Page 42 - Successful Onboarding

The Business Case for Onboarding • 31

Take another example. Perhaps your organization hires an individual
with a couple of years of experience in the industry who meets Recruit-
ing’s minimal requirements for capability and drive as discussed. Because
the individual comes from the industry, it is reasonable to expect that he
or she has some Context and Connectedness (i.e., contacts) that may be
valuable in the new position. Together, this may warrant a score of 4 in all
four categories, yielding an overall NHC of 16. This represents a 60%
increase in new hire contribution from the “base case” inexperienced
employee discussed previously. Whether or not the “perfect” NHC score
exists (or you have had the great pleasure of working with a new hire who
achieves one) is beyond the point of this text, but you can play with this
model and think about your existing employees and the candidates in your
recruiting pipeline and see how their differences in capability, context,
connectedness, and drive result in different NHC scores.
We’ve discussed New Hire Contribution, but how exactly can your
onboarding program impact it? Chapter 2 shows that a strategically
designed program encompasses a multitude of elements, including engage-
ment and networking, effective training modules for teaching culture and
strategy, mentoring programs, early career development programs, and
much more. Each of the onboarding program elements acts as a con-
tributing force for at least one, if not several or all, of the four factors that
make up NHC. We refer to the combined effects of the onboarding ele-
ments together as the Onboarding Multiplier. The equation that follows
summarizes these effects.

The Onboarding Margin New Hire Contribution
(Onboarding Multiplier) (Capability
Context Connectedness Drive)

The elements of an onboarding program, represented in the Onboard-
ing Multiplier, therefore, enhance the core variables of New Hire Contri-
bution. Onboarding elements can in fact significantly affect the score an
individual would receive in each of the four NHC variables by providing
stronger opportunities to develop in each of those areas when compared