Page 258 - Successful Onboarding

Getting Started: Conducting a Program Diagnostic • 239

Table 8.1 Sample Framework for Identifying Program Objectives
Example Example Example
Organizational Goals Program Shortcomings Onboarding Redesign Objectives
Strengthen Senior • New management-level hires • Develop tools and resources
Leadership pipeline lack effective career to ensure management-level
development support or hires understand their career
mentoring relationships with prospects with the
company leadership organization and have the
necessary Senior Leadership
• No formal mechanism exists
support to achieve their
for identifying and nurturing
development goals
“top performers” early in
their careers
• Career path and promotion
opportunities are not clearly
outlined for new management-
level hires
Transfer knowledge • Campus hires indicate that • Provide forums and structured
and company culture they have limited opportunity networking activities that
from retiring “Baby to form relationships with and enable new hires to develop
Boomers” to future learn from with more relationships with more
generation of experienced employees tenured company employees
employees
Become more • New hires indicate that the • Develop a brand for the
competitive in organization has only a enhanced Onboarding
regional recruiting modest employment brand in program that can be
marketplace the recruitment marketplace promoted as a key
employment differentiator in
• Onboarding program is not a
the recruitment marketplace
clear differentiator for
prospective hires
Increase new hire • New hires at all levels believe • Provide more robust early
time-to-productivity the organization could do a career support and job skills
better job of communicating training to better prepare all
“unwritten rules” and job new hires to meet
expectations organization expectations

leads us to determine where the opportunities lie for improving the
onboarding program. Table 8.1 provides a sample framework for identi-
fying program objectives.
Some of the opportunities you choose to address might have originated
from the internal and external best practices uncovered during the prior
research phases. Others will have emerged during the course of internal
discussions that are not in practice elsewhere. You will need to decide