Nutshell: You’re hired! How to induct and onboard new employees

Integrating new people into our teams and honouring the ‘psychological contract’ is the final part of the hiring process.

Imagine going to the trouble of sourcing the right candidate for your team, shortlisting, interviewing and choosing with care – only to find that your new staff member quits within weeks.

This experience would be costly and demoralising, undermining your organisation's reputation and leaving you without the skills you were hoping to bring in. But it happens only too often.

The reason? Candidates feel poorly treated during their induction and onboarding, discovering a difference between the culture they have been sold and the reality of their new workplace. They respond by voting with their feet (and sometimes with their keyboard too, slating the organisation).  

Starting as we mean to go on

Integrating an employee into our organisation is the final stage of the recruitment process – and is not something to leave to chance. Onboarding starts the day our candidate accepts the job offer – with the short window between offer acceptance and start day presenting an important engagement opportunity.

While HR might design and deliver the induction process, when managers take an active role in it “employees are 3.4 times as likely to strongly agree their onboarding experience was exceptional”, according to Gallup.

To prevent misunderstandings which make our new hire think twice about joining, we should support them to complete the necessary paperwork, provide all relevant information about the company and their role, and discuss any reasonable adjustments we might need to make to help them to perform it to the best of their ability.

Practical issues to cover include where they will work, core hours, probation periods, taking time off, payroll policies, details of parking, dress code and so on. If we have an employee handbook, we should send this out.

Let people know what they can expect on their first day and ensure they have the passes and equipment in advance; some organisations give their new starters an itinerary for their first week. Again, for neurodiverse people in particular, these details can be crucial to their success in the organisation.

Honouring the psychological contract

When our new starter arrives, we should help orientate them by making the experience feel personal – having somebody to welcome them, introducing them to team members and other key stakeholders, and showing them around the office (if they are based on site).

We must ensure they are able to use the IT systems and have the logins and equipment they need. A welcome lunch may make them feel valued, but they will also want some downtime to assimilate information, settle into their new environment and also start doing their job.

Early impressions can be highly influential. Employee experience begins at the attraction stage (continuing right through to their departure from the company), with the ‘psychological contract’  forged during recruitment when ‘promise exchanges’ are first made between employer and employee.

Though unwritten, the psychological contract is a behavioural equivalent of a formal employment contract, and shorthand for the mutual beliefs, perceptions and informal obligations between an employer and employee. The concept was developed by organisational psychologist Denise Rousseau in the 1980s, building on earlier work by behavioural scientist Chris Argyris.

At a basic level, Rousseau’s ‘contract’ is about transactional things such as pay and benefits. But it’s also about the balance of contribution on both sides of the relationship: effort flowing both ways. It’s about people receiving the right kind of support and feedback, adequate opportunities for development, and even being able to recognise that meaning and purpose in their work. Broadly, it covers:

• job security
• perceived fairness of pay and benefits
• manager support
• career prospects
• learning and development
• organisational culture
• employer’s mission, purpose and contribution to society

Workers who feel their psychological contract is fair – in that they get out just as much as they put in – tend to perform better, display greater commitment to the company’s objectives, and are more likely to go above and beyond. 

However, it’s all too easy for the contract to be breached, for expectations to become mismatched, and promises to be left unfulfilled.

At an early stage, for example, a lack of alignment between the role described at interview and its realities on arrival will clearly undermine belief in the contract. While we want to win talent into our organisations, over-promising or misleading people about values and culture will only lead to future disappointment and frustration.

In a survey of US workers by recruitment platform Jobvite, a third of respondents reported that they had quit their jobs within the first 90 days of employment. Of these, 43% had done so because their day-to-day role wasn’t what they had been led to believe it would be during the hiring process.

A further 32% left because they disliked the company’s culture; the way employees are treated in their first few weeks can impact directly on their performance and retention.

For example:

Take Alison, whose manager meets her at reception on her first day, introduces her to the team and talks her through her role in context to organisational goals. She ensures Alison can access the IT and systems she needs, providing her with an itinerary for the week, a staff handbook, and a colleague to act as a ‘buddy’ (though she also checks in with her regularly). Training has been scheduled for Alison’s second week and her manager is noting her skills and interests, and providing constructive feedback and guidance.

Meanwhile, Jack arrives on day one only to find that he doesn’t have the right pass to get into the building and his manager isn’t in yet. He has to introduce himself to team members – who aren’t sure where he should be sitting or what he should be doing. A week in, he’s still not clear what is expected of him and his first month passes in a whirlwind of confusion. Jack’s morale dips further when he is paid late because he hasn’t been set up properly on the pay-roll system.

Every ounce of effort we put into welcoming and orienting an employee will affirm their decision to join us (and encourage them to stay). As leaders, we are central to integrating new staff, modelling respect and inclusion, setting out clear performance standards and objectives, and arranging any initial training. Time invested in helping people to settle in will be repaid when they are swiftly up to speed and able to perform their role fully.

During onboarding, a new employee should be helped to understand what is expected of them and how their role relates to team goals and the business needs of the organisation; they will benefit from guidance on ‘how we do things round here’, including how decisions are made, problems are resolved and people behave in meetings and other communications. They will also want to feel that their manager is interested in harnessing their strengths and monitoring their wellbeing – and to be able to identify a clear path for career progression. 

This is equally applicable to remote workers, who may need additional help in setting up technology, accessing systems and engaging with colleagues. Scheduling a combination of formal and informal interactions between the new hire and their colleagues can aid relationship building. Since global teams may work across time zones, these need to be factored in, alongside any cultural differences.

Special care should be taken to induct workers with neurodiversity or disabilities, with processes tailored to individual needs and incorporating reasonable adjustments to the working environment or the way information is provided.

For example, access requirements for a wheelchair user should be clarified well in advance of the employee’s start date; a person with autism might need more detailed joining instructions than other starters.

Where we are hiring for ‘culture add’, we may similarly need to factor in extra support to help integrate people. Championing difference is one thing, but enabling it – with inclusive practices and psychological safety – is quite another. 

A McKinsey and LeanIn.org study shows that women – especially women of colour – are less likely to have managers support them in the workplace. And research by UK market research company Savanta found that 46% of black employees have resigned from their job citing a lack of inclusion, compared with 26% of their white colleagues.

To maintain support for all new hires, and ensure we know how people are feeling, it’s advisable to view onboarding as a year-long process that offers employees a variety of opportunities to build relationships with team members, learn and grow, and to connect with us through regular check-ins. If we survey new employees over this period, and analyse this data, we can use it to improve future processes.

As managers – if we do not want to undo our good work in attracting, selecting and bringing new talent into our organisations – we must play our part in supporting new employees, enabling them to integrate into our teams and become the assets we dreamt of hiring when we drew up our candidate personas right at the start of the process.

Test your understanding

• Outline what we mean by the 'psychological contract' and list four things that it covers.

What does it mean for you?

• Consider how you currently onboard new team members and how you might improve the process.