In this podcast we discuss the recent trends in employee onboarding. Joining us is new product manager for Corridor Careers, Becky Lutgen Gardner. Becky brings a wealth of experience as well as recent employee onboarding experience.

Resources:

• Back to Human, 9 employee onboarding trends for 2023
• Trends in employee onboarding that can shape your onboarding process

Hi. Welcome to cruising coffee. I'm Liz

Kennedy, Product Manager at The Gazette. And I'm here with Becky

Lynch and Gartner. Welcome Becky.

Well, thank you very much. I

appreciate that list.

Becky's our new product manager for Corridor

Careers, we're really happy to have her on the podcast and

today we're going to be talking about something that makes

sense. Since Becky's new, it's an employee onboarding. So this

is something that is always difficult for companies when

they are short staff, which many are right now is to do proper

onboarding. I know we're still onboarding you technically,

Becky, what do you think? Any comments on like someone who's

moved from the job market into a role recently?

Well, I think the interesting part of

that list is that I think what we've all learned is that

onboarding is not a short process. And certainly, when you

have to get the work done in the day, it's also one of those

things where having it spaced out and over time, as Ben's come

up as things are happening, actually makes more sense. And

as somebody who's kind of enjoyed watching, you know, at

the same time that I'm being able to perform doing that

extended onboarding, actually, I think makes more sense, in the

sense of it makes me feel a little bit more connected,

because it's not a one and done thing. It's not a, okay, we're

gonna touch this now. And we expect that you know, everything

you need to know and move on. So, yeah, I think the prolonged

onboarding, I think, is here to stay. And I think that's a great

thing.

Okay, well, that's, that makes me feel better. Um,

but yeah, I think that I think that's true for any role,

though, is that well, I mean, there's going to be some roles

where you're kind of expected to know what you're doing day one,

and you, you, you enter you, you learn the safety measures, and

maybe what the particular specifics of the job are, but

then you kind of know, like, I'm thinking welding or something

where it's a, it's a trade skill, that you're, you know,

how to do that skill. And then you just kind of have to know

how they want you to do that skill. But other roles that

require like a lot of soft skills, there's nuances to how

to perform those soft skills. So, I mean, it could take months

to really get up to speed.

Well, and I think that's important to know, we all

have, you know, our expertise in different areas. But again, you

know, my background has always been in communication. So I, I

feel like I'm probably a good candidate for onboarding, but

when you're learning new processes, new systems, new ways

to do your job, you know, some of those hard things that you

have to work on, and you're working on different programs,

different things that need to happen, those are gonna take a

little bit of time, and get that quite a repertoire over time. To

show that skill base and being proficient in it, training is a

big deal. So doing that, and continuing training, as there's

been, you know, upgrades launches, different

opportunities, new vendor, on whatever we're doing, I think

that's another reason I think that onboarding, over a

prolonged period of time, really is going to make a difference

for a lot of people. Whether you're a small company or a

large company.

Yeah, and I mean, even some of these larger

companies. Well, even at The Gazette, we used to have a

dedicated trainer. That was many, many moons ago, but those

kinds of those days are kind of gone. And so every managers,

kind of pressed to provide training become an expert in

training. And in there, to varying levels of success,

right. So I know that there have been like, over the pandemic,

many, many job changes have happened simply because when new

employees were on boarded, they weren't on boarded properly,

they never felt a sense of satisfaction that they were

actually accomplishing what they were what they set out to do.

And I don't know if you have any comments about that.

So well, and having been in a different position and

being on boarded, during the pandemic. It was one of those

things where, you know, you kind of feel this disconnect, I had a

staff of people that I was working with, and I only do them

remotely. And so how do we engage? How do we, how do we get

everybody on that same page? And onboarding is a big part of that

as well. I do think one of the good things and I think you

speak to that where, yes, you don't have an individual trader

now, but I think having a buddy system, having that opportunity

to really kind of pick and choose that, buddy throughout

that onboarding process to help learn, I think is even more

important with as you're talking remote, as well as a person,

that opportunity to learn from somebody else that's already in

the trenches that already knows what they're doing. It's a great

opportunity to ask those questions, and I think it feels

more personal. And yes, we all can do the online training Some

things like that, but if that hands on, watching sometimes is

a little bit more effective, I guess in really retaining the

information and being able to then duplicate it once, it's

your chance to say, Hey, I get to go do that now.

Well, it's a good segue into our next topic, we're

talking about the new normal. So post pandemic, now we're good,

we're good bit out of it. As far as the kind of drastic changes

to our work life have happened. You've been doing some research

on kind of what the new normal is with regards to work from

home slash hybrid slash work in person, any thoughts on this new

this new normal we're in.

And that new normalized in it's, I think we're here to

stay, I think we've learned a lot we know we can work remotely

for the most part in many positions and be effective. But

we also know that, that personal hands on is so important,

whether it's talking about onboarding, somebody making them

feel comfortable within a company, understanding the

company culture, I think is a big deal going forward, that

personalization, we've all we've all learned how important it is,

in job satisfaction to feel that personal connection, how can you

best do that, especially if it's a hybrid role or or remote. You

know, it's really having that that ability to have that

constant communication, and making sure that we're

personalizing things for people. Because, again, at the end of

the day onboarding is about learning, learning about the

company learning and the skills and things that you know that

you need the technology. But we all learn differently. And we

all absorb that information differently. So I think, a

personalization, it's just not handing over a company manual

and saying, Here you go, it's really taking that next step to

say, how do you best want to absorb this information? Is

there another tactic we can take? Is there something else?

Do you? Do you prefer to watch videos? Do you prefer to have a

hands on conversation? Do you prefer to do this in person if

you can. So really learning the people that you're on reporting

and understanding how they learn, I think is really that

personalization that you're going to start seeing a lot more

of post COVID

was a great thoughts. So we're gonna leave

anyone today with some tips about onboarding. One of the

topics that we talked about was kind of having to set a set

program for your new hires, so that you can kind of walk them

through over time and allowing that program to last longer than

just the first week, right. So making sure that you're

considering that onboarding process, a longer term prod

project. Any other tips that you thought we touched on here?

I think the other thing was with COVID, that onboarding,

that process and agreed that we want to make sure that we can

extend it as long as necessary. But flexibility, right, we all

have learned that we need to be flexible when we're working with

people when we're going through processes, because we all know,

best intentions, if you didn't get to something by week 234.

You know, just keep it on that radar, because it doesn't mean

that your employee still doesn't need to onboard that

information. So, you know, I think that flexibility and

making sure that our onboarding processes, we don't abandon

them, but that we make sure that we continue to if we need to

pull that out, stretch it out, add to them, that we're flexible

enough to be able to do that. At the end of the day, that

personalization, making sure we're touching that employee

goes such a long way towards really making that person feel

included involved part of that family that is the workplace,

because that's that's what we are we we you know, as we're

working through that with with our our folks understanding,

that personal touch, I think really is going to make that big

difference there as

well. Great thoughts, Becky, I just follow

up with one more comments as far as as what we've learned over

time with your onboarding is having a map of that onboarding

process and just revisiting it regularly is going to help you

stay on track and make sure you're not leaving holes for

your new employee so that they fall into a hole a little

pitfall with their with their new role. The last thing you

want is a new hire to feel overwhelmed and out of out of

their depth when it's really just a simple training that you

need to do with them to make sure they're up to speed on

everything with communication. If you guys have any comments

about onboarding, what's working for you, please leave them in

the comments below and be sure to like and subscribe to our

YouTube channel, or give us a call at Corridor Careers at

contact at corridor careers.com. You can give us an email if you

have ideas for topics for us to cover here on careers and

coffee, and hope you have a wonderful day