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ONBOARDING WHITE PAPER SERIES

Onboarding:
The Critical Role of
Hiring Managers
Talya N. Bauer
Cameron Professor of Management
Portland State University
& Founder
Management Analytics, LLC
SUCCESSFACTORS / WHITE PAPER
ONBOARDING: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF HIRING MANAGERS

Onboarding: The critical role


of hiring managers
Executive summary
Onboarding matters. Organizations hire employees to get a job done. Those organizations which
are able to harness the power of new employee knowledge, skills, and abilities quickly are more
effective than those who do not. Understanding what new employee onboarding is, how to do it
well, and how to facilitate the integration between the new employee and hiring manager is a major
key to success. Organizations considered in the top 20% in terms of onboarding had 91% first year
retention and 62% of new employees reaching first year goals compared to the bottom 30% of
organizations who reported only 30% retention and 17% goal completion for the same time frame.
The person within your organization who has the power to make or break a new employee’s
success is the hiring manager. This white paper describes best practices and shows the
importance of managers employing these best practices for onboarding new employees.

This is the third of three papers in the SuccessFactors onboarding best practices series. The first
white paper focused on the role of connection within onboarding. The second focused on best
practices for enhancing new employee clarity and confidence during onboarding. This white paper
focuses on the critical role of hiring managers during new employee onboarding, including evidence-
based descriptions of how hiring managers are critical to the success of new employees as well as
best practices for helping them maximize their impact. Before that, however, a quick overview of
onboarding is warranted.

Onboarding defined
Onboarding is a system of processes for integrating new employees into an organization and making
them productive as quickly as possible. When asked, 66% of organizations report having some
aspects of formal onboarding programs beyond simple orientations and 53% invest in onboarding
across a new employee’s first year.1 The business case for effective onboarding is strong. A Boston
Consulting Group study found that onboarding was related to 2.5 times the profit growth and 1.9
times the profit margin as compared to organizations leaving onboarding to chance.2

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SUCCESSFACTORS / WHITE PAPER
ONBOARDING: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF HIRING MANAGERS

The 4 C’s for onboarding success


The 4 C’s of onboarding include:

• clarification,
• compliance,
• culture, and
• connection.3

Clarification refers to the details and context of one’s job including understanding the job
requirements, the norms for getting things done, and how things are described internally and
externally such as acronyms, etc. The sooner a new employee understands his or her job, the
sooner they become more productive.

Compliance refers to the on-the-job basics such as tax forms, employment paperwork, badges,
email accounts, computers, and workstations as needed for a given job. Organizations doing well
on compliance have been able to take these unpleasant and routine aspects of new employee
onboarding and make them less onerous.

Culture refers to learning the unique organizational culture of a new organization. Much like
individuals have different personalities, patterns, and expectations, so do organizations. The more
quickly and accurately a new employee can interpret and understand the overall culture and the
subcultures within an organization, the better their chances for long-term success.

Connection refers to the key interpersonal relationships, support mechanisms, and information
networks that new employees need to establish upon entering a new organization in order to
be effective.

Focus on the hiring manager


All of the 4 C’s are critical pieces of the onboarding puzzle and the hiring manager is the key linking
pin for all of them. While onboarding is ultimately a system-wide process, of all the stakeholders
involved, hiring managers are the ones most likely to help or hinder a new employee’s
success within the organizations.4 It is critical to understand best practices for hiring managers
because these functions include direct impacts on important organizational outcomes such as new
employee job performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee referrals,
intentions to remain, and turnover.5 Managers may be thought of as key to “setting the stage” for
new employees where they play the multiple roles of producer, director, and stage manager.6 As
much as other organizational stakeholders can help new employees to succeed, the more
integrated that the hiring manager is in the linking pin role, the better.

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SUCCESSFACTORS / WHITE PAPER
ONBOARDING: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF HIRING MANAGERS

Hiring manager best practices


What specifically can organizations do to help best facilitate managers helping new employees into
the organization such that they have high levels of connection, clarity, confidence, understand the
culture, and comply with important rules and regulations? There are several best practices which
effective onboarding organizations employ. These include providing managers with the right
information at the right time, leveraging technology, making onboarding a valuable part of their job,
measuring how well hiring managers onboard new employees, and training managers how to
support new employees while never undermining them.

For example, at Google, managers were sent a list of five things they could do to help new
employees be successful.

These included the following behaviors:

1. Have a “role & responsibilities” discussion.


2. Match the new employee with a peer.
3. Help the new employee build a social network.
4. Set up onboarding check-ins once a month for the first six months.
5. Create open communication.
This simple change was so effective that Google has subsequently incorporated this into their
onboarding process around the world. Additional best practices are summarized below.

Best practices: Helping hiring managers onboard new employees

Best practice Rationale and research support Company examples

It is better for hiring Managers at the best-in-class onboarding organizations This is currently done
managers to make had 20% year-over-year improvement in satisfaction.7 rarely. This is a huge
investments of time This is a critical point. In dozens of conversations with opportunity. Most
in new employees organizations within the past year, this has come up companies have not made
up front in order to repeatedly. It is clear that hiring managers matter the this transition so as the
secure long term most but how to get their attention and partner need to be more proactive
success. effectively with them is not yet smoothly orchestrated with onboarding has
within most organizations. become more apparent,
But, effective many have tended to
organizations make engage in the “pile on”
onboarding new rather than reconfiguring
employees a managers jobs to allow
valuable part of a them to engage in the
hiring managers critical behaviors which
job- they don’t just lead to long term success.
pile it on top of
everything else.

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SUCCESSFACTORS / WHITE PAPER
ONBOARDING: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF HIRING MANAGERS

Best practices: Helping hiring managers onboard new employees

Tools can help busy Google conducted an experiment where some hiring Google Inc.
hiring managers managers were “nudged,” or reminded to help new
integrate time and employees by being given information on what they CH2M Hill
effort into helping could do to help them succeed and then compared to
new employees be those not getting this information. Those managers
successful. It isn’t receiving this information were 14% more proactive in
that they don’t care helping new employees from day 1, 10% faster
but rather that they onboarding, and managers reported being happier as
need support along indicated by comments such as “We really appreciate
the way to do this how easy you make this for us.”8 CH2M Hill helps hiring
well. managers support new employees through their
quick-start guide (QSC) which outlines the desired
Provide managers outcomes, emphasizes starting the onboarding process
with the right as soon as a candidate has accepted an offer of
information at the employment, providing a “to do” list for before new
right time. employee entry including creating an onboarding
integration plan and assigning a “buddy,” the employee’s
first day, their first week, 30 days, and 90 days.

Leverage From information sharing, reminder emails, and social Kellogg’s


technology. networking technology, organizations have a number of
important ways to help managers leverage technology SuccessFactors
to facilitate new employee success. Companies like
Tupperware Corporation
Kellogg’s and Tupperware Corporate use employee
portals to allow new employees access to information
any time and anywhere. SuccessFactors has an
onboarding solution specifically designed to guide the
hiring managers through onboarding best practices
and monitor progress, plus an integrated suite of talent
management software designed to help jump start new
employee productivity. Research shows that many
organizations do a poor job of following up with new
hires and integrated software helps to facilitate
this process.

Measure how well One important aspect of supporting managers in their CH2M Hill
hiring managers are role to support new employees is to identify which
doing at onboarding managers are effective and which need additional
new employees. resources and attention to help new employees onboard
well. By gathering data from new employees about their
experiences during onboarding, feedback to hiring
managers can help them see where they are doing well
and which areas need additional attention.

Train hiring A research study of new employees at a University found This is a new opportunity
managers on how to that manager support and undermining were related to for organizations to be on
support new whether or not the new employee stayed with the the cutting edge of
employees (and not organization.9 Examples of concrete social support onboarding best practices.
undermine them). include providing a new employee with encouragement
or helping them to understand and sort things out.
Undermining can be thought of the flip side of social
support but goes beyond this into negative interactions.

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SUCCESSFACTORS / WHITE PAPER
ONBOARDING: THE POWER OF CONNECTION

An additional resource that I have created is an evidence-based Hiring Manager Best Practices
Checklist which is a tool that can be used to help managers tie together the 4 C’s with best practices.

Manager best practices checklist for onboarding


new employees
New employees have a big task in front of them. They need to learn about their new job in terms of
compliance issues as well as needing to gain a sense of clarity around their roles, connectedness
with those around them, and how they fit in with your culture. These are called the 4 C’s. Research
shows that the trajectory of success for new employees starts from Day 1.

You can help them maximize success by engaging in Onboarding Best Practices for new
employees by:

Compliance. New employees need to learn specific rules and procedures. The most effective

way to do this is to get them comfortable with the other C’s below so they are receptive and
able to focus on learning.

Clarification. Be consistent with onboarding practices for new employees. Have an onboarding

plan in place and enact it every time.

Clarification. Check in with new employees to make sure they have what they need on Day 1

as well as a week later when new questions may have arisen.

Culture. Make sure our values and culture are projected in how you treat and greet new

employees. Stories tell who you are.

Connection. Remember new employees are anxious to make a good impression. Tell them

how happy you are to have them join your team. Doing this early on has a much bigger positive
impact than waiting until later.

Connection. Make the first day special for new employees. Meet with them, make sure

someone takes them to lunch, and that the atmosphere is welcoming. Research shows this
simple connection matters for success over the long run.

Conclusion
In conclusion, onboarding is the key to getting new employees up and running both quickly and
smoothly. Organizations able to ramp up new employee knowledge, comfort, and performance
during onboarding by specifically identifying answers to the who, what, when, and where for getting
things done, enjoy new employee performance, higher job attitudes such as satisfaction and
commitment, and decreased turnover. Hiring managers are what matters most for new employees.
The use of technology to accomplish onboarding success is critical in today’s competitive landscape
and helps hiring managers to facilitate new employees hitting the ground running.

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SUCCESSFACTORS / WHITE PAPER
ONBOARDING: THE CRITICAL ROLE OF HIRING MANAGERS

Author Bio
Talya N. Bauer (Ph.D., Purdue University) is the Cameron Professor of Management at Portland
State University in Portland, Oregon as well as the Program Director for The Conference Board’s
Onboarding Talent Council. She is an award-winning teacher who conducts research about
relationships at work in general and onboarding in specific. She has published in the Academy of
Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Personnel
Psychology, works with organizations, and has been a Visiting Scholar in France, Spain, and at
Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA. She is the former Editor of the Journal of
Management and incoming Associate Editor at the Journal of Applied Psychology. She serves on
the editorial boards for the Journal of Management and Personnel Psychology. Her work has been
discussed by numerous media outlets such as New York Times, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal,
and Harvard Business Review.

Endnotes
1
Laurano, M. (2012). Onboarding: The missing link to productivity. Aberdeen Group.

2
The Boston Consulting Group & World Federation of People Management Associations (2012). From capability to profitability:
Realizing the value of people management. BCG.

3
Bauer, T. N. (2011). Onboarding new employees: Maximizing success. SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series.

4
Sluss, D. M., & Thompson, B. S. (2012). Socializing the newcomer: The mediating role of leader-member exchange.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119, 114-125.

5
Bauer, T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M., & Tucker, J. S. (2007). Newcomer adjustment during organizational
socialization: A meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 707-721.

6
Klein, H. J., & Polin, B. (2012). Are organizations on board with best practice onboarding? Oxford Handbook of Onboarding.
Oxford, UK: Oxford Publishing.

7
Laurano (2012). See above.

8
Google (2012). Conference presentation.

9
Kammeyer-Mueller, J., Wanberg, C., Rubenstein, A., & Song, Z. (2013). Support, undermining, and newcomer socialization:
Fitting in during the first 90 days. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 1104-1124.

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