Page 229 - Successful Onboarding

The Onboarding Margin Life Support System • 213

Impressions matter. Individuals other than the new hire community will
interpret your onboarding brand. If hiring managers don’t believe onboard-
ing delivers serious outcomes, they will see this as just another adminis-
trative task, and they will not participate or encourage new hires to
participate. Onboarding program designers need hiring managers’ buy-in,
so they should create a metric system around their needs. Also, firms
should continually improve and update the onboarding programs; that
way, hiring managers will continue to see the program as productive and
remain excited about participating and supporting it.
As management guru Peter Drucker promoted, “What gets measured, gets
managed.” As onboarding continues to grow as an HR management disci-
pline, expectations to measure performance are increasing. Specific metrics
tracked by onboarding leaders across organizations can and should vary
depending on companies’ unique onboarding program objectives. Many
companies are relying on both qualitative (surveys, focus groups, etc.) meas-
ures and quantitative (cost-savings) measures and blends of the two (perceived
time to productivity) to assess the value created through onboarding.
In addition to enterprise-level metrics, more advanced onboarding
programs apply metrics to employees responsible for delivering program
components. Programs committed to measuring success and ensuring
accountability are also developing metrics for each group of onboarding
team members. These data prove invaluable for identifying areas of
strength and opportunities for improvement.
As stated earlier, one of the onboarding Program Manager’s chief
responsibilities is to monitor program performance and ensure that the
enhanced program is meeting intended objectives across the organization.
Often the program will require tweaking in a few areas post-implementa-
tion, and it will most certainly require periodic updates to meet changing
organizational priorities. By the pilot stage, the organization should already
have new hire and new hire manager surveys in place as well as initial
baseline measures to monitor program effectiveness and satisfaction.
Although these will prove important inputs, leading programs typically
track a number of additional metrics and indicators—data that surveys can-
not necessarily glean.
The metrics tracked by your organization will depend on your pro-
gram’s organizational objectives. If your program seeks to increase your