maximize new hire productivity

Jun 20

A missed opportunity

Recently, I was talking to my good friend Shannon after she accepted an offer for a new job. As she told me about the new role, I could actually feel her excitement. You know what I am talking about – that combination of happiness, confidence, and maybe even a little apprehension about what lies ahead. It was clear that she was ready to start a new adventure and was ecstatic about the future … until her first day of work.

Unfortunately, Shannon fell into an all-too-familiar bad new hire experience and her excitement went away immediately. I am sure you can relate. Sometimes you sit through an unproductive new hire orientation, or maybe everyone is too busy to meet with you, or worse: you experience a combination of both. It’s a real problem as today only 25% of employees feel that their organizations on-board new hires well (ADP Infographic, 2015). The bottom line is HR has an opportunity to create an on-boarding experience for new hires that is unique to its organization and culture, while getting employees productive as quickly as possible.

Overcoming the barriers

I am sure it won’t surprise you to hear that most new hires are not a 100% fit to the job for which they’ve been hired. The recruitment process is no different than shopping for a house. You start out with a detailed list of requirements that you must have, but as you start looking at what is available in the market and what you can afford to pay, you compromise and figure out the best solution that meets your needs. This idea represents the first opportunity to create a unique on-boarding experience for your new hire.

During the interview process, the hiring manager likely assessed the areas where the candidate is not a 100% fit to the job. By working with the hiring manager and recruiter, HR can help evaluate a candidate’s background, skills, and personality traits to do an initial assessment of the barriers to productivity for the new hire. HR has the opportunity to bring in information from other parts of the organization to further identify these barriers, such as: 1) taking a broader look at other employees who may have been hired from the new hire’s last firm and assessing what obstacles they had to productivity; and 2) understanding the obstacles to productivity for recent new hires within the team and other parts of the organization to see if there is anything that can be learned from these experiences. I know this sounds time-consuming, but getting an early view into these barriers can really make a difference in helping the new hire get productive faster.

Once HR and the hiring manager identify some of the initial barriers to productivity for the role and the individual, they can include ways to address these within the on-boarding plan. For example, if employees from Org X took extra time to learn the customer relationship management tool (even though Org X had the same tool), perhaps you engage an existing employee who went through this learning process to either train or mentor the new hire on the tool. Not only will this help the new employee become productive faster, but it will also show that the organization took an extra step to make sure the new hire was comfortable.

Rally the troops

When I listen to not-so-great new hire experiences, one of the things I hear over and over is that the new employee felt isolated and alone in the first few months. Everyone was so wrapped up in her own work that nobody made the time for the new hire. I am sure you can relate to both sides of this – the new person who felt alone and the existing employees that are so busy that they don’t have time to stop and spend time with someone new.

But, letting a new hire fend for herself is not an on-boarding strategy and ultimately, it slows down the new employee’s path to productivity. It is so important to build a community around the new hire. I recommend enlisting a small mentor team to help the new person acclimate to the culture and work environment. HR should work with the hiring manager to set up the right team based on the barriers to productivity for the role. Here are the types of folks to consider:

A new hire “buddy” who can do anything from demystify the organization’s acronyms to point out all the good places to eat lunch.
1-2 peers of the new hire who take a special interest and check in regularly to make sure the new hire has everything she needs and another place to get information on team dynamics, the best way to get things done, and also obtain feedback on how things are going.
A peer of the hiring manager who can provide another perspective on the leadership and serve as a sounding board.
The recruiter who engaged with them during the process to do the occasional check in and get feedback (remember, the new hire typically has a good relationship with the recruiter given that is the person who brought them into the organization).

While this seems like a long list of people, it is important that there are enough resources for the new hire to turn to for help. The mentors’ input is invaluable in understanding how the new hire is adjusting and goes a long way in helping the new hire feel as though the team is committed to her success at the organization.

It takes a village

So, I talked about creating a community around a specific new hire to help her be successful, but I also believe there is another opportunity for HR. Much like we encourage employees to refer great talent to an organization, I believe HR has a responsibility to create a culture that makes it every employee’s responsibility to help ramp up new hires to productivity. Every employee has a stake in helping new colleagues adjust to their environment because it impacts an entire team when an employee is not fully productive.

There is no question that helping a new hire with their short-term goals, training, or being a mentor to a new hire can be time-consuming. But, organizations have to invest their existing employee’s time in ensuring a new employee has a positive experience and comes up to speed quickly. HR should encourage every employee to mentor, train, or help a new hire ramp up in another way at least twice a year (more if the organization is in growth mode or has high turnover). It will be a hard sell to employees in the beginning, but as they see the benefits of having someone become productive quickly to their team, they will be more willing to participate.

But, let’s not forget that so much of culture is about the little things. No matter what someone’s role is in the organization, there is a way to help a new employee find her way and shed some light on how things get done. Even simple, perhaps seemingly less meaningful gestures can do wonders for a new hire. For example, taking someone to lunch in their first month (we all have to eat, right?), or introducing yourself when you see a new face (you wouldn’t believe how many of us forget to do this), or checking in with someone briefly after their first few weeks and giving a few tips on how you overcame the obstacles you faced when you first started. HR needs to encourage these activities as a regular practice to get these ingrained in the culture.

To productivity and beyond …

I want to be clear – I am not advocating that a new hire does not have responsibility in getting up to speed. But, the organization has to create the right environment for the new hire to be successful. Again, the time we put in upfront pays off when a new hire feels a sense of accomplishment and gets to full productivity sooner. Case in point: after our discussion, my friend Shannon identified a mentor (with her boss’ help) and feels much better now that she has someone to help her understand the organization, ask informal questions, and just get a better sense of how things work. The good news is that her excitement is slowly re-building and I am optimistic that taking this job was the right decision for her.