Your team is struggling with onboarding and orientation. How can you help them get up to speed quickly?

If the team is struggling, it basically means am not doing my job properly. The leader should understand his team and their capabilities and guide them instead of judging them.

Onboarding is like guiding a ship into a new harbour; it requires both clear directions and a welcoming crew. Enrich this journey with storytelling, tying new hires to the team’s vision and values. Incorporate mentorship for personalised guidance and foster open communication for a culture of continuous learning. Effective onboarding is less about the map and more about a confident, integrated journey into the team’s culture and dynamics.

From my experience there needs to be a clear structure that ensures a consistent and equal input from both the new hire and on boarding team. This needs to be audited and reviewed by senior management on a Montly basis. This is the big opportunity to ensure organisation culture is clarified but just as important to keep unwanted work practices out

Onboarding plays a significant role to enhance engagement and reducing infantile attrition (employee leaving within a year of joining). Handholding quality and proactive feedback plays a key role to manage the onboarding process well, irrespective of the organization having HR tech maturity or not . it is key to have 5-5-5 ( 5th day ,5th week ,5th month of joining) feedback session to understand the process effectiveness and working on the expectation gap, if any from either side. if the culture fit assessment is missed out during interview , rather doing it again after joining , just focus on culture assimilation. As such, a buddy , empathetic HR SPOC and supportive manager can make huge positive impact to the new joinee.

To clarify expectations during onboarding, host interactive sessions where new hires actively participate in goal-setting and role discussions. Conduct workshops to illustrate roles and align them with team objectives. Immerse them in the team's vision and values through storytelling. Establish a feedback culture and pair them with experienced mentors. Utilize visual task boards to provide clarity on expectations and deadlines. Finally...communicate, communicate, communicate. Way too often new hires are treated like 'free range' employees and left to fend for themselves.

Schedule regular meetings with new hires to address their concerns, provide feedback, and track their progress. This ensures they feel supported and on the right track. Additionally, encourage new hires to share their feedback and suggestions about the onboarding and orientation process. This helps you identify areas for improvement and tailor the experience for future hires.

I love the Sandwich Feedback Method :). Start - Positive Feedback: Firstly, commend the new team member on their strengths or achievements. Highlight specific instances where they have excelled or made a positive impact. Then - Constructive Criticism: Provide specific areas for improvement or suggestions for growth. Be specific, actionable, and offer guidance on how they can enhance their performance or skills. Finish - Positive Reinforcement: End the feedback with another positive note, reiterating confidence in their abilities and expressing optimism about their continued contributions to the team. This method helps maintain a balance, ensuring that the feedback is constructive and motivating rather than demotivating.

By using modern tools such as Loom or Slack, employers or team leaders can easily share video or text feedback with new hires, making the process more effective and efficient. These tools allow for clear communication and specific examples, thereby facilitating the understanding of what needs to be improved or celebrated. Being able to visually or verbally walk through feedback can also help establish a stronger connection with team members.

Put them directly in the scene by asking them for thier feedback and expecting good quality ones and take their feedback seriously . Applying some of their ideas included in the feedback will show them that their voices matter .

Regular scheduled feedback will be beneficial for both management and new hire - 30, 60 and 90 days review - ask if the new hire noticed any processes requiring potential opportunities - ask to list of things that he appreciates in operations - make your new hire feel valued

During the onboarding of new employees, many companies typically offer product training, demos, and meetings with department leads and stakeholders. 👉 To ensure familiarity with tools and processes specific your department or group, assign Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to train in each area/tool/process. This not only allows new employees to meet all team members but also fosters strong team bonding. 👉 Make use of company training portals for effective onboarding. Establish a repeatable process for onboarding new employees.

I would highly advise any company that requires extensive onboarding training for new hires to invest in or develop a training portal, something nowadays that can be done on a relatively low-cost basis. This way training sessions and onboarding sessions can be recorded and stored. In an growing organisation where new hires can join the company sporadically, this prevents a slow down of growth, and further saves vasts amount of time. It also creates a reference point for any refreshers needed. One key, however, is to avoid losing the human element and interaction with the new hire throughout the onboarding process.

Develop a clear and structured onboarding plan with defined milestones, responsibilities, and timelines. This provides a roadmap for new hires and reduces confusion. Instead of relying solely on paperwork or lengthy presentations, use a mix of training methods like hands-on activities, role-playing, video tutorials, and interactive modules.

If you do offer training, ensure that you allocate time to contextualize that training. Show how that training applies to the day-to-day work. Often, you can learn about a concept, but if you don't ground that concept in what is happening in the company, it can be time that was wasted. Application of knowledge is always more valuable than the knowledge itself. Help people connect the dots.

Having a template for a 30 - 60 - 90 plan to set the expectations and show the availability of training. This plans should include job shadowing other peers, people to meet from other supporting teams and scheduled meetings during this timeline to make sure your new employee is getting everything they need to thrive in their new role.

Before team members arrival identify and agree with your team on different POCs. Each team member has a specialty for which they will train and answer any question from the new team member. You can also organise shadowing sessions. It will create team spirit, build connection fast, make your team feel valued for what they do well and divide onboarding time between stakeholders.

Here is how to help new teammates ease their transition into a team/company: - Clear understanding of team and company goals: it's crucial to have a deep understanding of both the immediate team and broader company goals. - Access to historical and current project data: it would provide valuable insights into what has worked well and areas where improvements can be made. - Structured onboarding process: it would include task boards (Notion or Google Sheets or Monday.com), meetings with cross-functional teams. - Mentorship and training: pairing with a co-pilot within a team who has extensive experience in processes and tooling. - Early involvement in strategic collaborative discussions.

I always identify a buddy for any new hire. This is usually a more senior team member that has the experience and skill set required for the job and more importantly someone the new hire would look up to and inspire from. Sometimes I need to look outside my direct team within the bigger organization for such resource. In such case, one must be mindful of other’s time and commitments. It also has to be a win-win, so it has to align with the buddy’s career goals.

Onboarding start when you publish the job description to hire someone. The info you share should let the person know what to expect and what they are signing for. Important to give some time during the interview process to the candidates to ask questions. As badly they need the job, you need them as well, so you should also go towards them and make them feel they are welcomed. Have a process of who is doing what before the first day and hand them how their first weeks will look like in terms of meetings, trainings and also who they should meet and for what. Only by doing this minimum, true collaboration will emerge.

Collaboration between peers not only leads to long lasting relationships that help cultivate a closer team culture, but it allows more experienced teammates to gain skills in mentoring. This accelerates new hires to be more proficient and business savvy by inheriting knowledge, gain context to current and best practices, while conversely inviting their fresh perspective to encourage innovation. Go together, grow together.

Recognizing and celebrating each small achievement during a new employee's journey not only boosts morale but also reinforces their understanding and integration into the team. Whether it's completing their training module, contributing to a project, or reaching the end of their first month, acknowledging these milestones can significantly enhance a new hire's confidence and sense of belonging. This also helps to a positive work culture, showing that every step forward is valued. Such celebrations, whether through a personal note of congratulations, or a shared moment in a team meeting, can make the new employee feel recognized and appreciated, fostering a deeper connection with the company and accelerating their path to full productivity.

Recognitions are one of the most underrated and underappreciated corporate (and life) tools. Studies have consistently shown that nonmonetary awards and recognition help boost employee satisfaction, aside from bonuses or additional financial compensation. Fostering a culture of recognitions and the celebration of successes benefits both the company and employee.

Es clave incluir un informe de los logros y la reflexión de los pasos, desde el rol de líder aspectos tan básicos como el dejar que el colaborador tenga espacios para mostrar su resultados y celebrar el cumpleaños siempre aporta en unir lo profesional y lo personal, somos personas trabajando con personas.

I am always a believer that positive encouragement will beat fear tactics every time to optimize team results. It is important to take time out to tell team members what they are doing right, so that they can develop their confidence. If someone is struggling I try to look at their work and find two points they are getting right to sandwich each area for improvement between, this way they know what is working and what is not working. Otherwise it can feel really overwhelming to only get negative feedback, and lead to low self-confidence and more mistakes. We also post on a Slack channel all the NPS and review responses that mention a team member, so they get these public commendations in front of the team. :)

We all have milestones, both personal and professional. Those two things in the end are not separate. This being said, hitting a milestone at work boosts your motivation and performance as if acquiring a new skillset altogether. As a leader, you need to be part of that, an push for more, for celebrating each step of the way. Every effort being made helps in the long term. Helps for your own mental health, understanding that you're happy at work, you're being noticed and recognized.

At the end of the day, leadership needs to provide the right support and vision to their team. It is also incredibly important to know who your "customer" is as a leader. Meet regularly and have an organized meeting format. Review prior commitments, ideate for new ideas then make commitments. Create excitement, create momentum within your team, and just crush results.

Onboarding is make-or-break for retention and ramp up. If we invest here, competent, loyal teams will emerge faster. To accelerate, I: • Outline key objectives for roles in the first month • Assign peer mentors to guide new hires personally  • Schedule 30/60/90mins check-ins to solicit feedback on gaps • Create quick-start guides for core systems with video tutorials • Host "lunch and learn" for dialogue on their pain points • Conduct stay interviews to improve processes continuously • Incentivize referrals for hiring well-suited candidates All because, I believe, robust support early on can beat trial-by-fire. At Firestorm, soliciting input uncovers friction points.

I believe that the most important thing for successful on-boarding happens long before you on-board: it's knowing what your purpose is for being in business and defining your company culture. Once you know what your company culture is, create actionable ways to teach your employees how to live into your culture - yup, "actionable"! Then create on-boarding to teach those actionable ways to live into your culture. It's the meta-thinking beforehand that makes the difference, and then allowing employees to share in that meta-thinking before they start.

To help your team get up to speed quickly with onboarding and orientation, in reference to soliciting feedback, you could implement a feedback loop into the process. Here's how: 1. Ask new team members for immediate feedback after each onboarding session to understand what is or isn't working. 2. Create quick surveys or informal discussions that encourage honest and constructive feedback. 3. Use feedback to identify areas of the onboarding process that are unclear or overwhelming and adjust accordingly. 4. Continually refine the onboarding experience based on feedback to make it more efficient and effective. 5. Encourage a culture of open communication so team members feel comfortable sharing their onboarding experiences and suggestions.

If you are going to solicit feedback you need to ensure you have a way to measure the data coming from the feedback and turn it into action items for yourself or your team. If you constantly collect data with no analysis that’s all it is, data. You can boost morale by taking feedback that teammate saw as important, and weaving it into a new process or changing an existing process.

My view on this would be to encourage and create an environment for people to ask questions openly. Once you have that freedom, you open up and start engaging with others and smoothen the onboarding experience. The other thing that works for me is to put a new joiner onto a project directly shadowing an experienced person alongside. That is another technique which helps them get to real problems quicker and form a team spirit and deliver faster and better.

Write everything down. Provide new team members with a robust knowledge base on which they can rely as they get started. Include a dictionary of common org terms and abbreviations. Make sure they knew where to go to get timely, reliable answers to questions. "Ask your manager" is not sufficient. New team members should be provided with the tools needed to self-serve problems on the job just like they can at home thanks to Google, YouTube, Reddit, etc.

Many companies faced challenges during the pandemic as onboarding employees remotely made it difficult to experience the company culture. Without water cooler talks or bagel/casual Fridays/happy hour, it's crucial to design interactive sessions and fun social events ( virtual and onsite ) to ensure new employees can get to experience the company culture. Ensure new employees actively participate in company-wide meetings and events to foster social connections with colleagues.

Some actions that can help - 1. Explain the objective that needs to be achieved and expectations from everyone towards the same with minimal ambiguity 2. Assign a mentor that can share experiences and help navigate based on past experience within Org 3. Solicit regular feedback through open interactions and make necessary course corrections 4. Create as many opportunities as possible for collaborations and in person interactions within team

New hires , specially the young generation would be able to improve the company digitalization culture very fast . We should provide them with the tools needed to do so . They will bloom fast with technology !