How to Create Great Culture Through Onboarding

Today, we are going to focus on creating culture by facilitating relationships during the onboarding process – a very important piece of the onboarding puzzle!

Here's a recap from my last newsletter on Onboarding to jog your memory:

91% of new hires will determine if they want to start/stay based on how they are onboarded.
The boss is the best person to onboard.
You need a PLAN ahead of their start date.

There are many elements to great onboarding – we will focus on them over the next weeks.

ONBOARDING PRINCIPLE #1 - CREATE GREAT RELATIONSHIPS

To ensure that your new employee is set up for success, you must start by facilitating great relationships.

On the first day, you should say something like, “While we want you to get to your work soon, you will see that we have put quite a few meetings, lunches and coffees on your calendar. We feel that this is crucial for you to spend time with the people that will be important in your work relationships.”

Then, you as their manager will set up all these meetings prior to their first day and those events should be on their calendar when they arrive. Don’t leave it up to them to schedule the meeting.

Communicate to the people they will be meeting with that these are critical and you expect them to follow through and meet. Do not let more urgent things get in the way.

Efforts like this create Culture because relationships are crucial. Here are some relationships that I believe need to be fostered:

Peers – Create lunches and coffees and meetings in the first 4 weeks for all peers (in their own department and across departments – like Finance, HR, etc). The new employee can do these meetings in groups or one on ones.
Manager/People Leader – You (as the boss) should have the first meeting with them on the first day – no exceptions. If you are taking vacation that week – do not have them start. It is important for you to take at least 15 minutes/day in your schedule to meet with the new employee (for the first 2 weeks) and see how they are doing in their onboarding. Then, create meetings every Friday for 30 minutes for the first 60 days. Have them set and do not miss them!
Customers – If they are customer facing, creating lunches/opportunities to have one of your team go with them to meet the customer (or zoom is necessary). Make sure when the person introduces them to your best customers, that they praise the new person and tell them how excited they are to be taking over.
Other high-level employees in your company – If there are others that are executives that they will be working with, make meetings with you and the other executive and the new employee. It is important for the high-level execs to meet WITH them and not just walking by their desk.

I’m pretty sure that very few small businesses do this.

And even fewer do this well. It’s FREE. And impactful. You’ll be surprised how well it goes and how your overall employee engagement improves as well!

As always – if you need some help to put together a great onboarding plan – call us! We have quite a bit of experience in this area and can help your team create a memorable few months for your new hires.

Here are the ways to get in touch with us:

Email me at cfiler@innovative-outsourcing.com
Go to our website: https://www.innovative-outsourcing.com/
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