Page 22 - Successful Onboarding

Introduction • 11

designed integration into the firm, and address both new hires’ diverse
needs and the firm’s strategic goals.
We’ve written Successful Onboarding to get the word out about strate-
gic onboarding’s potential, and by extension, about that of the broader
human resources discipline. We hope that senior leadership will support
onboarding as a worthy initiative that really can create new value for their
firms. Experience has shown that best outcomes occur when decision mak-
ers throughout a firm get excited by the value, buy into the program, par-
ticipate in supporting the requisite systemic changes, and feel personally
invested in the program itself. We therefore have sought to provide read-
ers with information that can help drive successful discussions with impor-
tant participants in the system. Additionally, we’ve written this book
because we want every hiring manager in every organization to understand
the onboarding process better, and because we want to raise awareness and
know-how among HR leaders, many of whom still remain unfamiliar with
strategic onboarding’s promise.
There is a significant need for more clarity on this subject. As we’ve
worked in our own practice to give onboarding more depth and rigor, we’ve
encountered a great deal of confusion—a situation that’s gotten worse as
more players have sought to jump on the onboarding bandwagon. Over
the last few years, a number of vendors have developed valuable off-the-
shelf software for use by human resources professionals. But this software
as implemented usually serves merely to automate the administration of
orientation activities. Given the wide promotion and availability of this
software, managers interested in learning about onboarding often develop
a limited impression of the subject as a result of the information they find
when they Google the topic.
One software vendor’s web site, for instance, defines onboarding as a
process that involves the following exchanges with a new hire: Hiring Doc-
uments, Employee Handbook, Drug Screen, Relocation, Computer, Net-
work Access, Workstation Setup, ID Badge, Security Access, Parking
Permits, Business Cards, Expense Account—all “first-day” activities. Then
the vendor talks about attrition activities: Security Deactivation, Asset
Recover, and Exit Interview—“last day” activities. It’s ironic (or tragically
comical) that this model completely ignores all of the important
elements—the things in between the first and last day of employment. And