{"id":18096,"date":"2022-03-02T15:23:43","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T15:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/02\/we-need-to-talk-about-your-employee-onboarding-process-how-to-fix-it-process-street\/"},"modified":"2022-03-02T15:23:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T15:23:43","slug":"we-need-to-talk-about-your-employee-onboarding-process-how-to-fix-it-process-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/02\/we-need-to-talk-about-your-employee-onboarding-process-how-to-fix-it-process-street\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need to Talk About Your Employee Onboarding Process (& How to Fix It) | Process Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"We<\/p>\n

Blah, blah, blah. <\/p>\n

Blah.<\/p>\n

The thing is with this whole onboarding process, though: It\u2019s not what you do but how you do it. <\/p>\n

You can have the most well-structured, well-developed, consistent, and thorough onboarding process but if you don\u2019t deliver it well, that employee is going to walk away thinking, \u201cWow. WTF was that?\u201d<\/p>\n

I know, I know \u2013 \u201cBut, Leks,\u201d you say, \u201cI\u2019ve read all your posts for Process Street<\/a> and you keep saying we just need to build a strong process.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true. I love a good process and I have talked about it a lot. Sometimes you have to say things more than once for people to get it.<\/p>\n

So far I\u2019ve given you the technique of the employee onboarding process; let me show you the art.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go.
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You\u2019re not a cult: 5Cs & employee indoctrination<\/h2>\n

I read a lot. It comes with the territory, right? You gotta keep up with all the new ideas, what people are talking about, all the unique ways of saying the same thing in a way that no one actually<\/em> notices. <\/p>\n

In planning this post, though, I said something to myself that no one has said since my university days. It\u2019s a phrase my old mentor used to pull out every time I tried to half-ass my way through some French philosopher or another: You\u2019re better than this. Do it right<\/em>. <\/p>\n

So I dug deeper and came across the 5Cs of the employee onboarding process which, inexplicably and much like my Deleuze oversight while specializing in monster studies, I had not yet encountered in all my human resources reading. <\/p>\n

I was horrified. I couldn\u2019t believe that HR and people teams still believed in the 21st<\/sup> century that this was an effective way to onboard their employees. Seriously, it read like total indoctrination rather than an onboarding process. All it needed was some poor junior employee forced to watch hours of company propaganda in a scene straight from A Clockwork Orange<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Wait a minute\u2026 ?<\/p>\n

I checked the dates on the articles; they were somewhat reassuringly a decade or so in the past but there were still a few outliers who\u2019d dragged the concept into the last few years. I figured \u2013 this strategy has had to have been debunked by now and headed straight for Google scholar (my home away from home) convinced my fellow academics would put my concerns to rest.<\/p>\n

They did not.<\/p>\n

The 5Cs of employee onboarding processes: A breakdown<\/h3>\n

Full disclosure: I have been re-reading 1984<\/em> so my mind may already be primed to expect creepy overlord vibes, but I maintain that the 5Cs are genuinely unsettling. <\/p>\n

What are these 5 words that put fear in the hearts of well-meaning content writers everywhere? Have a look:\"employee<\/p>\n

I admit to a bit of melodrama here but you know artists \u2013 just full of all those feelings. The words themselves (minus compliance<\/em>) aren\u2019t particularly frightening or disturbing. In fact, like you, I would look at most of them and agree that they should definitely be part of a positive onboarding experience. <\/p>\n

It is true: clarifying responsibilities and expectations, introducing them to company culture, facilitating connections and relationships with colleagues, and frequent check-ins are all vital and essential to successful employee onboarding.<\/p>\n

Later on, I\u2019ll explain how you can use the 5Cs and<\/em> not be a dick about it, but for now, I\u2019m just going to do what I do best: Pick apart a well-established theory by industry experts because, in all my veritable wisdom, I disagree with it.<\/p>\n

The main objection I have to the 5Cs is that \u2013 at least on the new hire\u2019s part \u2013 it\u2019s an incredibly passive way to onboard an employee. Replace the Kubrick aesthetic with someone sitting in a conference room watching 30-year-old videos and it really doesn\u2019t seem much different, does it?<\/p>\n

Onboarding process phase 1: Compliance<\/h3>\n

Compliance sets the tone for the rest of the employee\u2019s experience at your company. This is getting all the paperwork filled out, contracts signed, policies and procedures reviewed \u2013 the boring stuff, basically. <\/p>\n

All good. It\u2019s also about setting expectations and explaining to the employee how they should act within your organization. To quote Toby Graham from KPA<\/a>:<\/p>\n