I left an organization (Pre-COVID) sooner than I ever imagined.
In the overall scheme of things it wasn’t working out for me. I had to make the tough decision to amicably resign before committing to projects internally. I did get to be part of their onboarding, but the experience left me quite dry.
What could have made the onboarding experience better?
This post reflects on what I think could have been way better. I have been part of two kinds of onboarding sessions. One, where the onboarding sessions are done by a single person initially, followed by a slew of meetings with key people who matter to my work during the week. Another is where a day is set, and you get to meet the functional heads to know the organization. Later, you get to fix meetings with key people that matter to you.
This particular experience was with a behemoth, not a startup or a nonprofit organization.
Choose an experienced employee, not a newbie.
The junior may be a passionate professional. But, there will always be questions specific to the new employee’s area of interest that require some detail.
Content will always be King.
Passion is great, but having experienced (informed) employee presenters sets a great beginning toward a positive employee experience.
Tell me stories of how your values are reflected internally. What are the employee-specific programs? What am I getting myself into? etc
Copy-Paste.
An onboarding presentation, simply a copy-paste of the external website, is annoying to sit through. One expects some internal data, but it needs to excite the employees’ that encourages a great time ahead.
Onboarding Warrior.
There wasn’t any onboarding team. It was a one-woman army, who was managing the entire induction process without any support, was like a fish out of water. I tried to ease her burden by offering to take care of a few things (set up meetings, etc.) myself. She refused to accept because she was too indoctrinated to believe all that work had to be done by her alone.
Meeting Stakeholders.
The HR person responsible was only trying to get done with her job. She would drop into my office randomly and take me to meet stakeholders. Most wouldn’t be in their cabins or seats. Of the 25, I met up with only five stakeholders. Despite my telling her that I would reach out to them and fix a time for these meetings. She was insistent as her MANAGER wanted HER to get it done.
there's more…
There was no physical space to sit for 9 hours at work. Yes, they even had “school” timings. If you are 30 minutes late to work, then an entire day’s salary would be deducted. No ID cards, I was told it would take a month or two. Facilities were uncared for, and there was only two overworked Admin staff to handle daily issues. Did I tell you about the interview process? They needed a medal for wasting time.
In the three days, I was there, I noticed people would come on time and leave late. No one wasted any time loitering around. There wasn’t any space to do that. People seemed busy all the time. Work was worship. With top companies leaving the city because of an unfavorable business environment, people would spend a lot of time in the office.
With no companies to switch to and personal reasons to stay in the city, most employees did not have an option. Trying to set up non-core work meetings (core for me as the Internal Communication department) would mean getting to meet employees after 4 pm or 5 pm. Goodbye life!
Glassdoor reviews were spot on. Employees complained about being overworked and disconnected, apart from being paid below-industry salaries and dissing HR.
Time to re-think onboarding
Leaders need to spend time understanding people's requirements to sustain high-level talent. HR is still considered just a recruitment function in most organizations. They remain understaffed and overworked.
Pre-Internet, one would hardly know about a company before joining. Today, candidates can make an informed choice about joining any organization. Set your expectations right before you accept an offer letter. Oh, I hadn’t received the offer letter too. Repeated promises of sending one before I joined stayed consistent with me not receiving it at all (Even after being there for three days!!!).
The Employee Experience begins much before Onboarding at the time when your selection is announced. I chose to ignore the earlier signals and took a leap of faith in. Then I had to take the leap of faith out. On board, only to get out before the flight took off.
It was one of the best decisions I made professionally. Not giving in to the pressure of unemployment and saying no to a large brand.
Moving on…
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