Employee Onboarding Key Terms

Term Definition Introduced in:Clarification Ensuring that employees understand their new jobs and all related expectations Module 1Compliance Teaching employees basic legal and policy-related rules and regulations Module 1Connection Establishing vital interpersonal relationships and information networks Module 1Culture informal Module 1

DiscriminationTreating people differently based on certain characteristics, such as race, religion, age, or certain actions (e.g. complaining of an OSHA violation, refusing to commit an illegal act, or complaining about an employer’s illegal conduct) Module 2

Grievances Formalized complaints against another party or group, usually in the workplace Module 2I-9 A federal form required to show a worker's eligibility to work in the United States Module 1Immigration Customs Engorcement (ICE) A division of the Department of Homeland Security that enforces I-9 rules Module 4Job Description A brief description of job responsibilities including the position requirements Module 1

OnboardingThe way in which new employees aquire the knowledge and skills necessary in order to complete their job function Module 1

OSHAOccupational Safety and Health Act or Occupational Safety and Health Administration Module 1

Performance EvaluationA formal, sit-down meeting focused on the successful or unsuccessful accomplishment of employee goals and essential tasks Module 2

Wrongful TerminationWhen a company dismisses a worker from employment but breaches either an agreement with the employee or statutory law Module 2

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SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING MODULE ONE – STEPS FOR SUCCESSFUL ONBOARDING Let’s begin, all right? Module One – Steps for Successful Onboarding. In starting

module one, I want to immediately draw a distinction between orientation and

onboarding. New employee orientation generally involves a first day session or a first

week of activities that familiarizes the employee with the organization’s structure,

mission, and policies. It typically includes reviews of the employee handbook and the

completion of necessary payroll and benefits paperwork. There it is. That’s it. Now

onboarding is a much more comprehensive approach that starts before orientation, and

extends well beyond the first few days. It provides a more strategic plan for employee

success than orientation alone. I want to strongly stress something I just said.

Onboarding begins BEFORE orientation. All too often, the literature regarding

onboarding treats it as an activity that begins after you hire someone. That is simply

wrong. As I’ll explain, onboarding actually begins with analyzing in detail the job in

question. I didn’t just say writing a job description. It is job analyzation. After all, how

can you hire someone and properly introduce them into a job without clearly defined

skill requirements, duties, responsibilities, authority levels, reporting relationships, and

success metrics? Okay, now while orientation often only lasts from a day to a week, the

onboarding process often lasts from three months to two years, depending on the

position. Ultimately onboarding should garner you three benefits, namely number one,

engaging the employee in your organization from the moment they’re exposed to your

entity so that they will not only want to work with you, but are excited about the chance

to contribute. Number two, onboarding provides the new hire every opportunity to bring

their skills to bear far more quickly than if they’re left to climb up and over the learning

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curve on their own. And number three, employees have employed early success, or

have enjoyed, rather, early success, with your organization are more likely to stay with

you for years rather than months. In other words, you’ll enjoy the benefits of good

employee retention. Onboarding includes a structured way to give employees more

information about the organization as well as more opportunities to understand the

culture, mission, and goals, and a mentor assignment and a system for interviews with

coworkers, managers, and executives during the employee's first few months, all of this

focusing on strengthening the employee’s bond to the organization and to its people.

And everyone understand that multiple approaches to onboarding are necessary to

address the various levels and responsibilities of employees as well as their

experiences and expectations. Now what I’m going to try and do today, I’m going to go

over a basic list of items to be completed at each step. However, variations in the

length of the process, the tactical approaches to integration, and the staff involved may

change based on the needs of the newly hired employee. An issue you need to face

early in the process of formulating your onboarding procedures relates to

responsibilities. In other words, just whose responsibility is onboarding anyway? I’ll tell

you. It’s a shared set of responsibilities between the human resources department, HR,

and the individual managers and supervisors. It is NOT merely an HR responsibility.

There are ten things HR and management must accomplish together. Namely, number

one, job analysis. I’ll go into more detail on this in just a few minutes. Number two,

from the analysis its imperative to develop a written set of responsibilities, authorities,

and objectives for the position in question. Number three, the next step is fairly obvious.

It’s to develop a job description. Number four, then it’s time to recruit. Now recruiting is

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generally more of an HR function and must be done in a fair and equitable manner so

that you hire the best qualified applicant without regard to race, religion, age, sex,

national origin, genetic predisposition, or any other characteristic protected by federal,

state, or local laws, codes, and ordinances. Number five, the next item is to screen

applicants. I’m going to give you some suggestions about that in just a few minutes.

Then item number six, you then need to move on to interviewing and selecting

applicants. I’ll discuss behavior based interviewing soon. Number seven, I’ll also tell

you about certain pre-boarding activities you should engage in as well as number eight,

orientation generally. Number nine, then there’s mentoring and relationship building,

which is more of a managerial function, as is the last step – number ten, performance

evaluation. As far as the desired outcomes of onboarding, the Society for Human

Resource Management, SHRM, recently came out with a white paper titled Onboarding

New Employees – Maximizing Success. That document, that white paper, sets out four

Cs of employee onboarding, namely compliance, clarification, culture, and connection.

Compliance includes teaching employees basic legal and policy-related rules and

regulations. Under compliance, you didn’t former train the new hire of or in any specific

laws, regulations and so forth applicable to your industry or to your specific

organization. Now I think this overlaps with culture, where you’re explaining your

organization’s equal employment opportunity policies, your harassment policies, your

ethics policies, and similar matters. Clarification refers to ensuring that employees

understand their new jobs and all related expectations. I want to strongly, strongly

stress something. The clarification portion of onboarding should begin at the time you

first interview the new hire. By introducing these topics early on in the process, you not

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only discover the applicant/new hire’s knowledge and past interactions with these

issues, but you begin to introduce THEM to your organization's culture and norms. It’s

an opportunity to get them excited about how your organization treats its employees,

suppliers, and customers generally. Clarification also involves a clear definition of how

the new hire’s success or failure will be measured. I sincerely believe that most

employees want to do a good job if management would just tell them what a good job is.

If its part of the onboarding process, which includes the initial interview, a new hire

understands what’s expected of him or her and your organization follows through and

doesn’t arbitrarily move the goal posts, you’ll end up with a far more motivated worker –

someone who trusts you. Culture is a broad category that includes providing

employees with a sense of organizational norms – both formal and informal. Much of

that information is going to come from going over relevant policies and procedures your

organization has established, and I’m not just talking about the employee handbook.

I’m also referring to departmental specific policies and procedures. Now connection

refers to the vital interpersonal relationships and information networks that new

employees have to establish. Connection, I believe, is one of the most overlooked parts

of onboarding. All too often, connection is comprised of marching someone down the

hallway during their first few days at work and introducing them at a rate of about one

minute each to a dozen people or so. Wonderful. Terrific. That’ll certainly establish a

warm and lasting bond between the new hire and all these people whose names and

job titles they can’t possibly remember. However, a carefully orchestrated effort during

which the new hire spends some truly quality time with others CAN establish highly

productive relationships between them. For example, instead of introducing the new

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hire to the facility manager and saying, “This is Mary. She runs the physical plant. If

you need something fixed, give her a call.” Now instead of that, how about allowing

Mary to personally show the new hire around the place, to go over the building

operating hours, parking arrangements, how to fill out work order requests, fire

evacuation and emergency action plans, and similar issues? Not THAT will establish a

work related and personal relationship between them. Please think about how to create

opportunities for the new hire and other significant contacts to spend some alone time

early on in the orientation and the onboarding process. Everyone, it’s actually

important. Now all right, to achieve the things I’ve been talking about, let’s look at some

onboarding best practices – sort of a roadmap of what to do. I’ll address recruitment,

screening, and interviewing in some of the modules we’re going to cover in a few

minutes. Right now, let me address some pre-boarding concerns. The goal with pre-

boarding is to plan and prepare for the employee’s arrival so that the individual doesn’t

arrive in the midst of chaos, but rather arrives to an organized and to a prepared

workplace. Now for openers, the new hire is going to need a work area and computer

support. So set it up. As far as the work area, assign a work station, a phone

extension, and things like that. Establish computer, network, and telephone access,

and obviously that would include setting up the required software and hardware and a

network login. Part of that, of course, would be ensure email set up, again with access

to the email and necessary passwords. Get them the appropriate furniture. Get them

proper office supplies, keys, a name plate, business cards, a corporate phone and

credit cards. Be sure to already have ordered or have on hand equipment or tools

they’re going to need. Make sure they have a telephone extension with a voice mail set

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up. Be sure, so that you don’t waste a lot of time and they don’t feel that you sort of

forgot these things, be sure to require building and floor access cards or security

badges. Gather what I think are vital reference materials, like your corporate phone

directory, your organizational charts with titles, maybe with photos of these people, a

staff list including the new hire, other contact lists, a voice mail list and things of that

nature. Also, this is going to be a little bit downstream, this next thing, but it’s getting

ready for the orientation. Make sure that all administrative forms are prepared and are

ready to be completed. One thing I have started doing that I think is a nice touch is I’ll

have available for the new hire some things with the corporate logo or brand on them.

And I’m not talking about anything expensive – you know, so pens, a coffee mug, tee

shirt, something like that that makes them feel immediately part of the group. Now as

far as this pre-boarding idea, let’s talk about some general support ideas, all right? You

should provide at least one contact for them and encourage the new employee to ask

questions prior to the start date either by email or by phone. Call the new employee to

welcome them a few days before the start date, and of course remind them to bring

whatever they might need – completed paperwork where you’ve sent it out in advance,

say hey, fill this out at your kitchen table before you show up. They might need some

identification to go through the I-9 process, which I’ll talk about in a few minutes from

now. Do notify coworkers and other key contacts of the new hire’s start date. Don’t let

it be a big surprise to everyone. You might want to create a welcome sign, maybe at

your reception area if you have one of the little menu boards, “Welcome Joe Smith to

our organization,” or whatever. You may, depending on the nature of your own

enterprise, organize little welcome gatherings, something like that, have some people

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greet them. Now do schedule in advance the employee’s new orientation briefing.

Don’t let it be kind of an afterthought and then it becomes a rushed event rather than

something that has been prepared in advance and everyone’s ready to go. Do

schedule times for the new employee to meet with the key staff members, and be sure

to create a training schedule for their first week so again, they’re not starting from a

standing start. You hit the ground running. It is important, everyone, if you’re really

serious about onboarding to assign a mentor or a buddy as an immediate resource for

any questions and to help guide the employee’s relationship building, their knowledge

attainment, and problem solving. And everyone, this should be a formal process. You

should discuss the responsibilities of the mentor with the selected candidate to ensure

the understanding of the role, okay? Now orientation is, of course, going to start on the

first actual work day. Make sure the new hire’s direct manager or supervisor or a

designated staff member is present to greet the new employee. Introduce the new

employee to the mentor or buddy. Introduce the new employee to staff and team

members, coworkers, people like that. And you might even want to arrange a small

gathering to welcome the new employee, as I mentioned a moment ago. If they’re

available, introduce the staff to the executive team. Coordinate a site or office tour, and

include all the kind of support things, like where in fact is the copy machine? Where’s

the mail room? Where are employee mailboxes? Where’s the lunch room? And of

course, where are the restrooms and where’s the coffee pot? Now that first day, you

might want to accompany the new employee to lunch or arrange with a group of their

coworkers to have them go out to lunch with the individual to make them feel welcome.

It might be a good idea to actually provide the employee with a list of local restaurants.

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During that first day, it’s important to give them a copy of the job description if you

haven’t already done so, and again to go over the various elements of the job

description, their responsibilities, their authority levels, and the initial expectations. I

think you all realize that as these things begin to move along, people who are

beginners, we praise them when their actions are almost right, and then of course in a

more experienced person, you’re only going to give them praise when their actions are

exactly right. So again, let’s begin by making sure they understand what our initial

expectations are. Be sure to review the training schedule with them for that first week.

No one likes surprises, and so if they know what’s coming, they’re going to look forward

to it, they’re going to not be surprised, and they’ll welcome that kind of an effort. Be

sure to explain and review with them online resources – you know, things like where

they can find updated policies and procedures – on your intranet, things of that nature.

Do coordinate basic telephone and computer instruction. Have somebody actually

schedule formally to sit down and take you through some of just the mechanisms that

they’re going to be using on a daily basis – the functionality and so forth. Now take the

employee to the new orientation session. Let me make some suggestions for that first

orientation meeting. First of all, don’t try to cram too much information into one session.

Also, there’s all kinds of styles that people learn in. There are auditory learners who like

to hear things and discuss things; there are visual learners who like to see things and

read things; and then there are kinesthetic learners who like to get their hands dirty, like

they actually get in there and do it. We’re all a mixture of these things, although every

one of us tends to kind of favor one over the other. My point is that when you’re trying

to introduce someone to all of this, use various mediums – video, the Internet,

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discussions, presentations – all of that sort of thing. Be sure to review the mission, the

value, the work conditions and policies of your organization. Obviously right there at

first if they haven’t already done so, get them signed up for benefits, direct payroll

deposit, any deductions they want you to take out of their paycheck, and other

programs of that nature. Now later on in one of the modules, I am going to talk about

various forms that need to be filled out on the front end – the I-9 form and so forth.

Again, I’ll talk about that in just a minute or two. Now review payroll processing

including time and attendance reporting requirements. I think some of you are aware

that the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor is really kind of cracking

down on wage and hour issues. So you want to make sure that your new hire

understands what to do, when to do it, etc. Do go over, if you haven’t already, go over

the basic guidelines – security, parking, dress codes, office and working hours, lunch

and break times – all of those sorts of nitty-gritty things. And of course review security

and safety procedures. Everyone, most of you are in fact covered by the Occupational

Safety and Health Act, OSHA, and as a consequence, you have an affirmative duty to

provide a workplace free of recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause

serious injury or death to your workers. So I don’t want to minimize what I’m saying as

far as the safety aspects of someone’s job, safety equipment, where the emergency

exits are, if you have assembly points after an emergency after an evacuation – make

sure the person knows where all of that is. Do go over your policies regarding personal

use of the telephone and the computer. In other words, what are your email policies?

What are your social media policies? Can they use their computer at work to sell things

on eBay? Can they visit sites featuring pornography? Can they play games on a

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website? What is it you’re going to allow or not allow? Also in that regard, if you have a

policy - Internet and social media and email policy – that basically says that the

employee should have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace, and that

you the employee reserve the right to review what they’re looking at, the number of

keystrokes, all of those things – tell them that. Tell them that on the front end. Do give

them emergency contact numbers and then finally once again, give them a resource, a

buddy, a monitor that they can ask questions of. Now during the first two weeks, I want

to make some suggestions on that. First of all, make sure their buddy or mentor and

the new employee are actually meeting, and very, very importantly, and that that they’re

establishing a productive relationship. Ensure that some work assignments are ready to

go right away so the employee can immerse themselves in their new job and get a

sense of hey, I’m being productive, right off the bat. It’s one of the more important

things of onboarding – that sense of immediate contribution, that early success. Do be

sure during that first two weeks to share kind of the unwritten rules and nuances and

traditions of your organization – casual Friday, things of that nature, the things that

aren’t written down but just sort of float in the air and are just sort of the way you do

business. During that first two weeks, make sure they understand how they fit in, their

department, fits in to all the other departments and what the other departments do –

their overall functions, etc. I’m going to say it again – formally schedule meetings with

other staff members from outside the employee’s team or work group to give them a

view of the whole organization, and so they can begin to establish cross team

relationships with others. Help them. Help them develop their own internal networks.

Point out who they might want to get to know better and so forth. If you can, arrange

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again some meaningful time. Have people go to lunch together, breakfast meetings,

and all of that. And then review the relevant decision making processes of the

organization of the department with the new hire. You really should discuss with them

how to build relationships between themselves and other employees, and to discover

interests, challenges, balance of work and family issues, and all of that. This is all

during that critical first two weeks. I’m going to make a suggestion, and some of you will

shy away from this. This is sort of kind of up to you and your corporate culture. You

might actually want to schedule a lunch with the employee and their significant other,

whoever that might actually be. I’m going to leave that to you if you think that’s a good

idea or not to draw that close to someone with regard to their personal life. Now be

sure at this point that you’re getting feedback from the employee, insuring they

understand the goals of the department, so they can make their own personal goals

congruent with that. Make sure they understand the job expectations. Have them say it

back to you, etc. And everyone, meet with the employee and create a development

plan to ensure the acquisition of needed job specific skills and knowledge. Once again,

this goes back to having a really good training plan. No one is going to know everything

at once. So we want to move them along as best we can. Now if the employee is going

to supervise others, insure that he or she meets with direct reports one on one, and as a

group. If the employee has been promoted from within the organization, a transition

guide or a transition plan should be developed by the manager and a senior mentor or

coach should be assigned to advice that promoted manager on the unwritten rules at

the next level. And everyone, this is really critical. When someone is actually promoted

up out of their own peer group, it’s a tough time, you know? And they really should

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make a statement – well articulated, not rude – where they meet with their former peers

and now their direct reports, and they need to point out, look, it is a new ballgame and

so forth. And they need to understand that you know, certain kidding around, joking, so

forth that was fine when they were someone’s peer, that is not acceptable anymore. In

other words, if let’s say they’ve actually been sharing some, let’s say blonde jokes.

Blonde jokes by their nature are sexist. They’re never about a blonde man. They’re

always about a blonde woman, and even when one man calls another man, you’re such

a blonde or says you’re such a blonde, he’s comparing them unfavorably to a blonde

woman. So everyone, those kinds of jokes, again they’re sexist by their nature. Well,

let’s say this person, this newly promoted person has actually been engaging in those

kinds of jokes in the past, which they shouldn’t be, but let’s say they have been. Once

they’re a supervisor, you have to advise them that’s an absolute no-no, all right? Before

the end of the first 30 days, meet with the new hire several times to discuss their initial

experiences and how they’re matching with the employee’s expectations. We – listen,

we’re all human beings. We don’t know what we don’t know. And if you don’t open up

your mind and give that new hire an opportunity to tell you hey, how are things going?

Does this match the expectations, etc.? And everyone, don’t ask generic questions.

Ask specifically, are you pleased with the work environment? How are you doing

establishing relationships? Ask specific questions. Therefore and thereby, it allows you

to discuss any concerns or issues that the employee has. Do at this point, before the

end of the first 30 days, review their progress toward their initial goals. How are they

doing on the development plan? And at that point, you might want to start identifying

and planning for any additional systems or job specific training that might be needed.

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And again, solicit feedback from the employee while the initial onboarding process is

fresh in his or her mind. Everyone, keep something in mind. One of the most powerful

interview techniques in the world is silence. So ask a question, and then be quiet. Give

the new hire a chance to respond. All right, now before the end of the first 90 days, you

should provide guidance and feedback to the employee to ensure continued success,

and to make plans for their future integration within the organization. Once again, you

should meet several times to discuss experiences again and how they’re matching the

employee’s expectations. Once again, review their progress toward goals and adjust if

necessary. Once again, surface and discuss any concerns they have. And everyone,

now start to really provide feedback on their performance to date and solicit feedback

from them. Once again, don’t use clichés. Don't use phrases like, “We’re disappointed

in you. You’re not living up to our expectations.” Those things don’t have any meaning.

If you’re specific, if you use this kind of an approach, “When you…, The impact is… in

the future would you…” etc., now you’re being specific. That depersonalizes it. Talk

about specifics. And everyone, in terms of literally mind management, don’t dwell on

what they’re doing wrong. Talk about the steps they need to take to get it right. If you

actually address during this onboarding period all the things they’re doing wrong and

you highlight those, they’ll become hyper sensitive to those; they’ll become fearful,

distressful, resentful, and they’re not going to listen to you when you begin to talk about

how they can correct it. So begin to talk about, well let’s do it this way. Let me show

you how I’d like it done procedurally, move forward in that manner. Now you might want

to talk about yours and their career plan philosophy and how it applies to them.

Everyone, constantly solicit feedback on the entire onboarding process from them. And

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then finally, kind of tailor the length of the onboarding program based on the individual’s

needs and their responsibilities. Then everyone, at some point you'll launch into your

normal performance review cycle, whatever is normal in your organization.

[End of recording]

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SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING MODULE TWO – RECRUITMENT Module Two – Recruitment. Effective recruitment begins with both having an up to date

job description and you’re actually understanding what that job description means. Now

here’s what I mean. How can you hire the best candidate for a job if you haven’t taken

the time to analyze each aspect of the job in question, and determine in your own head

and in your own heart how you will judge success or failure for those things, or of those

things? All too often, again, people want to do a good job. But management has never

told them what a good job actually is. Is it so many widgets per hour? Is it an error rate

no greater than this? Is it so many sales? What is success? And a job description

provides a summary of the tasks to be performed and states specific position

requirements. And it serves a lot of different functions, such as it lists the minimum

performance expectations, yet discourages uninterested and unqualified individuals

from even applying, and serves as a guideline for selecting and interviewing candidates,

and in making really your decision on which one of those people you’re going to hire. It

certainly forms the basis for training, and it establishes benchmarks for performance

evaluation. It may also act as evidence against grievances, wrongful termination, or

claims of discrimination or retaliation. And I’ll tell you what I mean by that. If all

employees in a particular job have been judged by the same job related criteria, then it

becomes difficult for an unhappy worker to claim that he or she has been treated

differently and the reason just absolutely has to be based on race, religion, age, sex,

physical disability, or because their hair is purple, okay? Now a good way to analyze

the job so you can develop a good job description is to focus on a number of specific

things within that job. In other words, you should undertake a job analysis, a job audit.

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So look at things like your duties and tasks, the frequency of them, the duration of them,

how much effort is involved, how much skill, how complex is the work. What kind of

equipment are they using? Then I kind of alluded to this just a moment ago – what are

your standards of performance? So many errors per thousand? So many widgets per

day? What is it that you’re actually looking at? Also, take a hard look at the

environment. What are their normal working conditions? Is it an office setting? Is it a

laboratory? Is it a walk-in freezer? What conditions? And be sure to focus really on the

unpleasant things and let them know about it on the front end – offensive odors,

temperature extremes. Needless to say, you also need to point out the physical risks,

or understand yourself what the physical risks are – fumes, radioactive substances,

hostile and aggressive people or animals. Take a hard look at the tools and equipment

they’re going to be using. That’s going to give you some idea of what kind of

background you’re looking for, what kind of skill set you want them to walk in the door

with. Be sure to take a hard look at the relationships that they’re going to be engaged in

– supervision given and received, relationships with internal staff, relationships with

people external to not only their own team, but also external to the organization itself.

With that information, identify and determine in detail the particular job duties, their

requirements, and their relative importance of those duties and requirements for a given

job. Now everyone, this is really important because we want to have the sense of not

just what they do, but the frequency and the duration, because as I’ll explain a little bit

more in a moment, you don’t want to hire someone that says yes, I have that skill set,

and then you hire them and you find out that well yeah, they used to do it every once in

a while, but they really didn’t have it. Okay? You can do a lot of this by first of all

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reviewing an existing job description, if there is one. An existing job description – even

if it’s out of date – at least it represents a starting point from which to derive basic

technical skills, reporting relationships, and other information. I urge you to conduct

incumbent surveys and interviews. In other words, find out what the people who have

actually been doing the job think about it. What technical skills do THEY think are

required? To whom do they believe they report, no matter what the organization chart

says? You might want to give these people a checklist or a questionnaire or something

to fill out and give back to you. Then, of course, we want to survey and interview the

supervisors over the department, the section, whatever, that the new hire is going to be

working in. And in developing the job description, everyone, notice that I’m saying talk

to the people who have actually been doing it as well as the supervisors, all right? That

way, I think you’re going to get a more thorough understanding of what the job is really

all about. And you know, a thorough understanding of the job description in question

positions you to match various candidates’ resumes and interviews against a solid

specific set of criteria rather than a set of vague impressions. Now here’s how you do

what I just suggested. What I think you should do is actually take your analysis and turn

it into an essential and nonessential duties chart. This is a spreadsheet with basically

three column headings, namely a column title, percentage of time devoted, and a

column titled essential/nonessential. You then populate the cells with the tasks from the

job description, the percentage of time during a typical work day or typical work week

the person would be performing the task, and whether the task is an essential or

nonessential function. Armed with that information, you can both do a better job of

matching someone’s background to your specific needs and interviewing them when

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you drill down into what they’ve actually been doing. I want to give you an example. I

already mentioned this a little bit, but now let me give you an example. Let’s say that

you’re in a medical organization and your staff handles a larger number of cases

involving a specific type of procedure than most medical institutions, and that the new

staff member would engage in that procedure 18 percent of the time during a typical

work week. Now a job applicant’s resume says that she is familiar with the procedure.

During the interview, you discover that she has only engaged in the procedure six times

during her previous employment. The conclusion would therefore be that while her

resume is factually correct, she actually lacks the type of experience you’re really

seeking. Your analysis also allows you to create a spreadsheet that you can use to

quickly decide which applicants to interview. Now in this spreadsheet, what you would

do is you would list as rows really important skill or knowledge sets you’re interested in,

and then formulate a set of symbols to indicate whether or not an applicant has the skill

or knowledge set, or something that’s related to it, or simply lacks the knowledge

altogether. The columns are an identifier for each candidate. Use something simple,

you know, applicant one, applicant two, and so forth. It doesn’t have to be real fancy.

And so after populating the cells with the relevant information, you can quickly compare

one applicant versus another to decide who you would actually like to interview.

[End of recording.]

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SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING MODULE THREE - INTERVIEWING Let’s go on to module three and discuss interviewing and how it relates to onboarding.

Everyone, I sincerely believe that every interview you conduct with a candidate provides

you with a wonderful opportunity to not only get to know about them, but to also,

through your questions and comments, give them a real sense of your own

organization, and through those revelations, actually begin the onboarding process.

Just as you’re interviewing an applicant, they are also in essence interviewing you and

the organization that you represent. Now there are different types of interviews. Let me

start with telephone interviews. Generally, these are used for one or two purposes – as

either a screening tool, or to conduct the actual interview itself. To use a brief telephone

interview as a screening tool, take the essential duties and responsibilities chart that we

previously discussed, and from it, make a list of most essential tasks, skills, licenses

required, and all that. Then of course, ask about those things to narrow the field of

candidates that have applied for the position. Obviously a phone call is easier and

much less costly than an in-person interview, especially if travel is involved for you

and/or the applicant for an in-person interview. A phone interview or screening usually

does not take the place of an in-person interview. It’s generally simply a means of

learning more about the candidate and letting the candidate learn more about the

employer and position before both parties commit the time and expense of the one-on-

one in person type of interview. I’ll tell you, though, the other way to use the interview is

in fact to conduct the actual interview. This might work for you if you’re trying to hire

someone that will be working strictly on the phone with your customers and you want to

determine how they sound rather than how they look while they’re communicating.

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Then of course there’s the traditional one on one interview, which we’ll continue to

discuss when I go over the types of questions that you should ask during various stages

of an interview. There are group interviews, and that takes place when a candidate is

interviewed by more than one interviewer at the same time. Alternately it can also

mean that a group of candidates are interviewed at the same time by a hiring manager.

Now if it’s one candidate being interviewed by several people from your organization,

your group is often comprised of at least one person from HR and the manager or

supervisor over the job in question. Now let’s talk for a minute about stress interviews.

A stress interview takes place when a job applicant is placed in a stressful situation to

see how they react. The candidate may be asked repeated, difficult, or actually

inappropriate interview questions. There may be multiple interviewers at once, or

sequential interviews, or the candidate may be kept waiting, treated rudely, or otherwise

put in an intimidating position. Now everyone, the obvious goal of a stress interview is

to determine how a candidate reacts under pressure. Now although stress interviews

probably do have some place out there in the world, be really careful about using them.

Chances are they’re going to leave a really bad impression with the applicant, even if

they end up coming to work for you. As for second and third interviews, I believe they

should not go into areas that have already been covered by earlier interviews. They

should cover new ground. Everyone, in my role over the last 30 years I’ve been dealing

with all this, in my role as an HR consultant and as an attorney, I’ve had the unfortunate

experience of being included as an observer in second and third interviews where the

questioner asked the same questions as in a previous interview or preview interview

generally. And everyone, I can tell that the applicants I observed were completely

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turned off by answering the same questions over and over again. It made it seem as

though the interviewers hadn’t shared any information, and that the early interviews

weren’t important at all. Now there are various interview stages and different types of

questions you should ask at each stage. At first, during the kind of rapport building

stage, you want to put the person at ease. So just ask about generalities unrelated to

the interviewee’s background or qualifications – just generic stuff. Did you have trouble

finding the place? Can I get you something to drink? Everyone, remember you cannot,

you CANNOT go into areas that might lead to a charge of discrimination. So don’t ask

about their family. You’re trying to build a rapport, well are you married? How many

kids do you have? Please don’t do that. Really, it is inappropriate. It is inappropriate.

If you’re interviewing someone who is obviously pregnant, don’t go asking is this your

first child? How many children do you have? If you do that, you better be asking it of

every man that walks in also – how many children do you have, etc. You’re better off,

even in the rapport building, stay away from those kinds of things. Now once you’ve

kind of asked them hey, do you want something to drink, did you have any trouble

finding the place and so forth, you move into the introductory stage. You want to kind of

start out broadly. This called the T-funnel method where you start out broad, and then

you funnel down the information and become more and more specific. So start out with

things about what do you know about the company? Tell me about your background in

this industry generally, things like that. Then everyone, you get to the really core stuff.

You should use behavior based questions as the core of what you’re doing. Behavioral

interviewing is an ever-growing mode of job interviewing, and the premise behind

behavioral interviewing as the most accurate kind of indicator – not necessarily a

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predictor, but an indicator of future performance – is past performance in similar

situations. Employers use the behavioral interview technique to evaluate a candidate’s

experiences and behaviors so they can determine the applicant’s potential for success.

You, the interviewer, identify job related experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills, and

abilities you’ve decided are desirable in a particular position. You then structure very

pointed questions to elicit detailed responses aimed at determining if the candidate

possesses the desired characteristics. And everyone, I keep calling these things

questions. In behavior based interviews, actually questions generally are not even

framed as a question. And they ordinarily will start out with phrases like, “Describe a

time when you ... Describe the circumstances under which you most recently … Tell me

about a specific job experience in which you … Describe a situation in which you were

called upon to … Describe the most significant … What did you do in your last job in

order to … How often in the past year were you called upon to … Tell me about a time

when you didn’t want to ...” and then whatever it is. “What happened? How did you

handle it?” Now everyone, don’t ask generic, non-specific, non-job related questions

like tell me about yourself. The answers are generally going to be well rehearsed

generalities that tell you nothing of value, and could well elicit information you don’t want

to hear about – race, religion, age, sex, and so forth, all right? So don’t ask non-specific

questions. Basically make it all work related, job related, and my bottom line is if you

don’t need the information to make the hiring decision, don’t ask the question. Now in a

traditional job interview, applicants can often get away with telling you what you want to

hear, even if they’re fudging the truth. Even if you ask situational questions that start

out with something like, “How would you handle XYZ situation?” The applicant has

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minimal accountability. Since you’ve asked about a hypothetical situation instead of

something they have actually been engaged in, how would you know if the applicant

would really react in a given situation the way they say they would? In a behavioral

interview, it’s much more difficult for an applicant to give responses that are untrue to

their own real character. When the applicant starts to tell a behavioral story, you

typically will begin to pick it apart to get at specific behaviors. And really, it’s up to you

to probe deeper, get more in depth, and then ask questions like they’re going through

their narrative and you say, well what were you thinking at that point? How did the other

person react? Why did you feel they reacted that way? Tell me more about that

meeting. Lead me through how you made that decision. Take. Me through your

decision making process. Everyone, generally if they’ve told you a story that’s anything

but totally honest, their response is not going to hold up through your questioning, all

right? Then everyone, there is the kind of confirmation stage of the interview, and

you’re just really reaffirming specific information that they’ve given you, and then you

kind of close it out and talk about next steps, we’ll get a hold of you, we need you to do

this, need you to do that, and so forth. Now it is very important, everyone, really if

you’re going to do this right – this onboarding right, and know what you’re doing with

this candidate in the future and so forth, to actually put together a kind of a post-

interview chart, a notes taking chart that you actually use while you interview them, and

certainly, certainly once that interview is over, if you haven’t fleshed out your notes while

it was going on. So what you do is you take your essential/nonessential chart that

we’ve already discussed and create an interview notes chart. Basically it’s another

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spreadsheet listing the essential/nonessential items and your observations regarding

their responses to those things.

[End of recording.]

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SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING MODULE FOUR – PAPERWORK It’s now time for module four. Let’s get that paperwork done. One of the first things you

need to ensure is that all new hires complete section one of the form I-9 – the Federal

Government’s Employee Eligibility Verification form. They need to do that by the end of

the first day they do any work for you, and that you complete the other sections of the

form by the end of the third business day after they’ve started working, again, for you.

Basically all US employers that have more than four employees have to complete and

retain a form I9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. And

everyone, this includes citizens – not just non-citizens, but citizens as well. On the

form, you have to examine the employment eligibility and identity documents that an

employee presents to determine whether the documents reasonably appear to be

genuine and relate to the individual. Then you record that information on the form I9.

The list of the documents they can present to you – the list of acceptable documents –

is on the last page of the form. Let me repeat something. I want to make sure you

understand the time frames. Ensure that the employee completes section one of the

form I9 by the end of his or her first day of work. Now, they can complete it earlier than

that. In other words they can complete it during the time frame between accepting the

job and the first day of work for pay. Now you review the employee’s documents, and

you have to fully complete section two of the form I9 within three business days of the

first day of work. For example, if the employee actually begins work on Monday, you’ve

got to complete section two by Thursday. If you hire a person for fewer than three

business days, sections one and two of the form have to be fully completed by the end

of the employee’s first day of work. You cannot begin the form I-9 process until after

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you offer a job and the person accepts your offer. Now you don’t complete a form I-9

for persons that you hired on and are still working for you – let’s see, on or before,

rather, November 6, 1986. And again, they’re still working for you. In addition to that,

you also don’t have an I-9 for people that are employed for casual domestic work in a

private home or that are hired on sporadic regular or intermittent basis. You don’t have

one for independent contractors. And you don’t have one for temp workers you’ve hired

from the temp agency. You also don’t have to have one for people not physically

working on US soil. I’ll tell you, if you don’t in fact have an I-9 for all of your current

employees, what’s going to happen is you might get hit by a fine from $100 to $1100

per I-9. And that’s all enforced by ICE, the Immigration Customs Enforcement

Department, of the Department of Homeland Security. Okay? Now I’ll tell you, if you

want to download a PDF copy of the form together with a free booklet that describes in

detail how to fill it out, you can do that at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services

website, the UCIS website, which is www.uscis.gov. Once again, that’s www.uscis.gov,

or you can call and ask for it by phone, and the number is 1-800-870-3636. There’s a

booklet that you can get, again free, that describes all this, and it’s the Handbook for

Employers. What you want to ask for is the form M as in Mike M-274, okay? Some of

you also need to have new hires fill out a voluntary self-identification form where they

specify their race, gender, and ethnicity. You’re going to need that information to fill out

an EEO1 report. The EEO1 report is a compliance survey report that’s mandated by

federal statute and regulations, and requires company employment data to be

categorized by race, ethnicity, gender, and job categories. If the new hire refuses to fill

it out, then you, the employer, you’re allowed to use your own best judgment to specify

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how best to classify the new hire in the EEO1. Now you’ve got to file this by September

30th of each year. Let me identify those of you who have to actually do that. Number

one, you have to do it if you’re subject to title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and you

have more than 100 employees. Also, you have to do it number two, if you’re covered

by title 7, you have less than 100 employees, but your organization is owned or

corporately affiliated with another company and the entire enterprise employs more than

100 employees, or number three, if you are a federal government prime contractor or a

first tier subcontractor subject to Executive Order 11246 and you have 50 or more

employees, and a prime contract with first year subcontract amounting to $50,000 or

more. Now some other forms you’re going to have to have them fill out right there at

first are state tax forms, federal tax forms. Always be sure to get an acknowledgement

signed off on for your employee handbook, that you gave them a copy of it. Any

individual policies that are of particular interest to you, have them sign individual

acknowledgement forms and agreements with that, like conflicts of interest, your

document retention and destruction policy, sexual harassment policy – that’s very

important, confidentiality agreements, maybe a non-compete agreement maybe, and

then maybe an agreement to arbitrate disputes.

[End of recording.]

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SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING MODULE FIVE – PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Let’s move into module five – Performance Evaluation. One of the most uncomfortable

moments in any managers’ working year is when he or she has to conduct a

performance evaluation. And uncomfortable moment or not, performance evaluations

are an important management tool, and they allow you to assess any given employee’s

performance to actually motivate them to either improve or to continue to perform to

company standards and so forth. Like anything else, proper preparation and structuring

of a performance evaluation can transform the whole process from a confrontation into

a worthwhile collaboration between you the employee and your employee. And this

really is part of onboarding. It’s sort of now moving toward the latter stages of the

onboarding process. Almost after the first one, it’s kind of a way of determining if your

efforts have been successful. And you know, if you follow the onboarding steps I’ve

already mentioned, then the performance evaluations will become really just part of an

ongoing dialogue between a manager and their direct report. And as I’ve said so many

times already, the natural starting point for preparing to undertake a performance review

is to begin with the employee’s job description. Again, by its nature it should define the

nature of their job, the tasks involved, the reporting relationships, and all of that. So a

well-researched and developed job description is the foundation stone, not only of smart

recruiting and interviewing hiring, but it also sets the stage for you to do this review.

Now although the job description is the final manifestation of an organization statement

of its expectations regarding a particular position, and the reporting relationship

surrounding it, by itself it is not detailed enough to serve as a proper metric by which to

measure performance. The detailed information with which to measure performance

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lies within that analysis that we started off with, all right? It’s that analysis that actually

led to the job description, you know, the breakdown of the core competencies, the

knowledge, the skills, the attitudes that are actually required for the job. And a

numeration of core competency sets up a review structure. For example, assume that

we’re seeking an accounting clerk with knowledge of spreadsheet software. For the job

in question, what level of knowledge do you require? Was it someone who could simply

display an existing spreadsheet and merely repopulate the cells with new information?

Or were you looking for something else – someone that can create a spreadsheet from

scratch using a simple formula? Or are you looking for someone that can create

multiple spreadsheets that automatically import and export information to and from other

spreadsheets and files that all are within a larger database? You understand what I’m

saying. It’s that once we understand the level of knowledge required, we can assess

how well the employee has actually performed. The more competencies we examine

and compare to the employee’s performance against our expectation or what have you,

the better chance we have of truly entering into a collaborative dialogue with the worker

where specifics are discussed and dealt with rather than purely subjective criteria – I

think this, I think that. This way, you can actually measure it. And you know, as an

example of what I’m saying, consider when a portion of the knowledge requirement for

an accounting clerk – let’s say clerical skills – the requirement might read “knowledge of

administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing

files and records, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.” So

what you’d want to do is take each one of those requirements and consider it

individually. For example, you should define what managing files and records means

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within the context of your organization. Does it involve hard paper copy records?

Electronic records? Document retention? Document destruction and so forth? Once

you have a clear understanding of the requirements, then you’ll be able to discuss the

worker’s specific actions or their past performance in carrying out your expectations.

And everyone, you know, and example of how to accomplish it is simply to take the

individual competencies, identifying one two competency, one, two, three, whatever,

and then going through your notes, write down notes on how they’ve actually

performed. So again, you consider it, each individual one, on its own. Now there’s a

kind of a paradox, if you will in measuring things. We’ve all received simple letter or

number grades from grade school on. And those types of measurements, it makes it

easy to rate individuals and to aggregate, compare, and contrast information on groups

of individuals. The problem is that the simpler the measurements that they are, the

sampler the measurements are, and the lower the number of criteria we use, the less

chance you have of successfully rating the individual on a qualitative basis. Therefore,

you should set up a rating system that uses a broad range of competencies – metrics

and so forth. And what I’m talking about is have number or letter ratings, but then

couple that with detailed definitions of what the numbers or letters mean. So you might

have these various rating systems where the value might be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1 being the

lowest, 5 being the highest. And let’s say the lowest would be consistently failed to

meet performance standards, and a 5 would be consistently exceeded the performance

standards, along with an explanation of what that means. Now in order to ensure a full

dialogue between the reviewer and the employee, I truly believe employees should rate

themselves using the same criteria that the reviewer is going to use. That self-

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assessment should take place in advance of their actual sit-down session. Often, self-

realization of deficiencies makes it easier for the manager to guide the worker in

correcting and improving performance.

[End of recording.]