[Infographic]
The Onboarding Opportunity
How to Support Strategic Human Capital Management from Day 1
The onboarding process has a big impact on employee productivity and retention, so it should be a priority for education leaders and central to HCM strategy. Beyond paperwork and processes, it’s important onboarding focuses on supporting new hires, short-term and long-term. How do you create an employee-centric onboarding process that isn’t bogged down by paperwork? This infographic has all the details, like:
- How to lessen the impact of paperwork on the onboarding process
- The right questions to ask to move toward employee-focused onboarding
- Supporting new hires and ensuring their success more effectively
Did you know?
According to Frontline’s K-12 Lens Survey:
Only 28% of school districts have automated processes for onboarding.
Onboarding is an opportunity to make a great impression, build relationships and create great foundations for employee retention. Basic paperwork won’t tell you how to best support your new hires, or how to empower them to be more effective in the classroom. And manual processes get in the way of new hires’ ability to connect with their team in the initial stages of their new jobs.
First impressions matter for retention. Almost $2.2 billion is spent annually on teacher attrition and with nearly half a million teachers moving positions or leaving teaching entirely every year, we can’t underestimate the importance of starting employees out on the right foot. 1
Almost $2.2 billion
spent annually on teacher attrition
Nearly half a million
teachers moving positions or leaving teaching entirely every year
Clearing the Way for Employee-focused Onboarding
Remove time constraints
How can tech make onboarding faster and easier? Certain platforms can handle the administrative side of onboarding, but you need to look for certain features.
According to Martin and Lombardi2, these are the five key functions used by “best-in-class” employers in the onboarding process to save time and ensure employee success:
- Visibility into which employees have completed what forms and tasks
- Utilization of data collected throughout the recruiting and hiring process
- Ability to track progress against development/career plans
- Automatic emails when status changes from applicant to employee
- “Smart forms” that pre-populate fields and built-in routing or workflows
Provide the right information at the right time
- Ensure that the most basic information employees need to get started (where to park, how to log in to the district network, how to use the phone system) is automatically sent out to all new hires and use personalized communication to share the district’s vison and culture.
- Consider going digital, which can speed up the paperwork timelines. The hours can be reclaimed by time spent building relationships, orientation events, creation of growth plans and setting up coaching programs, and more.
Creating an Employee-oriented Onboarding Strategy
Once time is less of an issue, you can be more deliberate about how you bring new hires into the district — what they experience, what they learn, who they meet and how they transition into their new role.
Here are a few opportunities that open up to help this process:
Ask employees for feedback:
Reach out to current staff and survey new employees, and use their responses in recruitment materials if it will help attract new applicants. Some questions to ask:
- “What was the most helpful part of the onboarding process?”
- “What was the least helpful or most tedious part of the onboarding process?”
- “How does our onboarding process compare to other districts’, if this is not your first teaching job?”
Build stronger relationships
When you’re able to build a culture of trust from the very beginning, future conversations with employees about their careers and growth will be more fruitful. These conversations go on to benefit district culture and improve retention.
Provide personalized support for new hires
For beginner teachers, having an experienced educator mentor them throughout the school year can be an invaluable resource. Even veteran teachers can benefit from peer coaching. Use the time saved by less paperwork to set up growth plans for new hires.
Improve your district’s reputation
Word gets around when a district has a stress-free, well-planned onboarding process, and you may very well find more educators applying to your open positions. Great onboarding can offer a memorable, positive experience that keeps new employees excited and engaged. Host events and provide networking opportunities.
The Result: More Effective Educators
No administrative distractions on the first day
Educators can focus on students, not paperwork
Less time spent managing onboarding paperwork
More time to support current employees
Better relationships between colleagues
More collaborative learning from the beginning
A reputation of being a great district to work for
Attract the most talented job-seekers
Personalized growth plans and mentoring for new hires
Higher quality instruction
Sources:
- Haynes, Mariana (2014). On the Path to Equity. © Alliance for Excellent Education 2014.
- Martin, K., & Lombardi, M. (2009). Fully on-board: Boston, MA: Aberdeen Group.