Page 274 - Successful Onboarding

Driving Implementation—From Blueprint to Impact • 255

To realize the Onboarding Margin, think about how this class of new
hires can help the business area achieve its mission, and build around that.
We also recommend including in advisory roles: A leader from the company
(and business unit) strategy group; the chief talent officer; regional talent
delivery leads; recruiting leaders; functional and business unit HR or learn-
ing leaders; and an internal communications leader.
With content design underway, designers should take care to leverage
existing HR programs to the extent possible. While existing programs will
often need enhancement or updating to reflect the guiding principles of
the new onboarding initiative, they can serve as an excellent starting point.
If you haven’t yet done so as part of the diagnostic process, take inventory
of all existing HR programs and materials, including training modules,
performance review systems, mentoring programs, firm social events, ori-
entation content, and Web content, and think about linkages between
these groups and activities. Often, we see pre-existing links between
onboarding and learning and development, recruiting, human resources,
and training programs. Identify opportunities to include locally owned ini-
tiatives within the larger onboarding umbrella.
Having touched on the importance of customizing onboarding to specific
new hire segments, at this point in the process it’s important to develop a
baseline of content that serves as a basis for knowledge and is common across
all new hire groups while also identifying content that needs to be tailored
to the needs of certain key new hire segments. Organizations should pay spe-
cial attention to groups of employees it has more difficulty recruiting as well
as those who fall into “feeder roles” to senior management positions. Offer-
ing program elements to one group of new hires and not another can prove
sensitive. Ideally, everyone would receive the full range of premier services,
but the reality is that the size of your content development team, your time-
frame for producing new content, and the cost of delivery will require prior-
itizing segments that would most benefit from customized material.
Given the large number of participants who typically assist with con-
tent development, it’s critical to outline roles and responsibilities for
everyone at the outset. With roles and responsibilities clear, the team can
begin identifying materials needed for each constituency to deliver against
their responsibilities. Mapping delivery roles and responsibilities also
addresses frequent pain points, such as key handoffs between onboarding