Employee Onboarding: How to get your new hires to hit the ground running
Employee Onboarding: How to get your new hires to hit the ground running
Por Keyla Pérez, Head of Content de CanopyLAB
How long does it take for a new employee to become a productive asset in a company?
Research suggests that it can take from 3 months up to 2 years for new hires to learn the ropes, depending on the quality of the onboarding process. Financially, the median cost of onboarding an employee is $3000. Based on these facts alone, it is safe to say that onboarding is a significant commitment of resources, especially when you multiply these costs times the amount of employees your company hires per year.
Though costly, the assumption is that onboarding costs are an investment that will yield returns in the employee’s productivity, independence and longevity in the company. But this is not always the case. According to research conducted by Gallup, 88% of participants said their organization did not have a good onboarding process. Negative onboarding experiences, in turn, make employees twice as likely to look for other job opportunities, without mentioning its impact on their ability to act independently, proactively or have a sense of self-confidence.
So, if you calculated how much your company is spending per hire based on the $3000 benchmark from earlier, go ahead and add some extra dollars in there to account for the employees who will quit within a year.
But hey, it’s not all bad news! When your onboarding process is good, the results are great. Employees develop strong bonds with the organization, they feel more connected to their coworkers as well as to the company culture, have more role clarity, stay in the organization longer and hit the ground running. So how can you achieve this?
1. Know that good onboarding starts in the recruitment phase
Hiring the right candidate is the single most important factor in creating a positive onboarding experience. For this, you and your team must carry out an extensive job analysis that specifies the functions, duties, skills, and outcomes the new employee will have to fulfill.This background information will determine the clarity of the job description, which will be key in filtering candidates.
2. Develop a system to get through admin and paperwork swiftly to focus on the issues that will enhance the new hire’s confidence
As it stands now, most of the onboarding process in companies is spent sorting out administrative items and paperwork. Although these are important aspects to tackle, try to organize them into a checklist that you can send to your new team member in the preboarding period. Additionally, consider shifting CRM, health and safety and company policy training to a corporate Learning Experience Platform which enables new employees to not only learn at their own pace, but also consolidate knowledge without the pressure of having to remember everything on the first day.
Getting the admin out of the way in the preboarding phase can help ease the intensity of the employee’s first day, since their perspective will be completely different to yours as a manager. While your focus may be on whether their key fob is activated, the email is set up or their parking space is available, they will probably be nervous about meeting their new co-workers and managers, learning about the expectations of their job and knowing who to go to in case they make a mistake. By optimizing the time spent on administrative aspects, you’ll free up time to clarify these three key points within the first week:
- Expectations of the job (with measurable outputs)
- Line management and team dynamics
- Feedback method and frequency
3. Understand that it's not meant to be a one-week plan, but that there are steps you can (and should) take to make it more efficient
Finally, the key to successful onboarding and to help your hires hit the ground running is to accept that it won’t be something you will “get out of the way” within the first week or month. When we understand the employee’s onboarding process as one that will likely last a few months but that will result in a happier, more productive and more independent individual that will stay in the company longer, we are on track to a good onboarding experience.
That being said, customizing the onboarding process for every single new employee would be a logistical and financial challenge. So we suggest that you back your onboarding process with digital tools such as CanopyLAB’s LXP where you can deliver bulk onboardings, analyze employees’ training progress and keep a library of materials they can refer to regularly.
Finally, though it may seem like a more resource-intensive method than the way you delivered onboarding before, with the help of technologies and systems that help increase the efficiency of the process, you can create an onboarding process that results in a more satisfied, productive and confident workforce.
Transform your workforce through an adaptive, efficient and personalized onboarding process. Book a demo with us today.
- Published in Apoyo corporativo, Employees, LMS, Onboarding
Could a lack of training be behind your sales team’s underperformance? Here’s what you can do about it
Could a lack of training be behind your sales team’s underperformance? Here’s what you can do about it
Por Keyla Pérez, Head of Content de CanopyLAB
Sales teams are navigating undeniably difficult circumstances in 2021. Consumer behavior changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a shift to online shopping and a homebody economy, putting the most stellar of sales teams under pressure. With the exception of tech services and pharmaceuticals, the pandemic has narrowed most businesses’ consumer base, affecting sales teams’ ability to meet their quotas. Having said that, underperformance should not be attributed solely to external factors. Rather, observing how your sales team adapts in times of crisis can be an opportunity to retrain your reps, adapt your strategy and practice resilience.
The importance of training
Prior to the pandemic, many companies overlooked the importance of sales training based on a perception of slow return compared to other investments. However, in contrast to these assumptions, sales training can be one of the most fruitful investments in a company, enabling greater attainment of quotas and higher customer renewal rates. So how should you go about training your sales team?
How to design a sales training program
1. Assess your team's needs
The first step to a successful sales training program is an assessment of the team’s needs. For this, sales managers must have a clear idea of what the sales targets are and what skills, knowledge and abilities are necessary to achieve them.
You can ask yourself the following questions:
- Are your sales reps aware of how to qualify leads now that their customer base has changed and they are no longer selling their product/service in person?
- Are they up to date with new product knowledge?
- Are they comfortable navigating different digital tools and having online client meetings?
- Have they readjusted their sales messaging or are they using the same cold templates as before the pandemic?
All these questions can help you pinpoint what might be the root cause of the team’s underperformance. KONA suggests using the “5 Whys” Model to identify the underlying cause of a performance issue.
2. Translate your team's needs into learning goals
Once you have identified your team’s areas for improvement, translate them into learning goals. This will allow you to nurture the specific skills that your team needs. For example, if an overarching theme is that sales reps are struggling to create a connection with prospects during online meetings, the learning goals could be “digital literacy”, “communication” and “social selling”. This method allows your training to be underpinned by a pedagogical element. Though this may sound intimidating if you don’t have a background in education, it doesn’t have to be. Which leads us to the final point…
3. Choose the right learning solution
Choosing the right learning solution is key to the successful implementation of a sales training plan. The right Learning Experience Platform (LXP) can help you save time, enhance collaboration among employees and serve as a resource library that your sales reps can refer to whenever they need to.
When choosing a LXP, choose one that allows you to:
- Deliver individualized and self-paced training to your entire team
- Identify learning objectives automatically
- Create effective courses in minutes
- Enhance collaboration and social interaction within your team
In conclusion, investing in your team’s sales training can only reap benefits. It will enhance your representative’s adaptability, resilience and competitive advantage. If the current crisis has taught us anything, it’s that we don’t want to be caught off guard ever again.
Join us in making sales training a simple, effective and efficient process. Book a demo with us today.
- Published in Apoyo corporativo, Employees, LMS
Celebrating the women of CanopyLAB
Happy International Women’s Day. We are super proud to announce that two talented, strong and intelligent women joined the CanopyLAB team starting March 1st. Both have extensive experience from the edtech space and they have joined the company as it finishes it important transition from startup to scaleup.
CanopyLAB CEO Sahra-Josephine Hjorth accepts appointment as faculty at SingularityU Nordic in Copenhagen
SingularityU Nordic aims to give inspiration as well as educate and empower leaders worldwide to use exponential technologies to solve national and international challenges. The community around SingularityU Nordic consists of corporations, entrepreneurs, academic institutions, development organizations, governments, and investors.
