Employee Onboarding and offboarding; Then and Now

“If every entry is the beginning of a new relationship, then every exit is also the beginning of a relationship of new sort”

Organizational entry involves planning, implementing, and controlling a defined path for new hires to gain access and become employees of the company. New employees prove themselves during the hiring process to get into a company. Employee onboarding will help them to understand how a company can give them a viewpoint to prove themselves once they get started. No employee joins with an intention to leave but can experience the fear of the unknown. So, making a good impression on them in the first few days is very important even before they start. Employee Onboarding will help new hires learn the core values and behaviors of the company to become productive by building relationships with colleagues. It should extend beyond the the first week of an employee. It can last anywhere from a month to a year. In many companies, onboarding is often confused with orientation. Filling out essential paperwork, participating in hands-on training, socializing with co-workers, and understanding the company culture on the first day of joining is not the end of the employee onboarding process.

Employee Onboarding

Onboarding is an opening for the new hire to connect passionately with the company's vision and culture. It should give them all the tools and resources they need to become happy and productive members of the team as fast as possible. At the same time, it should give them a real impression of a company, so that they stick around long-term. In coMakeIT, Orientation is not structured to be a training program, but it is a social function that assists as a familiarization program provided to a new employee.  We call it a ‘getting to know us’ program which includes.

• Overview of the organization
• Policies, procedures, rules, and regulations
• Employee Benefits
• Health, safety, and environment
• Tour of Facilities
• Department functions and there assigned duties and Responsibilities

Our onboarding efforts start once the employee has accepted the offer. We create a checklist that includes what needs to be done before they start work, during the first week, and beyond.

• As soon as they've accepted the job, we will send the required paperwork through email and that way we create a more personal experience. This way, we will be spending more time with a new hire, instead of waiting for them to fill out forms on the joining day.
• We will be in constant touch with them to address any of their concerns in advance.
• A few days before they start work, we do a friendly reminder call sharing how excited we are to have them join our team. We give them the essential information that would be needed on their first day at office.
• To further alleviate any first-day jitters we will share the contact list of people to reach for any help they need on joining day.
• It can be unnerving to walk into a new job if no one knows who you are or what your role is. To prevent this from happening, we raise tickets to connected shared service departments introducing in advance who the new employee will be, so everyone knows how they'll fit into the onboarding process.
• To make the new employee feel special we welcome them with a new Joining kit which includes a few useful goodies. Everyone likes gifts, whether it is small or big and it will brighten their first day from the start.
• We arrange our new hire a clean, stocked, and organized place to work right from the start to make them feel like they can start being productive right off the bat before they arrive.

• To make the office tour more interesting, we let our new hire know where people meet during the breaks, we show them a good place to get some quiet thinking done by giving them a sense of what our office is all about which will help them fine-tune to their new surroundings right away.
• We introduce co-workers and the team to new employee sooner after orientation. This will help them to adjust to the new environment sooner and make them comfortable.
• We also include our new employee’s headshot and a brief bio in the dashboard which will be displayed on TV during the week letting all the employees know their new teammate so the team can enthusiastically and genuinely welcome him/her also welcome mail will be shared throughout out the company on the same day.
• We assure them that they can reach us any time any day if they have questions and need any help. This little trust will help them worry-free and make them concentrate on their new role in the company knowing that we are there to help.
• We make sure all the necessary details to reach all the critical departments like insurance, finance, and helpdesk about the new employee on the same day to kick start the new journey smoothly.

Induction

Induction is part of onboarding which will help new employees to learn and adapt in the organizational culture, core values, and show them how interconnected he/she is to everyone in the organization. Successful employee induction is an ongoing process and it doesn't simply end after the new starter's first day, week, or even month so to engage our recruits, we make sure they grow into their roles, and, ultimately, pass their probationary period before they attend our induction program which will be planned in every 2 to 3 months. We treat our Induction program as the ideal time to make a lasting impression with the new hire, build trust, and alignment with role expectations. In the induction program we take them go through the company’s vision, norms, and values we want them to imbibe. As a priority, we also cover legal and compliance requirements for working at the company and the health and safety of the new employee. we make sure the day isn’t all about business and policies, it’s also about team building, and having fun. The key is to make them understand the core values of the company more practically hence we include activities and games during the induction process. This will make the team excited to kick off this new stage of their careers This will be followed by team lunch for an informal “meet and greet” with other team members and management. We conclude the induction program by taking feedback from employees, understanding, and implementing the valuable inputs.

Offboarding

Generations ago we may have thought “who cares about former employees and their feedbacks?” It is natural that there is a moment of separation between the employee and the company, for several reasons. We don’t like to lose our people, but when it happens for a reason beyond anyone’s liking or control, a new moment of truth sets in. We are very concerned about the reasons that the employee chooses to leave us, so we religiously conduct exit interview and elicit feedback from the employee. There may be things there that require attention in the company, at various levels. We will do great disservice to the HR function, if we wouldn’t capture that pulse of the employee who is leaving. Every exit is a new opening of relationship. Perhaps we can learn from it, or we hire them back at later point in time, but in any case, they will be ambassadors of the company’s culture even after they left. In today's generation, negative exit interviews can erode a company brand, our ability to hire top talent also internal team morale, and even reputation with our clients. But if we don’t learn from the findings, the damage is much deeper.

Our exit program contains

Interview

Employee exits aren't easy. But getting exits right or even getting them better can have an important influence on every other aspect of the company hence we take exit as important as onboarding. when we hear clues about a possible departure and want to retain that person, we make an honest, good-faith effort to improve the situation since we trust that a "good exit" begins long before the last day of an employee with the organization.

Counseling

We always start our exit process in view of retainment. We try to understand the employee’s need for resigning, analyze the situation, and support and counsel him/her in the right direction

Critical Observation

we are delighted to express that we have a good record of retainment and most of our former employees strongly agree that they consider themselves to be a part of our organization's alumni network and re-joined us. We make sure that when an ex-employee looks back on his time in the company, we want them to feel like they mattered, and they are proud of their contribution to the organization. 

Exit Analysis

No matter how short or lengthy exit interviews are, we review every piece of information and do an analysis. We will notice if a certain team has a particularly high turnover rate or if any company policy negatively impacted many employees which will lead us to do furthermore investigation to help management to do changes to certain policies and coach teams on exit feedback trends. We believe that when done well, exit interviews can be one of the most significant ways one can express their organization's culture. There’s a lot that can be learned about a company’s values through the eyes of an employee who has resigned that can benefit everyone involved. Hence we give the greatest importance to exit interview feedback. This will help us analyze and turn it into a better experience for existing employees and turn former employees into brand ambassadors.

New Normal

In this pandemic, our onboarding and offboarding processes are the same but executing them virtually is the new normal.

Virtual onboarding

Company values expand beyond the walls of the office and a new member must be felt welcome into that culture. Remote working should not be a barrier to that. Few steps that we are following that have proven to be effective in our virtual onboarding process: Without the luxury of meeting the team members physically, informal interactive sessions are arranged to keep the new employee at ease. Taking the employee through a virtual tour by introducing supportive services like ICT, Finance, Facilities, and HR for a better understanding of the company functionality. We are having regular audio and video calls with new joiners to help them settle into their new roles. Our virtual onboarding needs to be smart, efficient, and fast too so that it hampers employee’s ability to perform their job. Without orthodox team meetings, it is necessary to digitally bind new employees together. As physical distance is keeping us apart, HR needs to be torch bearer and bridge the gap virtually and productively.

Virtual offboarding

Due to the pandemic we miss the opportunity to sit across the table, look into each other’s eyes for a true reflection on the reasons for exit. Although we resort to online tools for a video call, nothing replaces an in-person discussion during the exit process.