Knowing your new company is a market leader and career prospects are just what you have been looking for, we focus on how an you can make the most of your first 90 days in your new role.

Being mindful of these tips will certainly help you transition into your role promptly and effectively, adding value immediately.

1. Connect and build relationships early, horizontally and vertically, with key staff members who understand the company culture and business standards.

2. Be proactive and ask as many questions as you can to understand what your new job entails, including what the company’s expectations of you are.

3. Ask your line manager and colleagues how they would prefer to be contacted and how often (email, telephone, meetings etc).

4. Align your role to the company goals and objectives; however don’t take on too many big projects in the first week. Settle in with a few smaller projects to ensure you are on the right track.

5. Be flexible and adaptable; get to know your role. If there is something you have been given that you are not sure about, get your books out and research them.

6. Complete start up documentation immediately to avoid unnecessary paper chasing and familiarise yourself with policies and procedures quickly.

7. Insist on regular reviews with your line manager to make sure that you are performing at the level you should be in the Onboarding process.

Paying careful attention through the induction and orientation process, asking the right questions and taking notes for easy reference will certainly assist you in succeeding through the first 90 days in your new role.

To learn more about how you can best maximise your New Role Success, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

The ROI for business are huge cost savings; greater productivity and increased retention.

We know Onboarding is a key component of an overall talent development strategy that also includes aligning both new hires and internally promoted employees to an organisation’s strategy.

There should be an alignment between business drivers and carefully designed systems and processes, that includes aligning people practices to organisational strategy and business outcomes.

Achieving strategic alignment means a well-developed Vision, Mission and Values statement should exist in the business. Arising from this is the need to ensure a one to five year business plan is in place driving right from the mission. There must then be a clear alignment between departmental and functional objectives and the business plan. The all-important final link is to ensure individual objectives are aligned to departmental objectives that help the organisation achieve its vision.

A critical step in Onboarding is that decision makers agree on the need for a new role and how it will ultimately contribute to the overall purpose of the business. The profile of the person that would best deliver the role outcomes is equally important otherwise recruiting a poor fit can spell danger for the company.

The alignment of people to an organisation’s direction is an imperative aspect of employee engagement. How quickly and how effectively new hires feel aligned to their Company’s strategy should be on every Executive’s agenda as is fast tracking them to a state of competence and engagement. The net result is that new hires can start adding value sooner than later.

Each employee should have a clear insight into how they can add value and how they are valued by the business. By setting clear expectations with the employee about their role and contribution, sets the stage for success. People are informed and in alignment from the start meaning there is little scope for misunderstandings about expectations.

Many organisations fail to prepare properly for their new employees success before they commence the recruitment process. A well thought out Onboarding plan that has involved key stakeholders will go a long way to ensuring the importance of Onboarding and effective alignment. Hiring Managers and HR play a central role in delivering Onboarding outcomes.

The recruitment and selection process is directly linked to Onboarding and vice-versa which makes it logical to have the two processes aligned. An area that can often be overlooked is in selecting people who have a strong alignment to the organisation’s values. Getting this right increases the speed to competence, improves engagement levels and increases retention rates.

Learning and development provides an extremely useful platform for understanding what drives and motivates new hires, which may increase their level of engagement. Working with them to align these drivers with their working environment will prove beneficial in the long term where employees become driven to succeed.

Executives and hiring managers should take every opportunity of sharing the organisational strategy with each new hire demonstrating how they link to it, so they feel aligned with the organisation early on.

Key to alignment is planning. By having a plan to get each new hire and the organisation in full alignment allows for smart Onboarding that becomes a key component of culture and will, without a doubt, impact business results.

The following strategies should help to ensure there is alignment during Onboarding:

• Onboarding Plan. Be sure the written plan well is well designed and involves key stakeholders with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
• Role purpose. Ensure there is agreement around the need for the role and how it ultimately contributes to the overall mission of the business.
• Recruitment and Selection. Incorporate a Values Motives Inventory to ensure a strong alignment between individual and organisational values.
• Stakeholders. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities will enable better planning and ownership of the process.
• Learning and development. Understand what drives new hires and motivates them that may increase their level of engagement.
• Performance expectations. Set clear expectations with the employee about their role and contribution early on to ensure their success.
• Alignment. Ensure the Onboarding strategy is aligned to other business processes for maximum effect.

A structured Onboarding program will help new hires quickly grasp the organisation’s business and how their role fits in the business.

The key message is Onboarding plans should be aligned with how new hires and internally promoted employees can maximise their contribution/value in both the short and long term. Individual alignment with departmental and functional objectives is essential.

To learn more about how you can best invest in and maximise your Onboarding and people management strategies that deliver measurable business results, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

In this article, we share tips on how you can successfully integrate your new hire’s from their first days on the job. There is no rocket science to this process, merely a well-developed plan that, if not followed, will lead to a waste of time and money. We have mentioned in previous articles how organisations have much to lose when new hires don’t meet expectations and fail to add value.

Can you afford not to manage your Onboarding process?

Taking these 7 tips into account will help your new hires add value quickly and effectively.

1. SOCIALISATION of your new hire to connect with other employees who can provide information and build relationships

2. Communicate the company CULTURE to your new hire for them to understand the organisation norms.

3. Continual CLARIFICATION of tasks to ensure your new hire understands their new job and what your expectations are of them.

4. Managing COMPLIANCE by informing new hire of basic legal and policy related procedures, rules and regulations, and paperwork requirements.

5. Comprehensive INDUCTION to share history, mission, values, products and markets etc. making sure the new hire is suitably familiarised with the company.

6. An ORIENTATION of the company structures, amenities and introductions to other staff will allow the new hire to get on with their job.

7. Get new hires up to speed with an ALIGNMENT to goals and objectives (company / department / individual) will guarantee added value quickly.

Regularly reviewing and updating company and job information, policies and processes and general information, will have your new hires meeting their job commitments very quickly.

To learn more about how you can best maximise your New Hire Success, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

While most of us are no doubt familiar with one or more of these terms, at some stage or other in our working careers we have been ‘through the mill’ or ‘thrown in at the deep end and left to sink or swim’ so to say, with differing experiences and opinions that I am sure we can share in person over a coffee.

The fact of the matter is that these three critical processes have a significant impact on productivity and employee engagement levels that we know ultimately drive bottom line results.

Why then are Onboarding, Induction and Orientation important to business outcomes and how can we benefit by getting it right? A good starting point is to define what each of these terms mean.

Onboarding is a transformational process aligning the new employees’ talents with the employers’ business objectives, inspiring the employee to help meet those objectives and reinforcing the decision made by employee and employer to join forces. This process ensures the successful assimilation into the organisation’s culture, shortens the time to productivity, minimises turnover and maximises impact with the goal of achieving long-term success.

Induction is the process that generally contains information about work health and safety, company history, company culture and values, the organisation hierarchy, compliance training, policies, benefits and eligibility and anything else relevant to working in the new company. People are mostly inducted at a corporate, departmental and role level 

Orientation is a transactional activity that introduces new employees to the organisation, each department, to fellow employees, to their immediate supervisor and amenities.It often includes being exposed to jobs in each department to understand the flow of the product or service through the organisation and training on-the-job

It is clear that Onboarding is deeper and more meaningful than just providing an easy route through new-hire paperwork, compliance training and introductions.

Organisations have much at stake when new hires and promoted employees don’t meet expectations and fail to add value. Money, time and resources have been invested in the recruiting and hiring process, making it essential to ensure the success and retention of new hires.

Onboarding, a vital component of an overall talent development strategy, is an on-going process that begins a long way before the induction and orientation activities kick-in and is integrated into the attraction, selection, induction, performance and initial development stages of the employee lifecycle.

Onboarding plays a critical role in helping new hires and re-deployed employees begin to add value quickly, setting the essential foundation for developing and sustaining an effective workforce.

Research tells us employees who participated in a structured Onboarding program were 69% more likely to stay with their organisation after three years than those who did not go through a program (Ganzel, 1998) – clear evidence that it increases employee engagement. Further, the Hunter Douglas Company found that by upgrading their Onboarding process they were able to reduce their staff turnover from a staggering 70% at six months, to 16%.

The key take-away is for Executives to link the success of their Onboarding strategy to business results. If it is working as it should, executed with thought and skill, it will be reducing attrition, increasing the speed to competency of new hires and as a result improving customer satisfaction levels and profitability.

The following strategies should help to eliminate potential consequences of not having the right processes in place:

• Onboarding Plan. Be sure to have a written plan well in advance that forms a key part of any talent management strategy.
• First month. Make the first day a celebration. Set goals and expectations and provide feedback regularly for continuous improvement.
• Best practice. Continuously review and improve your Onboarding process by soliciting feedback from employees and benchmarking with best practice.
• Buddy/Mentor. Assigning a buddy and or mentor provides immense value to the new employee’s joining experience and builds commitment.
• Cost of disengagement. Have processes in place that ensure people feel aligned with the organisations direction quickly and that they become successfully immersed in the daily activities of their work, creating a sense of belonging.
• Cost of re-recruitment. Ensureefficient, cost effective processes are in place to avoid leaking money every time you recruit. Be sure to budget for re-hiring costs.
• Cost of incompetence. Well-structured Onboarding programs incorporating assessment, feedback and development, can greatly shorten the time to competence.

Considering new hires provide little value in the first three months of employment, the impact of any lag in the level of capability of the workforce will be felt exponentially in a company’s financial results.

Onboarding programs executed with little strategy or purpose will leave new hires and promoted employees questioning their decision to work for the company and elongate their initial period of incompetence. A poor process will leave people feeling disjointed from the organisation rather than engaged and can contribute to attrition problems placing the business at risk.

Since Onboarding touches many stages of the employee lifecycle, the practical tips provided herein will certainly help increase the speed-to-competence of new hires and to support Executives in fast-tracking their engagement.

To learn more about how you can best invest in and maximise your Onboarding and people management strategies that deliver measurable business results, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

Company benefits and interactive communication channels are important factors for staff as to whether they remain committed to your business or not. The most used ‘buzz’ words, ‘Employer of Choice’, mean different things to different employers. How do you determine whether you are an Employer of Choice

Company benefits and interactive communication channels are details that all employees are made aware of at interview stage and for some employees, certain benefits mean more than others. Be clear on what you offer over and above what is legislated.

Below we share 4 tips to ensuring your employees will stay for the long run and also be productive, during their term with you :

1. Open channels of communication where employee feedback is asked for, valued and acted upon.

2. Offer promotions and bonuses to your top performing employees to show you acknowledge their contribution.

3. Promote self-development; ensure regular performance reviews with a defined career path so employees have a goal to work toward.

4. Flexible work arrangements are encouraged, particularly in the case of working parents, which allows you to retain top talent.

In order to reduce the impact of unhappy staff and subsequently being faced with high staff turnover, recruiting and retaining top performers by following the above tips, will ensure your organisation can be referred to as an ‘Employer of Choice’.

To learn more about how to ensure your organisation develops and implements great benefits and communication channels, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

From strategy to people to employee engagement, we work with clients to improve their return on people investments and deliver measurable business results.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

Considering most organisations have pretty stringent goals to achieve annually, the pressure is on for Executives. With the stakes high, these annual goals need to be cascaded down throughout the organisation at a business unit level and team/individual level. Similarly, these goals are translated into measurable monthly and quarterly objectives ensuring the organisation is, as a whole, on target.

Most businesses experience problems with staff turnover; productivity; cost control; employee engagement levels and process inefficiency. Attracting and retaining their employees is another area of significant pain that companies are constantly challenged with.

As referenced in previous articles, there is ample evidence out there to support the fact that in the absence of such a critical business process, organisations will continue to be exposed to risk.

When you factor in the average monthly salary that new hires are paid before they reach a level of competence, the cost to business is substantial. Turnover costs need to be minimised at every opportunity. The impact to an organisation will be felt exponentially in its financial results.

What is more often than not overlooked is the Onboarding of existing employees into new positions. In such cases, employees are transitioned into different positions or a bigger, more senior role. Identifying who gets promoted, integrating them into the new role and then providing the right support and development are critical to not only business outcomes, but also an individual’s success.

The good news though is that recent research reveals that in the last ten years,the number of organisations with an Onboarding strategy has almost doubled. During that same time period there has been a corresponding decrease in the failure rate of new hires from one-in-four to one-in-five, reinforcing the positive business impact of formal Onboarding programs.

Further, an increasing number of companies are already providing Onboarding support and development with others actively planning to provide this assimilation support.

The key then to any organisation’s ability to execute strategy and achieve objectives is an effective workforce. Staying ahead of the game demands that business leaders ensure all employees perform at the highest levels as both individual and team contributors — aligned with and committed to achieving the organisation’s goals.

Shortening the time to productivity and maxmising engagement levels is something that should be on every Executive’s agenda.

By bringing the right people onboard will help ensure they are ready to engage with the organisation’s way of working and that they are made to feel part of the business and are there to stay. Attending to this will allow organisations to be better placed to deliver superior customer service and to retain their staff.

The following strategies would help to ensure a more effective Onboarding program in support of attaining business goals:

• Continuous improvement. Adopting a mindset of continuous improvement will ensure you have the right Onboarding program in place that delivers the best ROI.
• Onboarding strategy. Be sure to have a policy supported by a written plan to instil the importance of this critical HR process that does impact business performance.
• Link to business results. Companies with solid Onboarding programs have lower turnover rates, higher engagement levels and typically generate higher profit and higher shareholder returns.
• Execution. Be sure to execute your Onboarding plan with thought and skill involving key stakeholders. The level of success will depend on the ability to execute correctly.
• Feedback surveys. Provide employees with the opportunity to provide feedback at regular intervals to properly understand their experience.
• Employee-centric approach. The Onboarding process touches many stages of the employee lifecycle and should therefore involve multiple points of interaction between the organisation and the individual.
• Keep it simple. Onboarding impacts both employee retention and performance so keep the process simple, automating what you can to improve efficiencies.
• Collaboration. To help employees perform better and faster, ensure the integration, support and development activities are working in unison.

Despite their being compelling statistics and research that demonstrates both the need and the impact effectively assimilating new employees can have on the organisation, both the direct and indirect costs are very high.

Executives should be doing more to remedy their situation rather than thrusting new employees into new roles with a ‘sink or swim’ mentality.

So yes, there is a clear business case for Onboarding with tangible benefits.

To learn more about how you can best maximise your Onboarding and people management strategies, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

From strategy to people to employee engagement, the HR specialists work with clients to improve their return on people investments and deliver measurable business results.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

Social psychologists call this reality ‘motivational fit’, and define it as the degree of alignment between what a person expects or wants from their job, and what the job actually offers. They say it is a primary factor in determining whether a person stays or leaves their job.*

Below we share 5 pointers to ensuring your employees will fit within your organisation and stay there –

1. Taking previous work history into account is extremely important in determining motivational fit. What role(s) has the applicant been engaged in and what role are they being considered for? You would not recruit an outgoing sales rep into a sales director role for instance.

2. A variety of tasks is often what some staff are least comfortable with, whilst others enjoy the flexibility of a number of different responsibilities. Some staff have a higher tolerance for repetitive work, even though they are not in a factory environment. Leaders need to know what makes their people tick, and delegating work to them which ultimately impacts on the business bottom line.

3. Those in a management or supervisory position need to be comfortable with making decisions for themselves and where necessary, justifying them later. Most roles have a degree of autonomy and if the applicant were uncomfortable with making decisions, they would be a liability to the company. Ensure you employ strong leaders not afraid to make decisions.

4. Make sure the work environment is what your new recruit is looking for. If you are going to employ a sales rep and make them to sell out of a factory environment, chances are you will continually be looking for new sales reps prepared to accept impractical surroundings.  The work environment must suit the position.

5. It is important that the ‘fit’ between supervisor and employee is what the employee looks for in a supervisory style. For example, a micro managing supervisor will create conflict with their employee who prefers to be left alone to get on with the task at hand. Make sure you know the style that suits best when managing your people.

Lack of motivational fit may not result in poor work performance – it is likely to result in absenteeism, use of sick leave, lateness and subsequently resignation. If you want to reduce staff turnover, the most effective strategy you may want to follow is to ensure that you recruit staff with the right motivational fit for the role.

* Motivational Fit: Finding the right person for the job by CAROLEE COLTER (Cooperative Grocer Network).

To learn more about how you can ensure the right motivational fit to your organisation, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

From strategy to people to employee engagement, the HR specialists work with clients to improve their return on people investments and deliver measurable business results.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

Successful Onboarding we know is a key part of any talent management strategy.

Important activities in the Onboarding process begin pre-hire through effective and accurate recruitment communications, followed by an interviewing and screening process that increases the success rate of position acceptance.

The best recruitment and selection strategies will provide a fast track to meaningful, productive work and ultimately, strong employee relationships. Central to this is ensuring the right motivational fit to both the culture of the business, and to the role itself.

Acquiring the right talent and then aiming to effectively align the new hire’s talents with business objectives will not only inspire the employee to help meet those objectives, but also reinforce the decision made by the employee and employer to join forces.

So, is there a business case for acquiring the right talent during the Onboarding process? Absolutely, it reduces turnover and increases engagement levels. Considering research shows that a significant percentage of new employees quit their jobs within the first 6 months, getting the Onboarding process right can reduce turnover costs. Further research has found that best-in-class companies have learned to begin Onboarding in the recruitment stage.

The competitive economic climate we function in has brought about the realisation that businesses need to ensure they bring the right people on board; that these people are ready to engage with the organisation’s way of working and that they are made to feel part of the business and are here to stay.

Onboarding can begin with a candidate’s experience of the employer branding during the attraction phase of the recruitment cycle.

Identifying and selecting the person with the right skills and experience is certainly important. An area commonly overlooked during the recruitment process is ensuring the individuals personal values closely align with those of the organisation.

It’s about finding talent that is inclined to embrace organisational values; champions the customer service ethos and understands the organisation’s culture and decision making process

When new recruits are not onboarded properly this can easily lead to marching out the door sooner than expected. In such instances there is a need to recommence the recruitment process which can be a costly affair as many businesses do not budget for re-hiring costs. Where organisations can benefit themselves is by taking into account any lessons learnt and adopting a continuous improvement mindset.

The right approach to identifying and selecting the best candidates is to have a well defined recruitment process in place. A structured interview process focussing on behavioural evidence can increase the success rate of making the right hiring decision.

The use of assessments can greatly enhance the selection process to ensure the best possible fit when making hiring decisions for the long term.

Organisations that do not have an efficient, cost effective recruitment and selection process in place will leak money every time they recruit. By having a more strategic view, the cost of re-recruitment can be minimised.

The following strategies would help to ensure a more effective hiring process and increase retention rates:

• Employer brand. Ensure you have an employer branding strategy in place and how to best use it to ensure prospective employees are aware of your organisations virtual personality.
• Position descriptions/profiles. Be sure to have these updated for use in the recruitment process to instil a strong sense of your culture and values early on.
• Points of interaction. Create the best points of direct communication with potential recruits ensuing each interaction translates into real ‘moments of truth’ where the business lives up to its employer brand.
• Interviews. Adopting a behavioural based approach to interviewing with skilled interviewers will increase the success rate of identifying and selecting the right people. If required, second interviews can be of benefit as are panel interviews.
• Values assessments. Include a values assessment to ensure new recruits have the inclination to align with organisational values. The impact on retention levels will be significant.
• Assessments. When conducting assessments, keep the process simple and where possible, user friendly. Ensure feedback is given as this increases commitment and can shorten the time to competence.
• Pre-employment. Be proactive by engaging new recruits with your business before they commence employment. A good idea is to include them in social events, meet their new team/peers and perhaps any communications that may be of benefit.
• The first day. It’s the little things that make long lasting impressions so be sure to celebrate the new employee’s arrival, making it a feel good experience.
• The first month. Ensure a robust induction program is in place to quickly integrate the new recruit into the business.

Onboarding can last for as long as it takes to get the new employee engaged and productive.

Be sure to link the success of an Onboarding strategy to business results. If working as it should be, it will be increasing the speed to competency of new hires, reducing attrition and as a result, improving customer satisfaction levels and profitability.

To learn more about how you can best maximise your Onboarding and people management strategies, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

From strategy to people to employee engagement, the HR specialists work with clients to improve their return on people investments and deliver measurable business results.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

When managed well, Onboarding programs can have a significant and measurable impact on employee productivity, retention, company brand, engagement, and future hiring success.

Below we share with you 5 reasons by Onboarding programs fail in organisations -

1. Failure to engage employees on their first day

When organisations combine onboarding with orientation, one of the first mistakes often made is putting too much emphasis on compliance into a new hire’s first day. While knowing how not to get fired is important, new hires are more interested in knowing how to be valued team members, and looking for reinforcement that they made the right decision by accepting the job offer.

2. Failure to communicate clear responsibilities

It’s vital that managers are trained to discuss exactly what they expect from their employees to alleviate any disconnect between what is required and what is thought to be required, in their roles. New hires should also be clear about why these duties are important and how success will be measured.

3. Failure to address culture fit

Building employee culture integration into Onboarding programs is equally important as are all the other aspects of a successful Onboarding program. Company vision and values are discussed during orientation and then usually never mentioned again. Assigning a new hire to a team member / mentor will certainly assist in reinforcing culture fit for the new hire.

4. Failure to link Onboarding to desired skills

Long-term employee success is usually determined by: the employee’s engagement in the role; the relationship they have with colleagues and clients; and performance of key functions. Failure to identify exactly what skills an employee needs to be successful in their role is a sure sign that a new hire will not be there for the long term.

5. Failure to deliver feedback regularly

As with the point 4 above, failure to communicate regularly with a new employee can only be detrimental to the business. Managers must understand that it is in their best interest to praise the employee behaviours they want to reinforce, and ask employees to tweak behaviours that do not support success, from day one.

There is a fair amount of misunderstanding about exactly what Onboarding is, how it is done, who needs to be involved, and how to measure its success. While Onboarding and orientation are often referred to in the same way, unlike orientation (which is what companies provide to new hires during the first few days of employment) Onboarding is a process over 90 – 180 days of integrating new hires so they can deliver results quickly, effectively and as efficiently as possible.

To learn more about how you can eliminate Onboarding failures, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

From strategy to people to employee engagement, the HR specialists work with clients to improve their return on people investments and deliver measurable business results.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au

These programs can also play a critical role in the organisation in terms of performance, attitudes and organisational commitment.

A key component of Onboarding is providing both new hires and re-deployed employees the right training, getting them into performance plans and goals, and making sure they are clear about what’s expected of them in their job and within the company culture. The sooner this happens, the more successful the journey will be.

By not giving people the right resources, tools and experiences needed to effectively do their work will impair their ability to succeed or grow in any way. The overall success is determined by how companies support and encourage employees to demonstrate what they bring to the company, generate impact on their position and create social bonds within the company.

So why does providing support and development matter? Research shows that new hires decide if they want to stay at a company in the early months, once they have the opportunity to look at a job from the inside. Taking this into account the entry experience is essential and companies have started to notice the benefits/consequences of the first working day of an employee on their career development within the company.

Considering it can take between 6 to 10 months for the average worker to become competent at their job, anything that can be done to shorten this time to competence can have a significant implication for a company’s profitability.

An Onboarding program which integrates a structured assessment, feedback and development process, can greatly increase the probability that employees will reach a level of competence quickly and stay in the business longer.

Further research shows a significant percentage of new employees quit their jobs within the first 6 months. Poor levels of support and development can be reasons for not only turnover in such instances, but also disengagement.

In a business sense, it is critical new employees understand the heart and soul of the company, including its vision, business challenges/opportunities and how it is viewed internally and externally.

The right approach to learning and development support will most certainly increase the speed-to-competence of new hires and to support you as a business in fast-tracking their engagement

Attracting the best talent is hard work. Retaining them is a competitive necessity. Onboarding surveys provide an ideal platform for employees to identify any concerns, or to make suggestions for improvement. The newest employees can often look at a company with fresh eyes and lack of attachment to the way we do things around here.

From a cultural perspective, new employees need to understand what is valued within the company, how decisions are made, how problem solving is done and what defines success. Companies must give an honest depiction of their culture to new hires.

The following strategies would help to ensure a more effective learning and development process and increase the likelihood of long term success:

• Structured development support. Provide support in the first few weeks telling employees where they need to develop. Don’t wait until after the first performance review.
• Expectations and goals. Set clear expectations at the start about what success in the job looks like. Have clear goals to achieve in the first month and meet regularly to review them. Set longer performance goals centred on the first six to nine months of employment to manage performance.
• Selection process feedback. Be sure to provide feedback from the selection process and on any assessments carried out to stimulate a two-way conversation. Use assessments as insights into building development plans.
• Mentors. Its good practice to assign a mentor in the onboarding process which can help speed up development in general.
• Motivational drivers.It is important to understand at an individual level, what drives and motivates new hires and re-deployed employees and work with them to align those drivers with their working environment to increase engagement levels. The key is to understand what can be done to create an environment that will ensure employees are driven to succeed.
• Development plan reviews. Considering employee skill levels and motivators change over time, be sure to schedule reviews to factor in these changes to guarantee they stay onboard and engaged.
• Tracking progress. Being in a position to effectively track development progress will strengthen performance reviews. Ongoing discussion and development maintains employee engagement and competence. Help people achieve early wins, build credibility and trust early on.

Onboarding is a critical HR process that should not be overlooked as it contributes significantly to business performance.

The support and development activities provided for both new hires and re-deployed employees are of paramount importance to ensure they contribute effectively. A poor process will leave employees feeling disjointed from, rather than engaged with, the company and may add to attrition problems.

To learn more about how you can best maximise your Onboarding and people management strategies, contact the team at M2 HR Consulting.

From strategy to people to employee engagement, the HR specialists work with clients to improve their return on people investments and deliver measurable business results.

Email: info@m2hrconsulting.com.au

Web: www.m2hrconsulting.com.au