Onboarding: getting your new employees cleared for takeoff
Sam Lawrence asked this question on Twitter today:
How long does it take your company to onboard new employees?
The answers ranged from around 90 days to 6 months, to “it depends on the person” to “it depends on the person’s understanding of what they’re working on”, etc. Sacha Chua also wrote about this last year, and termed it relational onboarding.
Please fasten your seatbelts
The term “onboarding” got me thinking that the process of getting new employees up to speed is remarkably similar to boarding an airplane. You, the passenger, are the new employee, and the airline is the organization. They need to get you - and everyone else - on the plane, in your seat, baggage stowed, seatbelt buckled, and ready for takeoff. Only then can the flight commence.
The airline needs to communicate a certain amount of information to you and all the other passengers to get everyone working together toward the same goal: taking off on time. In the same vein, your organization needs to communicate a certain amount of information to new employees to get everyone working together toward the same goal: meeting the organization’s goals.
The airline can do this with a PA system, since all the passengers are in an enclosed space, in close proximity both at the gate and on the plane. In an organization, people might be spread around a building, a city, country, or the world, so a PA system isn’t going to do it. Something else is needed - something that can communicate to people both as a group and individually, and be available wherever the organization does its work in the world.
We are cleared for takeoff!
This is where a wiki comes in. When an organization has a wiki at the center of its operations, people can gather and share the kind of information that others need - including everything from projects, products, initiatives, strategies, and other pieces of the big picture, to the everyday: how to process an expense report, access the office WiFi network, get business cards printed, or reserve a meeting room.
On a wiki, this information can be gathered by the small efforts of many. One person might add a page to explain the process for filling out an expense report, another might attach the blank report template, and a third might add some detail to the procedure. That’s a lot more efficient than a static page about expense reports that only directs employees to contact the accounting office, and doesn’t give either instructions or the downloadable template.
Without the wiki, a new employee would have to email that office to ask how to prepare an expense report, then wait for the file and instructions. That means an employee in the accounting office has to spend time replying to that email, and all the others asking for the same thing = inefficient.
But what’s really important about the wiki is not just that one example of the expense report, or even that the report itself is available on the wiki. It’s the idea that employees are working together to put the information they’re carrying around in their heads on the wiki, where others can more easily access it, use it, edit it, and improve it. That builds a culture where new employees can get up to speed faster, and become contributors - both to the goals of the organization, and the store of information about how to reach those goals.
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16 Comments, Comment or Ping
Gia Lyons
Interesting analogy! What if your wiki has hundreds and hundreds of areas in it? How would a new employee find the “good” stuff? Who would be his/her guide? At IBM, our culture values the individual more than the collective - it’s part of our long heritage, and in my opinion, has hampered innovation in many cases. But, as a result, many people use their individual blogs to contribute useful content that should probably be in a wiki.
But, back to my question. How do I FIND the good stuff in a wiki? I need a guide. And if I’m a new employee, my manager has probably hooked me up with a buddy who’s supposed to show me the ropes in her spare time. Maybe I get a day of “these are all the applications we use, and how we use them, oh and don’t go here because it’s useless. And I know that THAT is how we’re supposed to do this one process, but here’s how you REALLY do it, without getting flagged in the system…”
What I’m getting at is that new employees need the tacit knowledge in an organization as much, if not more, than the explicit. And that only happens when they develop trusted relationships with their co-workers.
Apr 14th, 2008
Robin Yap
I just incorporated Sharepoint’s wiki at one of my client’s onboarding instructional design team’s site as they are redesigning their new hire class. It allows for a quick collaborative analysis of the top 50 tasks that every new hire needed to know and then some. Great post as always.
Apr 14th, 2008
John Tropea
Great metaphor.
Usually a new starter gets up to speed by colleagues emailing them a whole lot of stuff and emailing links to different stuff in the DMS.
It’s just messy for both the new comer and the person attempting to getting them up to speed.
In the way of getting up to speed on team stuff, the new starter should be given one email with a link to a wikipage. This page is their launching pad to stuff they need to know for their job
Wiki’s can also contain tacit stuff, so besides learning about the support database, you can also read workarounds and exceptions to the norm.
Without wikis never before could we create such a place for new starters to learn.
So that’s a big helper to start with.
I guess to really absorb and feel the organisation it takes at least 6 months, no wiki or blogs are going to contain all the tacit know-how you need, you have to experience it, and you need to hook up with the right people…and this hooking up discovery process is all part of it.
I think it would be a reduced time scale with social software, as conversations (where the know-how lies) aren’t just happening in the physical world, and you don’t have to be in the same coffee room to know they are happening, actually you can read about them after they have happened. Social software enables you to tap into a million more of these conversations.
Anecdote and Cognitive Edge have amazing posts on using narrative and a social quest, this way you are engaging in the learning process:
http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/05/staff_induction.html
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/2007/06/standing_in_but_not_apart_from.php
Apr 15th, 2008
John Tropea
I forgot to add something from a post I did a while back on OPML and new starters
http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2006/05/07/internal-communication-blogs-and-km20/
I was imagining a type of wiki page package that listed all the feeds (wiki, blogs, forums, etc…) a new worker needs to get their job done.
They could read the archives of these blogs, forums and wikis and get a feel for what’s been going on…and once subscribed they are in the loop for new stuff.
Way better than email.
I’m developing a community of practice at the moment, and I can see how awesome it would be for a new starter to visit one place to get a feel of what’s going on.
As for beyond your team, ie getting a feel for the enterprise at large, that’s much harder.
Apr 15th, 2008
vanderwal
I really like this and have been pushing the social tools approach for a few years. The wiki is on means of gathering and sharing information. It is a good match with social bookmarking, which allows organizations that are coming together have their people find and tag things in their own context and perspective. This provides finding common objects that exist, but also sharing and learning what things are called from the different perspectives.
Communication is a key cornerstone to any organization working with, merging with, or becoming a part of another. Communication needs common ground and social bookmarking that allows for all context and perspectives to be captured is essential to making this a success.
This is something I have presented on and provided advice in the past and really think and have seen that social tools are essentials in these times of transition.
Apr 15th, 2008
Dennis Howlett
An organization could do worse than make Stuart’s 21 Days of Wiki Adoption a mandatory part of the induction process. But beyond that, the organization has to have the DNA to recognize that fostering a people centric community approach to information sharing is a vital part of the equation. That’s not easy, even in the most collegiate of places.
To the point about discovery, that should be a no brainer with search and role based permissioning that allows people to find the ‘right’ stuff, along with the means to nibble at the edges, where often the ‘real’ value lays.
Apr 15th, 2008
Beth Kanter
I have a digression here …. did you know there are different ways to board an airline that result in a faster take off time?
http://www.public.asu.edu/~dbvan1/projects/boarding/boarding.htm
So, I’m wondering if there is any inspiration you can take from the different boarding methods and apply those to create a faster wiki culture in the organization.
Great article. Love the metaphor.
Apr 15th, 2008
Dan Keldsen
Stewart - great stuff, and definitely a useful analogy. Of course right now it’s perhaps dangerous to say airlines are good at anything - but maybe that’s just my US perspective!
I’ll echo Gia’s comments. With a huge intranet, wiki, portal, etc., unless there is a mentor or some human interaction to help get people oriented at all, then it’s going to be tough sailing, regardless of how you approach this. Even the best of search is useless, if you don’t know what is available.
Depends on how you define the onboarding process, and how you measure when it’s done as well. I’d be willing to bet that many organizations consider the onboarding done after the first day or week on the job - get to work slacker!
Getting culturally acclimated could take years, or minutes. Getting equipped to know how to do the typical processes, find the people you need, etc., could be very simple and fast, although I’ve found that many organizations spend little to no time on making the entry into the organization a smooth process. Even worse when a business is acquired - how often is the acquired unit coached and nurtured into the new business? Fairly rare, particularly in medium to large acquisitions.
And of course creating a useful intranet (or whatever people chose to call this body of knowledge) can be done outside of the wiki world. Any system that allows “vested parties” an ability to keep the information alive, would suffice. Not all intranets are static and outdated.
Of course I’m a wiki fan as well, and most definitely see the value in refining information over time, with as little friction as possible. But as someone looking at any and all systems for creating and distributing information (I am in Market Intelligence for the largest non-profit association for Enterprise Content Management after all [which includes wikis, blogs, and more traditional approaches to Information Management)], while I believe a wiki approach could be very useful for this particular process, it’s not the only way to do it by a long shot.
I hate to see people throw out perfectly good solutions in the rush to adopt something new (although I like to joke about wikis being 13 years old now, how long are people going to wait to try this “new thing?”). Newness is all relative, it seems.
But yes, your main point, about making onboarding fast and effective, definitely deserves some more air time. It’s a waste of money to have people idled while the mechanics of an organization grind away or get in the way of making them productive employees. I’m all for anything that shortens cycles and improves productivity.
Cheers,
Dan
Apr 15th, 2008
Stewart Mader
@Gia Lyons I agree - trusted relationships are key. I think that it’s a constant cycle: getting new employees deeply engaged is key to getting them ready to help future new employees, in turn, find the right information and themselves get engaged. Regarding how to organize information so it’s easy to find - I advise my clients that this starts with how you initially get information for each group/team/business unit on the wiki.
Apr 15th, 2008
Stewart Mader
@Robin Yap Great example!
@John Tropea I think this is excellent:
You’re right that getting to know what’s going on in the larger organization beyond your workgroup is more challenging, but I think that getting started on the wiki within your group is the key to getting “plugged in” and making it easier to branch out and find connections to the larger organization.
Apr 15th, 2008
Stewart Mader
@Thomas Vander Wal
I think you nailed it here - getting two sides in a merger to understand, appreciate, and commingle different perspectives is what’s usually overlooked and ultimately derails some mergers. Giving people tools to share both information and how they classify that information is a key step to truly “integrating” cultures.
Apr 15th, 2008
Stewart Mader
@Beth Kanter I’m looking at that boarding processes study now and thinking of some ideas! Putting together a post…
Apr 15th, 2008
Stewart Mader
@Dan Keldsen I agree RE: some orgs think onboarding is done after a week. That’s a very superficial approach.
That’s why the title of my post says nothing about making onboarding magically faster - it shouldn’t be a finite process that’s over and done with. It should really work in stages: first one gets the right basic information to new employees as fast as possible, but second one is a process of continuously finding new connections and pieces of relevant info, then making sure those are linked to the basic info both so that the new employee can easily find them again when needed, and so future new employees benefit.
Apr 15th, 2008
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