Policy Options Brief TO: Jim Phillips, Chief of Staff for the Mayor’s Office FROM: Marlon Willie RE: Proper Onboarding for New Staff

A 2012 Harvard Business Review article entitled “Why Top Young Managers Are in A Nonstop Job Hunt” (Hamori et al.), starts like this; “You might suspect that your best young managers are looking for a better gig—and you’re probably right. Research shows that today’s most-sought- after early-career professionals are constantly networking and thinking about the next step, even if they seem fully engaged. And employee-development programs aren’t making them happy enough to stay.” The article delves into the reasons many young professionals do not stay with their employers and sums it up in this poignant sentence, “Workers reported that companies generally satisfy their needs for on-the-job development and that they value these opportunities, which include high-visibility positions and significant increases in responsibility. But they’re not getting much in the way of formal development, such as training, mentoring, and coaching— things they also value highly.” These missing elements are key components of proper onboarding.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) describes onboarding as “the process by which new hires get adjusted to the social and performance aspects of their jobs quickly and smoothly, and learn the attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to function effectively within an organization.” In its article “Onboarding Key to Retaining, Engaging Talent (Maurer),” SHRM states “Onboarding new hires at an organization should be a strategic process and last at least one year to ensure high retention…”

Over the last year, without the benefit of confirmed figures, and according to my own subjective calculations, approximately 33.3% of new hires that started with me at the Mayor’s Office, have left. This excludes turnover of employees hired before a year ago. This rate of departure is higher than the overall 25% rate of new hires that leave their jobs within a year, according to a 2012 Allied Workforce Mobility Survey (Lauby), because they were not properly onboarded. In a dynamic workspace such as this, which allows cross-departmental support based on skillset, networks or needs, one can easily get lost in the day to day running of the office. We’ve seen new, bright incoming staff, leave confused, dismayed and broken, adding to our already high turnover rate, as a result of not being adequately prepared for the controlled but chaotic demands of the office. Considering that the Mayor’s Office is tasked with efficiently designing, building, implementing, managing and measuring some of the highest profile initiatives and programs for the Mayor, it makes sense to ensure that the most qualified team is hired and remains as long as possible.

The repercussions of inadequately or poorly qualified staffed, could have a detrimental effect on both the morale of the staff in-house and the management of the city generally. Failed projects can mean delay or denial of important services that would benefit the public. It also means a higher financial cost not only for replacing staff, but delays and errors in projects because of improperly trained or missing staff. It is estimated that $37 billion dollars are spent annually to keep unproductive employees who don’t understand their job in the US and UK (Solar, [Infographic] The Onboarding Stats You Need to Know). Diversity in the office can also be impacted as minority groups that bring not only the benefit of skillsets but also insights that mainstream views may overlook, may be lost if care isn’t taken to properly integrate them through proper onboarding. Additionally, in a politically sensitive, active, and divided state, the smooth and professional execution of services could mean the difference between a one term and a two term mayor.

This Mayor’s Office isn’t unique in failing to appreciate the importance of proper onboarding and the impact that it has on the organization, the incoming and existing staff. 22% of companies have no formal onboarding program (Ferrazzi, Technology Can Save Onboarding from Itself); only 37% of companies extend their onboarding programs beyond the first month; and 60% of companies fail to set milestones or goals for new hires (Editor, An-onboarding- checklist-for-success-infographic). As a result low productivity and poor performance cost the organization significant sums; the retention rate is also low; and the high turnover incurs a replacement cost which 16 and 20% of that employee’s salary (Greenberg, Why Employee Onboarding Matters).

Onboarding programs were started because it is hard to hold onto new employees. Recent research by a software company, BambooHR, surveyed 1,005 U.S. employees over the age of 24 to find out what has made them quit jobs in the past and what could be done to improve employers’ onboarding programs. They found that 31% of people have quit a job within the first six months and listed the top five reasons that U.S workers gave for leaving the job shortly after being hired: changed mind on work type; the work was different than they expected; my boss was a jerk; didn’t receive enough training; and the job wasn’t fun. BambooHR asked the respondents, what advice did they have for improving onboarding programs? Their responses were very telling. They listed four things that they want most in the very first week on the job: on-the-job training; review of company policies; a tour of the company and to have their equipment set up and ready to go; and 56% of respondents said that they wanted to be assigned a buddy or a mentor (Quigley, Your Company Has A Lot To Lose when a New Hire Doesn’t Stay).

Onboarding is multifaceted. Generally, orientation, training and mentorship, are the three tools used to apply the building blocks of onboarding, which are: compliance; clarification; culture; and connection, commonly called the Four Cs. Organizations apply the Four Cs to varying degrees and typically end up end up implementing one of three formal onboarding options: passive; high potential; or proactive onboarding.

Compliance, which is the most basic building block of onboarding exercises, includes dispensing legal and policy-related rules and regulation. The second block is Clarification, and it aims to assist new employees understand their jobs and related expectations. Culture entails providing employees with both formal and informal understanding of organizational norms; and the final block, Connection, speaks to the establishment of informational networks and interpersonal relationships that new employees must establish. (Bauer, Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing success)

Orientation is “An introductory stage in the process of new employee assimilation, and a part of his or her continuous socialization process in an organization. Major objectives of orientation are to: (1) gain employee commitment; (2) reduce his or her anxiety; (3) help him or her to understand the organization's expectations; and (4), convey what he or she can expect from the job and the organization. It is commonly followed by training tailored to specific job positions.” One of the mistakes many organizations make is to believe that this is a one-off, same-day event that is quickly completed so the staff member can get to work. Typically, much of the information passed on by Human Resources office regarding the way the organization works, staff benefits and a plethora of other information is crammed into a few hours. Successful orientations can actually last up to one year and involves exercises that gradually introduce staff to the culture and philosophy of the organization through consistent check-ins and discussion. Spreading it across a lengthier period allows more rudimentary digestion of the information being passed on. In fact, 90% of new hires make their decision whether or not to leave within the first 6 months (Son, 2 Ways Onboarding Helps You Rake In The Dough), so if orientation is scheduled over that period, there is a good chance that the concerns of the new hires will be identified and remedied (if possible) before they decide that they want to leave. Elements of Compliance and Clarification are found in orientation.

The second component is training. Training has been identified by new hires as perhaps one of the most important factors in deciding whether or not to stay with an organization. Training increases an employee’s confidence in their ability to do a good job—something that is of particular importance to new hires. It accelerates their adjustment to the organization and shortens the time it takes for them to get to full competence. It increases their level of production and performance as they become proficient with the systems, processes and procedures of the organization. Training ought to be ongoing and so continuous training alongside employees who’ve been around for a longer period, helps to integrate new hires not only into the organization, but more granularly, into the and processes that they perform together or separately, as a team. Here, Clarification and Culture are two of the building blocks involved.

Finally, the last component is mentorship. A vastly overlooked and undervalued task, mentorship is the glue that brings it all together. Mentorship is a mix of formal and informal guidance and support that new hires receive from more seasoned employees at the organization. As American businessman John Crosby stated, “mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” Connection and Culture are elements that are strongly emphasized through this tool.

Proper onboarding costs time and money—but so does improper, or no onboarding. However, some organizations have legitimately questioned whether or not investing in proper onboarding makes sense when there are no guarantees of a new hire staying. It is clear however, that the odds of a new hire staying increases with proper onboarding. It therefore depends on the philosophy and values of the department or organization. Richard Branson, CEO of the Virgin Group, famously said “Train your staff well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

Although the option not to onboard is the default position for many organizations, there are three levels of onboarding from which organizations can select based on their resources and commitment to onboarding. Talya Bauer, Ph.D., describes the three formal onboarding options as passive, high potential and proactive onboarding. Passive onboarding is heavily focused on compliance, or teaching new employees about the company’s policies, rules, and regulations. This is the most basic of onboarding exercises. High potential onboarding is the next level up and involves compliance as well as clarification of the new job and performance expectations. Additionally, it includes a bit of culture and some connection to help the new employee understand the basic functions of the organization and familiarize themselves with some of their co-workers, management, and information sources. The highest level is proactive onboarding and involves all four building blocks in a comprehensive program that systematically syncs onboarding with strategic human resource management. In passive onboarding, almost all organizations naturally cover compliance as part of formal onboarding. For organizations that engage in passive onboarding, some role clarification may be given, but neither Culture nor Connection is addressed. Some informal ways of guiding new employees in terms of Culture and Connection may have developed over time, but no one— including HR staff— is coordinating the task to maximize onboarding success. This is perhaps where our Office is where onboarding is viewed as a checklist of unrelated tasks to be completed. Research shows that approximately 30 percent of organizations—large, medium and small—work at this level. Passive Onboarding can be functional, but it is certainly unsystematic.

High Potential Onboarding is when compliance and clarification are well covered by a firm’s formal onboarding practices and some culture and connection mechanisms are in place, High Potential Onboarding level has been reached. In these organizations—about 50 percent of all firms—the complete process has not yet been established in a systematic way across the organization.

Proactive Onboarding refers to when all four building blocks are intentionally and formally addressed. Only about 20 percent of organizations achieve this level. Dr. Bauer highlights Zappos which offers new staff an intensive five-week training course to learn about the company’s values and procedures, as well as an offer of $2,000 to quit if they don’t feel they are a good fit. IBM’s “Assimilation Process” came out of an accounting of how much time and resources are spent on recruiting and hiring and how important (and economical) it is to successfully integrate and retain new employees. IBM’s year-long onboarding process has three steps to welcome new hires, prepare a functional workspace, introduce new people to the existing workforce, clarify roles and responsibilities, complete paperwork, and ongoing coaching and connecting so employees are fully invested in the company culture, position, and workplace. Microsoft views onboarding as a mission to enhance the new employee experience for the thousands of employees hired each year. Although HR professionals at Microsoft work as a team to create and sustain a high quality framework that supports business goals, onboarding is considered everyone’s job and team members welcome, support, and mentor new employees. Finally, Loreal’s onboarding program, “L’Oreal Fit” lasts for two years and includes training, meetings with key insiders, mentoring and HR support, site visits, shadowing programs, and various other valuable experiences for employees.(Bauer)

At the heart of the matter is the question: what kind of department does the Mayor’s Office want to be?

Works Cited Bauer, Talya (2010), SHRM Foundation, Onboarding New Emloyees: Maximizing success, Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/products/documents/onboarding%20epg- %20final.pdf

Editor Picks, A Magazine, An onboarding checklist for success [infographic], Retrieved from: http://blog.octanner.com/editor-picks/an-onboarding-checklist-for-success-infographic

Ferrazzi, Keith, (March 2015), Harvard Business Review, Technology Can Save Onboarding from Itself, Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/03/technology-can-save-onboarding-from-itself

Greenberg, Andrew, (Jan 13, 2015), ContractRecruiter.Com, Why Employee Onboarding Matters, Retrieved from http://www.contractrecruiter.com/employee-onboarding-matters/

Hamori, M., Cao, J., Koyuncu, Burak., (July-August 2012). Harvard Business Review, Why Top Young Managers Are in a Nonstop Job Hunt. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/07/why-top- young-managers-are-in-a-nonstop-job-hunt

Lauby, Sharlyn, (May 22, 2012), HR Bartender, Employee Turnover Caused By Bad Onboarding Programs, Retrieved from https://www.hrbartender.com/2012/recruiting/employee-turnover- caused- by-bad-onboarding-programs/

Maurer, R., (April 16, 2015), SHRM Foundation, Onboarding Key to Retaining, Engaging Talent., Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent- acquisition/pages/onboarding-key-retaining-engaging-talent.aspx

Quigley, Jeana, (March 20, 2014), Bamboo Blog, Technology Can Save Onboarding from Itself, Retrieved from https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/lose-when-new-hire-doesnt-stay

Solar, Aria, (Jan 16, 2015), Urban Bound, [Infographic] The Onboarding Statistics You Need to Know, Retrieved from http://www.urbanbound.com/blog/onboarding-infographic-statistics

Son, Sabrina, (Feb 23, 2015). TinyPulse, 2 Ways Onboarding Helps You Rake In The Dough, Retrieved from https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/2-reasons-why-onboarding-helps- you- reap-financial-benefits