1. Fear of new hire remorse

You’ve probably felt buyer’s remorse before. It’s an emotional experience whereby a person feels remorse or regret after a purchase. It works the same way in the hiring process. Realize in the back of every hiring manager’s mind is the question of whether or not they will regret the hiring decision weeks or months down the road.

2. Fear that the wrong choice will diminish the respect of others

Peer pressure is alive and well even in the business world. The pressure to please a boss and do an outstanding job ranks high on the list of most managers. Why is this? One bad hiring decision can instantly diminish the respect of a boss. Lost respect can take months or even years to rebuild. Sometimes it’s not recoverable. The desire for approval and recognition from a domineering boss and colleagues can be intense and weighs heavily on the mind of a hiring manger.

3. Fear of the unknown

A job candidate may look great on paper. A job candidate may even shine during a job interview. All these promising indicators still don’t answer the question, how will he or she do in the position? Sometimes the only way managers know is after the fact when the candidate is fresh into the orientation and training phase. Here are the unknowns that every manager fears. Will this candidate turn out to be the right one? Will this candidate be a good or bad return on investment? How long is this candidate likely to stay?

4. Fear of losing self-esteem

When a hiring manager experiences one two many bad hires, it’s highly potential for that manager’s self-esteem to take a nose-dive. Dale Carnegie, human relations genius, recognized that each person craves a “feeling of importance.” Bad decisions rob us of self-esteem. To enjoy life, a good dosage of self-esteem is in order.

5. Fear that a bad hire will negatively affect department morale

A bad hiring experience can often suck the life out of department. Because of that person’s ineffectiveness and eventual absence, department morale will often dip and the increased workload will weigh heavy on other team members until a more suitable person can be found to fill the position.

The last decade has seen considerable progress in the scientific appreciation of how networks are structured. There are two reasons for this; the increase in the availability of data and information about real world networks, and the increased attention paid to the field by the scientific and mathematical research communities. Analysis was hitherto primarily the domain of sociologists and was hampered by their inability to undertake anything more than small scale, qualitatively based research, where in some cases the research process itself distorted the results. At first blush, it is difficult to see how a series of number crunching exercises on a university’s mainframe computer can help any of us in the prosaic, street level business of getting our names and talents known in the right places. However some of the insights this research provides are revelatory, and the dispassionate outlines of academic findings resonate directly with real world experience. The research helps us because a network is an organic, natural phenomenon, built on a string of huge numbers of relatively tiny exchanges, decisions and interactions. Although each decision making process in social networking is itself complex and unique, analysis of the sum of these decisions provides some relevant lessons.

DISPELLING A MYTH? – SIX DEGREES AND SMALL WORLDS

The popular belief that we are all connected by a short series of acquaintances – the Small World Theory – acquired substance in 1967 when the social psychologist Stanley Milgram began a celebrated series of experiments. These entailed asking subjects, who were chosen at random, to get a package to somebody they had never heard of and who lived in a different part of the United States. Participants had to pass the package by hand to somebody they knew, who they thought would be a step closer to the target, and who was asked to continue the chain in the same way. A number of chains were completed, and those that did contained an average of six steps between sender and target. These results were published in a popular psychology magazine and caught the public imagination. Dinner party conversations would centre on the apparent fact that if you knew, say, fifty people quite well, and they knew fifty others, and so on, by the time you took these links six stages you would have a network greater than the world’s population (50 to the power of 6 is 15.6bn.) Unfortunately this neat argument is flawed (even if it were not it would be useless in practice). Later research found shortcomings in Milgram’s research methods, and unpublished papers revealed that the ratio of completed to uncompleted chains was so low (5% in one case) that the conclusions were of dubious validity. The jury is still out; the Small World Project at Columbia University is running a much larger, e-mail based version of Milgram’s experiments. Preliminary results released in 2002 showed that of 60,000 chains started across 171 countries, aimed at 19 targets, only 380 were completed; these had an average length of 5 links, increasing to 7 when borders were crossed.

WHY DOESN’T IT WORK?

In a word, homophily – the natural human tendency to associate with people like ourselves. Homophily leads to clustering, which we can describe as the formation of tightly linked, highly interconnected sub networks with limited external links. Clustering is an important aspect of network behaviour to which we shall return; for now a brief summary of another follow up to Milgram’s work will demonstrate its power. In 1976 JM Guiot asked 52 French Canadians living in Montreal to contact a prominent member of that City’s Jewish community, using telephone chains of acquaintances. They achieved an 85% success rate – the point being that once you had penetrated the tightly knit (i.e. clustered) Jewish community you could very quickly get to anybody in it (although limiting it to one city was also a factor). I mentioned that even if the six degree theory were valid, it would not help us, and to explain why we need to visit the world of mathematicians and Erdõs numbers. Paul Erdõs was a prominent, and brilliant, Hungarian mathematician, an itinerant individual who collaborated prolifically. Mathematicians make ideal subjects, because when they work together they publish papers, making it relatively easy to analyse the structure of their collaborative networks. This type of network is useful to us because it has many of the same qualities as the professional networks we need to develop. An Erdõs number is a guide to an individual’s proximity to Erdõs, based on published papers. So Erdõs himself has a number of 0, whilst all the people who co-wrote with him have a number of 1 (there are 507 of them!). Those who wrote with his collaborators, but not with him, have a number of 2, and so on. The game for mathematicians was to find out their own Erdõs number. In his book “Six Degrees”, Duncan Watts describes how his colleague Steve Strogatz needed two days of concentrated effort to find out his (it was 4). The problem is that the range of potential links expands geometrically at each stage. It is difficult enough simply to establish who your own collaborators have also worked with, while the task of exploring the next level is overwhelmingly complex.

CLUSTERS, WEAK TIES AND STRUCTURAL HOLES

The next diagram, which is simplified, highlights two different styles of networking behaviour. Bill and Adam are, respectively, Sales Director and Head of New Product Development for a niche consumer audio products manufacturer. Both are highly effective in their roles. Bill is very gregarious and manages his team in detail, regularly socialising with them (and with key customers). The ties within this cluster are very strong and information passes freely, quickly and effectively. His success as Sales Director is built on his ability to motivate his staff and develop close links with his customers; it owes more to maintaining high levels of energy than to creative or original thinking. Adam on the other hand is more remote, an austere individual who prefers to work alone. His talent for innovation centres on an ability to spot promising technologies and incorporate them into products that attract consumers. The diagram shows his links with external component suppliers, whom he keeps at arms length and interrogates about new developments by exchanges of e-mails and technical papers. Diagram 4. Bill’s highly clustered Sales Department on the right is in stark contrast to the sparse set of distant links that Adam maintains with the component suppliers whose new technologies enable his own product development. When the company is acquired by a larger competitor which has no need of Bill or Adam, they both decide that their futures lie in building portfolio careers as consultants and non-executive directors. Which of them is better positioned to build a new network on which to find these roles? In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter published a ground breaking paper called “The Strength of Weak Ties”. In this and subsequent research he demonstrated that the valuable connections are those that link us, perhaps tenuously, with distant groups or networks. When it comes to moving on, it is not those to whom we are closest that can help, rather those we know less well but who can open the door to new opportunities. For example he demonstrated that white collar workers achieved much greater success in finding new roles through connections with people they barely knew, and that social activist movements in Boston (acting against urban development) were far more effective when they established links across different communities. His paper triggered a slew of further research, which showed that: Complex networks have “Structural Holes” – that is, areas where interconnectedness between clusters is very low. In our diagram we can see such a hole between the sales team and the new technology / product design area. Members of each group are well aware of the other, but tend to focus on their own activities (e.g. hitting the month’s sales target); Those who own or control the links across the holes are in a powerful position, as this ownership gives them a competitive advantage. Because they control a flow of information, they are of interest to people across a wider range of groups than those who operate inside a tight cluster. In essence, Adam has a great store of Social Capital which he can transfer to a new role, whereas Bill’s social capital derived from leadership of a group of which he is no longer a part, set in an environment in which he will no longer operate. Social Capital as a concept is in its infancy, and definitions vary, but it can be thought of as a metaphor for an individual’s competitive advantage arising from their position in a network structure. When he had his job, Bill’s social capital arose from a high degree of Closure; by this we mean that his actions were highly visible to his immediate contacts (colleagues and customers) and hence he built trust and respect. Adam operated in a looser network with a far lower degree of closure (people didn’t know him well enough to develop trust) but the social capital he possesses as a function of his ownership of a range of weak ties linking separate but related networks is of much greater use as he contemplates life outside the corporate cocoon. The tsunami of research which followed Granovetter’s work provides overwhelming evidence that individuals whose networks span structural holes achieve greater degrees of success. Ronald Burt, whose Network Structure of Social Capital has already been cited, identifies survey after survey reaching this conclusion. Hence a foundation of our approach to Transition Networking is that we do not rely on contacts to whom we are close, hoping that they in turn will know somebody who knows somebody who will want what we have to offer. Nor do we simply try to make as many new contacts as possible in the hope that one in a hundred will pay off. We are looking instead for structural holes in networks, areas in which we are clearly qualified to add value. It is highly likely that in order to position ourselves to add value, we will be relying on weak ties – contacts who know us little or even not at all – to make introductions and to convey messages. By definition weak ties offer little in the way of closure, and therefore the messages we send across these links must be Robust and Sticky.

Provide a structured approach

Allow your new hires to gain an understanding of your business rather than overloading them with information on day one.

Improve engagement

The program is broken down into 12 modules

Learn from your new hires

Companies often hire new talent in order to benefit from a new perspective on the business.  Our program provides a framework which allows new hires to indentify and discuss the organization in a structured way

Enable social networks

The program allows employees to develop relationship across the organization, giving them a reason to initiate conversations and a permission slip for future interactions

Reduce time to productivity

Participants are required to discover more about the organization by asking questions and getting feedback

Minimize disruption

The program is fit around existing commitments and should take no more than an hour a week.

Are employers providing onboarding programs and practices to their new hires? More than 80% of organizations reported that they have either formal (i.e., written, documented, standard) or informal onboarding programs and/or practices. The vast majority of organizations indicated that providing communication, training and resources is extremely important for the successful adjustment of new hires.  SHRM conducted a survey about organizations’ onboarding programs and practices, timing and duration of onboarding programs and organizational barriers to offering formal onboarding activities

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Onboarding Program overview

An overview of the risks and benefits of onboarding together with an outline of the key elements of our onboarding program

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A review of onboarding literature

The word “onboarding” is a relatively new term. Organizational researchers have been investigating “new employee orientation programs” and “socialization techniques” for decades. Onboarding appears to be a process more focused on the integration of new senior-level managers or executives into the company. The ultimate goal of onboarding is to prepare managers to succeed in their job as quickly as possible.

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Starting Them Off On the Right Foot: Why Onboarding is Important

While holding an orientation for new employees is a well- established human resources practice, “onboarding” is a more comprehensive process by which new employees are socialized into a company’s culture, in addition to being oriented to their specific job tasks and associated work expectations.

Management and organizational experts Tayla Bauer and Berrin Erdrogan describe onboarding as “a process where new employees move from being organizational outsiders to becoming organizational insiders.”

All employees experience some type of onboarding, although the formality and comprehensiveness of onboarding programs varies widely across organizations. By formally defining your own onboarding processes, you will be better able to successfully integrate your new employees into your workforce.

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There are many theories on how to correctly “onboard” someone to an organization or a team. Most focus on how to provide the new hire with the information and skills she needs to succeed. But that can only take her so far. She will need connections and an understanding of the inner workings and culture of your company to be truly successful. Whether she is transitioning from another part of the organization or is brand new, you can get her up to speed more quickly by going beyond the basics and explaining how things actually get done.

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The New Strategic Onboarding Process

Onboarding is an important aspect of the employment process that has been often ignored. Overlooked onboarding results in high turnover costs, totaling up to 30 to 50 percent of an employee’s first-year pay. To decrease this turnover and its associated high costs, this paper proposes the implementation of a highly strategic onboarding process. This process has a strategic focus, SMART goals, integrates multiple offices and people, and addresses all new employee needs with two considerations—generational and technological advances. An employee stays continuously and actively engaged, with vested interest in success, maximizing engagement and retention. The process focuses on constant and continuous feedback from all stakeholders. The project is a practical guide for implementing a new strategically focused onboarding process.

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Aberdeen Benchmark report

2006

2011

How long should the induction period last for a new employee

Discussion on the time frame for deciding to stay in a new job and duration of the onboarding period

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Employee onboarding encompasses three tasks each building on those that preceed it:

• Strategic learning requires understanding the firm’s operations and results.  Learning also requires that you continually scan the environment and process the relevant information.  The goal is to acquire a profound knowledge of the business and the environment in which it operates.
• Strategic thinking is a creative and analytical activity the builds on the knowledge developped in the learning phase.  Through the strategic thinking phase, you determine what you want to do in a strategic sense and the issues that must be addressed for success.
• Strategic action involves the implementation and execution of the strategic plans.

A diligent completion of the tasks and a willingness to learn to see things in new ways are prerequisites for an effective induction process

Jason, I noticed that 99 designs is hiring and wondered if we could catch-up for five minutes to talk about your employee induction.  We are a Melbourne based start-up currently in the early stages of building an outsourced employee onboarding program.  We have found that although most companies acknowledge the important of getting new hires off to a good start, onboarding is often not done very well

I would emphasize that I am not trying to sell or pitch anything. I’m just interested in finding out your opinions

I couldn’t find your email or phone number online so would really appreciate it if your emailed me nigel@rusdens.com. Alternatively if you enter your details below I’ll get in touch

Thanks

Nigel

The report indicates that by far the majority of new hires make the decision to stay at their new company between one and six months

Despite this only 15% of companies extend their induction program to six months.

Indeed the majority of induction programs try to cram the whole process into an afternoon, distilling the company’s story, culture and goals into a blur of sound bites.

As an article in the 2005 MIT Sloan management review put it

Many managers see onboarding as a process of providing newcomers with abundant information about the company, their initial project and the resources available to complete their work.  So new hires are given the technical manuals, reports, emails and power-points and the are referred to intranets.  At almost every company in our study the most common activity for new employees in the first few days is to pore over manuals and other documents.  Such mechanisms for transferring information have their value, but newcomers rarely cite them as the key to getting up to speed quickly.

Instead best in class companies stretch out the onboarding process to the six-month mark allowing the new hires to gain an in depth understanding of the organisation, nurture supportive networks with the colleges and take a structured approach to developing their role.

For more information on Rusdens’ outsourced onboarding program visit www.rusdens.com

A negotiation is successful when all the parties end up committed to fulfilling the agreement.  Fairness is crucial

Know what negotiation is not

It is not an order imposed by someone in authority. It is not a decision made by an arbitrator. It is not a competition to defeat and even destroy the other party

Know that negotiation can be either confrontation or cooperative

It is confrontation to want to win every point. It is cooperative to negotiation so that all stakeholders win.  This is interest based negotiation

Starting a new job?  You may be interested in our onboarding programs.  See www.rusdens.com/onboarding for more information