Set the Stage for Performance

Deliverables through Onboarding

HCI White Paper

April 16, 2008
By HCI Analyst
INTRODUCTION
Three significant talent management challenges
companies face in today's economy are engaging
and retaining new hires beyond the orientation
phase of employment, maximizing their produc-
tivity as quickly as possible, and maximizing the
return on investment in the hiring process.
Many companies find comprehensive onboarding
programs to be a key component in successfully
meeting these challenges. Onboarding is the
strategic process designed to attract and engage
new talent, reaffirm their employment decision,
acclimate them into the organization's culture, and
prepare them to contribute to a desired level in the
shortest possible time. Aberdeen Group Research
Director Kevin Martin calls it, "orientation on
steroids." Onboarding can make a considerable
difference in a company's brand, its ability to
attract and retain new employees, and decrease the
cost of recruitment.
This executive briefing will examine the findings
of Aberdeen's recent onboarding study, present a
case study of an onboarding initiative at Ann
Taylor, look at the view of employees involved in
onboarding from another case study, and review
what best-in-class companies do to make their
onboarding programs successful.
KEY FEATURES OF THE ONBOARDING
PROCESS
The best onboarding programs provide an
experience that reaffirms the new hire's decision
to accept employment with the company and
ensures new hires are quickly integrated into
company culture. Kevin Martin reports that many
new hires might experience "buyer's remorse"
before becoming fully engaged when faced with
the inevitable challenges of a new position and
new corporate environment. Because of the
potential harm of buyer's remorse, it is important
for companies to begin onboarding in the final
stage of recruitment and to include the recruit's
family in the process. Hyatt Hotels, faced with an
increasing number of seasonal employees who
developed buyer's remorse and left the jobs offered
to them, implemented a policy of sending "Thank
You" cards to new hires' families. This initiative
to welcome the whole family into the company
culture has greatly improved Hyatt's retention of
seasonal employees.
Traditional "orientation" includes the management
of forms, such as I-9, W-2 and insurance forms;
task management, such as obtaining an identifica-
tion badge or a parking permit; and a corporate
information session. Best-in-class onboarding pro-
grams go beyond orientation, and include, for
example, socialization into the company culture to
assure new hires that they have made the right
decision. "Best-in-class socialization," points out
Martin, "is very formalized and ongoing. There are
interactions through multiple means, whether it is
having people sit with coworkers at lunch, or go
offsite and actually get to know people in a struc-
tured environment, or having them tied into some
type of organizational chart where they can view
the profiles of their co-workers."
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 ABERDEEN'S ONBOARDING Figure 1
STUDY % of Companies w/ Formal Onboarding Program
Aberdeen Group conducted a study of
800 companies globally to analyze the
prevalence and effectiveness of
onboarding programs on a global
onboarding programs.
Most of the companies studied are in
North America or Central America
(the U.S., Canada, and Mexico), but
the study also included companies
in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. The
study was published July 31, 2008. Aberdeen's
research methodology was to identify external
pressures driving onboarding adoption, strategic
actions deployed to address pressures, organiza-
tional capabilities that enable actions to take hold,
the technology enablers that produce efficiencies
and advantages, and the metrics assigned to evalu-
ate onboarding. The objective was to determine
best-in-class performance of organizations'
onboarding programs, looking specifically at
organizations' new-hire retention, new-hire pro-
ductivity and time to full productivity, and the
completion rate of onboarding tasks.1
The majority of the companies in the
best-in-class group enjoyed increased
retention of new hires, a shortened
time-to-productivity for new hires, and
an improved completion rate for
onboarding tasks and activities.
As seen in Figure 1, 62 percent of the companies
involved in the study had a formal onboarding
process in place. Of those companies, 32 percent
had a formal onboarding program for more than
three years. The companies without onboarding
programs reported various reasons for the lack,
but the majority had not implemented an
onboarding program primarily because of a lack
of knowledge about its benefits. The companies
with onboarding programs began them for a
number of reasons, but the most common factors
included improving new hire retention and
productivity and company brand.
Aberdeen grouped the 800 companies into three
groups: best-in-class, accounting for 20 percent of
all organizations surveyed; industry average,
encompassing 50 percent; and laggards, 30
percent. As shown in Figure 2, the majority of the
companies in the best-in-class group enjoyed
increased retention of new hires, a shortened
time-to-productivity for new hires, and an
improved completion rate for onboarding tasks
and activities. In contrast, only a very small
percentage of companies in the laggard category
saw any improvement in the metrics
surveyed.
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 Figure 2
Best-in-class companies also demonstrated
increased organizational awareness of the
benefits of onboarding. As shown in Figure
3, 80% of best-in-class companies gained
support and buy-in from senior manage-
ment for onboarding, while only 57
percent of the laggards had this support.
Seventy percent of best-in-class companies
were able to identify business issues addressed by
Aberdeen found that orientation to company
onboarding, compared to only 18 percent of
information and form/task management were
laggards.
common components of nearly all the companies
Figure 3
surveyed. Fewer companies, however, demonstrat-
ed the inclusion of socialization into the company
culture, a formal new hire training program, or
the assignment of a mentor or coach to new hires.
Ninety-four percent of the best-in-class companies
provided new hires with socialization into the
Martin stresses it is necessary to periodically
company culture, 84 percent provided a formal
assess the performance of onboarding programs.
new hire training program, and 59 percent
Most of the best-in-class companies from
assigned new hires a mentor or coach. By contrast,
Aberdeen's study recognize the importance of
Ninety-four percent of the best-in-class assessments. Seventy-two percent of best-in-class
companies assess the performance of their
companies provided new hires with
onboarding programs at least once annually and
socialization into the company culture. 63 percent verify that new employees have a posi-
tive experience after joining the company.
fewer of the laggard companies incorporated these
Laggards, on the other hand, disregard these
components into the onboarding process: 73
assessments: only 36 percent of laggards conduct
percent offered socialization in the onboarding
annual performance evaluations of their onboard-
process, 53 percent provided new hires with a
ing processes and only 30 percent verify their new
formal training program, and only 34 percent of
employees' experience post-hire.
laggards assigned new hires a mentor
or coach. Seventy-two percent of best-in-class
companies assess the performance of their
onboarding programs at least once annually.

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Technology helps streamline the onboarding
process. Best-in-class companies use employee
performance management tools, assessment tools
for skills, knowledge, attributes, and/or behavior,
and tools that track HR compliance rates. Newer
technologies have been adopted for use in best-in-
class onboarding programs. These include tools
that leverage data collected during the recruiting
process to evaluate trends in the workforce, tools
to automate forms management, and personalized
electronic portals that allow employees (and in
some cases, employees' spouses) to complete task
management such as verifying insurance benefits
and co-payments or filling out insurance claim
forms.
CASE STUDY IN ONBOARDING:
ANN TAYLOR
Ann Taylor is currently moving forward with
an electronic onboarding process. Ann Taylor
markets its brand in 887 stores in 46 states, the
District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.2 The
company hires approximately 22,200 new
employees each year, and spends at least an hour
on average per employee to complete the forms
management portion of the onboarding process.
Ann Taylor's total annual expenditure for its
paper-driven onboarding process was significant,
and the number did not include risk factors asso-
ciated with missing or incomplete I-9 forms. This
left Ann Taylor with a potentially large liability for
I-9 non-compliance. In addition, the company's
prior process did not comply with the E-Verify
system operated by the Department of Homeland
Security in partnership with the Social Security
Administration. This government system allows
companies to verify employment eligibility of new
hires electronically and verify the validity of their
Social Security numbers. While not yet a federal
requirement, E-Verify is mandatory for employers
in several of the states in which Ann Taylor
operates. The company faced a missed opportun-
ity for tax credits that totaled over $1 million. It
also suffered from a new hire orientation process
(see Figure 4, shown on page 6) so complex that
40 percent of its new hire paperwork was incorrect
or incomplete; as a result the company was forced
to contact the new hires or their managers to
correct or complete the required paperwork.
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Figure 4

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The benefits of electronic onboarding are
numerous for Ann Taylor. The new onboarding
process reduces the time spent on new hire
orientation, and allows store managers formerly
devoted to managing the flow of paper to spend
their time instead on client interaction and sales.
The system increases Ann Taylor's compliance on
paperwork completion and data entry, eliminating
the potential of a large liability and maximizing
government tax credits of over $1 million. The
new process eliminates the mailing and storage
costs associated with paper. The result is a pro-
jected annual savings of 24 percent for the new
technology-driven onboarding system compared
to the old paper-intensive one. As depicted in
Figure 5, (shown on page 8) the electronic
onboarding system also serves to streamline the
new hire process dramatically, providing for a
simpler, more seamless recruitment experience for
new talent.
Christine Lourenco, Senior Manager for Resources
Operations at Ann Taylor, is pleased with the
opportunities the new electronic onboarding sys-
tem affords the company. "Not only is onboarding
Figure 6
critical from a compliance and an ease-of-process
use, it's definitely a showcase to all of our new
hires that we take [onboarding] seriously, that we
want them to have a seamless onboarding experi-
ence, and that will translate to how it will be to
work at Ann Taylor as a best-in-class company."
CASE STUDY: ONBOARDING FROM THE
VIEW OF NEW HIRES
Aberdeen Group surveyed new hires of a medium-
sized American company in 2007 to analyze that
company's ability to meet the challenges of engag-
ing and retaining its new hires. Aberdeen found
that the company's employees and new recruits
were completely unfamiliar with the concept of
onboarding, so Aberdeen chose to refer to the
process as "new employee orientation." The com-
pany hired 500 new employees in 2007, and 204 of
those employees responded to Aberdeen's survey.
More than 50 percent of the respondents reported
a new employee orientation period at the company
of five days or less, and only 5 percent reported an
orientation period of more than four months (See
Figure 6, below).
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Figure 5

8
Of the respondents, 84 percent reported that the
new hire orientation process included assistance
filling out paperwork. The company satisfactorily
met another important expectation, with 72
percent of respondents saying they received
assistance to obtain ID badges and parking
permits. When asked about onboarding services
such as socialization into the company culture,
however, only 38 percent of the new hires who
responded to the survey reported having such an
opportunity. Yet 27 percent reported that their
employer assigned them a mentor or coach for the
orientation period. The human resources execu-
tives of the company were surprised at the 27
percent figure. They expected a much lower
number since the company did not have a formal
process in place to provide mentors or coaches to
newly hired employees. But many managers felt
that a mentor or coach would help new hire
socialization, so took the initiative to assign one.
Figure 7
Aberdeen Group identified six items that newly-
hired talent wanted to learn during their new hire
orientation. As shown in Figure 7, the socializa-
tion component of onboarding addresses five of
the six items, reinforcing the belief that the social-
ization component is arguably the most valuable
aspect of comprehensive onboarding.
ANALYSIS & CONCLUSION
Best-in-class companies turn to comprehensive
onboarding to improve new hire engagement and
retention, maximize productivity and the ROI of
recruitment efforts, and enhance the employer
brand to attract new talent. Best-in-class compa-
nies have found onboarding essential to address
these critical business issues and have learned to
begin onboarding in the last stages of recruiting.
To ensure companies get the "best fit" recruits, it is
important to use assessment tools for both "hard"
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and "soft" skills. Since most employees decide
whether to stay with or leave an employer during
their first six months on the job, it is important to
ensure that new talent remains in an onboarding
program for at least six months to maximize
retention, engagement, and productivity.
We've seen that socialization into a company's cul-
ture is a pivotal point of onboarding. Aberdeen's
research demonstrates it is beneficial to assign a
mentor or coach to guide new employees through
their first few months on the job.
Best-in-class companies have proven the impor-
tance of assessing onboarding performance and
employee attitude at three, six, and nine months.
This allows the company to identify the strengths
and weaknesses of their onboarding initiative and
to ensure that it is providing the most positive
experience possible for new hires. Finally, it is vital
for companies to automate the onboarding process
to the greatest extent feasible in order to boost the
productivity of new talent quickly.
As a final thought, Martin believes that companies
should extend onboarding as soon as possible to
internal job transfers or talent obtained through
corporate mergers and acquisitions. He advises,
"Don't just focus on new hires. If you do, you're
missing an opportunity with internal job transfers,
and with people who come from different business
units where there's a cultural difference."

1 The statistics and figures in this section are extracted from "All Aboard: Effective Onboarding Strategies and
Techniques," Aberdeen Group Benchmark Report, January 31, 2008.
2 Ann Taylor Stores Corporation. "Ann Taylor … Investor Relations … Investor Information." Ann Taylor
Corporate Homepage. 4 Aug 2007. 1 May 2008.
<http://investor.anntaylor.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=78167&p=irol-irhome>
Images: © AlberdeenGroup 2007.

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Based on the Human Capital Institute webcast, Set
the Stage for Performance Deliverables Through
Onboarding, April 16, 2008.
PRESENTERS
Kevin Martin
Research Director, Human Capital Management
Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Kevin has an extensive background working with
vendors and end-users of technologies that drive
human capital and business performance improve-
ment. Prior to his work at Aberdeen, Kevin was an
independent consultant who worked with several
e-Learning company clients to create and imple-
ment strategic business development and market
positioning initiatives. Prior to that, Kevin was
vice president of sales and marketing at Comet
Learning, which partnered with Hewlett Packard
and CompUSA to bring to market end-user
focused interactive education and support solu-
tions. Prior to that, he was vice president of sales
and marketing at TechOnLine (later acquired by
CMP Media), a leading information portal to the
electronics industry, whose solutions have become
the standard for electronic OEMs to educate cus-
tomers and distribution channels online. Prior to
that, Kevin was director of sales and sales opera-
tions at ComputerPREP (acquired by Prosoft
Training.com), where he also led go-to-market
initiatives surrounding the company's entree into
learning management, web-conferencing, and
web-based assessments.
Kevin has served on the boards of ADAPT (a
Boston-based IT training organization) and the
Information Technology Training Conference, and
currently serves as board vice president of Big
Brothers Big Sisters of Central Massachusetts /
Metrowest. Kevin holds a M.B.A. from Boston
University and a B.S. in Business Administration
from the University of Dayton.
Christine Lourenco
Sr. Manager, Talent Resources Operations
Ann Taylor Stores Corporation
Christine Lourenco is currently a Senior Manager
of Talent Resources Operations at Ann Taylor
Stores Corporation in New York City, NY.
Christine has over 13 years of HR experience in
the Entertainment, Retail, Medical and Banking
industries at companies such as Walt Disney
World and Darden Restaurants. Christine holds
her Bachelor's Degree in Communications from
Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, NJ
and is AIRS Certified as an Internet Recruiter and
Diversity Recruiter. She is also an active member
of SHRM, ERExchange and PMI (Project
Management Institute).
MODERATOR
Joy Kosta
Senior Director of Talent Development
Communities
Human Capital Institute
As Senior Director of Talent Development at The
Human Capital Institute, Joy brings twenty-five
years of experience in multiple facets of organiza-
tional development, human resources and busi-
ness management with an emphasis in customer
satisfaction, service quality, process improvement,
and applying the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for
Performance Excellence.
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She moderates HCI's Comprehensive Onboarding ABOUT THE HUMAN CAPITAL INSTITUTE
e-learning track and webcast series, growing that
community and thought leadership over the past
two plus years. As founder of Performance
Partners in Health Care, a company dedicated to
building better patient experiences, she has The Human Capital Institute is a catalyst for inno-
authored several curriculums in leadership and vative new thinking in talent acquisition, develop-
staff development, and co-authored with Harold ment and deployment. Through research and col-
Bursztajn, MD Senior Clinical Faculty member, laboration, our programs collect original, creative
Harvard Medical School, Building a Treatment ideas from a field of top executives and the bright-
Alliance with Patients and Families. est thought leaders in strategic HR and talent
management. Those ideas are then transformed
ABOUT TALEO into measurable, real-world strategies that help
our members attract and retain the best talent,
build a diverse, inclusive workplace, and leverage
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Leading organizations worldwide use Taleo on enterprise.
demand talent management solutions to assess,
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quality of hire, reduce risk, and return financial
results.

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