Twitter is a tool that does a very good job at the one thing it is designed for - pointing people toward other resources. If you expect tweeting to take the place of a corporate blog, website, email, or professional networking forum, you will most likely be disappointed. However, many employers are finding this application very useful as a way to communicate briefly, effectively, and continually with their workforce.
That type of constant contact is especially useful during a new hire’s acculturation onboarding experience. It gives HR staff, trainers, and department managers a way to stay in touch with employees and ensure they have the information they need to thrive. Here are just a couple of the ways you might use Twitter as an onboarding, orientation, and integration instrument:
Training and Orientation
Colleges are starting to use Twitter as a classroom tool; you can apply the same principles in employee learning environments. Send tweeted reminders about orientation class times, locations, or a brief description of what new hires will be learning in their next training session.
Having trouble getting new employees to follow your tweets? Tell them you will be sending out relevant test questions about their training materials via Twitter throughout the week of orientation. Let them know there will be a small prize awarded to the first 3 people to reply with the correct answer to each tweeted question.
Ongoing Acculturation Tweeting
Once people get hooked on following your Twitter feed, keep it interesting. Mix serious policy announcements with helpful advice, inspirational quotes, or links to other useful resources. These don’t all have to be directly related to work. They can be health & wellness news, money saving tips, or info about local cultural events employees can attend at low cost. If you have a company blog, invite employees to come read your latest posts and join in the conversation in the comments section.
Think Twice, Tweet Once
Before you start tweeting, you need to have a good grasp of what a sensible technology policy looks like. Your employees must sign an acknowledgement of your company’s social networking agreement as part of their new hire package. With our universal onboarding applications, this doesn’t add more paperwork. Employees can electronically sign this acknowledgment along with all your other digital forms.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
HR Branding and Onboarding
The Human Resources department is the most critical player in a new hire’s initial perception of his/her work environment. During onboarding, HR has the opportunity to solidify the image the company presents as an employer.
If you don’t develop and communicate a strong HR brand, you are leaving this process up to chance. At best your organization may come across as simply having a disorganized approach to employee relations. At worst, your HR department will be viewed as incompetent or uncaring.
Take charge and brand yourself instead. How do you want to be perceived as an employer? Organized, competent, employee centered, eco-responsible, teamwork focused, quality oriented, you can choose which qualities to highlight.
Here are some ways to promote your Human Resources brand during onboarding:
Technology
Use current technology to brand your HR department as efficient and effective. New employees notice whether your onboarding strategy involves streamlined electronic processes or messy, repetitive paper forms.
Employers who fail to upgrade their HR technology are sending a message to employees that the company’s human capital infrastructure is not worth investing in. Ironically, organizations actually save a significant amount of money by switching to a universal onboarding system - it makes no sense to continue using outdated methods.
Visuals & Message Content
People respond to images on a gut level. That means they will come to associate your company with whatever written messages are distributed under the corporate logo. This means you have the ability to mold the perception of your HR brand every time you communicate with employees. This includes the job offer letter, your company welcome page, and each training and acculturation module in your onboarding program.
Ensure that your messages are:
Honest
Accurate
Timely
Positive
Easy to understand
HR does have to use “legal speak” a lot. This means you must make an effort to communicate in layperson’s terms finding a balance between a professional and personal voice. Add interest with video and audio to capture your new hires’ attention more fully.
Two-Way Communication
Feedback is the key to improving HR processes. Always include a forum for new hires to communicate with HR about their experience during onboarding. This could take the form of a survey page, an email helpdesk address, or an HR blog where employees can leave comments.
If you don’t develop and communicate a strong HR brand, you are leaving this process up to chance. At best your organization may come across as simply having a disorganized approach to employee relations. At worst, your HR department will be viewed as incompetent or uncaring.
Take charge and brand yourself instead. How do you want to be perceived as an employer? Organized, competent, employee centered, eco-responsible, teamwork focused, quality oriented, you can choose which qualities to highlight.
Here are some ways to promote your Human Resources brand during onboarding:
Technology
Use current technology to brand your HR department as efficient and effective. New employees notice whether your onboarding strategy involves streamlined electronic processes or messy, repetitive paper forms.
Employers who fail to upgrade their HR technology are sending a message to employees that the company’s human capital infrastructure is not worth investing in. Ironically, organizations actually save a significant amount of money by switching to a universal onboarding system - it makes no sense to continue using outdated methods.
Visuals & Message Content
People respond to images on a gut level. That means they will come to associate your company with whatever written messages are distributed under the corporate logo. This means you have the ability to mold the perception of your HR brand every time you communicate with employees. This includes the job offer letter, your company welcome page, and each training and acculturation module in your onboarding program.
Ensure that your messages are:
Honest
Accurate
Timely
Positive
Easy to understand
HR does have to use “legal speak” a lot. This means you must make an effort to communicate in layperson’s terms finding a balance between a professional and personal voice. Add interest with video and audio to capture your new hires’ attention more fully.
Two-Way Communication
Feedback is the key to improving HR processes. Always include a forum for new hires to communicate with HR about their experience during onboarding. This could take the form of a survey page, an email helpdesk address, or an HR blog where employees can leave comments.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Onboarding: Getting Your Employees “LinkedIn”
LinkedIn has built quite a reputation in the business community as the place to be for professional networking. This forum offers enormous potential for you to connect and share ideas with other individuals in similar industries/specialties.
As an employer, it also provides an opportunity for you to build your brand presence among a sizeable pool of potential job candidates. In the struggle to attract top talent, you need to make the most of your company’s LinkedIn profile.
Promoting Participation
One way to achieve this is by ensuring your employees present a polished, united front as members of your LinkedIn group. You can accomplish this during the onboarding process if you approach it the right way. This involves making it easy for the employee to participate.
You should also present joining LinkedIn as an opportunity to become part of the team. For example, you can encourage new hires to browse the profiles of other employees at your company to find individuals with similar educational backgrounds or interests.
Step By Step
Set up LinkedIn profiles for new hires in advance of their first day of work. Populate basic fields such as name, company email address, and position. Also, add them to your company group so your logo will be displayed on their profile.
Keep the information private by clicking on the “edit my profile” link, then on the “Customize Your URL” button. Select the None/off option below the Public Profile heading. Then, the profile won’t be findable on the web until you have the new employee’s permission to publish it.
During the onboarding process, offer employees the opportunity to make their company LinkedIn profile public. Include tips or a template on how to get the most out of this professional networking tool by highlighting their skills and expertise. Provide a copy of their ID badge photo for use on the profile if they wish to display an image of themselves.
Integrating This Process
You can actually requisition the creation of a new hire’s LinkedIn profile using the Staff Service Request function in our suite of products. That way, you could assign responsibility for completing this task to HR or IT and ensure that it gets done.
Set up the new employee’s LinkedIn account using the same password as the one automatically issued to him/her for filling out new hire documents. Then, simply add a page in your onboarding system that allows the employee to accept or reject the opportunity to activate the LinkedIn account (along with step by step instructions on how to do so). That way, the employee has all the information necessary to log in and make changes to the profile immediately.
As an employer, it also provides an opportunity for you to build your brand presence among a sizeable pool of potential job candidates. In the struggle to attract top talent, you need to make the most of your company’s LinkedIn profile.
Promoting Participation
One way to achieve this is by ensuring your employees present a polished, united front as members of your LinkedIn group. You can accomplish this during the onboarding process if you approach it the right way. This involves making it easy for the employee to participate.
You should also present joining LinkedIn as an opportunity to become part of the team. For example, you can encourage new hires to browse the profiles of other employees at your company to find individuals with similar educational backgrounds or interests.
Step By Step
Set up LinkedIn profiles for new hires in advance of their first day of work. Populate basic fields such as name, company email address, and position. Also, add them to your company group so your logo will be displayed on their profile.
Keep the information private by clicking on the “edit my profile” link, then on the “Customize Your URL” button. Select the None/off option below the Public Profile heading. Then, the profile won’t be findable on the web until you have the new employee’s permission to publish it.
During the onboarding process, offer employees the opportunity to make their company LinkedIn profile public. Include tips or a template on how to get the most out of this professional networking tool by highlighting their skills and expertise. Provide a copy of their ID badge photo for use on the profile if they wish to display an image of themselves.
Integrating This Process
You can actually requisition the creation of a new hire’s LinkedIn profile using the Staff Service Request function in our suite of products. That way, you could assign responsibility for completing this task to HR or IT and ensure that it gets done.
Set up the new employee’s LinkedIn account using the same password as the one automatically issued to him/her for filling out new hire documents. Then, simply add a page in your onboarding system that allows the employee to accept or reject the opportunity to activate the LinkedIn account (along with step by step instructions on how to do so). That way, the employee has all the information necessary to log in and make changes to the profile immediately.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
When does your New Hire Onboarding process End?
In any industry, onboarding has two basic components. There is the transactional aspect which I’ve talked about in detail in the past. At its most basic level, this involves:
Acculturation: The Softer Side of Onboarding
Acculturation involves orientating and aligning a new hire with your company’s vision and objectives. Because this process is unique for each company, it can be difficult to define. This also makes it hard to tell when this “warm and fuzzy” aspect of onboarding is complete. In that case, is it OK to just skip this step? Not if you care about retention, morale, and productivity. Integrating each employee into your team is vital.
Like the transactional side of onboarding, acculturation works best when it begins during the recruitment phase. If you have successfully branded your company, potential candidates already view you as an employer of choice. For example you might be known as a business that treats employees fairly, places a priority on environmentally conscious practices, and offers a superior product/service to its client base.
The first day of work offers an opportunity to reinforce this feeling of connection. You can intersperse acculturation modules with transactional onboarding tasks in the same software interface. For example, don’t miss an opportunity to include positive messaging in your welcome letter and policy agreements.
Add an invitation to join the company’s LinkedIn group and connect with other employees. Offer a tips section that highlights some of the “quirky” ways things work at your company. That way, new hires can prepare to adapt to your workplace culture. Point employees to your internal HR blog or a helpdesk where they can ask questions and give feedback. Keep touching base over the next few weeks (or months) as acculturation progresses.
Measuring Success
How do you know you’ve successfully brought employees onboard as a part of your team? Here’s a good sign that the acculturation process is complete: Your recently hired employees reach out to welcome the next wave of new hires and make them feel like part of the family!
- Gathering relevant new hire information and managing the flow of this data
- Ensuring all documents are completed fully and correctly in compliance with law
- Providing the employee with electronic access and any other items required for work
Acculturation: The Softer Side of Onboarding
Acculturation involves orientating and aligning a new hire with your company’s vision and objectives. Because this process is unique for each company, it can be difficult to define. This also makes it hard to tell when this “warm and fuzzy” aspect of onboarding is complete. In that case, is it OK to just skip this step? Not if you care about retention, morale, and productivity. Integrating each employee into your team is vital.
Like the transactional side of onboarding, acculturation works best when it begins during the recruitment phase. If you have successfully branded your company, potential candidates already view you as an employer of choice. For example you might be known as a business that treats employees fairly, places a priority on environmentally conscious practices, and offers a superior product/service to its client base.
The first day of work offers an opportunity to reinforce this feeling of connection. You can intersperse acculturation modules with transactional onboarding tasks in the same software interface. For example, don’t miss an opportunity to include positive messaging in your welcome letter and policy agreements.
Add an invitation to join the company’s LinkedIn group and connect with other employees. Offer a tips section that highlights some of the “quirky” ways things work at your company. That way, new hires can prepare to adapt to your workplace culture. Point employees to your internal HR blog or a helpdesk where they can ask questions and give feedback. Keep touching base over the next few weeks (or months) as acculturation progresses.
Measuring Success
How do you know you’ve successfully brought employees onboard as a part of your team? Here’s a good sign that the acculturation process is complete: Your recently hired employees reach out to welcome the next wave of new hires and make them feel like part of the family!
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