new hire experience

The fact is, you only get one chance to successfully onboard a new hire. Here’s how to get it right.

Our technology solution, building connections®, provides an engaging, automated, learning experience that’s branded for your company.

It addresses the two most critical, real-life areas new hires face: how to integrate rapidly into the organization, and then how to build the productive, positive relationships that lead to success.

We are firm believers that no new hire should be expected to navigate the onboarding process alone, as no form, manual, or even an attractive dashboard can ever fully replace the vital roles that the organization’s hiring manager, HR Partner and other stakeholders play. That’s precisely why all components of building connections® incorporate key players into the Onboarding Program.  

Every email notification, every survey to track progress, every element that helps to guide the new hire, hiring manager and key stakeholders all combine to create a total, consistent, engaging, and successful onboarding experience.

building connections® is flexible, so it can address all your new hire needs, whether it’s to cover the period from Offer Acceptance to Day 1, Day 1 through the First 90 days, or both.

building connections® KEY FEATURES

  • Covers as much…or as little…of the onboarding experience as you need.
  • Gathers targeted and purposeful feedback at multiple points in the process.
  • Focuses on the precise onboarding phases that meet your organization’s objectives.
  • Branded to ensure a personalized experience.
  • Offers both advanced technologies, and personal, high-touch delivery options.

The Best of Both Worlds

The most effective solution is a well-crafted new hire experience supported by a blended approach using both modules of building connections®: quickstart® and the first 90®.

For the client who wants to focus on jump-starting the experience prior to Day 1 by delivering knowledge and tools to the new hire, we offer our proprietary, dynamic web-based solution, quickstart®

quickstart® is designed to lower the new hires’ apprehension while increasing their engagement by providing knowledge about the organization, the experiences they can expect as employees, and information about Day One….ahead of Day One. 

This is doubly important when your new hire is a Millennial, as a full one-third of Millennials start seeking a new job a mere six months after joining an organization. The good news is that quickstart® can effectively counter this by incorporating the kind of technology and interactive features that engage them, and make them feel more positive about your culture.

The point is, when a new hire starts off on the right foot, the path to success is far more likely.

quickstart® KEY FEATURES

  • Web-based portal, customizable with client branding, videos, links, and resources.
  • An experience that launches at offer acceptance.
  • Customization of the new hire’s role.
  • Intuitive and engaging experience, with a wizard-style interface & automation that allows for delivery of information in the right order at the right time.
  • Survey feature that gathers information about the new hire to ensure a personalized welcome.
  • The new hire will learn what makes the organization unique, what to expect in the first 90 days, and what the organization’s business is really all about.

The first ninety days are critical for success as the new hire’s goal is to transition from learning to doing — the faster the better.

And the fastest way to do that is to provide them with the right knowledge, and the right connections to the right people that provide the best channel for 2-way feedback.

the first 90® days solution accomplishes all this by delivering a combination of personal, high- touch support options, delivered using advanced technology, through each stage in the process. The online experience doesn’t have to end on day one.  Once the new hire starts, building connections®, the first 90® days, gives them access to an interactive dashboard where they can see their progress and view action items and resources that will support them through the first 90 days.

The new hire’s support network (i.e., hiring manager, mentor and/or HR partner) will have access to plug ‘n play roadmaps and dashboards with key milestones and surveys that give insight about what the new hire needs and what needs to be done.

the first 90® KEY FEATURES

  • Web-based portal, customizable with client branding.
  • Dashboards that provide the hiring manager, mentor, and/or HR partner with roadmaps, tools, and resources to support the new hire’s onboarding journey.
  • Reminders at relevant times for critical interactions.
  • Push notifications to participants creating data-based, just-in-time coaching opportunities.
  • Support for onboarding goal setting & onboarding plan creation.
  • Best-practice tools and resources to support building personal networks.
  • Metrics and reporting for Hiring Managers and HR.
  • Pulse surveys to gather targeted and purposeful feedback at multiple points in the process.

more about our new hire experience solutions

View our new hire experience videos

Real Leadership in Under a Minute – the new hire experience

Our Onboarding Re-Imagined video shows how the new hire experience fits into the total onboarding experience

do you need to onboard a New leader?

Our New Leader Transition solution for onboarding is designed to enable the leader to maximize their impact quickly

Real Leadership in Under a Minute

View our real leadership in under a minute video about the New Hire Experience.

New Leader Transition

Get information about onboarding your New Leaders.

Onboarding Re-Imagined

View our onboarding video

Onboarding News & Updates

Onboarding

News

Erika will be a featured speaker at the Gulf Coast Symposium on HR Issues address the topic: Onboard Like a CEO: Strategies from the corner office to engage and develop your new hires

Description:

Onboard new hires like a CEO? What would an “executive experience” look like and how could it impact your new hires’ engagement levels? Per Gallup, 88% of employees don’t think their current organization is good at onboarding and 76% of HR don’t think they are doing a good job at onboarding employees. Robust onboarding addresses organizational challenges – attracting top talent, engagement, productivity, and high turnover . You’ll get six strategies “borrowed” from executive onboarding you can implement immediately, including how to quickly build organizational knowledge; build key relationships and deliver timely feedback to adjust and avoid negative turnover.

Onboarding

News

Brenda Hampel & Erika Lamont, co-founders of Connect the Dots Consulting, were recently featured on the podcast series: Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future as onboarding experts.

More than 40% of new leaders fail within 18 months. Why?

Don’t blame the leader; look at the organization instead! Most organizations don’t onboard a new leader well, if at all. They assume a person’s success at one company will automatically transfer to theirs – but there are far too many variables at play to bank on that. Instead, an onboarding plan that goes beyond HR protocols and benefits sign-up is necessary: a plan that considers company culture, history, team dynamics…even quality of life differences if the new leader is coming from out of town!

Brenda Hampel and Erika Lamont of Connect the Dots share tips, tricks, and outright wisdom from years of experience helping organizations maximize the success of their new leaders.

Here’s what Brenda, Erika, and host Maureen Metcalf cover:

  1. The three main components of a good onboarding plan;
  2. Why overlooking help with personal transitions – including spouse and children – is a key reason for new leaders leaving your organization; and
  3. Why how you handled your workforce during the COVID pandemic is the ultimate litmus test for a leader considering your job offer.

Onboarding

News

Based on feedback Brenda Hampel, Managing Director, Connect the Dots received in her presentation at a recent conference, many organizations continue to look for effective ways to ensure their onboarding practices meet the expectations and needs of new employees.

Over 75 HR professionals attended her session “Disrupt Your Onboarding Experience,” designed to help participants:

  • Identify the strengths and weaknesses of their onboarding processes and
  • Integrate the newest onboarding technology practices and tools

The presentation included several real-time feedback polls to assess the current state of onboarding at participants’ organizations and help CTD tailor its content delivery.  The following charts outline the feedback we received during the session.

Why “disrupt” your onboarding experience?

HR professionals in attendance were most motivated to improve their onboarding systems to increase retention of new hires and engage employees, and get employees up to speed faster (38% and 33%, respectively).  Getting new hires up to speed and improving ease of manager participation were much less likely to be the drivers of participant’s onboarding focus.  No participants indicated a specific need to address the multi-generational workforce with onboarding.

What is the current state of onboarding in your organization?

All session participants reported that they conduct some onboarding activities in their organizations; however, about half focused mainly on orientation activities.  Nearly 20% also included training activities, and an additional 24% also include some socialization.  Only 10% of respondents reported having a formal, structured process with an onboarding plan, defined roles, and feedback.

What type of technology are you currently using for your onboarding experience?

Over half of participants were not using any technology to support their onboarding processes.  The remaining participants implemented a branded onboarding website (24%) or email and calendar planning only (24%). No participants reported using social media to connect with new hires or linking their systems to existing HRIS systems. 

 

Your Onboarding Experience

Where is your onboarding program hitting and missing the mark? What best-practice updates can you make to better meet your organization’s needs?

Take a look at our onboarding solutions for the new hire as well as for new leader transition to see how we help dynamic companies effectively onboard their team members

 

Our team-connect Survey Process

 

We start with thoughtfully diagnosing the team’s current culture by using available data, assessments and interviews.

This provides the team leader with a clear view of what is getting in the way of the team’s success.

We design a series of structured team sessions that:

  • Share the team culture analysis
  • Give team members the opportunity to talk through both processes and behaviors that need to be addressed
  • Productively provide feedback to one another
  • Develop both team and individual commitments that will lead to the team’s desired state

 

Measure progress by leveraging CTD’s team-connect Survey to:

  • Drive accountability and measure progress by collecting team feedback specific to one another’s engagement and behavioral change
  • Provide the team’s leader with a clear understanding of what he/she and the team need from each other to enable and support the team’s success
  • Share team and individual survey result reports