Onboarding - the Power of First Impressions

Have you ever had an incredible onboarding experience that made you think “Yes! I made the right decision—I love it, and this is going to be so amazing?” Unfortunately, I changed companies several times and I did not have this incredible experience. I was missing the ‘wow’ effect and I don’t think that is only bad luck, do you?

I am not only reflecting on my personal experience but also thinking about the stories I have heard from people around me.

Since I started my career in HR around 16 years ago, I have always found a common denominator in each of the companies I worked for, a bad “onboarding” experience. It doesn’t matter in which industry or the size of the company I was at, every time, “Improving the Onboarding Experience” has been one of the top five priorities of the HR agenda and despite all our efforts (learn from other companies, bringing top best practices, onboarding platforms, etc.), we were always far away from the best outcome. And let’s be honest, on top of that, I don’t know how many times, I have heard HR people blaming the line managers and vice-versa without finding a common ground.

Let's take a step back and reflect on things from an outside perspective.

Looking at the external factors, we need to accept that the labour market continues tochange and, to be successful, our companies need to retain top talents and invest in their employee experience, starting from designing an outstanding employee onboarding. Basedon the latest research, almost every organization has an onboarding program (or something similar) but few employees rate it positively. The result is that many companies are losing their best people before they barely get started or in the first 90 days. Without a doubt, the unpleasant experience with the onboarding process is not the only reason; however, it is usually among the top ones.

Why is onboarding so important for our companies?

It’s not enough to answer that we must have an onboarding program because every company has one. The saying goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” It's crucial because people tend to form their opinions early on, and those initial perceptions are frequently difficult to change. Making a positive initial impact can be the difference between achieving success or failure in life. When you meet someone, you immediately start sizing them up, deciding who they are and how you feel about them. And while it’s true that second chances are given, it often takes more time and effort to get people to change their minds and build trust, especially if the first impression was a lousy one. The first impression that we will make to our new hire is crucial, so why do you want to underestimate that?

It’s important to have a strategic onboarding program because it helps set the new hires up for success, feel part of the company culture, explain our purpose (vision), and how we plan to achieve that (mission) and the guiding set of behaviours that will help our company achieve its ambition (core values)–they need to feel part of something meaningful, and they need to understand how to can play a critical role in achieving the mission of the organization. Creating a strong sense of belonging and making them comfortable in their new positions, it’s a must-have requirement.

But what happens if we do not take care of their onboarding journey? A poor onboarding experience can leave our employees with lower levels of engagement and confidence, and a possible risk of seeing them leave on short notice for a more exciting position elsewhere. We also can’t underestimate the impact of hiring new employees remotely and the fact that sometimes, they don’t work in our same offices.

My former manager, Judith van de Geijn, offered me the opportunity to leave my mark driving the "Onboarding Experience Project" for our office in Hoofddorp before I left Danone last year. We had several offices in Benelux and we did not have any official onboarding process, it was approached slightly differently in the different offices. The emphasis on Danone’s values served as the “fil rouge” connecting all those sites but we were not doing a great job overall.

As you may have discovered in your own firm, I figured out that we had a lot of wonderful examples of onboarding activities, but we weren’t getting the most out of them, and they were also not visible enough. So instead of jumping into the action mode, I started with the end goal in mind asking questions about the Why, What and How.

I will not share all the project details, but only the takeaways that I could think of considering for your company.

The main pillars of my project were:

1. Simplification of the onboarding experience: Creating a one-aligned framework and journey for all the entities in Benelux based on a more tailored employee experience.

2. Consumerization of HR: The onboarding processshould not be tailored to our company but rather to the needs of our employees and those who are transferring within the organization. As a result, I proposed forming a cross-functional onboarding team consisting of six Personas: HR Administration (+ International mobility); IT Support; HRBP; Buddy; Line Manager; and Employee.

3. The onboarding is not a short journey and it doesn’t start on day 1: The average onboarding program lasts 90 days, but according to Gallup’s “Creating an Exceptional Onboarding Journey for New Employees” report, it typically takes new employees 12 months to reach their full performance potential. For this reason, the best approach is to design the pre-onboarding and post-onboarding steps.

4. The onboarding is not only an HR call: If we want to improve the employee experience in our workplace, we need to create an onboarding process that goes beyond HR and involves other stakeholders and teams. For this reason, introducing a buddy system is a must. We could imagine Dante in the Divine Comedy in which his journey is a form of knowledge, a path of discovering and during his journey from hell to paradise, he is not alone and he has a guide, Virgil first and then Beatrice (it is a sort of buddy system, isn’t it?).

5. Virtual onboarding experience: Adapt the onboarding journey based on the external circumstances byintroducing a virtual journey for employees and line managers in the Learning Management System–the hybrid working life is not going to end soon.

In a nutshell, creating a culture of engaged and inspired employees starts with the onboarding experience that we are offering. So why are you not investing in your new onboarding journey?