Continuous Improvement in Acculturation Onboarding

As I've mentioned in previous posts, one goal of acculturation is to get a new hire operating at full capacity as soon as possible. Shortening the time from the hire date to the highest level of productivity decreases the costs associated with turnover.

Many employers purchase an acculturation onboarding product to help them achieve this goal. However, without a system in place to actually measure the results it's hard to say if the investment is really worth it. You will also have no idea what steps to take to improve the entire process. It's time to take a clear-eyed look at what acculturation can do for your company.

Collect, Analyze, Improve...Repeat

Used properly, an acculturation onboarding program should gather data that allows you to identify areas that could be improved. This means you need some way of measuring, testing, and scoring employee performance each step of the way. Such data collection should take place during orientation, training, and subsequent development.

There aren't any limits to the type of information you can collect. You also aren't restricted in the creative ways you can go about taking measurements. For example, you might email employees a quiz that tests their knowledge of everything from safety procedures to company policies. The results would give you several pieces of information:

1. What percentage of your workforce is engaged enough to respond/participate
   
2. How well your employees understand company policies and best practices
   
3. Which areas in your training program need to be revamped to make them more effective
   

Measure the Envelope - Then Push It

To get the most out of any product or system, you have to know what the optimal outcome would look like. Generally, organizations have some objective standards in place that allow them to measure various aspects of productivity. However, many don't take this to the next level. Do you know what maximum productivity would really look like? It is possible that you are settling for less than your employees have to offer.

Developing your new hires to their highest potential is simplest when you integrate your acculturation onboarding software with each of your competency measurement systems. Fortunately, Emerald Software Group products are designed to interface with other platforms you already have in place. You can readily create a closed-loop process that promotes continuous improvement.