Onboarding Defined

First, we should probably explain or define onboarding.  Onboarding is the collection of activities associated with our present staff socializing and training our newly acquired talent.  The older employees take time out of their day to demonstrate behaviors and pass on specific knowledge and skills.

Onboarding New Hires

Recently a person that I know was hired for a job at a company.  This person has no experience with this company or this industry.  They do not know the clientele and they do not know their coworkers.  Many of you probably recognize this way of indoctrination to the company.  It often conjures the images of being thrown to the wolves.

This person is spending time going through the company training.  The thing is, the company training is not so much training as it a ride along with people that just go through the paces of doing the work, not explaining the reasons behind the actions.  There is no demonstration of how to do particular activities and why things in the organization work the way it works.  Everything is ad hoc and ad hominem.  Perhaps that is the way it should work for this company, but I doubt it.  To be sure not everything should be a scripted process, but for a commercial endeavor, one in which we seek to secure the longevity of the organization, consistency is a significant contributor.  We secure the longevity of the organization by improving income where possible, decreasing cost, and improving the quality of our outcomes.  To do this, our people must know how to do the work efficiently and effectively.

Onboarding and Measurements

It does not end there.  This position requires the employee to take specific measurements.  The person training the newly acquired demonstrates a lack of attention to detail regarding the measurement that amounts to fabrication.  Perhaps this measurement does not matter, in which case, why measure. If it does matter, then fabrication should not be of the order of the day.  In this way, bad practices are perpetuated throughout the organization.

Onboarding and Cost

From experience, I would bet many companies suffer from this ineffective and insufficient approach, assigning present staff to help the new talent learn their roles in the organization.  The problem comes when the old guard does not really teach or instills poor practices in the new.  An organization can take years to uncover these misguided actions and considerable expense to make these old errant practices right.  It would probably work, if the management knew the capabilities of those providing the onboarding training for the employee.  Instead of selecting the person that is nearby, find those employees that exemplify the behaviors you want to see in your organization.  This is too important to manage so cavalierly.