Talya Bauer - Effectively On-Boarding New Employees

Steve

Hi, this is Steve Hunt with People Performance Radio, and this week's interview is with Professor Talya Bauer, who is the Cameron Professor of Management at Portland State University. She's also the editor of the Journal of Management, which, if you read these things, is one of the leading journals on studying talent management practices from a more rigorous academic standpoint, and Talya's talking to us about onboarding, and the process of bringing employees into an organization. This is an area where she's done a lot of research and worked at a lot of different companies and shared some really interesting ideas about the difference between onboarding from a technical job performance standpoint and onboarding from a social relationship standpoint, and shared some great ideas and observations. This is actually interesting too, because SuccessFactors, the company, we've just called a new offering called the Business Accelerator Toolkit, of which one of the things in that toolkit is content and forms specifically designed to assist with onboarding, so this is clearly a topic that is becoming really important as companies want to maximize the performance of their people as soon as possible after they hire them. So with no further ado, let's listen to Talya Bauer here on People Performance Radio.

Hi, this is Steve Hunt, we're here with People Performance Radio, and we're talking to Professor Talya Bauer, who is the Cameron Professor of Management at Portland State University, and she's also the editor of the Journal of Management, which is one of the leading academic research journals on management topics. So Talya, thank you so much for appearing on People Performance Radio.

Talya

Thank you for having me.

Steve

So Talya, we talked a little bit before the show, and one of the things that you've done a lot of research personally on is on the area of onboarding new employees, bringing people into the organization, and this is a very specific but critical part of the talent management process, so can you talk a little bit about, what exactly is onboarding?

Talya

Definitely. Onboarding, the concept is pretty simple, it's the process of getting new employees adjusted to the job, and I really break that into social and performance-related aspects of the job, and over the last 16 years I've studied a lot of different populations in terms of this, so research scientists, executives, college graduates, going into accounting or engineering, as well as teachers, so a lot of different industries, but it seems like there's some overall themes about what helps to make people successful or not successful when they onboard, and for the last, I'd say 12 years, maybe ten years, we've been calling it in the academic literature, the socialization process, learning the ropes in a new organization, and the term onboarding has really made it a lot more accessible for people who are in industry on the ground doing these things, so I wouldn't say it's a new concept in terms of what is going on underneath, but the term is definitely relatively new.

Steve

Yes, that's interesting about the phrase, there's probably a whole source of money to be made in just reading academic journals and just rewording the titles in a way that other people can understand what they are.

Talya

Absolutely. Socialization was distracting to people because they thought a lot about childhood development, or being sociable, but onboarding seems to be much clearer to people.

Steve

So you mentioned there are two sides to it, there's the social side and the performance side. Maybe it's useful to talk about what companies tend to do wrong first, and then we'll talk about what they do right, or do you think it's more useful the other way?—because when you look at onboarding, and then when people come on, are there critical steps that take place in the onboarding process, where organizations tend to really struggle? Are there, you said there's some clear patterns—maybe just sort of summarize, when you're looking at an onboarding process, what do you actually look at to see if it's working or not?

Talya

Indicators that I really have focused on in my research and that I think make a lot of sense are, that if you've got successful onboarding, you're increasing job satisfaction, performance is better, and you're inoculating against turnover, so in thinking about those really good outcomes from both the employee side and the organization side, doing things right makes a big difference. I'd say, there's not really much to say about organizations that do it wrong, basically they aren't doing anything, they spend a lot of attention to treating employees a certain way when they're recruiting and selecting them, and once they come on board, they spend the first day or two filling out forms and doing legal compliance documents, so the signal gets lost there, and we really miss a lot of opportunities, but I'd say that's what the majority of companies do.

Steve

So it's not so much that they do things wrong, it's just they don't do anything at all?

Talya

Absolutely. They don't pay attention to the different aspects of onboarding.

Steve

So what are the steps that go into effective onboarding, is there a framework that lays out, when you're developing an onboarding process, are there like developmental stages people go through in childhood, are there onboarding stages?

Talya

Absolutely, in the research we've really talked about pre-entry, before you get there, matters, and a lot of the other research I've done in applicant reactions would indicate that, if you treat people poorly before you hire them, they are less excited to work for you than if you treat them well, but then being consistent with that, once they get on board, the first day, first week, and then about every 30 days after that are development milestones across a lot of different industries.

Steve

Is is the same stages for—well maybe go back and clarify, because I remember right at the beginning you said there's the social side of onboarding, there's the performance side of onboarding, so maybe when you're talking about these different stages, is it the same for social versus performance, and what are the differences between social and performance?

Talya

Yes, I'd say that they work together, they're interconnected, and so what I see a lot of organizations do is really emphasize how you do the job, here's the training manual, here's what we do, spend a lot of time working the cash register, those sorts of things at lower level jobs, and a lot less on building the relationships, and over time and time again what we've done is, organizations that really work on making people feel comfortable and accepted get much better performance in the long run, so the going slow to go fast.

Steve

So that makes sense, so basically saying, you put a lot of structure on the technical side of the job, but there's value in putting structure on the more soft side of starting a new job too, around relationships. What would that look like in an organization that would do something to help people build relationships in a job—what does that look like in an onboarding process?

Talya

The word 'connection' comes up again and again, I've created a framework, which I can talk a little bit about, and Kellogg Company and IBM both use the words 'connecting', so IBM, when they talk about their onboarding process, they talk about the steps of affirming, beginning and then connecting—the pre, the once you get there, and then working on that as you're there. Kellogg talks about clarifying, connecting, navigating and reviewing, so the word connect comes up over and over again as different people think about this.

For my onboarding framework, what I think about is really three levels, and so a level one is where I talked about the organization that isn't doing anything, and that's really a passive onboard, so they're doing the compliance because there's a legal component, going onto paperwork and you know the safety regulations and those sorts of things, but that's about all they're doing, it's kind of sink or swim once you get on board. And then I think about level two as being more of a high potential onboarding, so we're doing the compliance, we're clarifying, maybe even on some of the social, quite a lot on the job, so all you need to do is then add in that connection, and then level three is what I call a 'proactive onboarding company', and there they're doing the basics really well, but they're also building in, what is our culture like? - how will you fit in, how will you make us make our culture stronger and better, and then really working on connection, and that literally means connecting you to other people in the organization, by having these touchpoints that companies talk a lot about.

Steve

Can you give some examples of what those touchpoints—like a process you've seen a company to do help establish those touchpoints? Is it just like, welcome to the job, this is Frank?

Talya

A little bit of that, the more lower level in terms of hourly workers have less money and time to spend on this. A company like Microsoft, where they're spending a lot more to recruit and invest and work with employees, they're going to have peer mentors, that's going to be a really important part; they're going to have a helpdesk, so if you have basic clarification questions, you can just call right away with any of those; technology's becoming more and more important, and so everybody is having websites that help with that; but then also you're going to be assigned to someone who's literally, and they call them touchpoints, who is assigned at a certain point in your six months, your 12 months, first month on the job, to make sure they take time out of their job to connect with you, spend 15 minutes talking, take you out to lunch, literally connect, to see what's going on.

Steve

Do they really, when you look at those touchpoints, and making somebody a touchpoint, it seems like that's such a critical role, and I'm thinking of some of my own experiences I've had, where sometimes an organization has said, "This is your touchpoint", you meet the person once and then you never see them again. Do they provide training and a set of expectations that say, "Look, if you're a touchpoint, it means something other than you're just going to give your name to someone?"

Talya

Absolutely, so I think that's the key, and maybe I even framed it wrong, I said taking time out of your job. I think that companies that are level three proactive onboarding make it part of your job, so the success of the employees that come on and work with you, if you're a hiring manager, that part of your job is to make sure they're successful, and that those touchpoints make sense, so literally you're trained and they're trained on how to be proactive in getting information, so if you're meeting and they're being really guarded and not telling you any of their real problems, or you're not asking anything that's real and you're just making small talk, you're right, you don't get a lot of benefit.

So the key is, it's not, "Steve's been here three months and he's a problem—let's talk to him", everybody is going to talk to one another at three months, so you're really coached as the employee to ask for what you need, to talk about problems, to talk about what's going well and to seek feedback, but at the same time the other person is trained to make sure that there's a meaningful conversation.

Steve

So it's a little bit like companies that do interviewing well, they don't just ask people to interview employees, they give them very specific training on how to interview and what they should be looking for?—is that similar, do you have processes?

Talya

Absolutely.

Steve

What makes somebody a really good touchpoint versus a bad touchpoint?

Talya

Well that's a great question, and I think different organizations have dealt with this differently, so some, it's just like the mentoring literature I think, sometimes it makes sense to have it be somebody that you work with directly, but a lot of times it makes sense to have somebody kind of from the side, but who understands your job as well, so in Bank of America, they call them 'key stakeholders', so sometimes that might be your manager, other times it might be somebody from HR, and other times it might be someone from another area who is at your same level.

Steve

So it sounds like on the social side then, you're saying the real thing that differentiates companies who do onboarding well is, one, they actually have a process to create these touchpoints and connections, and then they have a structure to give people clear guidance.

What about on the performance side, just trying to get people up to speed as fast as possible?—are there things that you see on these level three companies that do the performance side really well, or you mentioned having call centers and websites—are there other things that they do to help people master the technical side of their job really effectively, are there certain trends that you've seen organizations do there?

Talya

I think those touchpoints, the stakeholder meetings, do a lot of that, so you're able to ask any kind of basic questions that you need, instead of thinking, "Should I know this? Am I going to look stupid if I don't know it? What do I lose by asking questions?"—that it's built right in, and so a company like Toyota spends a long time training you on the Toyota way, whereas other companies, where you're right into the job, trial and error, and so what research shows time and time again is, even if you spend several months working with an employee on how we do this job, you're going to get better performance after a year than the company that throws him in in the first week.

Steve

So it's really saying, if you plan to keep these employees for a long time, it's worth spending time up front?—just as it's worth spending time on the hiring process, also after they're hired, spend some time because that will pay off well for years down the road?

Steve

Wow!

Talya

Yeah, so and about 10% take it, and they see that as money well spent, because they've got rid of people who don't believe in the culture and don't seem like a good fit.

Steve

I think that's great, that reminds me, when you're talking about employee engagement, and somebody just going in, well in the current economy, if people's engagement levels are low, they won't quit, because they don't have a job elsewhere, and you're like—but that's even worse!

Talya

The turnover could be the best thing that ever happens to a company.

Steve

Yeah, the worst thing that could happen with an unengaged person is, they stick around.

That's really fascinating—when you're looking at onboarding, are you seeing—there's been a lot of movement here, but are you seeing the next wave?—where do you see onboarding going in terms of companies, are there some really new, innovative things or things that are being tried that you're not quite certain where they're going to go, a few companies saying, "Wow, I think we are a level three onboarding organization"—what should those organizations be thinking about now?

Talya

I think what really good level three organizations do is they really talk to their employees, and they find out what's working and what's not, and so the companies I've talked about that I really see as being effective, IBM's a great example, they really go out and they survey their employees. Microsoft is another one, so they have set up things, then they thought, having seen your vice presidents and seen your people within the organization, come and talk, would be great, impressive, they care about you, and when they actually talk to new employees, they said, "No, we'd rather talk to somebody who was hired a year ago who understands how to do my job, because I'm still too unclear to know to make sense of what the strategic high level is. I need to understand my job right away. So that was the kind of thing, they just continued to tweak that based on the feedback they get.

Steve

That's a good observation, because you do hear about that, that the CEO has lunch with the new employees or whatever, but the employees are saying, "You know, that's actually not that relevant to my work, what would be relevant is talking to somebody who's more like me."

Talya

Yes, exactly. Bank of America, when their executives takes a different tack, they bring all new hires for six months in and they really talk to people who've been hired recently, as well as presidents and vice-presidents, but those are also higher level employees, so the job is more relevant.

Steve

I see, that makes a lot of sense, and one of the things that clearly is going to be a struggle for anybody who's looking at onboarding is getting the resources and investment. Are there any really good studies or sources that somebody says, look, I want to build a case for my company that we should invest some money in better onboarding processes—can you point us towards any sources or sites to build the financial argument for this?

Talya

Absolutely, even Zappos, who's an online shoe retailer, at a lower level job for call centers, they give a four week training where they talk about culture and what the Zappos way is before they even get to some of the details of the job, and what's really interesting and innovative about what they do is, after one week of this training, they offer people $1,000 to not take the job, to walk away.

Talya

Yes, I was involved in a metanalysis of onboarding, and a metanalysis is a statistical tool so we were able to look at all the studies that have been done, and create a path model, what we found was organizations that have employees that are proactive, that have a formal plan, and that really are focusing on the task and social dimensions, had higher social acceptance for their employees, so they felt like they fit in and they belonged and they could contribute, they were more confident, the employees felt like they knew how to do their job, and they had more role clarity, and all those things together were really related to the bottom line of performance, so I think that's pretty clear evidence that it is related.

Steve

Just so people can look, what's the actual article called, and we'll put a link on our website to it, if we can?

Steve

Well thank you so much, Talya, thank you for appearing on People Performance Radio, and we look forward to talking to you again, because I've no doubt that you have a lot of other topics that you could probably also go on and I've

Talya

It was a metanalyis in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2007, and we'll put it and link that up.

Steve

OK, thanks, because I think that's one of the things that's really hard when you make the point of this is to actually get dollars for this, and so we find any metrics that you can provide to it are really useful.

Talya

Another good site I think, just throw it out there, is Michael Watkins from "The First 90 Days", in his book talks about this break even point, and so for every organization, the math is going to be a little bit different in terms of how long, how much you invest in employees, and when they start to pay off, but if you can do that utility analysis, it's pretty clear that if you can move people to be more productive a month earlier, wow, the dollars associated with that are going to be pretty powerful.

Steve

Cool, well we'll definitely get the links to both of those sites. You've provided a fantastic overview of onboarding—are there any other key concepts that you'd like to share with our audience around onboarding, things that you're thinking companies should be thinking about now or are there things that maybe people need to change about onboarding as our economy changes, or is it pretty much the same regardless of the economy?

Talya

I think the numbers change, but I think regardless of how many people you're hiring, everybody wants to have the best employees, so in a way it becomes harder to wade through all the people who aren't the best qualified, but attracting people and retaining them, it continues to be a competitive advantage for companies, so I'm not sure that that changes, but the numbers do in terms of, are thousands of employees being hired in a month, or is it hundreds?

Steve

Yes, but regardless, when you're hiring people you always want them to maximise their performance, it doesn't really matter what the economy's doing.

Any other thoughts, Talya? This has been a really interesting conversation, any other last things you'd like to share around onboarding?

Talya

I think another key thing, I've talked to some companies, and they think the magic is in writing down a plan, and so it's not the writing of the plan, it's actually the idea that you're connecting with people over time, and you're putting multiple resources in a co-ordinated way towards onboarding, and that you're interacting, so having a document that sits on somebody's shelf doesn't do anything for you; it's really over time, multiple interventions, multiple resources and interacting.

Steve

Yes, that theme, that's so dead on, that theme comes up so much that, at the end of the day, people are about connecting through relationships and conversations, so you need processes and tools to help create the dialog, but at the end of the day it's about people talking to people.

Talya

Absolutely.

Talya

Sounds great, thanks Steve.

Speaker

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