Onboarding Software and Traditional Licensing

At Emerald Software Group, we believe in giving our clients options that will work for every situation. Our SaaS offering is very popular; but not every company is ready to have software solutions hosted offsite. This doesn’t mean they have to miss out on the latest innovations in onboarding automation. As a Best of Breed vendor, we differ from most of our competitors because we can and do license on-premise installations upon request.


When might this approach be appropriate? One determining factor is how much responsibility a company’s IT department wants to take for the software - and how much control they want to exercise. For example, they may have a risk management policy that precludes storing sensitive data on off-site servers. Or, they might simply want to have more ownership of each aspect of BPM development and integration.

Solutions are On Hand

There are a couple of different ways IT can meet these objectives with Emerald Software’s products. We offer both a licensed agreement and a managed arrangement. With an on-premise license, our software is run on client provided equipment. Upgrades and support can be negotiated separately from the perpetual software license. For a business with a fully staffed, experienced IT department, the ongoing labor required to deploy version updates and service packs isn’t burdensome.

As an alternative, we can pre-install the requested programs on an appliance server that is added to the customer’s data center. This managed option is billed on an annual basis, so it has a lower up-front cost. The level and types of support and maintenance that come with this managed agreement are determined based on the client’s requirements.

What about HR?

HR often doesn’t have the final say in which option to choose. Fortunately, your experience of using this onboarding automation software should be the same regardless of whether it is run on site or delivered via the web. This includes the ability to easily add new forms and data panels as needed.

Who Should Be On Your Acculturation Team?

Workforce.com has an article up this week that is very relevant to acculturation onboarding. Author Kris Dunn (from the HRCapitalist website) has figured out the number one question to ask on employee engagement surveys to improve your corporate culture. It cuts through all the obfuscation and gets right to the heart of the matter. That $100,000 question is basically:


“Other than your current manager, if you could pick any manager in any department in the company to work for, which one would it be and why?”

Dunn speculates that the information you collect from this survey question would be a real eye opener. Coworkers talk amongst themselves and they all know who has the reputation as being the best boss to work for. However, what they value in a manager may be totally different from what business owners think of as most important. Getting a solid read on what rank and file workers want to see as far as management style and behaviors go offers insight into how to train current and future leaders for your company.

Developing Effective Onboarding

The “popular” managers are also the ones you want working with HR to develop your acculturation onboarding program. These talented and skilled individuals have created loyalty among their direct reports and gained the admiration and respect of employees who don’t even work for them. That’s the spirit you want new hires to get a sense of even before starting their first day on the job. The people your employees identify as top managers can be involved in everything from designing welcome materials to suggesting improvements to the mentoring program. Take a look at the features available in our Acculturation Portal to start brainstorming ways for your team of top managers to get involved with this onboarding creation process.

It Doesn’t Stop with Onboarding

Kris makes an excellent point that once you hand a new employee over to his/her manager you lose control over the acculturation process. You can do your very best to make the experience in HR wonderful, but it’s no good if the freshly hired employees get a rude awakening when they reach their department. So, once you have figured out what your best-liked leaders are doing right, it’s time to develop your other managers to meet this higher standard. If you want to turn great onboarding into great long term retention, that’s an essential part of the picture.

Acculturation Onboarding Mid-Project

One of the main goals of acculturation onboarding is to speed new hires to productivity. With a job (such as entry level retail) that consists mostly of repetitive tasks, this can be done with a standardized training program. Once you’ve designed or selected a series of learning modules for that position, you can simply give new hires access and track their progress. However, with a more complex job that involves collaboration with others on a major project, the acculturation process may need to be more specialized.

In addition to introducing a new employee to his/her role within the department, it is necessary to provide an overview of where things stand on any current projects. For example, a new hire in an Engineering or R&D department would need to understand the phase of development or testing of each product currently in the pipeline. A sales employee might require a crash course in the current marketing/branding initiative.

Creating a Foundation of Knowledge

An agile onboarding solution that permits interfacing with other applications is an ideal solution in these situations. It should be relatively simple for a departmental director to conference with HR and update introductory modules to include relevant information on current departmental assignments. This might be as simple as uploading a pdf containing a project overview to the resource library. Or, it could include granting access to a third party educational program that other team members have already gone through in preparation for their participation in a project.

Obviously, the actual project details will be covered during meetings and in-person training. But when new hires go into their first departmental meeting with a grasp of the basics everyone benefits:

• Management won’t have to spend time explaining the fundamentals of the project
• The new hire will feel competent and ready to ask clarifying questions
• HR will have done its part to prepare the employee to succeed.

When a key employee is replaced in the middle of a major project, this type of customized acculturation can significantly reduce the loss of productivity when a new hire comes on board. With the AllegroHR Acculturation Portal, creating a customized learning environment based on specific job assignments can be done efficiently – ensuring that time is actually saved.

Acculturation Onboarding & Employment Agreements

Many companies are faced with a dilemma during onboarding when it comes to employment agreements. On one side of the issue is the desire to fully protect the organization's best interests at all costs. This is very evident in the way non-compete and intellectual property policies are written. Some employers take unprecedented ownership of every innovation an individual comes up with (whether at work or at home) as long as that person is an employee.

Who Owns an Employee's Creativity?

This has led to some hotly contested court cases over what a company can lay claim to and how. A recent case involving an employment agreement came down to a dispute over the exact wording used. In this situation, a worker claimed that his employer did not own an idea he came up with. The extensive agreement he signed did refer to inventions, designs, improvements, developments, processes - even "know-how". The employer's HR attorney must have cringed at having forgotten to include "ideas" on that list.

Of course, when employees are working in R&D or Marketing, the use of employment agreements makes sense. There is a high likelihood that an employee will come up with a useful and lucrative concept at some point. At the same time, workers in these fields are often well compensated so it can be argued that requiring such an agreement is not unfair or unduly restrictive.

However, there is some debate over whether every person in an employer's workforce should be required to sign such controversial agreements (and over exactly how they should be worded). Sure, you can get a new hire to sign almost any policy on their first day just because they are happy to have a job. But, starting people out by making them feel like they are signing away all their rights isn't necessarily going to endear you to them later on.

Acculturate Employees So They Want to Share

Is there a missing piece in this puzzle of how to get employees to value the success of the company they work for? In a recent Workforce Management interview with Dov Seidman, some interesting points about this "fortress" mentality on the part of employers came up. Seidman recommends encouraging compliance with policies that benefit your company by using inspiration rather than punishment/reward systems or authoritarianism. In this type of corporate culture, your employees would naturally bring their ideas and innovations to you rather than shopping them around to the competition.

This is one reason why acculturation is just as critical as gathering policy acknowledgement signatures in transactional onboarding. Your new hires should be introduced to a company that is interested in creating a win-win situation for everyone. Using the AllegroHR Acculturation Portal is a great way to start this process since it allows you to immerse new hires in your organization's history, current mission, and vision for the future in an easy-to-access online format.

Acculturation Onboarding for Executives

Are you bringing in a new addition to your C-suite? Onboarding an executive can be a pretty involved process. These are often the only individuals in a company who are hired under contractual instead of at-will employment terms. Hammering out the fine print and ensuring all agreements are clear is an important part of the transactional portion of onboarding. Then, there is the acculturation side of things.

An executive is actually responsible for helping create the company culture - as well as upholding the norms and expectations that are already in place. Here are some ways to use the acculturation process to set your new executive up for success as a leader in your organization:

Networking at the Top

An executive needs to be integrated into the company hierarchy starting at the top. Arranging a conference with the newly hired executive's peers can help start things off on the right foot. Department directors should be included in discussions about the role of the new executive to ensure that the importance of interdepartmental collaboration is emphasized early on.

Connecting with Middle Management

Arranging for an in-person group introductory meeting with managers and supervisors sets an example for good communication. This is especially effective if one or more helpful suggestions from the managerial staff are implemented by the new executive within his or her first 2 months on the job. Creating a reputation for taking advice from those who have been around long enough to "know the ropes" is a good precursor to making other changes that the executive may feel are necessary for improving operations.

Getting to Know the Troops

The exec should also be introduced to your rank and file employees. At a large company (or one with multiple locations), this can be done online. A podcast, a video introduction, a guest post on the corporate blog, and other social networking tools can be used to make the executive approachable. With the AllegroHR Acculturation Portal, uploading fresh content is a simple process that can be carried out whenever a change at the leadership level requires updated messaging. Having your executive go through the same process of online tutorials and orientation as your entry level employees can also be helpful in making sure the new exec fully understands your HR branding and how workers perceive the company.

Organizational Personality and Acculturation

The way your company goes about acculturating new hires has a lot to do with what type of "personality" your organization has. Author Vincent Natoli wrote an interesting whitepaper titled "The Organizational Personality & Organizational Performance" that offers a brief overview of workplace outcomes that are linked to different types of corporate cultures. Here's a look at each one and how acculturation onboarding could be improved in each situation.

Coercive

This type of organization is highly authoritarian and gains compliance from employees through punitive action. A new hire is likely to be called out publicly and berated for making mistakes instead of receiving constructive criticism in private to improve performance. Absenteeism, high turnover, bullying, and litigation are some of the negative outcomes that correlate to a coercive work environment. Using positive reinforcement instead of punishment based incentives and giving new hires more agency in decision making is one way to improve the onboarding process for this type of organization.

Normative

Non-profit businesses and religious organizations that rely heavily on volunteers tend to seek compliance by appealing to values that the members hold in common. Employees are encouraged to participate in decision making. There are a number of positive outcomes that are associated with this "personality" including job satisfaction and commitment. Oddly, this type of organization is also noted for retaliating against whistle blowers - perhaps because the high level of socialization leads to management feeling betrayed if someone is "disloyal" and goes outside the group to resolve a problem. Onboarding for new hires should ensure that rights and expectations are fully explained so the work environment remains professional while still being productive.

Utilitarian/Remunerative

According to Natoli, this in-between category is where most businesses fall. This type of organization promotes compliance by rewarding employees for performance. This practical approach may be supplemented by disciplinary action under the punitive model or enhanced by socialization under the normative model. New hires need to receive detailed orientation information on how their performance will be measured and what types of incentives they can take advantage of for career advancement.

No matter what organizational personality your company is aligned with, you can use the AllegroHR Acculturation Program to help new hires understand both the written and unwritten behavioral expectations in your corporate culture.

Acculturation Onboarding For Moms (Or Dads) Returning To The Workforce

If you've been keeping up with the latest from Workforce.com, you may have read the recent article on stay-at-home parents who are transitioning back into the world of work. Women who have been sidelined for several years (or a couple of decades) by motherhood are a particularly sizeable group about 5 million strong. Many are looking for jobs now because their household income has fallen due to a spouse being laid off. Other moms are looking to get out of the house and land a career that offers payment and recognition - perks that are often sadly lacking in the endless job of being "mom".

If you are tapping into this talent pool of parents who are returning to the workforce, it's important to ensure their acculturation onboarding is a top priority. These highly motivated new hires are looking for a sense of connection with their coworkers and your organization as a whole. They also generally have a desire to excel as soon as possible and will be eager to access the tools to make this happen.

Connect On Values

Parents want to leave this world a better place for their kids and grandkids. This means they resonate with company values that stress community responsibility, sound planning for the future, and environmental sustainability. Make sure your HR branding and onboarding put these concepts front and center starting with the welcome letter and/or introductory video. Take advantage of the customizability of AllegroHR products to add links, text, and images to data panels that send a consistent message about your mission statement throughout the acculturation onboarding process.

Provide Pertinent Tools

Individuals who have been out of touch with the work world for a long time may have to get up to speed before becoming fully productive. They need access to plenty of information and in-depth learning modules. Make sure appropriate skill testing is performed early on to identify areas that could use improvement. The stay-at-home parent demographic is eager to get back into the groove and jumpstart their careers. The more readily available self-paced learning materials are the better. With Emerald Software Group's single sign-on approach, new hires can instantly access both in-house and third party training starting on their first day.