about jobs, roles and responsibilities, kind of an FAQ, that list of contacts, in the context of the roles, so you know, if you’re in a finance team, you know, who’s your immediate finance team? And what business group are you going to be supporting? Who are those people, if you’re in a, if you’re an NIT, you know, you’re going to be supporting as particular platform, or who are the users, who are the primary supporters who are the support staff, those kinds of things, I think there’s an opportunity to get that, and being able to access this knowledge base is something they can do throughout their entire lifecycle as an employee of that organization. Now, and here’s another opportunity, though, to provide information to engage the family, you know, benefit information, calendar schedules. I mean, I don’t know about your family, but but in my family, one of us is really good about understanding the benefit package, and one of us is not, and any information that can be brought to the one who’s really good with the information about benefit packages is always always greatly appreciated, and not relying on the one who’s not I didn’t name any names, though. So this is the kind of opportunity to to reach out and make those kinds of connections, then you’ve got this whole idea of culture. And there’s, there’s corporate culture. And and I work for a very large company that had 34 at the time learning departments. Yeah. And, and let me tell you that they all supported different parts of the business. And there was cultures, within cultures within cultures. So I think this is a really broad category, and ended in it, it’s a two fold approach. You know, there’s the organizational norms, the informal and the formal ones. And this is where I think as local leaders, we have the opportunity to start engaging those people, those new hires, before they even show up here, it’s aligning people to purpose. And somebody said that earlier, I’m sorry, I don’t remember who. But this whole idea is this, like, if we take this onboarding portal, and start showing up where you fit in, where your role has an impact that what you do makes a difference. And it starts to reflect those cultural norms, the values the vision, and it builds up to that organizational identity as well. So in this way, you know, employees are, you know, immersed in that company culture before these, they started the job, and they have a feeling of where they kind of fit in within their own team and how their team culture kind of fits in. It’s, again, great place to bring in those welcome videos, some images of the of the business people on all on all levels. And I will say the more personal the better. One group I did some consulting work with pre pandemic, so it’s about three years, four years ago now, time has kind of shifted, they’re made it appointed to, they were getting into this pre boarding model before the pandemic, but they had great feedback from their new hires, because their team had chosen to volunteer to do. 

35:38 

l heck, when you build the house. Oh, goodness, I’m sorry, I forgot the name of the organization that Jimmy Carter has been very active involved. Oh, sounds like first name, oh. Where everybody gets together, Habitat for Humanity. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, thank you, thank you. DCLs, I’m so sorry, mental blank. But that was their team had chosen to do and they had done as volunteers and they posted pictures of her redoing it. And, and they got amazing feedback. You know, like, the little videos of the manager and their team were great. But but that showed new hires, what was really involved and what wasn’t what they valued as important. And that was important to bring out to them. And that’s the part that I think, you know, is we’re really building towards those connections, you know, that those interpersonal relationships and the information networks that it’s so hard to establish, you know, in the old days, you know, you pick up, you know, Johnny or Jane and, you know, walk them down the hall, and there’s a Sue and Sue xylophone right now. And, you know, this is Bobby, and you know, I’m sorry about it, you got it to do and you’d introduce people, here, we can actually be planful. And intentional. You know, let me introduce you to Su, Su handles our department budget, you’re going to need to work with Su, terrific, you know, Bobby is, is the project manager that does all our intake work, your work is gonna be on her body. And you need to know those people. So I think this is a way to, you know, start communicating within the team, and then start creating that network that they’ll be working with and supporting within their role outside of the network to, you know, from teams to zoom to, you know, other tools that we have available to us in buzzer slack, for example, it’s a great opportunity to start building that internal network. And here’s where a buddy can really be useful by making those interpret or making those personal connections, and taking five or 10 minutes and saying, let me introduce you to so and then, you know, they have a 1520 minute conversation. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s easy, it’s fast, and it’s personal, it’s a way to make things happen. And then the last part here is where I look at career pathing, I think this is a way to bring people together, to to lead to long and short term goals for both the business and for the individual. Now, it could be linear, it could be, you know, around, it could be up, it could move sideways, it could be up and down. The idea here is is that when people know that there’s a way to learn more and do more, they’re interested to stay more. And it’s great, because I think of organizations come out and say, Hey, in 18 to 24 months, we’re going to need some people that can do X, Y, and Z. And they can they can demonstrate a level of technical skills and behavioral capabilities. And here’s how you can achieve or acquire those skills and capabilities, and be prepared for the roles when we’re open. UVA, you’re building your own internal talent pipeline, with people who have already bought into the culture bought into the ideas, and and all of those things kind of come back together. And I think one of those parts of it is, is having the opportunity to show the future and the future is here in the future is now you know, so it’s I think it’s an opportunity to have leadership with their professional development as a part of an annual plan. And that way people know, hey, I’m valued. They want me to learn this stuff, that’s going to be an engagement, and show, hey, I’ve got a future here. And they’ll stay, more people will stay when when they feel like they have an opportunity to do that. And again, that is a long term thinking and, and is and Debbie is kind of looking about meeting team leaders, one on ones, and explaining what their team does is why I think that’s a great opportunity where again, this is the career path option to if you start showing different team leaders from different parts of the business that come in and talk to people. And it doesn’t have to be during that pre boarding area. Or it doesn’t have to be in that first 90 days. But if we look at the first year of an employee’s lifecycle, I think there’s opportunities to start pulling in those conversations. And those are opportunities. And Debbie thanks for that share because I think you can bring it in all different parts of the business to start saying, Did you know you can do this? No, you can do that. You know, I think this is an opportunity to broaden the conversation. And you can start building some curiosity into Wow, I wonder what else we do here. And I got hired to do this. But she’s, we do more stuff here. And, and this kind of came out of on Deloitte. And it just kind of shows that we are using more technology. And that’s okay. But I think one of the things that that is important is that no matter what the high tech is, we have to have that high touch. 

40:42 

DCLs just shared the the idea that value must be created before it can be demonstrated. Interesting. And and I think one of those areas of high touch comes into the idea of what’s valuable to me? And how can I share the value in a way that you understand? That comes back down to how do we build our networks and relationships? All those things kind of come together in terms of how do we get people connected? From the very beginning, this pre boarding idea, I think this is an opportunity to reach out no matter what system you have. But I’m going to say that we all must become really, really good friends with it. And I’m speaking as a recovering CIO. I mean, that was all jokes intended, I’ve been a clo too, it’s interesting path is a journey I’ve been on. And and and I will tell you that cookies and chocolate are a plus get access, they know how to do it, get them involved, get them in the conversations, shown some of the impacted us have them be part of the win on that return on learning, get them to help you with that access. I think that’s that’s an important part of it. And then bringing the personal connections to meetings, social hours, project plans, project meetings, they don’t have you know, this is one of those, it’s totally bad. If you’d like to join in, we’d love to have you just join us, you’re here, and it’s our remote, you know, suddenly get to come into the office, you know, and find parking and all those kinds of things. It’s, it’s that opportunity to start showing people in action, it’s an opportunity to start creating the conversation with the clients and the internal connections that this person will have to have, and use to be successful in their role. And then there’s the personal stuff. Let them start seeing all the different things that people talk about, whether it’s it’s the projects, you know, get a Slack thing going on. Or or, or the little groups that form, they may find that there’s a group, that slack group that started talking about a sport, or some kind of hobby, and they go, Oh, wow, me too. You know, we all have time, but we’re connecting on a personal level. And I think it’s important that we get that chance to make those connections outside of the work job and just the network job, you know, to have people that have affinity groups, you know, it might, it might have been a bowling league at one point in time or a golf League, you know, maybe it’s something else now. I worked with with a group, that we were implementing this kind of social media tool as they were connecting multiple manufacturing sites. And one of the most unexpected things from this manufacturing group. They made steel specifically and various kinds was, somebody started a Dungeons and Dragons group. And there were more people involved in that. It was it was amazing. And it was great connections, because it was in all of these different manufacturing plants across three different countries and multiple states here in the United States. But it’s personal. And why not? So let let that be something that we include. And so did they, Jonathan happens to be a d&d fan, so you have friends and I can introduce you should you ever go into this particular part. And it’s all about the personal aspect. And this is where I’ll say to leaders, such a difference just because you hire them, don’t wipe the sweat off your brow and all the hard works done. It’s not. This is where the opportunity to really focus comes in. I mean, pick up the phone and call it’s old fashioned, but pick up the phone and talk to him. You know, how are you doing? You know, everything going okay, any questions? You know, can I you know, everything makes sense. I’m a big fan of a card. A little thank you card goes a long way. I didn’t. I used to I used to moan about that I did I, I griped and groan until I went to a remote site. 

45:07 

When I was I lead a lead an international team and I went to one of the remote sites. And I saw these little handwritten notes, I’d said, you know, for prior years work, and I did particular example, and it was hanging up on a number of different people’s cubes. I’m like, You’re kidding me. I didn’t understand the power. I was, I get it now. It makes a difference. It’s, it’s the high touch. It’s how we create value, that that you matter, what you do is important, it makes a difference. And it back it goes, you know, from from the moment before they start day one. Thank you for joining us. I’m so looking forward to your help, I can’t wait for you to, like, join in and help us, you know, makes a difference. So I have a problem. I’m going to ask you folks to help me solve this problem. I had clients who had people that were traditionally the highly skilled incumbent workers, they were the best of their best. And they decided they would promote those people into a management role. And they were responsible for a regional office to 300 people. There were assignments there, they were on the profit and loss for that area. Dollar budgeting, they had not used these systems before. So the onboarding of these existing employees into this new management role was a three day, it was a two and a half day counting happy travel. And it was primarily all about how to use this customized financial system, because there was no, it was a homemade, homegrown platform. And a little bit of, you know, here’s that a supervisor’s office kind of stuff. And for some reason, they would leave and go back to their highly skilled expertise areas someplace else. 10 To 12 months. I rate of attrition. So they brought me in to say, what can we do to stop this? So I came up with an idea. And I’ll share it with you. But if you had the chance, what are some things you would do? Yes. So Debbie asked if anybody asked why they went back to their original roles? Yes. And they usually went to their roles at another company. They didn’t just drop back. They left the company, they went back, because when you went into management, part of your financial compensation package was tied to your success. And they weren’t being successful. And it was stressful. And it was not going to be really financially great. And they were really good at what they did. So they went someplace else. So yes, we did ask them that. Good question, Debbie. The best of the best do not always make good managers automatically says DCLs. And you are right. Were they given any managerial training? managers manage people not process very good point. No, they weren’t. Very good question, though. They were given a slight amount of like how to schedule people, but they were not given things about, you know, how to how to manage the people you were peers with. They weren’t given that No. Sarah, had a shared that. issues they saw as a contributor were not addressed management role just showed them that they couldn’t change the issues they saw and a lack of work on balance. Oh, yeah, management usually has longer hours, I was already good points here. They kind of knew the hours were going to change. They were there. Michael asked if they were on boarded well, they had this three day orientation session. They really didn’t have a onboarding. I and I will tell you, I did make it a formal onboarding versus kind of a orientation. You know, welcome to being a leader one on one is what they had and it didn’t work. Yeah, and Maria, your point is about having hard skills, but like in the soft skills, and they didn’t even have the hard skills. I mean, they were great. technical people, they they were not financial people are used to using you know, financial platforms, that kind of thing. So it suggested Do they need a mentor? I Yes. I would agree with that. Debbie. That was a was something that was brought into it. Christy shared out that they went from feeling extremely competent to less competent, yeah, less less satisfaction. They were kind of all by themselves. all’s I changed that too? So that’s a good point. Christy 

50:05 

Benita said, let’s see, it was systematic or individual look at processes and not assume it was training. Stay interviews. Good point. It was I will say it was, I think it was more process. But it was a it was a little bit more people were on their own. So that’s a very good point. I bought it was way too fast that Anna and an appropriate support. I agree with that. I think the support is key. And I addressed that in my solution. What kind of things would you add added? Drummond? Did anyone ask them what they needed to grow and give it to them? Now, in the new role, it was kind of once they don’t know what they don’t know. The question I went out and did was to the people that had stayed, I went to them and said, What did you need? That we didn’t give you? So to them? I did do that question. I did kind of look at an ad 20. Follow up with people that had continued to stay not the new people coming in. And maybe that’s what you meant. And I misinterpreted the question. So if I did forgive me, please. Laura, Laura asked if they could sit with the previous managers, usually they had already left. But But I, I think the question is, could we create a cohort where they might have a buddy system? And that is something that was brought into the conversations. And, Jonathan, your point about feedback from leaders in the organization about what was a hit or miss, I went back to the people and said, you know, what, basically said, what did you learn that you weren’t taught? And what did you need to be? What did you find that you needed to be successful? Were all the parts and pieces. And we started with that kind of stuff? Yeah, I mean, it a little bit of so think about backwards design, I’m kind of a fan in some ways is like, you know, let’s define what success, you know, describe what it looks like. And then let’s define how that success is measured. And then let’s see where you are, and fill in the gaps and that kind of, of, you know, process and get you to where you can be successful. So, one of the things that So, so let me go forward and tell you about this. And we got two minutes here. So the first thing I kind of did was gaming, before, I backed up HR and said, you know, you, we didn’t give much of an option, you kind of say, We’re gonna approach you. And I finally said, let’s give them an option here. And we started out with, here’s a day in the life, you know, because sometimes the manager left and we didn’t have the chance to do a connection, I said, Let’s just have a day and a lot, this is what a successful day in the life will look like. Okay. And then as as, as program went on, we would get, we’d assigned demo buddy, from the prior group of, of technical people who become leaders. Initially, it was we had somebody who was head down there and been successful and they buddied up, but eventually we created a cohort where, you know, the one before now was the buddy to the one behind, we also had kind of a series of short, like, less than five minute presentations, on a broad range of topics, with with links to additional materials that they wanted, negotiations, coaching, appear, dealing with conflict, kind of things, so that they knew these, you’re gonna be walking into this, this is a hot mess, and it’s gonna be yours. But you can you can succeed and make it stopping this, you know, plan is a good four letter word, those kinds of things. And then then we’ll get one of the things was, we had a checklist. And it was based on the business calendar of things they had to do with links to all the resources that were going to be involved, but to reports, you know, when things had to be done, all those kinds of things. So that was the first thing we did. Now, assuming they went forward on it. What we ended up having then was I made a 12 month onboarding program. It was a year long program. Because I said to him, he says, This is important. And it’s going to be in the context of the job, it’s going to be in the roles that you’re going into. And we’re going to have this kind of, you know, process is ongoing, and we’re investing in you because we want you to be successful. And the other thing we did to make sure that was successful. And I for some reason, I think Jonathan, you’ve jumped in my brain. While he as we did was in the first 90 to 120 days, we had mandatory lead one on ones with their immediate leader. short note on the side. I mean, I worked in the academic community at one point time and I saw this online program and we had this humongous drop in withdrawals and it was like the day before you If you’ve dropped out then and withdrew, you got all your money back. And I found out that the reason people did that is because they never had any quizzes or tests, they had no feedback. So they weren’t sure if they were being successful in that class or not. Same thing here, if you get no feedback, are you being successful or not? So we made it one on ones, we made it, we and we made a part of their job, we put it into their performance evaluation says you got to talk to people, and you got to guide them. And we provided them coaching and training as well, and how to be a coach to your new your new employee, who’s new, who’s a new leader. So we had real time coaching sessions we brought in for certain people, we would bring an external coaches to help coach the coach, Coach Coach, and make that cycle go round. So that was a little bit of that as well. Now, as time went on, what we started to do was build that network of the other people in that situation. So we created a cohort learning community. And for month phoron, they work together that we, you know, scheduled stuff with them social as well as non social, because they’re all spread out all over the country. So we did that. And this is a horrible image, and I know it, but this is just to give you the idea that there was a plan of when the training should happen. So we self study, someone was peer, some of it was synchronous, but webinar based, but it was all around the idea that it was around a business lifecycle. So we didn’t teach in the budgeting, you know, and wait six months before the budgeting cycle went into play. We didn’t go into peer evaluations and how to conduct an evaluation until you know, in January, even though they don’t do them until November, we tried to do it 30 days ahead of time, just so it’d be fresh and hot in our minds. 

56:38 

So this whole idea, and this is your handout, by the way, you don’t need any notes on this. But the whole idea is that there’s a process that you can use. And it all revolves about just being human, and engaging the person high touch, use the high tech reach out in advance, you know, make sure they have all the things that are going to need in advance, you know, they need a laptop or a printer at home, get it to them, if there was swag they would have on a desktop, send it to their home, everybody likes a coffee cup, everybody can use a new mug. You know, everybody can use a t shirt, with the new company and all kinds of stuff, you know, these are the things that that matter, make sure they have it, you know, start as soon as you can. If they say yes, I want to join your team, make introductions, create connections, clients, peers, support groups, and include those names, titles, contact information, phone, numbers, emails, all those kinds of things. And you know, so they have it as a reference point. And get them involved in the broader sense of the community. You know, as time went on, while we brought in is, you know, about months, six through nine, we’d start bringing them mentors, people who were a little more senior. And we started to show them the bigger picture, build that business acumen. Because it really makes a difference in terms of how people will. And then as leaders walk the walk, model the behavior you want, you know, reach out, touch, show how you do it, too. And keep it simple, and keep it personal. You know, from virtual happy hours to social networking, you know, make people come together, use breakout rooms and let people like talk about stuff. It doesn’t have to be of a 20 person team. It doesn’t have to be all 20 You know, 10 minutes, five people have something to do and talk about it a little bit. That’s, I think part of the conversation you had to have. Because when you do it well, they stay. People are happy people are engaged when they had feedback, and they know what they can do. If they have feedback, and they know what they can get better at. Everybody’s a winner. Jonathan said holistic onboarding. I love that. Can I use that line? I like that holistic onboarding. That’s terrific. Thank you, Jonathan. That’s very kind of you. I’m willing to stay here. I want to thank everybody very much. I appreciate it. If you have questions, throw them in there. I appreciate how much you folks have been engaged in ivaldi have some amazing suggestions for anybody whose name I butchered, I apologize. But I hope I was able to share some of the ideas that that you as a community brought out that we can all use and and we can share you know, please feel free to link in with me or bring a connection out and we can we can build our own community as well. 259 just checked out. It just turned three o’clock. 

Sarah  59:50 

Bill that was great. That was such a great session. It was filled with so much fabulous information and we had a great audience with us today who are keeping that conversation going with you and that questions area 

1:00:06 

there you are Christy. Yes. The crispy asked if I put my email back up, I realize you can’t always see that. Yeah. Thank you all for all of your inputs. And Sara, thank you for the support as always your rock star in the background. Thank you very much. 

Sarah  1:00:24 

Yes, and thank you, Bill. It’s always a joy working with you. And today’s webinar was sponsored by the Reproducible Training Library from HRDQ, providers of downloadable and customizable courseware. Now with a virtual instructor-led version, you can learn more at HDDQstore.com/rtl. And HRDQ memberships offers over 200 Human Resource webinars like sessions from today to trainers, consultants and coaches keeping you in the know with industry trends. You can learn more at www.hrdqu.com/memberships. And then that does bring us here to the top of the hour. Thank you very much again, Bill for joining us and thank you all for participating in today’s webinar. Happy training.